Legendary Six Samurai – Shi En – #SPWA-EN011
1 Warrior Tuner + 1+ non-Tuner “Six Samurai” monsters
Once per turn, when your opponent activates a Spell/Trap Card (Quick Effect): You can negate the activation, and if you do, destroy it. If this card on the field would be destroyed by battle or card effect, you can destroy another “Six Samurai” monster you control instead.
Date Reviewed: November 14th, 2024
Rating: 3.93
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is awful. 3 is average. 5 is excellent.
Reviews Below:
King of
Lullaby
Hello Pojo Fans,
Legendary Six Samurai – Shi En is our Throwback Thursday choice as it gets an upgrade tomorrow.
Warrior Tuner and a Six Samurai prevented Shi En from being thrown into any Synchro-Style deck that could use a negation weapon. Released in 2011, this thing could be hard to navigate on both sides. If you played it, you had to wait out the best Spell/Trap to negate, and sometimes the opponent just had the outs to get around Shi En. On the flip side, playing against it, you had to either burn a great Spell/Trap to force the negation out just to play your other stuff. It’s hard for players nowadays to imagine how a once per turn Spell/Trap negation monster was so powerful and such a nuisance. Its 2500ATK was surprisingly strong back then and its ease of summoning in the build and lack of hand traps made it a boss monster. Even with Gateway limited to 1 and then banned it was still a great monster for the archetype. It also carried the ability to destroy another Six Samurai monster instead to save itself from battle or card effect, so even if you had multiple outs it had to be a board-wipe card otherwise you weren’t getting this guy off the field.
A legitimate Synchro that helped make the archetype legit. He had support in Storm or Ragnarok to help with that task, but negation and being that kind of a boss monster helped a lot. The combo of Kageki to summon Kagemusha to Synchro Shi En was an auto-pilot move for us duelist who played back then. Even now with this new version here to help cover the other aspects of the game, this monster will still be ran in builds of Six Samurai because he’s too good to not be run.
Advanced- 4/5 Art- 4/5
Until Next Time,
KingofLullaby
Crunch$G
Throwback Thursday this week brings us to the classic boss monster for the archetype that’ll have an upgrade tomorrow: Legendary Six Samurai – Shi En.
Shi En is a Level 5 DARK Warrior Synchro with 2500 ATK and 1400 DEF. A nice ATK stat for a Level 5 Synchro, plus a DARK Warrior is great. Materials are any Warrior Tuner and any non-Tuner Six Samurai monster(s), so as specific to the archetype as it gets. The first effect is a soft once per turn and a Quick Effect you can trigger when the opponent activates a Spell/Trap, negating the activation and destroying it. Spell/Trap negation is always good to have, especially back then being harder to deal with a 2500 body with a Spell or Trap certainly getting negated. It’s a reason the card went to 1 for so many years, considering how many of these the opponent can spam out. Now it’s still good to stop a Spell/Trap that’ll start the opponent’s plays or break your board, so it has a place. Other effect lets you destroy another Six Samurai monster you control instead if it would be destroyed by battle or effect, making it a bit harder to get rid of for the opponent, especially if you destroy a Grandmaster with this to recover a Six Samurai from the grave. It’s still a good Synchro for the archetype and will likely still end up on the end board. Most likely it’ll be negating Traps like Evenly Matched or Imperm if you can get Naturia Beast on the field, but this is still something you’ll want to have to this day in the Deck.
Advanced Rating: 4/5
Art: 4.5/5 Not as big as Great Shogun Shien, but the armor is cooler.
Mighty
Vee
While it may have been easy to forget in Advanced, this week’s Throwback Thursday card is in the spotlight once again; Legendary Six Samurai – Shi En is today’s card, a level 5 DARK Warrior Synchro monster. Its requirements are rather finicky, requiring a Warrior Tuner and any number of non-Tuner Six Samurai monsters, so you’d struggle to make this outside of Six Samurai. In standard builds, it’s pretty easy to make with Tactical Trainer of the Six Samurai and any of the level 3 monsters. Despite only being level 5, its attack stat is quite good, with a solid 2500, though its 1400 defense leaves a lot to be desired.
Shi En comes with two effects, the first a soft once per turn effect to negate an opponent’s Spell or Trap card activation then destroy it. It’s a simple effect that complements the new boss nicely, and arguably one of the progenitors of the negate boss trend. Shi En’s other effect, amusingly not once per turn, lets you save it from being destroyed by battle or card effect by destroying another Six Samurai you control in its place. This actually won’t come up too often, but it is nice if you happen to have any jobbers laying around. Shi En is a bit unassuming in modern Yugioh, but for its time, it was a menace, as it was often flanked by other sub bosses like Naturia Beast or Naturia Barkion (or even multiple Shi Ens, since the negate isn’t hard once per turn) as well as floodgate backrow you hard drew by looping Six Samurai United and Gateway of the Six, to the point where Shi En was limited for a time in both regions. As Six Samurai’s loop abilities got stronger and more powerful generic monsters were released, Shi En was eschewed in favor of actual FTKs or more aggressive boards. Funnily enough, it became a menace in Duel Links as well, with Shi En and Six Style – Dual Wield being a very common and deceptively vicious endboard. With the new support, you’re actually encouraged to play Shi En once more, and while naysayers still cling to the FTK builds, I will still play it!
+Solid negation that pairs well with the other Shi En
+Great stats for its level
-Protection isn’t great
-Not worth making in hyper combo-focused builds
Advanced: 3.75/5
Art: 4/5 I love the pose, but it took me until earlier this year to realize his helmet actually shows a creepy smile.
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