Takeno's Cavalry
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Legality

Format Legality
1v1 Commander Legal
Archenemy Legal
Block Constructed Legal
Canadian Highlander Legal
Casual Legal
Commander / EDH Legal
Commander: Rule 0 Legal
Custom Legal
Duel Commander Legal
Highlander Legal
Legacy Legal
Leviathan Legal
Limited Legal
Modern Legal
Oathbreaker Legal
Pauper Legal
Pauper Duel Commander Legal
Pauper EDH Legal
Planechase Legal
Quest Magic Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Takeno's Cavalry

Creature — Human Samurai Archer

Bushido 1 (When this blocks or becomes blocked, it gets +1/+1 until end of turn.)

Tap: Takeno's Cavalry deals 1 damage to target attacking or blocking Spirit.

legendofa on Is a Return to Kamigawa …

6 years ago

Icbrgr The biggest problem with Kamigawa was that it came after the tournament takeover that was Affinity--either you used Affinity, you built specifically against Affinity, or you lost.

After a round of bannings that didn't affect a whole lot (the Ancient Den cycle is still banned in Modern), they decided to reduce the power level of the next set. The resulting mechanics are interesting--Soulshift, Bushido, Ninjutsu, among others--but the cards tended to be overcosted, to the point of uselessness. Takeno's Cavalry is a 4 mana part-time 2/2 with a largely irrelevant ability. Death of a Thousand Stings is 5 mana for a possibly repeatable 2 life swing.

Another problem is that one of the themes was having lots of cards in hand, without providing a lot of draw power. This effectively meant that you were encouraged to to not play spells or lands to keep them in hand.

A final problem was the huge gulf between the best cards and the worst cards. Numai Outcast and Sensei's Divining Top are both uncommon. Shimatsu the Bloodcloaked and Umezawa's Jitte are both rare.

legendofa on Is WotC Testing the Players' …

7 years ago

One major problem with Kamigawa was the total lack of balance between the best cards and the worst cards. On one hand, you have Takeno's Cavalry and Numai Outcast. On the other, Sensei's Divining Top. If I remember right, the Nezumi precon had Umezawa's Jitte. There was just too wide a gulf between trash and required, even at the same rarity. If they revisit it, and I suspect they will at some point, fixing this one problem might go a long way toward soothing some frustration.

clayperce on So I hate friends....

7 years ago

Zaueski,
I do know a few terrible cards though ...

And a few that could be fun(?) depending on the other cards in your Cube ...

And you just gotta run the Band Lands: Adventurers' Guildhouse; Cathedral of Serra; Mountain Stronghold; Seafarer's Quay; and Unholy Citadel

DemonDragonJ on What Would You Expect From …

7 years ago

WotC currently has no plans to revisits the plane of Kamigawa, because its block was poorly-received at the time that it was released. However, over a decade has passed since that block was released (wow, that makes me feel old), so I wonder if nostalgia has been kind to it. WotC is certainly aware that there are a number of players who are fond of that plane and would like to revisit it, as Mark Rosewater recently conducted a poll of which old plane players would like to revisit, and Kamigawa was second only to Innistrad, and WotC has now returned to that plane, so they must at least be considering the possibility of returning to Kamigawa.

Therefore, I wish to ask the users of this forum what expectations they would have for a return to Kamigawa, if such a return were ever to occur; how would you fix the mistakes of the Kamigawa block and make it a more memorable and exciting place?

I have a number of issues that I would address, and I shall list them here.

Fix the focus on legendary creatures

I very much liked the Kamigawa block's strong focus on legendary creatures, since they are some of my favorite cards in the game; however, there were simply too many legendary creatures in the block, which inevitably meant that some of them would be poorly-designed and also made them feel less special. For a potential return to Kamigawa, I would retain the focus on legendary creatures, but make it less extreme, so that legendary creature would retain their feeling of power and awe.

Make creature types other than spirits important

Spirits are an important part of the world of Kamigawa; I understand that, but the focus on them was so great that other creature types felt overshadowed, so I would therefore ensure that other creature types received some focus, as well.

Have more ninjas

Ninjas are one of the best-liked aspects of the block, since they are great for enabling combat tricks, but only one set of the block contained them, so I would definitely have them be given a prominent focus in any return to Kamigawa.

Have more multicolored cards

The Kamigawa block contained only two multicolored cards, one of which was terribly expensive, so I would have a greater number of multicolored cards to appeal to players whoa re fond of such cards, such as myself. As a side note, I find it to be ridiculous that there was no red/white samurai or black/blue ninja in the block (although there was a black/blue ninja in the second Planechase set, but that was many years after the Kamigawa block), so I would definitely have both of those in a return to that plane.

Have less overcosted/underpowered cards

Finally, there were simply too many cards in the Kamigawa block that were either too expensive for what they did or not sufficiently powerful for their mana costs, with one of the best examples being Takeno's Cavalry (and some of the equipment and other artifacts were overcosted/underpowered, as well), so I would have fewer of cards akin to it and more akin to Umezawa's Jitte, Sensei's Divining Top, or Gifts Ungiven, or, if those cards are too powerful, the five legendary dragons, Tenza, Godo's Maul, or Konda's Banner.

What does everyone else say about this? What would you expect from a return to Kamigawa, and how would you improve upon the original block? I eagerly await your responses.