[jtakenaka]

This post may show my lack of expertise in the game but I'll try to give some background into the current erratas.

I've become very anti-card draw and have started voting against card draw effects when asked.

Reunion I think will still be the best card draw card in the game but I'm being told that Sakura's Decision could make a case with upcoming sets. I'm hoping this will be the cap in terms of future card draw effects. So Permanent (3) was agreed upon so that it has the possibility of triggering twice and still has a small negative of going into the Exchange of Jutsu with limited cards to get it's full effect. In our experience we think it will generally create an average of 4 extra draw cards. I still think it is a good card draw mission but I think all deck types could run it if they want to but there are Mission card options that are close to equal.

Release of Chakra was first considered for errata once we saw the power of 5 Prong Seal decks. After we deck built and game tested we felt that there were many answers to the 5PS where the deck is not effective enough in tournament play. Yuya made several decks and sideboards that made it kind of easy to counter it. So, I did not vote for errata based on 5PS and everyone else pretty much agreed with me. The NY Anime Jonin players appeared to agree and just decided to sideboard against it.

However, I felt that if Reunion was nerfed that most people would just switch to Release of Chakra and everyone would still run Lightning/X decks (and who knows, maybe everyone will still run Lightning/X decks after the erratas). Therefore, I voted for errata.
I think there were 2 different proposals that we considered:
Charge 3 lightning, draw 3 or 4
Charge 3, draw 3
Because of the speed of this card I did not like the charge 3 lightning idea because I still felt that lead you to Lightning/X. If it was Charge 3 of anything I felt that let any deck type run it if they wanted to so obviously I had to be against the draw 4. Draw 2 made it not a good card so draw 3 was my choice. This one was debated a little bit more but in the end we went with charge 3 draw 3 which we think makes it an OK card but not necessarily a best option.

Deep Forest Creation
I agree that this card has a very powerful effect and I hope that this is a cap to the strength of potential Jutsus. However, I don't really mind a game ending on Turn 6, 7 or 8 when this Jutsu makes an appearance. (I don't like how a lot of our tournament matches have to be decided on our sudden death tie-breaker rules so I prefer the games to speed up.) I also think you have opportunities with other cards or deck types to counter it. Another issue is due to power creep I am seeing a lot of future Ninja cards that have a can't be effected or targeted effect where DFC won't work against them. I felt that with the counters and the power creep there is not enough for me to vote for an errata. I have to see where the meta takes us.

Everything Else
I don't see erratas being necessary for anything else at this time although I hate cards like First Hokage and Aoi that remove Battle Rewards. I like the Sexy Gaara deck but Yuya and the game testers showed me a Naruto vs. Sasuke Growth deck and a Kunoichi deck that were really effective against it. Whether they can make a strong showing at a Jonin, I'll have to wait and see if anyone runs it and if it works against other deck types. Hopefully, Set 8 will not have any issues. Daily previews will start 1/2/08 and maybe I'll give a Christmas Preview.

Anyways, I hope this was interesting and we'll continue to keep watch and I look forward to see everyone's posts.