Da Qiao SP
Da Qiao 大乔  
Good Times Quickly Passing 韶光易逝

Smile 言笑
Da Qiao can place any of her diamond-suited cards into the judgement area of any character. This card is then known as a Smile. A character with a Smile in their judgement area places all cards in their judgement area at the beginning of their turn.

Quiet Safety 安娴
Whenever Da Qiao damages another character with an Attack, she can choose to prevent this damage and force the victim to discard one of their hand cards instead. Afterwards, Da Qiao draws one card. Whenever another character targets Da Qiao with an Attack, Da Qiao can discard one hand card to render the Attack ineffective. Then, the attacking character draws one card. 
Clarification:
  • Da Qiao can use any diamond-suited card to activate "Smile," including those in her hand and in her equipment area.
  • Note that a character with a Smile in their judgement area is effective immune to time-delay tool cards. A character with a Smile in their judgement area takes pending time delay tool cards and places them into their hand before their judgement phase. 
  • A character with a Smile in their judgement area places the Smile in their hand at the beginning of their turn along with their pending delay-tool cards.
  • Smiles cannot be targeted by Break, Steal, or Negate.
  • Da Qiao can target herself with "Smile."
  • When Da Qiao activates "Quiet Safety" on a character she damages with an Attack, the victim chooses the hand card to discard.
 Strengths Weaknesses
  • "Smile" has a couple of uses. SP Da Qiao can use this ability to effective 'pass' a diamond-suited card to another character as a Smile. Because Smiles cannot be removed from a character's judgement area, SP Da Qiao can ensure that the targeted character will receive this card and be able to use it during their next turn. Also, SP Da Qiao can use "Smile" to thwart an opponent's attempt to target on of her allies with a delay-tool card. This ability is the most powerful when SP Da Qiao places a Smile in the judgement area of an ally that already has pending delay-tool cards. Her enemies may not have taken this possibility into account and will receive a nasty surprise when the victim takes possession of the delay-tool card and uses it against them.
  • Because SP Da Qiao can keep a Smile that she places in her judgement area, she picks it up at the beginning of her turn. As a result, she can place the Smile back in her judgement area after every turn and enemies cannot do anything to remove it from her area. This essentially gives her immunity to delay-tool cards.
  • "Quiet Safety" is useful as it always provides defense against an Attack with Wine so long as SP Da Qiao has at least one hand card. It is particularly useful against characters who have abilities that make their Attacks more powerful or difficult to avoid like Ma Chao, Ma Dai, SP Zhang Fei, etc.
  • "Quiet Safety" is useful offensively when Da Qiao only has elemental Attacks and she wants to use them against a character that is Chained to her. 
  • "Smile" is not without its limitations. While it can be used to protect an ally from delay-tool cards, experienced enemies will not place delay-tool cards on a character that has a Smile in their judgement area. Also, it should be noted that delay-tool cards only make up 4.3% of the deck.
  • "Quiet Safety" is not usually not useful in offensive situations. More often than not, it is better to deal one unit of damage than to force the enemy to discard one hand card and allow yourself to draw one card, especially since the enemy chooses the hand card to be discarded. 
  • Using "Quiet Safety" in a defensive manner to prevent damage from Attacks is inferior to using an Escape as it allows the attacker to draw one card. 
  • SP Da Qiao has no defense against non-delay tool cards and abilities that deal direct damage.

Notable Combinations:
  • Yan Liang & Wen Chou/Xun Yu/Xun You/Zhang Jiao/Dian Wei/etc - These are examples of characters that can easily use offensive tool cards or have abilities that deal direct damage. These characters can bypass SP Da Qiao's "Quiet Safety."
KingSP Da Qiao is a poor king choice. Rebels can defeat her easily by picking characters that can deal direct damage and bypass "Quiet Safety."
LoyalistSP Da Qiao is a competent loyalist. She can protect the king with "Smile." This is particularly useful on the first round in which rebels will target the king with delay-tool cards without knowing SP Da Qiao's allegiance. 
RebelSP Da Qiao is a competent rebel. She can use "Smile" to protect her team from delay tool cards and also pass them diamond-suited cards.
SpySP Da Qiao is a poor spy. She is most useful in team situations and she does not have enough firepower to change the game if one side gains an advantage over the other side.

Final Remarks:
SP Da Qiao is yet another flawed addition to the 2012 SP collection. The original's Da Qiao's biggest weakness is that her only defensive maneuver is to redirect Attacks directed at her to her enemies via "Displace." This is problematic for her when more complex expansions are released in the game, because new characters have abilities that can cause damage without the use of an Attack. SP Da Qiao was created to be more well-balanced. SP Da Qiao's "Quiet Safety" is more useful than "Displace" when she cannot reach enemies or when she is in one-on-one situations, but it takes away the deterrent of playing an Attack on SP Da Qiao without taking away her weakness to direct-damage abilities and non-delay tool cards. In other words, this change does not address the original Da Qiao's weaknesses.

While we prefer the original Da Qiao, SP Da Qiao at least seems to be well-balanced with the rest of the San Guo Sha cast. When using SP Da Qiao, it is good to always target yourself with "Smile" whenever possible. It is useful to always have a diamond-suited card so you can give it to an ally if an enemy targets them with a delay-tool card. After your enemies grow wise to this ability, it is often more useful to just use this ability to pass diamond-suited cards to your enemies. Because SP Da Qiao has an ability that protects her against Attacks ("Quiet Safety"), she does not have as much of a use for Escapes. Since most Escapes are diamonds, you can use "Smile" to pass these cards to allies who need them more than you do. 

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