The Gathering Situation While this card is in play, neither player may play Special cards during his Defense Phase. The Gathering, compared to some of our last few cards, has seen fairly widespread distribution. The question is, is it as useful as it seems to be. Game-mechanics questions first. The Gathering is pretty straightforward. The question is less about how does it work, than what does it affect. Focus and A Master's Focus will let you bypass The Gathering. Although several of our reviewers mention avoidance cards like Disappear, Live Forever, and It's a Kind of Magic below, it should be kept in mind that more often than not, The Gathering will _not_ affect these cards. Disappear, for instance, prevents all damage no matter when it occurred during the turn. Thus, even if you are successfully damaged by an attack during your Defense Phase, you can still play Disappear during your Attack Phase, preventing the damage. The Gathering _will_ keep Disappear or Live Forever from avoiding a Head Shot, since that resolves at the end of the Defense Phase. It also shuts down Holy Ground entirely. There are several other defense phase-only cards, such as Run Through, that TG also shuts down entirely. The Gathering also inhibits some cards that can be played at any time, if the timing is right. Thus, it doesn't make much difference to your opponent if they want to play Ancestral Blade...unless they don't have it out in play, and want to play and use it on the same turn. Ditto for Continuity/Power Block. So what is The Gathering good for? Its lesser function is to shut down Chessex. The former prevents the play of a Special on the defense phase: the latter prevents the play of any card on the attack phase. If both of these are down, the Chessex owner cannot play any Specials unless he uses Focus or A Master's Focus, or Exerts to remove one or both cards (using Katana's ability). The Gathering's primary function, though, is to enhance attacks. TG has no effect on Events that enhance combat (Combination, Trip, Extra Shot, Head Shot). It only impacts defensive Specials. _Any_ aggressive strategy can potentially benefit from using The Gathering. However, Head Shot-oriented strategies becomes even more powerful, since even avoidance cards like those mentioned above (Mishap/reprint, Disappear, Live Forever) are useless if they can't be played until the attack phase. And since you lose your head at the end of your defense phase, that's too late. The primary problem with The Gathering is that it affects both players, meaning that you can be caught in the backlash. Focus will let you avoid the affects of a single Gathering...but your opponent can do the same. Multiple The Gatherings mean that your opponent has to deal with all of them before he can play a Special during his defense phase. Of course, that means you need multiple Foci as well. Which brings us to the question of who should use TG. Since for best effect, you want multiple The Gatherings in play, an Immortal that can bypass multiple Situations with a single card is best off. That points us to Duncan and Methos, who have A Master's Focus and enough Master slots to use it effectively. Other Personas can "borrow" that card using the Methos/Master Quickening. However, for someone like Khan or Corda and Reno, or even the more common five-slotters, that can take up valuable resources. Connor and the Kurgan can be good choices, however, to pursue this strategy. We talked about Head Shot strategies above, and how The Gathering benefits it. Currently, Duncan, the Kurgan, and Methos are at the top of the heap. Why? Because Duncan and the Kurgan have the new, non-Special oriented Master Head Shots, and Methos can "borrow" the Kurgan's. Other Immortals can use the Methos/Master Quickening to borrow the Kurgan's as well. Amanda and Kalas also have their own Head Shot combos, due to Destruction/Seduce and Stalk, respectively. For Kalas, it can be a little tricky since his opponent has to bypass The Gathering(s) in the first place to play a Holy Ground so that the Stalk's special qualities are triggered. In general, any Persona who has a heavy-hitting strategy, either from massive multiple attacks (Bloodlust, Berserk, Annie, Kim), or large numbers of single- card, heavy-damage attacks (Shooting Blade, Seduce/Thrust/Power Blow) can potentially benefit from the use of The Gathering. So overall, Steve gives The Gathering a _6_. It's a potent head-taking card and a nice augmentation to practically any heavy-hitting attack deck. Carl is probably a better alternative if you are favoring damage-type attacks. However, if you plan on going for Head Shots, TG provides the extra prevention against Live Forever, Disappear, and similar such cards. What Our Other Raters Say: Jeff - Not a bad card, but this card doesn't see much tournament play...for good reason. It perhaps slows your opponent's card-cycling down a bit (if they don't have a defense and have to use Elizabeth Vaughn or a similar Event to cycle) and stops Holy Ground/Disappear/Live Forever if your opponent doesn't have a Focus, but that's about it. Average, perhaps occasionally useful card. Hank - Definitely a powerful Situation. If I'm not playing with Holy Grounds, Disappears, Kind of Magics and the like myself, Gathering often makes it into my deck. I like The Gathering a lot, I think it's a strong swordfighting card. Alan - Superb against those Chessex-lovers. Superior to Carl, in that it prevents _any_ Special from being played in the Defense Phase, and is not vulnerable to Ally-removal. Jim - A useful card for Head Hunting decks. Very good at limiting your opponent's play of Holy Ground and other escape cards during the defense phase. Wayne - Good card for a Bloodlust deck or any deck that would be affected by Holy Ground, Disappear, etc. The negative is that it hurts you also. This card might be more popular to help shut down Methos and his great cards. Prodipto - This is an amazingly useful card if you're using an attack-heavy deck. Get a couple Gatherings out, and then launch into your attack sequences. Without Foci, your opponent can't use Holy Grounds, Disappears (editor's note: yes, he can, by playing in the attack phase - it will avoid all attack damage, but not Head Shots), Continuities, Ancestral Blades, or any other card that helps him defend. Combined with judicious use of Power Blows and Head Shots, you can put your opponent in bad shape quickly. Additionally, all those nasty defensive cards will start to clutter up your opponent's hand after a while, leaving less and less room to defend against your attacks. Allen - I don't use it as much as I used to, but I still think it is a good addition for many attack decks. One great benefit to defensive cards like Continuity and Ancestral Blade is that you don't need to waste your Special slot playing them until your opponent makes a Power Blow. With The Gathering out, your opponent will need to play these cards early, and thus you can deal with them before you attack. Of course, its most useful effect is the prevention of Holy Ground, and anything that keeps your opponent from going to Holy Ground is good. Bruce - Classically this card has been used to prevent Holy Ground. It is fairly effective at this, and none of the alternatives (except TCG rips) are any better unless you want to play your own Special cards during your defense phase. Stealth Dave - An excellent card for dealing with all of those pesky Holy Grounds, Disappears, Live Forevers, etc. Just make sure it doesn't backfire when you need to pull off your Holy Ground. More versatile than Carl, it deals with a larger variety of attack avoidance. And it absolutely kills Chessex decks. Ratings Overall: Steve 6 Jeff 5 Hank 8 Alan 7 Jim 6 Wayne 6 Prodipto 8 Allen 6 Bruce 6 Sdave 7 Average: 6.50 ------------------------------------------------------------------