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Pojo's Yu-Gi-Oh Card of the Day

Reviewer’s Choice

Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale 1 being the worst.
3 ... average. 5 is the highest rating.


Date Reviewed - 08.12.05

 

Lord
Tranorix
Reviewer’s Choice

I considered reviewing Serpent Night Dragon again, but I realized that would be a hilariously pointless cliché to perpetuate. So I’m going to review Different Dimension Dragon, a card I’ve never gotten a chance to.

With only 1200 ATK and 1500 DEF, this is not a powerful tribute monster. But DDD has an advantage – two, actually: he can be Special Summoned by both Shining Angel and Masked Dragon. He also has two useful effects.

For one thing, he can’t be destroyed by non-targeting Spells and Traps. Torrential Tribute won’t kill him. Lightning Vortex won’t kill him. Mirror Force won’t kill him. These can be very useful, especially when you tribute something for DDD and activate Torrential yourself, destroying a bunch of your opponent’s monsters but keeping one of your own.

He also can’t be killed in battle by any monster with less than 1901 ATK. The only commonly played non-tribute monsters that can destroy DDD in battle are Berserk Gorilla, Giant Orc, Goblin Attack Force and perhaps Zombyra the Dark – and none of them see that much play.

This monster’s not very powerful, but it has good points. It’s a great staller, and it’s great Morph bait for Dark Balter the Terrible. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend him for cookie cutters, but I’d definitely run him in a Dragon Deck.

CCGCC: 3/5
Dragon Deck: 4/5
OVERALL RATING: 3.5/5
 

ExMinion OfDarkness
Reviewer's Choice for Underrated Tribute:
Kaiser Glider

Today's Reviewer's Choice is Kaiser Glider, a Tribute monster I felt should have seen just a bit more play than it did, outshined by the "staples". Every time I've seen Kaiser Glider actually played by lower-tier players, it ended up giving them advantage. A few good but small effects sometimes outweigh one better one, and for those players it did. Monsters such as Kaiser Glider actually deserve a second look instead of a straight trip to the worthless bulk resell pile.

Kaiser's first effect is actually useful given the main Tribute monster being played, which is Jinzo. Really, it's worth a try, with traps turned off, usually he'll get a successful kill against the machine and be left standing. I have seen a few other players run Mobius the Frost Monarch either mained or sided, and it would get its effect against him as well. Sadly, there aren't that many other 2,400 ATK monsters that he'll get to cheat out of a kill. Please, don't get me wrong with him though. You're better off attacking directly than getting a kamikaze against another 2400.

Kaiser's second (and slightly better) effect is a little bounce at the end. Returning one monster to the hand isn't usually that great, but given when it activates it helps here. Equalizing the field after he's destroyed, the one monster that everyone plays that'd get past that 2400, BLS, would have to waste his removal effect instead of attcking. Maybe the fact that he's a decent Light type would get him in more decks if it weren't for Cyber Dragon coming out. Even the most seasoned players would blink and have to figure out a way around his effects if he was summoned against them.

Someday, you might want to try this instead of one of your other Tribute monsters if you get a chance, even if it's only casually. Usually you'd at least raise a few eyebrows and frustrate some opponents. Cards like this, that could have been used earlier, only end up getting noticed when they're nearly obsolete. Kaiser is worth trying in at least one fun duel when you've been playing the same thing week after week otherwise. Seriously, give the guy a second look. (And you might want to give this review a second look at well if you missed the other thing I was trying to say.)
2.75/5

SandTrap
Thestalos the Firestorm Monarch

LoL, my choice for my favorite/underplayed tribute monster is, of course, Thestalos the Firestorm Monarch. How could I resist? xD.

Thestalos first hit the big scene when I pioneered Soul Control and made Top 4 at the Pomona Shonen Jump Championship Tournament. Little do people know that I also used Soul Control, and thus Thestalos, at the previous SJC as well, placing 16th place next to my good friend, Jae Kim, who placed 15th.

Hand disruption has always been a good thing in YGO, yet Thestalos never really got the attention it deserved for a long, long time. The fact that it was a tribute monster was probably the determining factor in why it hadn't seen much play at all.

But combined with Soul Exchange, you could actually create card advantage by playing the two together.
Play Soul Exchange on your opponent's monster (such as a Magician of Faith), and use it as your sacrifice for Thestalos the Firestorm Monarch. Then Thestalos's effect kicks in, discarding a card from your opponent's hand. In the end, you lose Soul Exchange while your opponent loses a monster and a card from hand, thus a two-for-one combo. Even if Thestalos ran into a RIng or a Bottomless Trap Hole, the overall combo would result in a two-for-three, still a plus one advantage.

So, why hasn't Thestalos seen much play lately? Well, with the metagame focusing on Scapegoat, Metamorphosis, Thousand-Eyes Restrict, Tsukuyomi, and Book of Moon, it's rough times for Thestalos.
Tsukuyomi can take out Thestalos's 1000 DEF by itself, and then Book of Moon can set up for a similar situation. It is still playable, as the French representative netdecked Soul Control and used Thestalos, but only like one, ugh. Bad Soul Control deck; the representative apparently doesn't understand the concept behind the deck, but oh well.

With the right defense, Thestalos can still be played safely and help increase your overall card advantage.
Very playable indeed... ;).

Rating: 5/5. Me not remember what 'bias' means. xD
 

Coin Flip
Today I review Guardian Sphinx.
 
 There are a number of good things about Guardian Sphinx. The DEF, in particular, is a powerful half of him. 1700 ATK is less than optimal, but you don’t want to keep him in attack position. Putting him into DEF means some bad, bad stuff for your opponent.
 
 This guy produces a loop of sorts. The loop would be your opponent summoning any monster that is unable to take this guy out, and then you blowing it back to his hand. Pojo.com forumgoers, now is your chance to take another quote that is a lot funnier out of context (in this case, don’t include the last 5 words of a sentence) and put it in your signature.
 
 Now I’m going to tell you why a monster this awesome doesn’t see tournament play.
 
 I have rarely played this guy, but I knew how to play him when I did. I also know how to play against him, and most people who could end a Regional with four losses (and I’m talking about the real Regionals, the ones in California with 9 rounds) know how to play against him.
 
 The idea is that this guy may be a stud of a monster in premise, but it’s still just a monster, a Tribute Monster no less, with an effect that is easily worked around and minimal defense against The List.
 
 Not to mention the multitude of ways this card works against you. I played against it at Regionals in May and was completely uninterested in it first game. Actually, I enjoyed it. The opponent was forced to return my Breaker repeatedly, and then I just summoned Breaker one last time, attacked the Sphinx, and then Snatched it. And then sideboard came in… Whoo! GG 2-0 plz re
 
 However, it is a monster with promise. Imagine using it with, say, Creature Swap or something. Use Breaker, blow up a m/t, Creature Swap, then return Breaker. Secksay.
 
 However, it lacks the playability to go anywhere except well-built bounces.
 
 General:
 2.2/5 Traditional
 3/5 Advanced
 
 Bounce:
 3/5 Traditional
 3.5/5 Advanced
Snapper For the first time in… months, we're having another Reviewer's Choice. For today's choice we're supposed to be reviewing a Tribute Monster, and let me tell you this: there are a lot of Level 5 or more monsters. So after a painstaking two minutes, I came to the conclusion that I have no desire to review most of the existing Tribute Monster because they a) are from CRV (which we'll be getting to next week [probably]), b) have been reviewed recently, or c) are crap. But after narrowing the list of 250 some odd monsters down to 3, I've decided to review an old favorite of mine, a monster that lead to the creation of my first ever competitive Deck: Dark Ruler Ha Des.

With 2450 ATK, Ha Des becomes one of the nine TCG Level 5 or 6 monsters to have an ATK that exceeds 2400. In fact, of the nine, only two of the monsters have any likelihood to be used competitively, Ha Des being one of them. Statistics aside, Ha Des obviously has a very good ATK, and is able to best almost any monster your opponent can summon. He's also a Fiend, which gives him perks while on the field with a Dark Ruler Ha Des. But wait! Ha Des IS Dark Ruler Ha Des! ZOMG! That like totally and non-biasedly makes him that much better!

While Ha Des is face-up on the field, the effects of monsters destroyed by Fiends in battle are negated. To be blunt, this effect ROX!!1! If Ha Des or one of his fellow demons (like Slate Warrior, Dark Necrofear, and Newdoria) destroys a D. D., Sangan, Sinister Serpent, Mystic Tomato, Magician of Faith, and any similar monster, their effects won't activate. This allows you and your beasts of the netherworld to freely attack any monster you desire without needing to worry about any nasty consequences the monster may cause.

With an effect like that of Ha Des, it's a wonder why it doesn't see more play. The answer is simple: Ha Des can't be revived. Since he was released in a time in which dump and revive was a popular tactic, Ha Des was usually ignored due to this little drawback. But you may wonder, since this in no longer the most popular or only way to summon a monster, why hasn't Ha Des seen more play. The phrase, "Out of sight, out of mind" comes to me, and easily explains why Ha Des is so neglected.

While this little drawback is rather inconvenient, there are ways around it.
The most common method of avoiding this drawback comes with one of Ha Des's fellow Fiends, Dark Necrofear. Should you remove Ha Des from the Graveyard to summon Necrofear, Ha Des can be returned to the field by the likes of Dimension Fusion. There are other methods of going around this little inconvenience of an effect, but in a Deck with two Dark Necrofears (the Deck most likely to give Ha Des a home), this is by far the best method.

Overall, Ha Des is a great monster that really makes Fiend Decks worthwhile.
Should stronger/more popular Fiends ever be released, Ha Des may finally obtain the play he so thoroughly deserves.

Advanced: 4/5. Because people on use Effect Monsters, Ha Des becomes that much better.
Traditional: 3/5. Not being able to use Monster Reborn with it is a drawback, but I don’t see what everyone has against Tribute Summons…
Overall: 3.5/5.
Art: 4.5/5. I can stand the loss of his horns, but the burglary of his fruit punch is unforgivable. CURSE YOU KONAMI FOR ROBBING THE KING OF THE DAMNED OF HIS FAVORITE BEVERAGE!!!
 
dawnyoshi Well, since today is reviewer’s choice, I’ll go ahead and give you a basic breakdown on Criosphinx. Think of my Metagame article, except I blatantly tell you which combos are nice with it. ;)

Criosphinx is intriguing. Its DEF makes sure it just doesn’t bend over to Tsukuyomi, it can be special summoned through Giant Rat (which is a really good attribute-tutor already), and it turns bounce into card advantage. Can we say “nifty”? This card combos incredibly well with the trap card Ordeal of a Traveler, which was already a solid bounce-card in the first place. It turns Compulsory Evacuation Device into solid removal as well. Now imagine this with Abyss Soldier and Penguin Soldier in some mutated water-sphinx hybrid. +2 advantages rock.

In limited, you have virtually no methods of bounce available. It’s a combo card in a set where you should be drafting for Monk Fighter and Lone Wolf. Why are you even looking at Criosphinx? Put Lone Wolf and Monk Fighter face-down in front of you now!

Traditional: 2/5
Advanced: 3/5
Limited: 1/5 (because there’s only two cards you want in TLM sealed)
 

Otaku

Name: Enraged Muka Muka

Set: Soul of the Duelist

Level: 5

Attribute: Earth

Type: Rock

Effect: Increase the ATK and DEF of this card by 400 points for each card in your hand.

ATK: 1200

DEF: 800

 

Stats                : Enraged Muka Muka is an interesting card.  It is Level 5, which means that if you have any reason to run it, then you enjoy having something you can use Metamorphosis on to get some handy Monsters.  It is Earth, which isn’t as good as being Light or Dark (Chaos Food), but still have some nice options.  The Type is one that recently got a boost: Rock.  Again, not the best, but not the worst.  Next is where we begin to worry: the ATK is just 1200!  The only real bright side is this can be searched by Sangan and Special Summoned from the deck by Last Will and Giant Rat.  The DEF is an even lower and more pitiful 800.  Since this is supposed to be an underrated Monster, that better be one great effect, huh?

 

Effect(s)            : For each card in your hand, this card gets a 400 point bonus to both ATK and DEF.  This is an 'okay' effect.  It isn’t stellar, but it’s not too bad: obviously not something good when you have no hand, and pretty sad with just one card in hand, but at two cards in hand, it’s at least strong enough to suicide a Vampire Lord, and most duelists try to keep at least two cards in their hand.  If you have three cards, which isn’t unreasonable, you have a very solid 2400/2000 Level 5 Monster, and anything higher is gravy.

 

There is a small downside though: it will make it a bit painful to play cards since that will lower this Monster’s attack.

 

Uses and

Combinations  : Some are probably already thinking “even if this card ends up being any good, why not just run the original Muka Muka?  It only gets 100 points less per card, and is a level 2, so I can protect it with Gravity Bind and Level Limit-Area B.”  That is a very good question, and one I have asked myself.  Fortunately, I have an answer that actually gives us a reason for using Enraged Muka Muka.  First, for either of them, you want a way to increase your hand size.  Given Yu-Gi-Oh’s rather limited pool for this, your best bet will be some elaborate combo.  My preferred method is using Shien’s Spy or Creature Swap to give my opponent a Sasuke Samurai #3.  Suicide something with less than 1000 ATK into it and you will end up with a hand of seven cards… which pumps Enraged Muka Muka up to 4000/3600.  Now, you can still get a respectable 2700/2400 using a normal Muka Muka with that trick, and you can protect it as mentioned above.  Indeed, it is a good idea to do both.  You also want to include Giant Trunade.  Simply build up the small, disposable Muka Muka, use Giant Trunade to clear the field of Spells and Traps… and increase your hand size.  Now Enraged Muka Muka is free to play as well.

 

Ratings

 

Traditional       : 1/5-Too much effort makes it very impractical.

 

Advanced        : 3/5-This is in a deck built around it and the original Muka Muka.  Such a deck looks fun but isn’t especially practical, though I could be wrong.  After all, it focuses on giving the user both an extreme hand advantage and strong field presence.  Oh, and it’s not an automatic perfect score in its own deck since such decks can also use the original Muka Muka.

 

Limited            : 4/5-Of course, this assumes you have a decent lead.  If not, then it’s basically a dead draw.  But if you do get it into play, eventually you’ll find it pointless to summon more Monsters at which point this will just keep growing stronger.

 

Summary

I don’t here people talk about this card much, and I never really considered Enraged Muka Muka until I started working on a legalized version of a Strings character deck.  It is about as close to Slifer as we can get, and all though it’s very combo sensitive, it does excel by doing what is “common” sense for this game: finding ways to get a large hand size and a strong Monster in play.

 


Dark Paladin
As this week comes to a close, we come to a Reviewer's Choice where we review our favorite Tribute monster or one we believe to be underrated.

I went with the first option, and I review my favorite tribute monster in the entire game. You all know of my love for Spellcasters, so you probably expect Dark Magician or DMoC, but no. My favorite tribute monster is...

Airknight Parshath (bet you didn't see that one coming)

I won't bore you with the stats and effect, on accounts of everyone already knows that. This card is great in beatdown adding speed to the deck, and it's also God in a trample deck. Those of you who know me know I love trample.

1900 isn't quite as strong as I'd like Airknight to be but he is such a great card. Built in trample is great, even for a 1900 attack tribute monster. If that weren't enough, you get to draw one card each time Airknight does damage.

Hand Management is everything in this game, especially in Traditional with Yata still looming around. Also, in case anyone forgot, Airknight IS a Fairy giving him an excellent place in those decks.

I almost feel bad doing a short review on a great card.

Ratings:

3.6/5 Traditional HAND MANAGEMENT vs. Yata
4.1/5 Traditional Fairy
4.6/5 Traditional Trample

4.1/5 Advanced Hand Management
4.6/5 Advanced Fairy
4.9/5 Advanced Trample

Art: 4.5/5 Love it, absolutely love it.

You stay classy, Planet Earth :)
 
Rj Today is Reviewers Choice! The card I am picking is...

Zaborg the Thunder Monarch
Attrib: Light
Type: Thunder/Effect
Level:5
Atk: 2400
Def: 1000
When this card is Tribute Summoned successfully, destroy 1 monster on the field.
Ahh. Good old Zaborg! I remember back when AST first came out, I was at the mall, and this neat little stand that I would go to every day, had some AST Singles in. I was good friends with the guy who worked there, so ever day when I would go to the mall(Every weekend), I would hand out with him, and talk about Sports/Yugioh/Whatever. After scoping out chicks, of course ;D. This neat little shop was right next to a Smoothie King, and other cool crap like that. So it was ideal to hang out at. This is where I bought 3 Zaborgs, rofl.

He looked so cool, I read the effect and was like "Omg, this thing is hot.". I brought it to my local shop, put 2 in my chaos deck, tested it out, and it was godly. Im talking, tribute Sangan, destroy their Shining Angel, and search out my Yata =/. Gg.

Now, in _this_ metagame, it can be even better. Hitting their face down Magician Of Faith or Night Assailant can be nice. Also, Many decks with BLS + Jinzo and Airknight, or other random tributes, use a single Spirit Reaper. This guy owns him. A LOT. Topdecking with a f/d Sinister? All he has is Reaper? That should protect him, right? Nope xD. Tribute for Zaborg. Its also light, it is a Thunder type, refer to: Jaeloves article on no support for some types, lol. BUT, it is light, so it helps chaos, which is what your running, right? It's 2400, = Pwns every played tribute monster, except DMoC. God this thing is hot.

My friend Glenn (Creator of "PWNdas" on Metgame.com, Houston Sjc) is going to be mad at me that I gave away his new tech right before Sjc Indy. Say Glenn, I got you back =/. Loser ;oooooo.

Well, enough of my rambling. This thing is pretty solid, definitely the Second best Monarch. Mobius is a bit better, but this could help you out a lot more in this day and age.

Traditional: 3/5, Its pretty solid, I don't remember much about Traditional ;D.

Advanced.: 3.5/5, Even though it will mostly get shunned for Jinzo and Airknight, or Airknight x2, something like that, its still very solid.

-Rj
 

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