Not exactly a common card to appear in decks, but it is a reasonably interesting card to include in decks with very focused card economy - namely, decks that use a lot of the same card over and over again.
For decks like these, say, stealth bleeders, their nightmare scenario will be to get stuck in a situation where the whole hand is full of bleed cards and the stealth cards are no where to be found. For example, a Malkavian bleeder has 6 Kindred Spirit and 1 Eye of Chaos, and his prey a single Magaji with No Secrets on him and 3 pool left. How he must have wished for some stealth cards around.
A single Discard phase in the game is hardly enough for situations like these, and focused decks tend to draw into many cards of the same kind very often, because that is what they do. Most of the time it usually wouldn't be a problem, there should be enough minions with enough actions to use up those cards pretty quickly, and most modifiers can be put to good use in order to cycle into another good round of cards for the next round.
But against good players they will usually find a way to clout your hand, the most common way is simply not to block so that you get more and more stealth cards stuck in your hand that is otherwise not useful at all. Or, they could send in combat monsters to send your vampires into torpor when your hand is full of Cryptic Missions instead of combat defense.
It's time like these when extra discard ability to enable you to cycle cards become extremely desirable.
Of course, there are famous discard-abler like the Barrens to use, and stuff like Dreams of the Sphinx is always good to help you get more cards into hand and then discard down to optimize your hand. Compared to these, Specialization is way more "specialized" and therefore not as flexible, and not as effective as those two. Plus, Specialization requires you to make that call to discard your card during the untap phase, and therefore loses the great flexibility of the other discard enablers who allows cycling of hands during other crucial moments.
But in the right deck, Specialization can be pretty effective. It is especially good for decks who does want cards to go into graveyard for their own devious purposes. The famous Shambling Hordes can't wait to find something in the graveyard to animate, Kiss of Lachesis can return equipment back from the ash heap and start wrecking havoc with them at a discounted cost, and I'm sure there must be more.
But even for decks that do not toy with ash heaps, the ability of Specialization to discard 2 instead of 1, and gaining you 1 pool in the process is a pretty good bargain. Plus, it's extremely unlikely that you'll ever need to contest Specialization, making it a pretty reliable card to always provide you the option to cycle your hand.
Not to forget that it is free.
Free is always good.
(o.o)
2 comments:
I've been looking to get 1-2 copies and start putting it in focused decks. The idea of using it with a deck that does a lot of (bleed action) + (bleed modifier) makes sense. I could see using it in a deck that does Govern + Conditioning, aided by Seductions, Pentex Subversion, etc.
Totally agree, this is one option for cycling cards, if you throw in Barrens and Dreams, you would have an excellent means to discard whatever you don't really need, most of the time.
(o.o)
Post a Comment