Branded Fusion – #SDAZ-EN021
Fusion Summon 1 Fusion Monster that mentions “Fallen of Albaz” as material from your Extra Deck, using 2 monsters from your hand, Deck, or field as Fusion Material. You cannot Special Summon monsters from the Extra Deck, except Fusion Monsters, the turn you activate this card. You can only activate 1 “Branded Fusion” per turn.
Date Reviewed: May 31st, 2022
Rating: 4.25
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,
Branded Fusion may have been the card that sent Verte to the banned list, but if it wasn’t it is just another great generic Fusion card for an archetype.
Normal Spell that works with Fallen of Albaz Fusion Monsters, Branded Fusion is quite searchable with generic searcher cards in addition to those involved in the “Branded” archetype, which is pretty extensive. You can go after any of the seven Fusions that included Fallen of Albaz as a material for the Fusion Summon, all of them pretty easy to make. Hand, Deck, or on the field monsters can be used as Fusion material, so you could have used Verte to trigger this and use a monster on the field that matches the requirement for your specific Fusion Monster, then go after Albaz in the deck or hand. Given, Branded Fusion locks you into Fusion Monsters the turn you activate it, and if you do anything from the Extra Deck other than that previously it makes Branded Fusion unusable that turn.
I’m surprised Branded Fusion wasn’t one of those cards you saw in Rise of The Duelist released beside Albaz. It took two years for him to get his Fusion Spell, longer than it likely should have. Regardless, its reach and search ability are wide, the Fusion targets many, and almost each monster is useful in any scenario.
Advanced-3.5/5 Art-4/5
Until Next Time
KingofLullaby
Crunch$G
Well here’s the card that makes the whole Branded them go around: Branded Fusion.
Branded Fusion is a Normal Spell that lets you Fusion Summon any monster that lists Fallen of Albaz as material by using materials from your hand, Deck, and/or field as material. All you give up in exchange is the fact you can only summon Fusions from the Extra Deck the turn you use this, oh and also your standard hard once per turn. Considering Branded only wants to really Fusion Summon anyways, the restriction doesn’t matter. Verte Anaconda got around it, but that card is now banned, so now you just have to search or hard draw it, which is probably how it’s getting used most of the time anyways. Being able to use materials from the Deck with no real downside is great, as it really helps you ensure you can make whatever Fusion you desire, just as long as it requires Fallen of Albaz, meaning you’re always sending Albaz from Deck to grave. You do also have to use 2 monsters only, which only truly affects Alba-Lenatus requiring 1+ Dragons, so you can’t just send all your Dragons from Deck to grave. This is the bread and butter to the Branded strategy, whether pure with Despias, or going outside the box mixing with other Fusion goodstuff. This is a 3-of as long as you’re allowed to run 3, it’ll only get better as we get more Fusions.
Advanced Rating: 5/5
Art: 5/5 Clash of the Dragons.
Alex
Searcy
Branded Fusion, while not the best Theme specific Fusion card, isn’t the worst, either. Normal Magic here allowing you to Special Summon any Fusion listing Fallen of Albaz as Material, that’s simple enough. Even counts as a Fusion Summon. Materials can come from any of your resources that haven’t been removed from the game, so the overall openness there is appreciated. Limited also to two Monsters for use here, but that’s not a big deal, and this isn’t your ONLY Fusion tool at your disposal, either. You can only activate one of these a Turn, definitely the biggest downfall of this card, and note all Themes are bound by that. You’re also locked into Extra Deck Fusions only for that Turn, though not from anywhere else (Graveyard, Removal) so that’s a nice tidbit to note. Honestly, Theme specific or not, I’d use Super Poly over this.
Rating: 3/5
Art: 3.5/5 Fun, I get it, but it’s a little lacking to me. There’s still a hint of some swirling though amongst the red and blue. That’s something.
Mighty
Vee
If you’ve been keeping up with the TCG meta, you’ve probably witnessed the rise of Branded Despia decks, which will only become more popular now that Prank-Kids have been neutered by the banlist. That’s all thanks to Branded Fusion, a normal spell and the most recent deck fuser as of now. As its name suggests, you can fusion summon any fusion monster that lists Fallen of Albaz as a fusion material using 2 monsters from your hand, deck, or field. It’s a hard once per turn (thankfully) and you can’t special summon any monsters from the extra deck except for fusion monsters for the entire turn. Most of the time you’ll be making Albion the Stigma Dragon or Lubellion the Searing Dragon due to their fusion climbing effects allowing you to easily make Mirrorjade the Iceblade Dragon, which we’ll cover more in-depth later this week. This card’s pretty easy to access, since you can search it through Springans Kitt and Aluber the Jester of Despia (which by proxy means it’s searchable by Branded Opening). Part of the card’s lethality is, much like with Fusion Destiny, the fact that the monsters you use as fusion material from the deck can function as extenders and combo pieces. I’ve already mentioned that Despian Tragedy and Fairy Tail – Snow are popular candidates for fusion, but you can check out our Lubellion review for some spicy ideas, though currently meta builds keep it simple with just Lubellion and Albion. The only downside to the card is, unlike Fusion Destiny, the card’s restriction is retroactive like Red-Eyes Fusion, which will severely restrict decks that try to carelessly run it as an engine, and with Predaplant Verte Anaconda banned as of the most recent banlist, there’s little incentive to run it outside of non-fusion decks. Still, Branded Fusion is an outstanding card that took Branded Despia decks from being semi-competent to the high-tier juggernaut they are today. Though they haven’t quite seen meta representation yet, Branded Fusion packages have potential in Shaddoll, Frightfur, and other pure fusion decks, as well as decks like Eldlich that aren’t bothered by special summon locks.
Advanced: 4.75/5
Art: 4.5 Simply superb, especially with the contrasting colors.
Therion
“Captain”
Tav
Alright, folks, this is it. The big one. The reason why the current meta is once again overrun by purple monster cards, why everyone and their parents ran out to the supermarket or game shop to get three copies of the Albaz Strike structure deck, why Aluber and the Despia cards have shot up in both sales and competitive results. Today’s card of the day is the normal spell card Branded Fusion.
The effect of this card is quite simple: You use it to fusion summon one monster that mentions “Fallen of Albaz” as a material from your extra deck using exactly two monsters from your hand, deck or field as fusion material. For the rest of the turn, you can only special summon fusion monsters from the extra deck and you can only activate one Branded Fusion per turn.
“Fair enough”, you might say “this is another Polymerization variant.” But there is that one tiny word in between the others in that text box: Deck. This allows you to use some or all the required fusion materials for the fusion summon from your deck, if you wish. As long as you fulfill the condition of summoning the right monster, there is no catch, no questions asked. This is the key difference between an alright, great or potentially broken fusion spell. Hint: This card seems to be more of the latter. If you are investing one card to get a vastly more powerful monster basically for free from your extra deck, as a competitive Yugioh player, you should pay attention to how to get the most out of that selection of cards. And that is on top of all the benefits you can enjoy from sending random monsters as fusion material to your graveyard, many of which have effects that work from there (Aluber once again says “hello”)!
As always, context is everything, so let’s look at the fusion monsters that use Fallen of Albaz and how useful that toolbox is, all of which you can access with this one amazing spell card:
- Albion the Branded Dragon: A pure Extender, lets you fusion summon once more by banishing cards from your grave, hand or field. Basically a freeroll play.
- Lubellion the Searing Dragon: Another Extender that allows you to also use banished monsters as material (in addition to field/grave) by shuffling it into the deck. Another freeroll. Okay, seems legit.
- Mirrorjade the Iceblade Dragon: The big payoff for fusing with another Fusion monster, which we just learned are very easy to get on the field. Also, this can banish problematic monsters and is a Raigeki on legs.
- Sprind the Irondash Dragon: The utility fusion monster that offers a very specific removal option, situationally great against floodgates and can get back a bit of card advantage and consistency when it dies as it is a Floater.
- Titaniklad the Ash Dragon: Another boss monster with simply absurd attack stat, this is best used to out specifically huge boss monsters coming from your opponent’s side deck that cannot be beaten otherwise. Also conveniently a Floater. Having no inherent protection, this can be a specific answer to a very special problem monster or simply a beater to OTK when the time is right.
Okay, so we got a bunch of dragons with powerful effects that all feed into each other. This list is not exhaustive, but the range of plays you can pull off with these monsters certainly is!
Branded Fusion is one of the most dangerous cards in the game right now, it is absurdly easy to get tons of card advantage from the various fusion summons that can be chained from just this one card and people going to tournaments intending to win should either have a clear plan against this strategy and a good reason to believe they have an edge this way, or just join Team Branded and be packing three copies of this spell themselves.
Just ten days ago, my small country’s National Championship happened, and the guys who got 1st and 3rd played identical Branded Despia decks. They did a deck check and said things along the lines of “if you play against random strategy X, you play this, if they can’t stop it, you just win”, lazily pointing to Branded Fusion. And I don’t think they’re arrogant – I think they’re spot on.
Sometimes a single card spawns such a powerful strategy that the entire format warps around it and everyone has to keep in mind how to defend against it or lose to it every time. Branded Fusion is such a card – if you protect it and your powerful follow-up plays correctly, your opponents are in deep trouble and victory will probably follow suit. Be prepared either way.
Rating: 5/5
props:
fusion summons using materials from the deck, inherently breaking the card disadvantage aspect of fusion summoning (while making it look easy), offers access to an amazing toolbox with a range of boss monsters, next-to-free extenders and specific problem solvers from the extra deck, single-handedly brought fusion summoning back from the Shadow Realm
slops:
restricts you to only fusion summoning for the turn and the Fallen of Albaz theme, making this a card that cannot be splashed easily in other strategies, which is probably for the best, it’s also hard once per turn (pretty much nitpicking here – if you could just chain these, you would just get sacked randomly even harder at Locals!)
Art: 3,5/5
A great action shot showing the fire and ice fusion dragons roar at each other. I love the clear, distinct colors. I hate card art showing tiny figures with no distinct colors. This is not the best at showing the actual fusion happening, but nevertheless, some cool art.
Can someone say broken? Yeah, we’re diving into a VERY powerful card with today’s review. Branded Fusion is a card that has shaped the current metagame. The advent of the Branded/Albaz/Despia/Random Fusion Decks is solely because of this one card.
Fusion Spells that let you send materials from the Deck to the Grave is a can of worms that Konami never should have opened (in my opinion) but that’s a rant for another day.
Branded Fusion, like many of its Poly/Fusion brethren, doesn’t do anything on its own. What it’s able to bring out determines how good of a card this is. Branded Fusion can only Summon Albaz-related fusions, so we have a growing list:
Titaniklad, Brigrand, Sprind, Albion, Lubellion, Mirrorjade, and soon-to-be Lenatus. Both Albion and Lubellion are extenders, letting you to go further into your Extra Deck, while Mirrorjade is a very powerful Boss monster.
The banning of Anaconda will make this card less splashable, but that’s a good thing for the meta as a whole. Branded Fusion will remain where it belongs – in a Branded-themed deck where it is quite potent and searchable. Just be wary of your opponent’s Ash Blossom before activating this card all willy-nilly.
Advanced Rating – 5/5
Art – 4.5/5 (Mirrojade vs. Lubellion – Albaz vs. Aluber…who will win?!)
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