TEPPEN added a new update, one that was much waited on since it nerfed the “Spike Launch” Hero Art of Nergigante; something that is sure to shift the meta and move it away from the abuse of this move. Unbeknownst to many, TEPPEN had other plans and introduced Jill Valentine as a new hero and a small host of other cards.
While you can check out all the update changes at the official TEPPEN website, I want to give you my impressions on Jill Valentine as she currently stands.
Jill Valentine has three chapters to her stories just like everyone else, and it is more-or-less how she winds up in the “Land of Illusion”. Like everyone else she winds up running into other characters who are in the game; Chun-Li in Chapter 1, Rathalos in Chapter 2, and Wesker in Chapter 3.
Jill story begins with her pursuing a lead that was linked to Wesker, the same mysterious girl cloaked with an unknown master. It is obvious that Ms. Valentine is still holding a grudge with him after the events of Resident Evil. Ultimately after all the chapters, she catches up to Wesker and is on the verge of losing, only to be saved by him him stopping the fight and saying that they will finish things in the Land of Illusion.
Jill’s story is pretty hit-and-miss, it is not amazing (though most of the stories within the game are pretty subpar thus far). However, it is interesting to see Jill, a former member of the Special Tactics and Rescue Squad (S.T.A.R.S.), point a gun at Chun-Li, who is a member of the international police force (INTERPOL). Jill traveling to the Land of Illusion because of Wesker is predictable and makes sense, but I wish she could have been given another interaction outside of Rathalos.
- Ultimate Weapon (AP: 17) — Explore the Rocket Launcher.
- Genesis (AP: 17) — Two random cards from all explored cards during this battle get -1 MP and are added to the EX Pocket (If only one card has been explored, only it is added to the EX Pocket).
- Antibody Activation (AP: 15) — If you have explored 3 or more times, an ally unit gets +1/+3 and <Shield>.
Jill’s Hero Arts are all actually pretty good dependent on how you are to use them. Ultimate Weapon is good for destroying big characters or inflicting a lot of Pierce Damage on monsters with low defense; you can practically win the game off of just this ability if you can continue to strike targets with low defense. Genesis is good if you are exploring a lot, allowing you to bring low cost attack boost or damage dealing cards to the EX Pocket. Finally, Antibody Activation is good for cards with either Combo, Victory, or another effect which is valuable to the entire team (such as Chris or Iris).
Out of all of them, I feel the one with the most promise is probably Genesis, but we need more cards with Explore effects to get the most out of them. Right now, the only two units with this new ability are Jill Valentine and Mikhail Victor, with more Explore potential only being seen through the 1MP action card “Brought to Light”, which still requires one of these six units to be on the field. For now, I think the best effect is Rocket Launcher because of the ability to burn down units and one-shot potential problem units with only a few issues (Green’s HP enhancing and shield giving cards, Black/Red sacrificial action cards, and Purple deck’s ability to negate).
Right now, it appears the best decks using Jill Valentine are Mono-Red decks which utilize action cards with direct hero damage effects (with Art Charge), using her first Hero Art “Rocket Launcher”. The idea is to burn a hero down enough to die through pierce damage from the 3MP Rocket Launcher card. However, this can effectively be countered by the measures I said above, specifically the +7 Hero HP black card “Selfish Predation” since it both removes the target of Rocket Launcher and gives the said hero life.
I am having a ton of fun with Jill, more so than I thought. I currently have a pretty good red/black deck build that I am having quite a lot of fun with and causes problems for purple and green decks because of the sheer destructibility; though it has heavy problems against red and black decks due to destruction and ability to bring units back.
For now, I think she will not shift the meta until we get more units that can go into the favor of explore; she needs this in order to successful, and there are not nearly enough units available for her to be used to her utmost potential. Rocket Launcher is more widely used, but it is still a risk since it grants you an action card which can be countered rather than an unreachable hero attack which cannot be stopped and does not use any MP to activate.
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