[Art Not Yet Available]
Type: Creature
Race: Griffon
Quadrant: Regency
Element: Lightning
Cost: 4
Power: 2500
Effect: Whenever your opponent casts a spell, consume one of their tempo.
Set: Advent of Chaos (CF-01) Common
Flavor Text: not yet available
Writer Text: "Its wings reflect magic. This does not make it invulnerable, but be careful if it decides to 'punish' you for using yours."
The Element
Lightning's creatures are masters of interrupting and responding to their opponents, preventing them from doing certain things, discouraging them, or just notably affecting them when they do certain actions. This is usually done either by predicting what the opponent will do and having certain cards ready and waiting to lessen that impact, or by forcing them to do certain things in order to gain an advantage, and then taking that advantage away. Leon Paladi does not interrupt what the opponent can do very often, but it does usefully respond to a certain action they can take, and works well with effects that somehow force them to do what it damages them for doing. When used 'alone', Leon is mainly just a method of slowing people down, but can achieve 'lockdowns' of a particular type against spells, with a little effort, and combination with a card mentioned later.
The Combat Ability
Leon Paladi's combat ability is notably low, unfortunately. This makes it necessary to use Cost Reduction as much as one can when using it, but only in the first few turns. Even when it arrives early, it still can only defeat the earliest 'scouts' of the opposing forces, and given that if it is destroyed before the opponent actually casts a spell, it has lost most of its usefulness, Leon is not likely to be a card used for many 'tradeoff' type attacks. In this sense it is a support card mostly, especially since Lightning does not innately have many methods of increasing the power of its creatures, causing the player to need to use either very tactical methods or power boosts from other elements. Despite its own inability to make much of an impact on combat, it can, interestingly, make combat somewhat easier for the other creatures with it, and vice versa. When properly used, Leon Paladi's low power is offset by the fact that it is often well protected by other creatures and those other creatures are the priority for the opponent's destructive capacity. At this point, things stop being about the power, though, and become more focused around...
The Effect
Being somewhat conditional, the usefulness of Leon Paladi can vary greatly, sometimes having very little or no effect on the game, and at other times, especially when grouped together or carefully used, being entirely devastating. Defensive decks that also utilize its counterpart, Magical Phalanx Dissidia, are the ones that bring out the best in this card. Opponents tend to need more spells to break through defenses, and those that use only creatures may find themselves disadvantaged against Lightning's strong ability to defeat many creatures. The primary strength of the effect is seen when the opponent's flow is very strictly controlled to force them into positions where they lack the resources to retaliate, and then crush them swiftly with the available resources. This can be achieved even when the deck is not built of much other Lightning, and it can easily round out the numbers in many unfinished decks.
It is the support card nature of Leon Paladi that makes this most possible. Consumed tempo starts with the unused, setting opponents back further on the turn, and can force their hand further, causing them to play cards in a certain order, but due to the fact that spells are often best played after creatures are called, this may not be very limiting by itself. Similarly for Responcers, but combined with Dissidia, a powerful tactic becomes available if one has the tempo to sustain it. Each attempt to cast a spell robs the opponent of tempo, and even if they push through and finally achieve the spell's effect, their tempo can quickly suffer a severe blow, particularly if the Leon player has more than one in play. In fact, being able to 'stack' this effect is probably the most powerful aspect of it, and any method that results in the opponent needing to use spells against a player with more than one Leon Paladi active may push the game strongly in their direction, especially early on.
Ratings
Casual: 5/10
In the casual scene, Leon Paladi has a generally lower effectiveness, because players use less spells. Since its abilities are not critical to the flow, the rest of the deck tends to be the factor determining how the game goes, and Leon is only consistently useful in a few deck types. Even as 'basic filler', there are better options when in the state of game where opposing players are testing out new things that can do without spells easily, either not even having them in the deck, or not using them until Leon is somehow destroyed.
Tournament/Ladder: 8/10
In the tightly woven systems of competitive play, Leon's power becomes much more effective, both with and without combination tactics. Players either use more spells at this level of play, or find themselves unable to deal with the very creatures that Leon assists in protecting, those that ready themselves or cannot be attacked easily at all. The main thing stopping Leon from getting a perfect score in this area is the fact that it does not actually stop the spell, but in the early game, and combined with most tactics, it's enough to either delay them, or what comes after them.
Random: 6/10
A random draw in an RND duel that has one of the smallest impacts, or so it seems. The reality is that Leon is a good card to draw when you are winning or in the early stages, because with much less Cost Reduction available, the opponent needs every one of those tempo. It also enables 'stalling' strategies better than most cards in RND do, and can be strong in a faceoff. Its power is lost if the duel stretches out too long, though, since the opponent can simply build up so much tempo that the loss of one or two does not affect their plans.
Overall: 6/10 (rounded)
Any card that relies on the opponent doing something has the 'shortcoming' of being less useful, more often. It takes care and patience to make Leon Paladi work, but on the upside, once you have a good grasp of it, then it gains a lot of effectiveness. Sadly, spells do not usually make up as much of a deck as creatures do, and a skilled opponent can play around Leon somewhat. Lucky ones escape a bit less if one means to really push effectiveness.