Tuesday

Brotherhood of the Fire Fist Rhino adding to a well supported an ever growing Archtype of cards. What a little gem this guy is. He's a Fire Monster (go figure) with 1700 attack and 1400 defense, and a Level 4 Beast Warrior. Now when a Fire Fist Monster you control is attacked, during the Damage Step you can send a face-up Fire Formation Magic or Trap card and a Fire Fist Monster from your Hand to the Graveyard to have the attacked Monster gain attack to the discarded Monster, during the Damage Calculation. You can use this once a Battle, but not once per turn. Yes it's dependent on having the right cards on the Field and in your Hand at the same time, and it is (semi) counterproductive to send your Fire Formation Magic or Trap cards to the Graveyard (not that they don't recycle easily) but this guy is a winner.

Ratings:

Traditional: 2.75/5
Advanced: 3.75/5
Art: 4.5/5 The Fire Fist/Formation cards seem to have cool art

Today's COTD Review is one of the Fire Fists, Rhino, a Rare from the Lord of the Tachyon Galaxy Booster Set.

This Level 4 FIRE-Attribute Beast-Warrior has a sub-par 1700 ATK with 1400 DEF with an interesting effect.

"If a "Fire Fist" monster you control attacks or is attacked, during damage calculation (in either player's turn): You can send 1 face-up "Fire Formation" Spell/Trap Card you control and 1 "Fire Fist" monster from your hand to the Graveyard once per battle; your attacking/attacked monster gains ATK equal to the original ATK of the monster sent to the Graveyard, during damage calculation only."

Basically, if you can afford the resources, this card basically has a built-in Honest/Kalut effect. The only problem is that since it is an effect on the field, it's not much of a surprise. Also, to add to this, it costs a suitable amount of resources of at least 2 cards and you have to hold back at least 1-2 Fire Fists to make use of this card effect. Lastly, depending on what you play will determine how useful this monster is. Since the ATK gain is dependent on the Fire Fist monster sent from your hand to the Graveyard, playing it in a deck with a bunch of low ATK Fire Fists like Spirit would not do you much good.

The good news is that Tenki is basically a free card to spend for it, Gyokkou is an extra resource but you lose the temporary Spell/Trap lock, Tensu could very well be spent at almost no loss to you.

The issue is keeping the correct Fire Fists in your hand. Bear isn't bad at 1600 ATK but it is best to be played. Dragon is more likely since it has 1800 ATK and you may not need it as bad as you do with Bear. Swellow and Coyote both has a niche in here with its 2000 ATK. Lastly, this effect can be used via direct attacks which can quickly end games off.

All-in-all, it's not a bad tech card. I do question its value since its surprise factor is easily seen however I can see some players teching it as a one-of for Dragon Turbo as a means to get Fire Fists in the Graveyard to be brought back with Dragon and with the massive search ability the deck has.

Traditional Format: 1/5 (It doesn't belong there.)
Advanced Format: 2/5 (It's not awful but it's not exactly needed either. Some could use it at 1 copy but most will make a case that you don't need this. This is strictly up to the player's playstyle.)

There are things called "hand traps." The most common ones are Effect Veiler, Maxx "C", Battle Fader, Swift Scarecrow, Gorz, Trageodia, and Honest. They're called "hand traps" because they pop right out of the hand and smack you in the face, and can possibly change the whole game.

Rhino is...different. It's similar to Honest in how it uses a monster in your hand to boost your ATK at the last second, but since Rhino needs to be faceup on the field, it's a lot easier to "see it coming." This does mean it's reusable and it's not even limited to once per turn, so long as you have faceup Formation cards in your Spell/Trap Zones (actually not hard since a lot of Fire Fist monsters can search them right out of the deck) and a Fire Fist monster in your hand (that gets to be more uncomfortable).

If you're unfamiliar with the Fire Fist playstyle, the four most important cards are probably the monsters Gorilla and Bear, and the Continuous Spells Tenki and Tensu. Gorilla and Bear have different effects that allow them to sacrifice a Formation card to destroy either a monster or Spell/Trap, and their other effects let you search a Formation card from your deck and set it on the field. Tenki lets you search a Beast-Warrior (so basically all Fire Fists) from your deck and Tensu lets you summon one from your hand each turn. Rhino consumes a lot of resources just to make sure you can't be defeated by battle, while Gorilla and Bear just sacrifice one card and blow stuff up (and Gorilla and Bear are nice enough to replace the card they sacrificed).

Rhino's effect can be annoyingly fun, but I feel Advanced is becoming a lot like Traditional, where Normal Summoning doesn't happen as much, monsters are more likely to die by effects rather than battle, and it's likely to lose 8000 LP in one turn. It's not bad; Fire Fists as a whole just have better things to do.

Trad: 1

Adv: 2 (really, you probably would be better off using the one-time use Shrink to cut your opponent's monsters down, or if you're really creative, you can experiment with Fairy Box or Mirror Wall)

Aesthetics: 4/5 All Fire Fist monsters are based off of the "36 Heavenly Spirits of the 108 Liangshan Heroes" in Shi Nai'an's novel Water Margin published in China around year 1300. It talks about 108 rebels that band together to combat their corrupt government and specifically focuses on 36 of them. Rhino is based off Spirit #19, Suo Chao, who uses a huge golden axe. Suo Chao turned into one of the Eight Tiger Cub Vanguard Generals. He was nicknamed the Impatient Vanguard and was given the title of Martial Gentleman of Loyalty.

Philosophy Corner: "Only friends so close could fight so much." -Astral, voiced by Marc Thompson in the anime Yu-Gi-Oh Zexal created by Kazuki Takahashi

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