Form a balanced team with Hikaru Sorayama, a well-rounded bruiser who's good at almost everything.

Backstory

"Motion, Power, Clarity, Purpose--to fight is to experience the thrill of living!"

A free-spirited seeker of adventure who travels the world in search of new challenges and experiences. Treasure and fame hold no value for Hikaru. Instead, he searches for sights unseen and to test the limits of his own skills. He is good-natured and with a strong sense of personal justice, though he sometimes lacks patience and caution. He throws himself body and spirit into whatever the task at hand is, without looking back or hesitating.

As a student of geomancy–the magic of elements–who has some elemental heritage of his own, Hikaru is a fighter who utilizes the power of the world around him to bolster his strength in battle. After graduating from Argent University of Magic, Hikaru now travels the world on self-directed adventures in his quest to perfect an original martial arts style.

Pros

• A wide array of attacks and artifacts that work in many situations.
• Ability provides team great melee strength.
• Jack of all trades type who can fill gaps in team comps.

Cons

• Doesn’t particularly excel at anything outside melee combat.
• Doesn’t have access to all his tools at the same time.

Gameplay

Hikaru is the quintessential all-rounder. He’s able to do a variety of things to an above-average degree. With a deep pool of artifacts and attacks that are useful in a large number of situations, it is rare for Hikaru to be left with “nothing to do.” This means that Hikaru is quite an active Warden, often ready to fight and support at a moment’s notice. These qualities are brought out in his simple-yet-effective ability.

Hikaru’s Assists are worth +3 Power instead of the natural +2 Power everyone else gets. While plain on the surface, this often lets Hikaru overpower rivals and hold his own when outnumbered. Even when Hikaru isn’t actively being used, his existence on a team elevates everyone else’s combat capabilities by good margin.

Team Role

Hikaru is the Bruiser archetype personified. His attacks are not only powerful, but have versatile utility that let him play from nearly anywhere. While he is definitely a melee specialist thanks to his ability, Hikaru can confirm attacks from even far ranges while placing himself into advantageous positions. As such, Hikaru’s role on any team morphs based on its needs. 

Thanks to his flexibility, Hikaru can often choose when and where to engage foes, and prefers to attack them where they’re weakest. He might not be able to outfight the most powerful tanks in melee, but he doesn’t have to. Instead, he can harry them from a distance with his wider ranges.

Hikaru will shore up a team’s weaknesses without compromising on total capability. If you need a little more range, but don’t want to give up your melee prowess, Hikaru becomes an easy choice to slot in on a team. Of course, this comes at a cost—Hikaru’s ability in any given area is going to be worse than a specialist. He won’t outgun an actual sniper or consistently outspeed assassins.

Card Preview

Heart of the Mountain

Each of Hikaru’s cards allow him to emulate another archetype for a single attack. Heart of the Mountain lets Hikaru turn into a Tank. Its amazing power coupled with the “cannot be moved” give Hikaru an easy way to maintain control over space without fear of getting shoved out. What’s more, unlike many Tank-class cards, Heart of the Mountain’s range is fairly exceptional, letting Hikaru hit unsuspecting targets trying to poke him out of the way.

Eagle Badge is an artifact that gives +3 Power so long as you don’t get hit before your attack goes off. While the obvious combo is with fast attacks, you can also use Eagle Badge when the Warden isn’t a target to begin with, entirely negating the downside of the fragile keyword in the process.

Aerial Assault

This card turns Hikaru into an Assassin. With its uniquely powerful movement, Aerial Assault gives Hikaru the ability to flank opponents who think they are safe behind terrain or even ambush the enemy throne when it’s been left exposed. This also brings HIkaru into the fray, enabling both his ability and melee cards. All in all, Aerial Assault serves as an easy way to get Hikaru involved in any interaction while setting him up for future attacks.

Black Belt looks fairly innocuous at first, but it is one of the most flexible artifacts in the game. An unconditional Throw up to S can let you avoid attacks, get targets off key points, throw a squishy into your team, or even just provide you with bonus power thanks to a collision. Truly the only limit to this artifact is your imagination!

Seas Reach

This card lets Hikaru turn into a Support. Thanks to its long range and crazy displacement, Seas Reach allows Hikaru to provide covering fire from long distances, even beyond the massive X range. With its default L range and Pull M, this attack can hit enemies up to 36 inches away. That’s almost the entire board. Seas Reach is also Hikaru’s key utility card, giving him a fairly consistent way to reposition opponents without exposing himself to much danger. Whether he needs to Push someone off a point or Pull a ranged attacker into melee, Seas Reach lets Hikaru change the terms of engagement to one that gives him the leg up on his opponent.

Crisis Badge is not quite powerful early-on but proves to be crucial in many late-game throne-rush scenarios. This artifact can be used to bolster your attack when you’re trying to defend your throne from an enemy attack. However, it can also be used to buff your own attack against the enemy’s throne, hopefully getting a crucial point of damage in to end the game.

Slam (Normal)

Slam is very much like Hikaru himself. It does a little bit of everything but nothing too particularly well. However, also like Hikaru, the combination of all its effects is much greater than the sum of its parts. Slam lets a Warden reposition themselves AND reposition an opponent in one action, making one of the best attacks for taking control of points. What’s more, even if its base power is a mediocre 2, the Push can easily bump that up to 4 or 6 if you cause a collision. Even more if you Push them into your team for more Assists. Simple, yet highly effective.

Martial Bandana is probably the most niche part of HIkaru’s entire arsenal. However, it is extremely powerful in the right situations. This gives Hikaru’s entire team a bump in melee strength, letting ranged characters actually compete in melee, especially when they’re caught out of position thanks to an opponent’s artifact forcing them into melee.

Conclusion

Hikaru is the embodiment of the phrase “jack of all trades, master of none, but better than a master of one.” His flexibility and above average card quality are only held back by which of his specific cards are available at any given time. If you have an open team slot and have no idea who to put in, slotting Hikaru into your team is rarely the wrong answer.

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