Review: Tide of the Blossoms

This will be the common trend I think for all decks that I make/copy/edit and play with.

So, this deck comes from Joshua Lu (JDragon) and there are a few articles involved that are good for reading and getting a better understanding for it.

Tide of Blossoms
Tide of Genin Pins

Both articles have a deck list as well as a discussion of how it works/runs.

So, I played with it on my 3rd and 4th tournaments and the results varied. I didn't make enough notes as to what happened on my first 2 tournaments and I blindly netdecked without thinking and tried to run the deck with its original build. Based on that, it did fairly well. I was able to walk away with 3 wins and 2 losses.

Why did I lose? I did not pay enough attention to the metagame that was being played. After looking at enough Top 8 decks, looking at Competitive Decks, and seeing other reviews I made a few assumptions: that people play 7/8 or 8/7 jutsu/mission ratios, and that this would be the favored way to obtain chakra. So, how does this make me lose? Well, not many people were running missions, would charge up a lot of chakra, and I didn't have enough negation to account for it. Also, my play style is more conservative. I dislike charging chakra from my hand and not using a mission.

However, the important part of all of this is to make note and understand a few things.

What was done wrong?
What was done right?
What can be improved to fix the bad parts and keep the consistency of the good parts?

In the second article, JDragon explains with a few matches how his improved deck works and how it played. He mentioned that the mid-game didn't work out too well and this required a different play style to compensate for it, and I also recall having this issue. After reviewing the deck, and facing David, I realized that a Mental Defense could solve that problem for me based on what people are currently playing. To this end, I opted to swap in 2 copies of Suzume and the sideboard copies of Shikamaru [SP]. The deck then looked like this:

Ninjas (25)

(3) Sasuke Uchiha [Analysis of Competence]
(2) Shikamaru Nara [Smarty Pants]
(1) Sakura Haruno [A Sympathy Visit]
(1) Naruto Uzumaki [Nine-Tailed Chakra]
(3) Temari [Violent Temper]
(1) Sakura Haruno [Determination]
(1) Sakura Haruno [Kunoichi Pride]
(1) Hisame [Smartest Ninja in the Hidden Rain Village]
(2) Suzume [Kunoichi Education]
(2) Kabuto Yakushi [Withdrawal]
(1) Hayate Gekko [Judgment]
(1) Ebisu [Repeated Defeat]
(2) Baki [Cleaning Up]
(2) Kakashi Hatake [Early Settlement]
(2) The Third Hokage [Village Governor]

Jutsus (7):

(1) 8 Trigram Divination Seal Spell Formula
(2) Wind Style: Great Breakthrough
(2) Wind Scythe Jutsu
(2) Sharingan Eye [PTH]

Missions (8):
(3) Sakura’s Decision
(3) Tide of the Deadly Combat
(2) Exhaustion of Stamina

Sideboard (10):
(2) Kurenai Yuhi
(1) Hayate Gekko [Detecting a Plan]
(1) Hisame [Smartest Ninja in the Hidden Rain Village]
(1) Sharigan Eye
(1) Exhaustion of Stamina
(2) 8 Trigram Seal Spell Formula
(2) Fire Style: Fire Ball Jutsu

So, the changes reflect what I was running into and helped me stop what other decks of the area were doing: using a large number of jutsus. Since the meta was mission-less, I opted to remove Lone Avenger, this worked very well as I used Exhaustion of Stamina which was the killer for most people. This time, I went 3 Wins 0 Losses.