It started with a whisper. A rumor of a rumor, heard by someone's brother's cousin. The forumites caught wind and the matter quickly snowballed out of hand. Defender of the Empire was going to be banned. Fire benders everywhere went on tilt, the general sentiment being a heavy sense of loss. It seemed to hurt them the most, but it hurt others as well.

"5 handers are unplayable again," said my friend Alex Costa, who recently earned a top 8 with an unbelievable (or as he would say the unbeatable) Sankuro deck with a handsize smaller than most cell phones. "I guess I'll have to find something else."

Some are glad it's gone. The general sentiment in this camp is that Defender was degenerate. It rewarded sub-par play by the fact that it made it okay to overextend again and again. The truth is, you can never catch a Defender player with his pants down. Those guys are always going to have something for you.

There's no denying that this is big news for UFS, possibly the biggest since I've been a player. The forums have exploded with Defender topics, including an ill-fated petition by the fire nation to save Defender, their crown jewel. There were those holding out hope that the rumors were just that, and that an official post would set everything straight but those were laid to rest by STG's Steve a.k.a. Sgt. Horvath on Monday in which he prophesied the coming of the end for the Dark Empire.

While many questions float around without answers, I think the biggest is: "What do we do now?"

I've broken my long silence in this time of need to answer precisely that.

Proper Alternatives

Before I start naming names, I would like to inform you of the position that I'm attacking this problem from. Defender is getting banned because it's not doing what it was intended to do, it's doing something far more broken. Defender came to us in SC04 as part of a repertoire of discard hate (hence the word "Defender"). It was answer to death that Fire, Air, and All never had. No more Timmy for 12 when you are defenseless. That in mind, I'd like to go ahead and list alternative cards that work the way Defender was meant to work in Air, All, and Fire (the broken stuff comes later, don't tell anyone).

Circuitous Prancing

It's not pretty, it's actually pretty ugly, but it gives you a chance of survival when your only other options are immediate death and helplessness. It can trigger any number of times, and probably won't deck you out as fast as Defender anyway. Pack enough blocks and your opponents should never catch you off guard. Watch out for the 3 though (hence, the ugliness).

Heart of Gold

Another way to keep your face from getting smashed when you're defenseless is not to get into that position in the first place. Heart of Gold sees to that handily and comes loaded with a 6 in the bottom right corner. Too bad about that block, though.

Shotokan

Perhaps my favorite of the list so far, there's very little Shotokan can't do, like block, I guess, but it certainly can fish one up for you. You can play very defensively with this card, activating it on your opponent's attacks and increase your handsize with the only limitations being the number of cards in your staging area. On offense it'll get you that last bit of gas you need to race to the finish. So in a sense, it's like a balanced Defender. Maybe now with Defender gone, it'll see play again.

Leave at Dawn

Remember when all we had was this? It's still awesome folks.

Purity of Innocence

Another 3 checker, but I see this and Circuitous Prancing working wonders together if someone is gutsy enough to run both.

Mortal Strike

Draw a card and potential reduction? Sign me up.

Positional Exploitation

This card is like Circuitous Prancing only potentially much better. The restriction is that one of the cards needs to match a block zone (which you want), but if it doesn't you get nothing. If it does work, you don't need to remove anything from the game, and to top it all off, it checks for 5 (yay!).

None of these are really offensive foundations, in fact most are defensive, but in reality, they embody the true purpose of Defender of the Empire, that is, of course, to defend yourself. Of course, that was only half of what Defender did in many decks. Defender was as much as anything else an offensive foundation. As many in my area have shown, characters with handsize 5 or smaller particularly shined with Defender, as it was often very easy to play five cards, and then draw 6-7 more on your opponent's turn, essentially making these lower HS characters 11-12 handsize characters. The loss of Defender particularly harms this subset of characters and players, and their alternatives are not easy, which will probably lead to their eventual demise.

Lower Handsizes

It would seem that in order for these lower HS characters to survive in a world without Defender, these characters a 5 HS and below will need to find new ways to cheat on their handsizes that are not just good, but efficient and plausible.

Silent Step

In the past, when I was first introduced to Hugo, well before Fortune and Glory made Hugo synonymous with derogatory words and phrases, we used Silent Step to circumvent his puny handsize. I believe that Silent Step is extremely efficient in giving lower HS characters +1-+3 handsize, and while that may not be as awesome as what Defender can give you, it should not be taken lightly. This is fire's best out, IMO.

Son of a Farmer

While not quite as efficient as Silent Step, the two can work wonderfully together. There aren't as many fancy interactions, but you can't argue with the value of ending your turn with +1 cards in hand.

Skilled Ninja

Arguably the ugliest card named so far, Skilled Ninja has a lot of synergy with the modern air builds. With Whereabouts Unknown, Skilled Ninja, can essentially trade useless foundations for +3 cards in hand. It's worth a look, if nothing else.

Vast Resources

While this card is nothing new to control players, aggro players such as the ones inclined to play Defender of the Empire stay away from this card because of its symmetrical nature. After all, why would you want to give your opponents more cards? My answer is pick your fights carefully, and this card can win games by itself. Wait for your opponent to over commit, and then it won't matter how many cards they have because they won't be blocking anyway. If nothing else, you can use the response ability to drop foundations you held back as blocks and didn't need to use.

Inner Mastery

The awesomeness of this card goes understated a good bit, I think. Combined with any of the above cards, it tends to double their power. It's versatile, it's powerful. Learn how to cope with the 3 and you'll do well with this card.

Rat Chaser

The most situational card on this list, is definitely not the shortest on power. In fact, you can manipulate events in your favor, say with a Vast Resources? They draw 1, you draw 3? Sounds good to me, especially with Inner Mastery.  I draw 4? Awesome.

Shotokan

=) My favorite card strikes again!

Fortune and Glory
Yeah, I know. For the last few months, this card has been Hugo's dirty little back breaker. Well, the big guy's gone now, I suppose we can start playing this card fairly. This card is awesome for so many reasons, and is probably the best on the list.

Parting Thoughts

I can't very well end this article without a nod to my friend Tristen who won AoP Cape Coral. It seems like just yesterday the two of us were standing side by side staring grimly at the standings of AoP Orlando where we were pushed out of the top 8 by tie breakers. He's very secretive about his tech, but I will say that he's always got something new up his sleeve, so seeing him in action once probably won't help at all. He killed me with an Overhead Hop Kick once, for crying out loud! He searched it up with You Must Defeat Shen Long after playing 4 other attacks that turn. And I was at 4! I hate him as much as I acknowledge his skill and lucksackery ( you know what I'm talking about, Tristen, that M. Bison play was garbage), and it's fun to have a high target to throw darts at. Watch out for his Alex if you're playing 3^rd Strike with him. I've never seen anyone hit with Stun Gun Headbutt so freakin' reliably.

More on topic, however, the loss of Defender is the definitely the end of an era for many decks and metagames. With rotation looming on the horizon, big changes are still to come. You'll notice that each foundation listed today has a nice-looking shuriken on it. Good luck to those who have to cope with these changes to their decks. Sooner or later, someone is going to figure out how to break aggro again, and when they do, I'm sure we'll be eager to accept it. It is imperative, however, that we see the loss of Defender (and the rotation) as the greatest good for the game in general. We've had our fun, let's move on to something else. Oh, and write me when you do.

-Ceejay

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