Duncan MacLeod - by James Duncan You may attack areas you just blocked. If you make a Power Blow, your opponent's next attack is not Hidden. You may have up to six Master cards. (errata'd text) Overview Game mechanics first. Although it is often misunderstood due to faulty wording, Duncan's opponents _can_ make Hidden attacks the turn after he makes a power blow. They simply don't get a "free" Hidden attack due to his power blow. Note the errata'd text. Duncan (and any other Persona) can attack to areas that they just dodged, assuming that the text of the particular dodge card does not restrict them. Strategically, Duncan is a jack of all trades when it comes to sword fighting. Unfortunately, despite his six Master cards, he is master of none. One of the most acrobatic Immortals, Duncan has more dodges available to him than any current Persona except Amanda. Once Watcher's Chronicles is out, he will be the only Persona with both Jump and Duck. Duncan has a decent set of Persona-specific Master's Cards: Master's Advice, Master's Attack, Master's Dodge, and Master's Block (added in Watcher's Chronicles). He has all the "standard" Persona-specific cards: Continuity, Combination, Dodge, Back Away, Extra Shot, and Trip. He also has better Exertion control than most Personas due to Inspiration and Flashback. Persona-Specific Cards Duncan has the usual swordfighting-oriented cards -- Combination, Extra Shot, and Trip. His more unique cards are those that center around Exertions: Inspiration and Flashback. Duncan rarely is unable to find the proper defense due to his ability to make extra Exertions and extend Exertions. I prefer Extra Shot to Combination since it will cause your opponent to make an Exertion if they need to play a new defense. Use Jump or Duck in conjunction with Extra Shot and play a Hidden as the first attack to make life more difficult for your opponent. Using Dodge and Extra Shot together you can still make one attack while defending all attack areas. Trip is useful for removing your opponent's Standing Defenses while retaining your own, while gaining a Hidden Attack. Also, Duck and Jump give Duncan a Hidden attack _without_ having to play a Special. Use cards like Power Blow and Head Shot to make those Hidden attacks power blows. Or Exert and play another Special like Challenge/SE to give your Hidden power blows a real kick. Enhance with Lunge (from Watcher's Chronicles) for greater effect. Flashback gives Duncan the ability to make an extra three card Exertion. This can be used to allow Duncan the ability to make a Power Blow and a Power Block on the same turn. Power Blow works well for Duncan as he faces no return Hidden attack. Duncan is one of the few Immortals who can make good use of Battle Rage, due to his Flashback and the Scotland the Brave promo card. Flashback can also be used extend searches for attacks or defenses. Duncan is rarely caught without the proper attack or defense when he has Flashbacks in play. Inspiration is not as powerful as Flashback. However, it does allow an extra Exertion at the expense of using your special slot. Use Inspiration as a supplement to Flashback, not an alternative. Slash is one of Duncan's better Immortal-specific cards, since he is attack-oriented and it doesn't use a Master slot. Master's Attack is a good card but it can't be played from an Exertion and most Duncan decks tend to Exert frequently. Master's Block is an excellent card which should be included in any Duncan deck. Master's Dodge is a good card but since it uses an Master slot, it is rather costly. I prefer not using Master's Dodge and instead loading up on Jump and Duck, even though Master's Dodge is a more powerful card. Generic Cards The best generic cards for Duncan are ones which promote swordfighting and which enhance Exertion control. Master (3-card Exertions) and Collect are good Exertion-control cards. Master's Stratagem is excellent for helping to cycle Duncan's large deck. Master's Advance is useful for draining his opponent of dodges. In fact, with six Master slots, Duncan's hardest decision is often which Masters to take. Avery Hoskins is a good friend to Duncan decks. Avery can force your opponent with a slim deck to Exert past their best cards. Renee Delaney is a useful foil against Special-heavy decks. Scotland the Brave (StB) and Berkeley are the best promos for Duncan. StB is great for Battle Rage decks that are heavy on attacks and relatively light on Specials. Berkeley works well if you use a lot of Specials. Dr. Alan Neyman is good for stacking your attacks up before doing your exertions. Many of the generic attacks work well with Duncan. Spinning Attack is a nice card to combine with Jump and Duck. Riposte is a nice card to use also. Dirty Tricks should be included in any Duncan deck. I prefer using either Pummel to promote Endurance burn, or Shove to keep my opponent from attacking and take down his Standing Defenses. Kick can be useful, but I would not use it exclusively. I would use Kick in conjunction with one of the other two Dirty Tricks. If you are using Exertion-minimization tactics, Stunning Blow may even be a good bet. Use it after a Hidden attack (due to Duck, Jump, or Master's Block) and use Challenge/SE to keep them from dodging or Ducking. If they don't' have an Upper Center Block or Upper Guard, you might actually tag them. Also, don't forget Head Shot. There's a reason Duncan takes a lot of heads in the series. Head Shot gives him six more Exertion-free Power Blows, with no penalty for using them. Location Cards Ruins is Duncan's Location of choice. This may seem odd since Duncan can attack to any area just blocked which would imply he should use lots of Guards. A Guard-heavy strategy leaves Duncan vulnerable to Connor and Power Blows, and doesn't take into account Duncan's superior agility. Why bother with Power Blocks when you can simply avoid the attack altogether. Duncan can also build a deck around Dead End Alley. He can get full use of Guards and he has plenty of dodges to use other than the prohibited Back Away. Desert is a good choice for use in Duncan tower decks as it helps run through your opponent's deck. Even Nefertiri is vulnerable to the effects of Desert. Battlefield can be useful as a way to drain off your opponents defenses. Another possibility is to build a disarm deck and use Parking Garage. Rooftop is also a good location to use as an anti-Pedestrian tool, though I wouldn't recommend building a deck around this location. So which Locations should Duncan avoid? Mountain Cave, Factory, and Catwalk are Locations which cause problems for Duncan. Never use Mountain Cave if playing against Connor as that is Connor's personal killing field. Stay clear of the Catwalk against Slan, Kurgan, and Kalas. It also strips you of your most powerful defense: your many dodges. Factory is of little use if facing Nefertiri. However, at least you will probably have built your deck with Patience and Reconnaissance to ignore Factory, so you won't be harmed by it. In fact, include Reconnaissance to allow you to bypass Locations that cause problems for Duncan until he can get his own beneficial Locations into play. For Duncan tower decks I'd go with multiple locations. I like using a Ruins/Desert or Dead End Alley/Desert mix for tower decks. A couple of Rooftops can be added to kill off the Pedestrians and such that are used in lock decks. How to Win The key to a winning Duncan deck is the Power Blow. You want to Power Blow early and often since Duncan doesn't face a Hidden attack due to making a Power Blow. Duncan should also make his attacks Hidden when possible - he certainly has enough ways to do so. This is particularly true when pulling of a Scotland the Brave/Battle Rage combo. Five Hidden power blows can cause havoc to any Persona, even Slan. Master's Block, which is normally the bane of Battle Rage, offers only partial relief from the StB/BR combo. And don't forget Head Shot and Duncan's own Power Blow card if you don't like Exerting. Use Jump and Duck to avoid attacks and make Hidden attacks. Use Master's Advance to make dodges costly for your opponent. Use Greenfield to handle direct damage and Renee Delaney to deny your opponent her Specials. Upper Hand and Amnesia can be used to get rid of your opponent's most powerful cards. Don't overlook TSC Troopers' ability to remove Locations from the game. Avery is Duncan's best friend among the Ally cards. Decks built around Exertions should always include Avery. Master and Collect can be used to reduce Exertions to more manageable levels. You need to remember to keep your attack ratio at at least one third: more if you use cards like Battle Rage, Extra Shot, and Combination. Defenses should comprise roughly another third and Specials and Edges should comprise the final third. For Duncan, don't be afraid of building the dreaded tower deck. Just make sure you make your opponent Exert and run him through his deck to exhaustion as quickly as possible. Build your deck around a few key Specials and load up on them. Design the deck around one or two Locations which promote your strategy. If need be, add Maurice to get at those critical cards. How to Defeat Like most pure swordfighters, Duncan is vulnerable to cheese. Avoid his attacks and hit him with direct damage and Ability Loss. Never stand and fight unless you've no alternative. Use anti-attack cards and avoid attacking. This will cause Duncan's hand to become clogged and force him to Exert for defenses. For attack decks that face Duncan, use unblockable and undodgeable attacks whenever possible. Play cards which keep Duncan from dodging. Challenge/SE and Catwalk are two of the better choices. Make hidden Power Blows. Duncan doesn't cause a Hidden attack by making a Power Blow. However, unlike Connor he doesn't get to see all Hidden attacks. So use cards like Trip or attacks such as Riposte. Keep Duncan Exerting while avoiding making Exertions and he'll self-destruct. Overall Duncan is a middle of the road Immortal. He is a strong swordfighter but he requires Exertions to be successful. He's very vulnerable to anti-attack decks that do direct damage. He also loses out to the speed lock decks. Duncan is good to build an attack decks but many of the other Immortals offer easier paths to victory. I rate Duncan a 6. What Our Other Raters Say: Ben - Abstain Rick - Duncan was strong when Series Edition came out. He was overshadowed by the other Personas from the Movie Edition and the benefits the other SE personas gained from the Movie Edition. Right now he is a watered down Connor. However, with Watcher's Chronicles, he should move up the ladder a little more. He makes for good casual play decks. Hank - Although I like Duncan in the TV series, and I think they've successfully made him his "own man", in the card game he's still a cheap imitation of Connor. He does little that Connor can't do better, and every time I've tried to build a deck around him I've ended up turning it into a Connor deck. Although he may eventually get cards that make him his "own man", for now he's a shadow. Steve - With the pending release of Watcher's Chronicles, Duncan is perhaps the best swordfighter in the game. Duck and Slash make him truly formidable. It's amazing what a difference a mere two cards make. Renaissance- style tends to show Duncan as the power he truly is. I rate him just a point lower than Connor (PotM #2). It's a lot easier for Duncan to add Alertness/Hidden to cover his "weakness" against Hidden attacks, than it is for other Personas to get Jump _and_ Duck, Slash, and Flashback. Alan - Duncan is a much-overlooked persona, perhaps due to the fact that, ability-wise, he is really a weaker version of Connor. But Duncan's true strength lies in his own cards, as well as certain generic cards. Specifically, those cards that allow him to make extra/extended Exertions. The best Duncan decks tend to be so-called "Tower Exert-like-a-crazed-wolverine decks", with the Exertions made for Power Blows. Mix Scotland the Brave with Battle Rage, and your opponent can be in real trouble. A deck I have had limited success with is a small, tight deck (approximately 60 cards) with Battle Rage, Scotland the Brave, and lots'o'attacks. Give it a try... Jeff - "Why play Duncan if you can play Connor?" is the question that's been asked since ME came out. Essentially, you lose a Master slot, the lion's share of the "see hidden attacks" ability, and the Master's Block/Lunge combo. In return you get what? A couple of extra Slashes? A weaker Master's Block? A Jump? A only-slightly-better Flashback? Inspiration? Feh. Until/unless TV3 sees the light of day, stick with Connor unless you _like- to make lots of exertions. Wayne - What else can be said about Duncan other than he is WEAK. With the cards that Connor has available, I would think that most people would play Connor over Duncan since their abilities are so similar. I've been looking for his positives but since I really can't find anything significant I won't continue to ramble. Ratings Overall: Jim 6 Steve 7 Ben N/A Rick 5 Hank 4 Alan 5 Jeff 4 Wayne 1 Average: 4.57 Highlander is a protected trademark of Gaumont Television, used under license by Thunder Castle Games. The card text is copyright 1996 by Thunder Castle Games. All rights reserved.