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"The Founder of Jin Empire 晋国之祖 (jìn guó zhī zhǔ)"
Why is he a Demi-God:
Why not?! You are talking about the overall winner of the entire era! This is the man who played the Cao family like a puppet-master, read Zhuge Liang 诸葛亮’s mind like nobody else could, had a sleeve full of tricks to deceive everyone, and eventually had his children and grandchildren conquer all of China.
How amazing is Sima Yi? Well according to some legends, Sima Yi was one of the disciples of the mysterious Sima Hui 司马徽, who was also the teacher of Zhuge Liang and Guo Jia 郭嘉. It was said that Sima Yi was the youngest of all his disciples, but the most able and cunning. This legend was never corroborated, of course, and even Sima Yi's entrance into Cao Cao 曹操's service is disputed. But his wit, intellect, and management ability was on par with, if not beyond, those of Zhuge Liang. The two arch-rivals won and lost battles against each other and both had a lot of respect for the other. In the greater scheme of things, though, Zhuge Liang lost out to Sima Yi because his allegiance and integrity to Shu made him overwork himself to death. Sima Yi, on the other hand, seemed to handle his live and work with greater ease and he lived to a much older age.
Whether you think he is pure evil or simply utilitarian, there really is no denying this old man his undisputed title as victor of the Three Kingdoms!
Character ability 1: "Restraint 忍戒 (rěn jiè)" [Enforced ability]
For every 1 unit of damage you receive or every 1 card you discard during your discard phase, you receive a “Restraint 忍” token.
Character ability 2: "Promotion 拜印 (bài yìn)" [Awakening ability]
At the start of your turn, if you have 4 or more Restraint tokens, you must reduce your maximum health by 1 unit, and you permanently acquire the ability "Extreme Tactic 极略". (Discard a Restraint token to execute one of the following abilities: "Demonic Talent 鬼才", "Banish into Exile 放逐", "Unmitigated Murder 完杀", "Balance of Power 制衡" or "Assembling Wisdom 集智")
(Recall:
Demonic Talent (Sima Yi) - Change judgement card
Banish into Exile (Cao Pi) - Flip character card
Unmitigated murder (Jia Xu) - Peach can't save others
Balance of Power (Sun Quan) - Change cards on-hand/equipped
Assembling Wisdom (Huang Yueying) - Draw 1 card when use a Tool card)
Character ability 3: "Domino Victory 连破 (lián pò)"
If you kill one or more players within your turn, once your turn ends, you get to play an extra turn.
Ability's relation to story:
The chinese words "忍戒" comes from the Chinese phrase "用忍戒急 (Restrain yourself from hasty actions)". In military campaigns, Sima Yi was famed for restraining himself and his forces against enemy taunts. He insisted on waiting for the right moment to strike. Probably the most famous of such a scenario happened at the Battle of Wu Zhang Plains 五丈原之战, where Zhuge Liang sent Sima Yi women's clothings as an insult, calling Sima Yi a woman for not daring to meet his forces in battle. Sima Yi ignored the taunt and eventually prevailed after Zhuge Liang fell deathly exhausted. It is an apt ability, where the Restraint tokens are a tangible form of that "little black book" to scrawl in grievances!
In politics, he hid his ambition for decades and instead served the Wei kingdom. He eventually got the promotion "拜印", which was a traditional ritual for the appointment of generals. Insidiously, however, the cunning Sima Yi was coiled up and waiting to strike. When the right moment came, he would perform “Consecutive Aggresion”, eliminating his enemies quickly and in quick succession. One example was when Gongsun Yuan 公孙渊 rebelled against the Wei kingdom, Sima Yi was sent to crush him. Despite Gongsun Yuan's defenses, Sima Yi overpowered him. Sima Yi set up a fake camp to attract his attention, and sent his troops to strike at the right moment. He won three consecutive battles and eventually killed Gongsun Yuan and his sons when they attempted to flee.
The reasoning behind the five abilities included in "Extreme strategies" are:
"Demonic Talent"---that’s his signature move.
"Banish into Exile"---it was Cao Pi who promoted him
"Unmitigated Murder"---he was a shrewd strategist like Jia Xu, and his strategy was deadly.
"Balance of Power"---a genius at politics, he weakened Shu and Wu by utilizing Wei forces, and the invasions of Shu and Wu forced Wei to promote him, allowing Sima family to become more powerful.
"Assembling Wisdom"---he was not a lone strategist, and his comrade often gave him advice of tactics, although he was better
overpowered...
ReplyDelete^ Not really, as you have to spend one token to use one of the abilities brought by "Promotion" each time.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, methods of using the abilties are different,
"Demonic Talent": Discard a token to change a judgement card once.
"Banish into exile": Discard a token after you receives damage, so that you can flip someone's character card.
"Unmitigated Murder": Discard a token at the action phase, and you get the ability until the end of the turn.
"Balance of Power": Discard a token, then discard X cards and draw X cards.
"Assembling Wisdom": Discard a token after you use an instant tool card, then draw a card.
Misusing the abilities will waste the tokens at surprising speed, so you should manage well before using the tokens. I suggest to use the abilities to form a combo to kill someone at one turn (remember to use "Unmitigated Murder"!), so you get an extra turn by "Domino Victory".
He will require a lot of skill in using his abilities, but there's no doubt he has the potential to be the most overpowered character in the whole game.
ReplyDeleteAt first I thought using tokens on "Assembling Wisdom" is a waste, but the more I think about it the more EPIC it becomes... Since Yue Ying, when given that ability and some tool cards draw so much cards that she often has to discard like 3-4 cards...
ReplyDeleteUsing "Assembling Wisdom" gives more cards and if it can't be used then they can wait to be discarded to get BACK the tokens!!! Combine that with "Balance of Power" of Sun Quan... Holy shit.
And also for Domino Victory I'm assuming you can't get another turn after you already gotten an extra turn correct? So for example after killing one rebel and drawing 3 cards, save up the TOOL cards such as duel or AoEs and keep others at one health; receive the extra turn then rinse and repeat? If that's possible then holy jesus he's OP
^ Unfortunately, he can get an extra turn if he kills one or more character in his extra turn...if you have the skill and luck to do so.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, to defeat Demi-god Sima Yi, discarding his cards is more important than damage him. By removing his on-hand cards with characters like Gan Ning and Zhang Liao, he is disabled, as he has no cards to discard at discard phase to get tokens. If no one damages him but discard his cards only, he will be disabled, as he has no tokens to acquire "Extreme Tactics". Leave him to be the last character to kill!
In one game, Demi-god Sima Yi is disabled by Jiang Wei, as Jiang Wei sits next to him amd "Taunt" him every turn, destroying his on-hand cards effectively...
If he has 5 tokens & 2nd ability is activated, does that mean he can use all 5 different abilities in 1 turn?
ReplyDelete^ Yes, given that you have the tokens and the requirements of the abilities are fulfilled. ("Balance of Power" is limited to one per turn, you can only activate "Banish into Exile" whenever you receives damage, etc.)
ReplyDelete3 Questions regarding his 2nd ability.
ReplyDelete1. It says that I lose 1 unit of max. health if I have more than 4 tokens at the beginning of my turn. Now, what if I have 4 tokens on this turn and 5 tokens on my following turn, does that mean that I will lose 2 unit of max health?
2. It says to discard a token to use one of his abilities in the 2nd skill, is it a one time thing that last for the whole game or do I need to reactivate it every turn? For example, if I use Demonic Talent, I discard 1 token. Do I need to discard another token on the next turn?
3. Are the abilities in the 2nd skill still the same as the original ones? For example, unmitigated murder can only be used once in a game?
Thanks
1. You need to lose max HP only ONCE and will get the skills till the end of the game. Losing max health is simply a sign that you have activated your skill.
ReplyDeleteAs Rejishiki wrote, Awakening abilities are combinations of Enforced and Single-Used abilities. Losing your max health is the "Single-use" part, while acquired skills are the "Enforced" part of Awakening skills.
2. Yes. Exept for Unmitigated Murder, all other skills reqire a token every time you use them. As for Balancing Power, remember that you can use it only once per your turn.
A reminder about Unmitigated Murder: you can activate it during your turn, but not immediately when a person is at brink of death. For example, this order is correct:
Use UM - attack a player - the player is at brink of death - others cannot save him.
And this one is WRONG:
Attack a player - the player is at brink of death - use UM - others cannot save him.
3. They are identical. But you have mixed up Unmitigated Murder (enforced) and Descent into Chaos (single-use) :)
Hey thanks for the reply. I'm still really new to this game and I'm always getting confused with the character abilities. haha OOPS I had that skill confused :(
ReplyDeleteI just want to point out that the pinyin for Sima Yi's title is incorrect. It should be jìn guó zhī <> rather than jìn guó zhī <> as you have listed up there.
ReplyDeleteThe corrections I put in the <> were erased from the actual post <.< Anyway, it's zǔ， not zhǔ.
ReplyDelete"Well according to some legends, Sima Yi was one of the disciples of the mysterious Sima Hui 司马徽, who was also the teacher of Zhuge Liang and Guo Jia 郭嘉. It was said that Sima Yi was the youngest of all his disciples, but the most able and cunning..." This has got nothing to do with any legend. This is based on a comic book series called 火凤燎原. None of Pei Song Zhi's annotations mentioned anything close to that account.
ReplyDeleteHey, I've put in an order for this expansion pack, how long should it take before I can receive the package? (Live in North America)
ReplyDeleteThere is a mistake in the translation of Domino Victory:
ReplyDelete若你在一回合内杀死了至少一名角色，可于此回合结束后，进行一个额外的回合。
If you kill one or more players within ONE (not your) turn, once THIS(not your) turn ends, you get to play an extra turn.
When it's not your turn but Demi-God SiMa Yi killed someone it can start a turn right after this current turn ends.
Oh, it's my typo. Sorry for misguiding. Thank you very much.
DeleteOne of the strongest character around but if Jiang Wei, Gan Ning or Zhang Liao is not his friend, Demi-God Sima Yi will be sweating buckets.
ReplyDeleteHis restraint tokens will only come when he takes a damage and his promotion might not even take place.
Actually, his "Promotion" almost always happens. If the DG Sima Yi player is smart, they will not do anything on their first two turns except discard their two extra cards. If they somehow get hurt, they will gain restraint tokens even faster because they have to discard more cards at the end of their turn. By the third turn, they should have their "Promotion." The card destruction characters probably won't pursue somebody whose role they are unsure of because they don't want to inadvertently hurt their own teammate.
DeleteAs if. After one round it's clear as day who is who 99% of the time.
DeleteFor , you discard a token to flip a character card after receiving damage, does that character still get to draw x cards where x is hp lost?
ReplyDeleteI'm referring to Banish into exile. Don't know why it didn't show
DeleteThat character can still draw cards by the effect of "Banish (into Exile)".
DeleteI have a question...
ReplyDeleteIn the DG Sima Yi's turn, he discard a token to activate the Assembling wisdom during his turn, so what if out turn? Does every time he want to activate that ability he must discard a token or just once for the outurn?
Ex: out turn, he discard a token to activate assembling wisdom, he use the Negate card and draw one card, an other player Negate his negate card, if he want to negate again, did he must discard a token to do that?
DeleteI think you do, according to the previous comments and his ability.
ReplyDelete