Block Dragon – Yu-Gi-Oh! Throwback Thursday (2016)

King of
Lullaby

Hello Pojo Fans,

Our Throwback Thursday choice today is the newly banned Block Dragon.

This guy needed to be banned, his card pool and abilities have grown since first being released and at first he wasn’t much to look at, but now he is a menace to the meta.

Needing three EARTH monsters banished isn’t the hardest thing to come by, especially when they can be in the grave or in your hand. Many decks that run no EARTH monsters can still make EARTH monsters through their Extra Deck, but we’ll stick to the decks that can really abuse this card. You get a 3000DEF with 2500ATK on the surface that protects all Rock-Types from card destruction effects (self-protection and blanket Type protection is fantastic). His search ability with Rock-Type monsters will net you at least a 1-for-1 with Block Dragon searching another copy of himself. Sure, he can only use this effect once per turn, but he can Special Summon himself from the grave or hand any amount of times he wants per turn. Link climbing with this guy or abusing that +3 potential is what made it such a broken monsters. Gem-Knight, Gogogo, Koa’ki Meiru, Magnet Warrior, Megalith, Dino and Adamancipator benefit incredibly from this monster, with the last two being a main source for its banning. Adamancipator can already plus off their effects with ease, giving them a +3 search monster that also gave all their archetypes monsters card destruction protection was too much. This card was so good even a deck like Burning Abyss, that ran primarily DARK Fiend monsters included several EARTH monsters to use this seaching power and to give the deck some attack boost. It give rouge decks like Magnet Warrior and Megalith a powerful boss monster that boosted their deck like no card ever had. As long as you could make that Level 8 total with the searches this card was something to fear and as long as you had three EARTH monsters in the grave you could always summon this. Dino had enough power monsters and searchers and cards that gave them advantage, even with stuff limited to one and this only helped give them power. There isn’t even a restriction on the search for one copy of a certain monster, you can just grab two power monsters that are EARTH and be fine with a +2.

I feel bad for the decks that needed him, because he really made their strategies go. Decks that could’ve functioned without him are what made him hit the ban list, and that’s a shame.

Advanced-4.5/5     Art-4/5

Until Next Time
KingofLullaby

Crunch$G

Throwback Thursday this week perfectly aligned with the banning of this card, which while I thought this could of been banned by the time we got to it, I didn’t think I’d get it so close to the F/L List. The card in question is Block Dragon.

Block Dragon is a Level 8 EARTH Rock with 2500 ATK and 3000 DEF. Solid stats and the Type/Attribute are good even if I could also see them just slapping this with the Dragon-type for some reason, but they did Rock to actually synergize with Rocks. It cannot be Normal Summoned or Set and must be Special Summoned from the hand or graveyard by banishing 3 EARTH Monsters from your hand and/or graveyard. Easy to summon and you’re likely going to setup the grave enough to where you don’t need hand resources. EARTH synergizes with this being Rock as well considering most Rocks are EARTH Monsters as well. Rock monsters you control can only be destroyed in battle, which is a nice little protection effect for a card that can keep coming back over and over with a summoning condition that isn’t once per turn. Finally if this card is sent from field to grave, you can search up to 3 Rocks from your Deck whose combined Levels equal 8 exactly, which is just insane considering you can simply Link this away into anything and get more monsters to extend your plays. This was a fine effect when Rocks were undersupported, but now you got archetypes like Megalith and especially Adamancipator to abuse this to insane levels. Getting 3 monsters just for Linking away this card is just too strong. It is a hard once per turn effect, which is nice, but probably needed more restrictions with this effect if it wanted to avoid getting banned. Instead, we can no longer play with this card and now Adamancipator are more fair and Megalith need to find more ways to extend their plays, which sucks for the latter considering they were rogue at best. Block Dragon will be missed by Rock users, but it was a long time coming for that type to become powerful enough to make this broken.

Advanced Rating: 4.5/5

Art: 4.5/5 It’s Legos but it’s also not Legos, probably due to trademarking issues.

Alex
Searcy

Block Dragon is a fantastic choice for Throwback Thursday.  While I type this (Saturday 9/12) it’s not Forbidden, but the Ban hits on 9/14, so by the time this gets posted, it is.  Level 8, Earth/Rock, 2500 attack and 3000 defense, and insanely easy to bring out.  While no Normal Summon or Set applies, the Special Summon occurs simply by removing 3 Earth Monsters from your Hand and/or Graveyard from play.  Dropping a Monster with 2500 attack (or in its impressive 3000 defense) this easy is amazing.

Also, this prevents all your Rock Monsters from being destroying outside of Battle.  Again, just let this 3000 defense wall sit there and challenge your opponent to beat you by Battle and Battle alone.  Being a Rock himself, Block Dragon of course, receives protection from his own effect.  And he gives you Material back when destroyed.  If sent from the Field to your Grave (no specification to how or by who) you can add up to 3 Rocks from your Deck to your Hand whose total Levels equal 8.

So take 1/2/3…take a big Level 8 to drop, or a couple of lower Levels for other fetching effects.  Maybe take a 5/6 and then another lower Level for a Fossil Fusion or something.  It’s pretty open ended here so long as the total Levels come out to 8.  Easy to use, easy to abuse, easy to drop, I can understand why the Ban hammer hit here.  

Rating:  Banned/5 but I’d go 4.5/5

Art:  5/5   Cute, in its way.  Legal disclaimer:  these blocks are legally distinct enough from Legos to avoid legal trouble.