Amano Jacu said:

It's a bit more complex than that. You have to get the BRT in play to begin with which means either you have to play it and give your opponent a free foundation, which defeats the point of it because they wont need to play foundations if they have them in play already, or you have to let them play a foundation and then drop it, in which case not only are they still getting the foundation they just played you might have been much better served to just play something that generated momentum for your spikes and hit them early while they have less cards in thier hand.

Sayko-Ryu is a fantastic card and it was in my deck originally, but after playing a few games I came to realise a lot of the time it was overkill. 95% of the time Bitter rivals was all I needed to either make my attack unblockable or to make it so that it can only be blocked with foundations. Sayko was typically a weaker option than running something that had a higher check since difficulty was mostly mitigated by JTs ability. In any other deck that can run Sakyo it would be one of the very first cards I would look at and try to decide if i could squeeze it in but talbain is just so fast he vastly reduces the need for it in his own deck.

Protoaddict said:

Well, the same applies to any foundation: JT must either play it or wait for the opponent to play one. At some point, JT needs to have foundations in play, and I still think BRT is one of the best options to have one out as early as possible. I mean, it's not the end of it all if Talbain plays a BRT and 3 assets first turn if he doesn't have more assets, even if the opponent gets a free foundation, that can still get Olcadan'ed next turn, as from that point the opponent will have nullified an asset or attack of your choice every turn, because without foundations he couldn't pass the check anyway. Of course, opponent's Olcadan's also plays a giant role here.

And yes, Bitter Rivals is better than Saikyo-Ryu, but he could still have both, although I agree Saikyo isn't a must. Tis shows once again that Bitter Rivals is a totally broken card, and once again, that JT will take even more profit of such cards. Usually Bitter Rivals means your opponent will at most half block an attack for an almost free cost, and in JT's case, it can also force your opponent to block with a foundation or not block at all, and at the same time allow you not to block with a foundation.

As I said before, playing foundations is possibly the deepest pillar in this game, with usually half or more of a regular deck consisting in foundations, so having a character that punishes "both" players to play foundations is just nuts.

Yes you can play BRT and Sakyo, but how many card decks are you running? JT with a 60 card deck will most likely outlast most characters as it is because he dosent check for a lot of his cards so why wouldnt you make the most of it and have the most streamlined 60 card deck you could muster. Its a long standing CCG principal that if you can make your deck work with the bear minimum cards required to do so in your deck then you should because you will get them more often than someone who isnt running a deck of the same nature.

With Talbain BRT is not a kill card its a stall card, it dosent help him multiple out his kill and it dosent make all his multiples unblockable like Bittter Rivals does. Bitter can also force a player to block with a foundation which means you will get one for your efforts, BRT cannot. Sakyo I just feel is mitigated in usefullness to talbain because the 0 difficutly is a non issue to Talbain and the effect of the card isnt great when you already can shove a bitter inplay in its place.

Its about making the most of your cards, not having every option in your deck, and talbain is perfect at doing this

Protoaddict said:

BRT may be a stall card but talbain is a controll deck. (atleast the versions i have seen). and BRT realy is a must card if you own them.