Yokai in Azurite Sea Lets You Bounce and Reuse Items

Yokai – Enigmatic Inventor may be the antagonist of his movie, but he could be the film of many Sapphire decks that focus on items. While Hiram is still the better card, Yokai has a few tricks up his sleeve that Hiram doesn’t. Let’s break this card down and a few potential combos that could make including him in your Sapphire item deck worthwhile.

Items to use “Time To Upgrade” on

Bounce and reuse Pawpsicle

The first use case for Yokai’s “Time To Upgrade” ability is to simply pop a Pawpsicle, then bounce it back to your hand, and use it again for free. This lets you draw two cards off of a single Pawpsicle without having to send it to the discard.

Ink twice with Fishbone Quill

Another way I could see this ability being useful is if you were to use it with Fishbone Quill. You could Ink with your already in play Quill, bounce it, and then Ink again. That could open some pretty crazy ramp capabilities for decks that rely on the Quill.

Play Lucky Dime earlier

Part from letting you use item effects more than once in a turn, Yokai also makes playing bigger items easier. Lucky Dime can now come out much earlier than before thanks to Yokai’s ability. Just bounce a Pawpsicle or other item in play and play Lucky Dime for just the cost of five. This could also make playing Lucky Dime and using its ability in the same turn much more feasible.

While these combos are pretty cool, most likely players are still going to prefer running Hiram over this other four-cost character. Regardless, this powerful ability and two lore value baked into one makes Yokai a very compelling card for both casual and competitive players.