Grinder Golem – Yu-Gi-Oh! Review (2008)

Crunch$G

This week we are looking at some banned cards, but not just any banned cards. These banned cards are cards the site has never looked at before, some of which will really surprise some of you like they did me. We are starting off with Grinder Golem.

Grinder Golem is a Level 8 DARK Fiend with 3000 ATK and 300 DEF. Level 8 and DARK gives you Allure of Darkness and Trade-In bait, which is lovely, ATK is great but DEF is poor, and I’m fine with the Fiend type. Grinder Golem cannot be Normal Summoned or Set and must first be Special Summoned from your hand to your opponent’s field by you Special Summoning two Grinder Tokens (Fiend/DARK/Level 1/ATK 0/DEF 0) to your side of the field in Attack Position and you cannot Normal Summon or Set the turn you summon Grinder Golem off this effect. Notice the lack of a once per turn clause anywhere, that’ll come into play in a bit. Grinder Golem for years has had niche uses with its best being Inferno Tempest for your tokens to attack the Grinder Golem in Attack Position so you could take 3000 damage to trigger Inferno Tempest, which would banish every monster from both player’s decks and graveyards. It’s very powerful, but not consistent and you are still leaving Grinder Golem on your opponent’s field. This card became good with Link Summoning, as the tokens give you an instant Link-2, but Akashic Magician could bounce Grinder Golem to your hand to summon again for more Tokens and you mix this with the now banned Firewall Dragon and the impending Security Dragon, you could make massive Link Plays. Danger! variants used Grinder Golem as well since you don’t have to Normal Summon the Danger! monsters and Grinder Golem helped you summon Saryuja Skull Dread to help with the Slash Draw FTK, and summoning Grinder Golem gave them a monster so you could activate Slash Draw. It helped so much Link Spam and with Security Dragon on its way to the TCG, Grinder Golem recently saw itself go from one to zero. This is a massive case of Link Summoning breaking a card, especially Links that bounced Grinder Golem to your hand.

Advanced Rating: 4.5/5

Art: 4/5 This isn’t a Golem I’d want to upset.

Alex
Searcy

Welcome to Ban week!  Now, true, the new list won’t happen until a little while from now, but this isn’t a traditional Ban week as we’ve usually done them.  Austin brought to my attention the list of cards that are Banned that we’ve never reviewed (some of which are rather old) so he picked a couple for this week (today and tomorrow) and I chose a couple (Weds and Fri) and we have a surprise for Throwback Thursday!

Grinder Golem, as mentioned is Banned (Limited in the OCG) and is a Dark, Level 8 Monster, who is a Fiend with an awesome 3000 attack (and a not so awesome 300 defense).  This card can’t be Normal Summoned or Set and has to be Special Summoned first (from your Hand), to your opponent’s Field, by giving yourself two Tokens (0 atk/def, Level 1/Fiend/Dark).

If you are successful in this Special Summon (and note, that you CAN Special Summon this card normally from the Graveyard, or what have you, after it leaves the Field after its initial Special Summon) you can’t Normal Summon or Set the rest of the turn.  Now the obvious abuse here, is how easy it is to Link with the two free Tokens Grinder Golem generates.

You lose a Normal Summon/Set, but not the ability to Link Summon…or XYZ or Synchro, or Special Summon from the Deck, Extra Deck, Graveayrd…and even though you gave your opponent a 3000 attack Monster, you have your turn to figure out how to destroy it.  Might be hard to get over with the 3000 attack, but Magic or Trap spin this card off the Field, and there you go.  I think it’s worth of its spot of being Banned.

Rating:  Banned/5 but if not, I’d give it a 4.75/5

Art:  4/5  Definitely a Machine, the saw on top is fun.  Lots of spikes, the claws are menacing enough.  I wouldn’t want to fight that thing.

Baneful

Who would’ve thought that this unremarkable promo card from 10 years ago which had an unviable novelty FTK deck would suddenly be so strong in this Link Summoning meta and have to get banned.