Not anymore. 

The competitive UFS environment has been flooded with all kinds of different types of damage mitigation in recent sets, and I expect more and more of them to see play, especially in the post-rotation format. Even now, it is only prudent to pack a few of these excellent cards in your decks if you can, and will help you survive something ridiculous with relative ease, like say a 20+ damage Bird of Prey that conveniently follows a Start Over/Infiltrating. Those are always fun, right? 

There are a couple different types of damage redux effects available, and they can fall into several 4 distinct categories - partial damage reduction, complete damage reduction, damage bonus negation and vitality gain. Let's go through these and see what's available in each category, for now and the foreseeable future: 

Partial Damage Reduction (PDR): This is the most common form of damage redux out there, and the one you see most of time in today's environment. This either a static effect that consistently reduces damage to a minimum of 1, like Loner, The Strongest Fighter, Gekiro, or something equivalent. It also refers to effects that shave off damage by a certain amount, even if the effect has the potential to reduce the damage totally. For example, even though an Evil Shunned may normally reduce a Kubi Ori to zero damage, it still falls under PDR in my tally since the amount the damage is reduced by is fixed. 

PDR effects and abilities are seen in all walks of tournament caliber decks already; whether it's Awakening frustrating your offensive output, or Tendon Strength dropping nearly everything you take by -2, or the obvious Battle Disc System using Clones, Echoing Roar, and Forsaken to mock your attacks, or Mortal Strike minimizing something by -3 and gaining you a card off of it. PDRs help take the sting out of big attacks, especially throws, and allow for much longer rates of survival if played correctly because they can make saving blocks for specific attacks that much easier. The costs for most of these effects is negligible and easy to pay - usually a commit, or maybe one momentum, and you're good to go. 

Compiling a complete list of notable PDRs would take forever; as I already mentioned, they are by far the most common kinds of damage shavers out there. But aside from the ones mentioned above, you can surely plan on seeing the following cards out in force at your next tournament - A Worthy Death, Nagase's Blog, Nagase Spiral, Born to Hunt, Cute and Innocent, Shotokan Style, Caliostro Rush, Sealed Away and many many more. I also include "as you take damage" or "before you take damage" effects such as Seal of Virtue and Superhero Blood Transfusion in this class as well. 

Complete Damage Reduction (CDR): CDR effects are much rarer, and certainly more desirable, as per they're name you will be able to completely avoid taking any damage at all. I like that scarcity of these effects as a general design principle, otherwise the game would become interminably slow, but at the same time...I do think we should have more. Still, the few that are out there are well worth playing and usually have two uses as well. 

Reversal is obviously the earliest and most significant CDR, as it sends the entire attack (warts and all) back to the owner and usually wins games. Backflip, although it has a limit, also reduces the attack to 0 within it's given parameters and that's the reason why it's still so highly coveted. You don't want your opponent to gain any momentum if you can avoid it. Dodge Step is an incredible card, one that doesn't see enough play in my opinion. It allows you to take absolutely nothing from a lethal attack AND draw a card, and it has the static anti-discard text as well, what!!! So good yet it's barely ever used. This is going to change in a big way come February. Finally, we have the just released Tiger Style, a fantastic card with a relatively easy 2 momentum cost and the most efficient option for dealing with Absurd Strength shenanigans, as unlike some of the other cards there is no block required to make it work. Yes they get the momentum anyway but all those crazy superfast face smashers roll over and die to this card - haha to you, Kasumi-Suzaku. 

Damage Bonus Negation (DBN): This is the category that we've seen expand rapidly in the last two sets. Whereas before there were only stock negation answers in YM, Pieces of Eight and Seal of Cessation, now there is a whole boatload of damage bonus-specific negators. Rigorous Training, aside from its primary use, excels as a cheap one-shot DBN with its action side. Two more permanent solutions are Stone Mail and Spiritual Center, both of which should quickly become staples if they haven't already. Having witnessed Stone Mail in action within a brilliantly designed local Earth/Water Twelve deck, I can safely say that there is no reason not to run this card. What seems like an initially steep investment of one card per cancellation eventually becomes a bargain when those Hammers and Way of the Mightiest are staring you in the face. I love SC even more, despite the fact that you can only use it once per turn. Otherwise, it's nearly an exact replacement for the rotating Compasstionate Heroism, with a +2H block thrown in for the slightly higher difficulty - not to mention more resources in which to work with. 

While it's important to note that none of these cards prevent or modify the original damage output, the increasing number of cheap and effective damage boosts warrants the need for these cards to be maindeck material. After all, even the most conservative Life deck can surprise you with a Fierce Competitor-assisted throw or a Concealed Shallow Swipe. Better to prepared for that eventuality than be caught off-guard, no? 

Vitality Gain (VG): While not technically a method of damage prevention, it is basically used as such and now there are numerous ways to gain vitality and offset damage being dealt to you. Chief Hold reigns supreme in this category, and it's a terrific way to survive something large, as long as it won't be lethal. One of the my personal favorites, Ninja Computer Geek, is brutal in conjunction with BDS and can make dealing even the slightest bit of a dent in your overall vitality a major pain. Armored Defense is another old staple and a classic that's thankfully been watermarked; in addition to it's primary duties as ward of loops and recycling everywhere, it functions as decent vitality gain for Order in particular. Psychic Teleport, oft-neglected, fulfills much the same function as does The Eternal Psychic Idol, neither of which stay in the post-rotation metagame. Nobility and Pride and Full Moon are two John Talbain cards that really make lifegain a viable strategy for survival for the forseeable future. 

The large amount of VG cards have also led to STG creating answers - Containing the Power is one, and the much-maligned Samurai Showdown another. Still, I don't think it's quite enough to actively discourage use of it if the PDR/CDR/DBN trifecta is not available in your particular resource. 

While I certainly haven't covered everything, I do think I've given enough examples to illustrate my point - pushing damage through ain't what it used to be. While some of my peers have expressed dismay at the power level of some of these options, I would rather have it too far in the favor of damage mitigation than the opposite. A slower game is a healthier game. As always, I hope this has been a helpful little piece and for any questions/comments/criticisms, feel free to PM me on the STG boards or contact me via email at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it Next week I'll discuss deckout as a legitimate victory condition, it should be fun. Till next time...

-Vik