Red-Eyes Dark Dragoon – Yu-Gi-Oh! Review

King of
Lullaby

Hello Pojo Fans,

Wrapping up the week with the eventual Best Card of 2020 and best card in the game: Red-Eyes Dark Dragoon.

Despite needing Dark Magician or Red-Eyes Black Dragon as part of the fusion material, with Red-Eyes Fusion and Verte Anaconda currently not on the ban list, it is rather easy to accomplish this. Even in dedicated Dark Magician or Red-Eyes Black Dragon decks it is easy because of their themed fusion cards. Dragon effect monster is also an option for fusion material if you don’t run both vanillas, and it is more than worth the three-card investment. Destruction protection with 3000ATK is rough for your opponent. Targeting protection narrows your opponents options even more. The only “easy out” to Dragoon is tributing it via Kaiju or Sphere Mode…good luck having one at that moment. Pop and burn ability each turn ensures you will be getting rid of one monster at least and doing damage. If you use both REBD and DM you get double the fun, double the pop-and-burn…this card doesn’t seem fair, and we’re not done. Negation ability each turn costing only one discard is something any player typically can do, but the 1000ATK raise it gets…and it’s permanent! Red-Eyes Dark Dragoon isn’t fair, is overpowered, easy to summon, and controls the game the moment it hits the field. It could have had half the effects it has and still been a must in the archetype decks it was meant to be. Like Magician Souls before it, this card was meant for a certain archetype, but is far-too good as versatile, and as a dedicated Dark Magician fan/player for years, I love it.

You can make it less broken by getting rid of Verte Anaconda, the easy access to Red-Eyes Fusion. That way, the specified archetypes will play Dragoon, and those who want to try will have to play other cards to pull Red-Eyes Fusion from the deck (Keeper of Dragon Magic).

Advanced-5/5     Art-5/5

Until Next Time
KingofLullaby

Crunch$G

Alright, main event time and the card I’m sure you were all waiting for, Red-Eyes Dark Dragoon.

Red-Eyes Dark Dragoon is a Level 8 DARK Spellcaster Fusion with 3000 ATK and 2500 DEF. Great stats overall, DARK is great, and Spellcaster is great. The Fusion Materials are Dark Magician and either Red-Eyes Black Dragon or any Dragon Effect Monster. Note it has to be Red-Eyes Black Dragon specifically since that’s the Red-Eyes card listed on it if you’re using Red-Eyes Fusion either naturally or with Predaplant Verte Anaconda. This card cannot be destroyed by card effects nor be targeted by card effects, making it Kaiju bait if I ever seen it, but it’s great protection to have for a powerhouse boss. During your Main Phase you can pop Monsters the opponent controls and burn them for the ATK of their popped Monster up to the number of Normal Monsters you used as material, likely 2 with Dark Magician and Red-Eyes. Just 1 pop alone with burn is great for lethal damage but 2 should allow for the easiest of OTKs. It gets even easier when you consider the last effect where once per turn if the opponent activates a card or effect, you can discard a card to negate the activation and destroy that card and THEN boost this card by 1000 ATK if you popped the negated card. It’s insane this isn’t a hard once per turn alongside the other effect meaning you can use this with a second copy if you run it. The fact this is around at the same time as Predaplant Verte Anaconda might be a concidence or not, depending on if Konami knew players would be willing to throw in Red-Eyes Fusion, Red-Eyes Black Dragon, and Dark Magician into any Deck just to use and abuse this. You know a card is overly bloated when players are willing to run all those bricks for a card. It might not be for all Decks as some need the consistency, but other Decks that have zero issue with that have no problem throwing them in. If you draw the Red-Eyes Fusion, at least you can activate it even if this is the only summon. It’s a hard card to out. It’s banned in the OCG for a reason and you have to imagine the TCG will follow suit eventually. It’s great for Red-Eyes and Dark Magician, but sadly it’s also great enough for everyone else to use with Predaplant Verte Anaconda existing.

Advanced Rating: 5/5

Art: 5/5 You just look at it and you know it’s powerful. I guess that’s how strong the power of friendship truly is.

Alex
Searcy

Red-Eyes Dark Dragoon (a card I’ve been tip-toeing around not mentioning all week) closes things up.  Dark/Spellcaster, Level 8, with Blue Eyes stats at 3000-2500, needing Dark Magician and REBD (or a Dragon effect Monster) in order for Fusion Summon.  This card is insanely good.  It’s immune to destruction via card effects, so you have to get over that 3000 body, AND it can’t be Targeted by card effects from either player.  So again, you gotta run this boy over.  During your Main Phase, you can destroy an opponent’s Monster up to the number of Normal Monsters used for Fusion of this card.  So that should only be two, but even so, potentially destroying two Monsters a turn, and having little to no way to stop that is just asinine.  Oh, plus the opponent takes Damage equal to the attack of the destroyed Monster(s).  So an effect that potentially burns multiple times a turn, Battle destruction only, non Targeting, plus 3000 attack?  If that wasn’t enough, a Quick effect lets this card gain 1000 attack, once a turn, by you discarding a card to negate the activation of a card or effect.  If you’re successful, said card is also destroyed.  So this card can very well be invincible, it’s going to be a very tough one to get off the Field.  Just phenomenal.  

Rating:  5/5, it’s that good, TOO good, maybe better

Art:  5/5  Dark Magician in a Dragon armor suit from REBD is sick on a stick.  The light and (coliseum?) in the background, as well as the rainbow aura shining on him just melts my heart in all the right ways.

Also, are we to imply here Dark Magician is British?  Dragoon refers to members of British cavalry so…?

Vince

Wrapping up this week’s COTD is Red Eyes Dark Dragoon, which is – according to what it said in the back of the tin of Lost Memories – an unstoppable fusion of Dark Magician and Red Eyes Black Dragon! And looking at what this card does – and the fact that it is banned in the OCG, but still at 3 in the TCG – it definitely lives up to that description! If you can get 3 Dragoon on the board, it’s pretty much GG from there!

This is a Level 8 Fusion Dark Spellcaster with 3000 ATK and 2500 DEF, which is on par with B.E.W.D., B.L.S, and even Dark Magician the Dragon Knight, so this is already a good starting point. The materials required seemed flexible; Dark Magician is mandatory but if you don’t have Red Eyes Black Dragon in your deck, then any Effect Dragon monster would do. Keeper of Dragon Magic is one of the options to use as material, perhaps maybe the best option as it can discard Dark Magician from your hand to grab Polymerization, use its effect again to put DM from the GY into the field in face-down Defense Position, and use Polymerization to Fusion Dragoon as early as turn 1 of the opening hand is ideal.

The effects, though, are pretty insane for to have on a single card! It can’t be destroyed or targeted by card effects, so that pretty much forces your opponent to tribute your opponent’s Dragoon or to use Super Polymerization as material. There could be a few other methods of getting past that protection.

The second effect is that you can destroy 1 monster your opponent controls and deal damage equal to that destroyed monster’s original ATK. And you can use that effect up to the number of times per turn based on how many Normal Monsters used as Fusion Material. So if you’ve used Eye of Timaeus to fusion summon Dragoon, you can use that effect only once per turn because only Dark Magician is used as material. However, if you used both Dark Magician and Red Eyes Black Dragon as material due to Polymerization, Red Eyes Fusion, Secrets of Dark Magic, Anaconda, or the like, then you can use that effect up to 2 times. This monster could OTK since it can use the effect twice to burn at least 5000 damage and direct attack for 3000 to win.

And the third effect is also good, as the negation effect is similar to Dark Paladin or even Dark Cavalry. If a card effect is activated, you can discard 1 card from your hand, negate the activation, and destroy it. It also gains 1000 ATK after negating something, which can make it harder to take Dragoon down.

I can see why Dragoon is banned in the OCG. Not only it gets support from external cards like Predaplant Verde Anaconda, it does way too many things for a single card, making it somewhat hard for your opponent to pick it up after potentially three of their cards have been destroyed (2 monsters and any one card that they’re trying to activate). I guess that since you can still use 3 Dragoon, you might have to enjoy using that many as you can.

Ratings:

Advanced: 5/5

Art: 5/5 (Dark Magician got another armor to wear!)