I really don't see how it's banworthy. The game needs a couple powerful cards like Bitter Rivals.

the wa;y i look at this is like this.....

bitter rivals lost power if you only ever get out one. Now if your opponent has 2 or 3 it just rips the hand of anybody playing lots of keywords.

the card is rediculous now.

I can see it being worth errata, the fact that it basicly became a free enhance to discard one card from your opponent's hand sucks. Although there's so many counters how many do people accually play? Basicly with all being such beefy stuff with tough outer shell combo with bitter rivals stops quite a few of these counters. Just it's very annoying having to intentionally put stuff into your deck to counter stuff like olcadan's and now bitter rivals.

HolyDragonCloud said:

this, this, a thousand times this.

Tagrineth said:

In fact....Last year, I forget if it was SCC or SEC, it was one of the championships in Florida. Bitter Rivals had just been released and everyone was ranting on and on about it. Vik wins the event with a Cody deck...clearly had to be because of bitter, right? As from what I remember, he mentioned how he didn't even need to main deck Bitter Rivals, and that the card itself didn't cause much of any uproar or issues in the entire tournament.

But that was last year =/ We now have 4 (or is it 5?) new Keyword Abilities.

I personally find BR to be too powerful now. FFG says they want this game to involve more attacking but this card isn't helping

You sorta missed my point.

The point is that everyone is worrying about the card before we have even seen how it performs in the new enviroment. Give it a chance.

I don't see it as overpowered. Yes, I am going to run it.

Another misconception being made is that your opponent is always going to have a keyword for you to nab.

Edit: And yes, the card is actually helping promote more attacking. Zone switching to push your attack through is always going to promote attacking. Trust me.

Shady said:

Sure it is. Now people cant run as many powerful cards or multiple cards, and attack more than once per game and such

God forbid there be something punishing you for running a bunch of powerful/multiple attacks

Yeah...too bad it now affects Throw, Ranged, and the newly-added Combo =/

I don't have a problem with the zone changing, but it can single-handedly get rid of a huge percentage of attacks for practically no cost. I don't see that as being fair.

I won't hop on the "Ban BR" bandwagon, but I do feel like it's a problematic card.

HolyDragonCloud said:

Well, it can also be used to change the zone of the opponent's attack to fully block it, so attacks don't get pushed through.

Personally, I have always been more worried with the zone changing AFTER seeing hands than the discard (which now changes a lot due to the new keyword rules), but the fact that you can choose which one AFTER seeing hands makes the game extremely boring. The thrill of not knowing if your attack is going to get through (does the opponent have the correct block, or even a block at all? or a rejection?) is lost, and turns are not a surprise anymore once both hands are revealed as soon as the first attack hits the table: I've seen games end just after that, when a player realises he just can't block the upcoming attacks if he can't control bitter rivals, or just no more atacks are played when you see you won't get the kill, eliminating risks.

There's also the hanzo kick deck which has BR as one of the supports for the kill.

Amano Jacu said:

Bitter Rivals is Hanzo's main kill supporter. Take it out and you take his kill condition out. His other kill supporters (Ways and Glare) aren't as consistent, therefore Hanzo Kick isn't consistent.

As for Tagrineth's statement, I totally agree. Multiple is hands-down the best keyword ability. I'm glad there's a card out there that actually limits the amount of multiples a person can play in a turn.

Here, I'll make a concession. Consider Bitter Rivals a necessary evil. As mentioned, it eats up multiples-which has ALWAYS been the best keyword ability in the game. Remember that multiple we've all come to hate called Feline Spike? If you told me, for example, that Bitter Rivals is in this game simply to help shut that card down, I'd have zero problems with that. Spike's Enhance is what makes that evil necessary. If Spike wasn't immune to the Multiple-eating blocks, then the story would be different.

Shaneth said:

FALSE! Ive seen plenty a mono air hanzo kick builds that did just FINE with out it.

I'm sure it's possible Fred, no doubt in my mind. I'm just speaking from experience with our own Hanzo Kick deck, which is based off of Evil. If you can somehow get through all the Evil control and take out that Bitter Rivals or disrupt it early game, the game may stretch out longer for Hanzo.

Ed: It still doesn't take away from the fact that Bitter Rivals is perfectly fine the way it is.

Not going to say the car should or shouldn't be banned. But I think it does DISCOURAGE attacking.

Here is why you have a few attacks in hand and play one now your oppoent has 2 bitters in play and suddenly if those attacks were like most attacks in use and have throw ranged multiple reversal or powerful on them suddenly you have no attacks in hand and there went that. So it dosen't seem overly coperative to the FFG statement of more attacking .......it encourages foundation war more than attacking IMO

But the card was made awhile ago before the whole more attacking push started too which is another thing to look at.

TaintedDoughnut said:

I think bitter rivals was fine before now I am in between against and for it just what everyone is saying is true it does discourage attacking . But I think it is still a needed card for multiples and powerful attacks . The only problem I see deck building is I can usually find one maybe 2 attacks worth running that cant be hit by bitter rivals . So maybe this will just give some other cards we aren't looking at a time too shine .

"Yeah...too bad it now affects Throw, Ranged, and the newly-added Combo =/"

Oh man so what you're saying is it provides a limiting factor to the most powerful types of attacks in the game?

Holy crap, that's terrible

BR was fine the way it was before. It took away those annoying Powerfuls/Multiples. But now that it can hit so many attacks does discourage attacking.

Tagrineth said:

I know. It's as bad as all this aggro support that is going to affect the grip of death that Order has had on this game for the past few months.

Or lord, what will I do without everyone running the same boring deck!

See my previous statement on how all this hooplah will be for nothing for more info.

If people think BR needs to stay to combat keywords like multiple, then just errata it to remove the zone changing and/or add a COMMIT cost, which should have been there in the first place to begin with. Silver Spoon is much more balanced than that. The fact that BR can be used and abused for almost free on each and every attack is what makes it the most annoying. With a commit you need to think twice when to use it , specially on which turn, offensive or defensively.

About hanzo kick, my own deck used BR or course, but just it isn't enough, as people could just save blocks for the 3 zones. You need to combine it with stuff like BRT, ways of punishment, etc., and mad control to combat the boatload of stuff that stops it (damage reduction, tag along, ruler of shadows, tough outer shell, etc). Still, taking care of BR would soften a lot hanzo-kick, which is another troublesome deck in the meta in my opinion, although, just as BR, might not be such a problem in top-competition as the top-players around here say.

BR is a huge nuisance, but really, how hard is it to maybe pack some cards that don't have some of those pesky keyword abilities on them? You guys are acting like every single card in your deck has a keyword ability. Maybe adjust your deck a little so you're affected less by the discarding aspect if it's that painful? Maybe pack some foundations with convenient anti-discard abilities? Include cards you can block with more creatively like Engineered to combat the zone changing aspect?

I mean really, the card's been out for a year. It's made a splash at how many events now? ................

I can't say much about the annoyance of Bitter Rivals, but I will say my part that I think it might have gained power because of the new Combo keyword but yet isn't as 'evil' because it's just one more keyword to use as a distraction to keep those bigger keywords you focus on such as Spike or Spinta.

For deck building, I have my Raph deck focus only on 1 keyword and that's Powerful so if I lose one from pesky BR then I know I have at least two others coming out to become powerful and speedy too. but I do fully agree with the comment of build a way 'around' BR so that you can have that advantage upon disadvantage.

Tagrineth said:

It seems like every post the two of us have made have just been relaying fact number 2 listed here...yet nothing has come of it.

Seriously though...is it hard to pack anti-discard in a side board? It's not going to kill you if you have to off symbol for it. Hell, James put Chinese Sword Style in his side board at Worlds 08 while fronting Ibuki so that he could shut down Ukyo. And he used it in the finals.

In case you didn't know, Sword Style shares ZERO symbols with Ibuki. Look at that. A player going to an extreme to win. UNHEARD OF, I SAY!

EDIT: And, by the way, if Bitter Rivals is the card everyone is worried about the most right now, then people are SERIOUSLY not paying attention to the other problem cards that exist in the game. Cards that cause FAR worse issues than BR.

Tagrineth said:

I couldn't have said it better.

As for Bitter Rivals being "E: Your opponent discards a card," that's total BS. It doesn't work like that for anybody in the big leagues.