Ancient Fairy Dragon – #MAZE-EN050
1 Tuner + 1+ non-Tuner monsters
During your Main Phase: You can Special Summon 1 Level 4 or lower monster from your hand. You cannot conduct your Battle Phase the turn you activate this effect. During your Main Phase: You can destroy as many cards in the Field Zones as possible (min. 1), and if you do, gain 1000 LP, then you can add 1 Field Spell with a different name than the destroyed card(s), from your Deck to your hand. You can only use each effect of “Ancient Fairy Dragon” once per turn.
Date Reviewed: July 6th, 2023
Rating: 3.50
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,
Ancient Fairy Dragon is the Throwback Thursday choice this week and one that is appropriate considering the Field Spell we reviewed yesterday.
Generic Level 7 Synchro Dragon with generic materials, AFD has seen itself go from an okay monster to a meta monster, to banned, and now errata’d and back in the saddle to be played. Almost all decks like Special Summoning, and a free Special Summon is even better. Level 4 or lower limits dropping powerhouses for free, yet with the effect(s) of that monster still online the effect isn’t really balanced, even when you consider the loss of the Battle Phase for the turn. Turn 0 doesn’t get a Battle Phase and this was the most popular time to use this ability: AFD is a great extender.
Pop all Field Spell cards, gain 1000LP for each and then get a different Field Spell than the one(s) you destroyed from your Deck. This is a change that allowed you to still pop and gain LP, yet you’d have to run a different Field Spell in addition to your own, or depend on your opponent to play a Field Spell. Field Spells are very good now, and back when AFD was first released it was easier to allow you to pop your own Field Spell with AFD, gain the 1000LP, get the search, and repeat. This effect needed changing and forcing you to depend on popping your opponent’s Field Spell to get your own search is a good errata.
Ancient Fairy Dragon is a great Synchro 7 to use for anyone who can Synchro Summon it. So many decks play Field Spells and if you do as well you should have this dragon ready to go. Maybe it comes out of the Side Deck because not every deck will play a Field Spell, but many do. That free Special Summon of a Level 4 or lower is pretty good even after all these years. While the broken nature of its second effect isn’t there anymore, it can still get you what you want. You just have to be sure your own Field Spell isn’t in a zone when you use that effect, otherwise you won’t get a search.
Advanced-3.5/5
Art-4.5/5
Until Next Time
KingofLullaby
Crunch$G
It might be awkward to summon in Mannadium, but it isn’t impossible, the synergy is there, and it was unbanned with an errata recently, so let’s look at Ancient Fairy Dragon.
AFD is a Level 7 LIGHT Dragon Synchro with 2100 ATK and 3000 DEF. Seeing 3000 DEF on a Level 7 is nice, LIGHT is usually good, and Dragons are well supported. Materials are any Tuner and any non-Tuner(s), so thankfully the errata kept it generic to help it find some uses. The first effect can be used during your Main Phase, letting you Special Summon a Level 4 or lower monster from your hand by giving up your Battle Phase. Giving up the Battle Phase is always risky, but turn 1 that doesn’t matter and it can help you make plays you otherwise couldn’t make with this kind of effect, so the reward can usually be worth the risk you took. Notice the soft once per turn is gone from the original effect, which now became a hard once per turn alongside the second effect. Said second effect also had a change, letting you destroy as many cards in the Field Zones as possible (min. 1) to let you gain 1000 LP and then add a Field Spell with a different name from any of the destroyed ones from Deck to hand. So a little change to make you not be able to search the same Field Spell you destroy to abuse any non once per turn clauses. There’s still multiple Decks out there that can make room for many different Field Spells, so it’s still viable in some strategies. The errata keeps it near the same, just adding a few balancing things to match how much faster the game has gotten over the years. It’s a good card now that does generate advantage, but now it can’t generate too much advantage.
Advanced Rating: 3.5/5 (4.5/5 pre errata)
Art: 5/5 All the other Signer Dragons got their upgrades, so now I’m just waiting for AFD to get hers finally.
Mighty
Vee
While not particularly relevant to Mannadium, this Throwback Thursday card does carry a legacy of combo-heavy Synchro decks; Ancient Fairy Dragon is a level 7 LIGHT Dragon Synchro monster, best known as the signature monster of Luna from Yugioh 5Ds as well as a vicious combo piece in many decks before it was ultimately banned. With generic materials of any Tuner and any number of non-Tuners, AFD is very easy to make, especially with the relatively recently freed Destrudo the Lost Dragon’s Fission. AFD’s attack is rather low for its level, only having 2100, but its 3000 defense more than makes up for it, which is phenomenal for level 7 standards. AFD was banned for a while, so how does it stack after being unbanned to Limited with its errata?
AFD has two (now) hard once per turn effects, both formerly soft once per turn before the errata. At the cost of your Battle Phase, you can Special Summon any level 4 or lower monster from your hand. Much like Saryuja Skull Dread, this effect’s primary purpose is to function as an amazing generic extender, letting you bring out searched combo pieces and weave them into combos. Fortunately, this effect is now a hard once per turn, but in the past, you could repeatedly summon Ancient Fairy Dragon and keep summoning monsters from your hand; it’s no wonder why it was used often in combo-heavy decks. The loss of the Battle Phase doesn’t particularly matter going first, so it might as well not be a restriction. AFD’s other effect got another nerf on top of becoming hard once per turn; by destroying the cards in both Field Zones (at least one), you can gain 1000 Life Points then search any Field Spell with a different name from the destroyed Field Spells. Even with the nerf, this effect is still great for decks that utilize multiple Field Spells, like Dragon Link using both Dragon Ravine and Boot Sector Launch, and Dragon Ravine in particular still combos excellently with AFD since you can send Destrudo and make it as long as you control an appropriate monster. In the past, AFD was used in ABC decks to search Union Hangar after destroying Dragon Ravine; additionally, the former ability to search the same Field Spell allowed players to abuse non-once per turn Field Spells like Chicken Game and Spyral Resort. After the errata, AFD has predictably not been dominating the metagame, though as expected it did see some experimentation in Dragon Link thanks to the aforementioned Dragon Ravine combo. Though its combo potential still terrifies many, it’s nice to see that the card has returned in an acceptable state for the decks that can run it.
Advanced: 3.5/5
Art: 3/5 It’s a little creepier than I remember from when I was a kid…
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