Skill Drain lets you negate the effects of ALL
effect monsters, by paying 1000 Lifepoints. This
effects all of them, yours and your opponent's. I
think your Deck would have to be partially created
for, or even against, Skill Drain, if you wanted to
use it. Using powerful Level 4 monsters, like
Goblin Attack Force, Giant Orc, Zombyra the Dark,
for starters, with high attack would be interesting.
The first two wouldn't switch to defense after
attacking, and Zombyra wouldn't decrease in attack
from 2100. I don't really see why you would want to
use more than one, if you wanted to use it at all.
The fact is, Magic and Trap cards are fairly easy
to destroy as is, especially those like Skill Drain
that are continuous.
Ratings:
3/5 both formats, at least in potential
Art: 5/5
Skill Drain has always been one of the best
control and disruption cards in the game. Now bumped
back to three, it can confuse people with rulings
once again.
Most commonly, you'll see this in any of the Gemini
Hero variants floating around. Much of their
strategy still works with a Skill Drain up,
especially since monsters like Neos Alius or
Absolute Zero don't even have important on-field
effects. You're also likely to see Skill Drain in
Malefic decks, since it is a method of keeping their
Malefic monsters in play without a Field Spell,
while also resetting the stats of Fusilier and Beast
King Barbaros.
Skill Drain isn't quite as useful as it used to be
though. That 1000 life point payment never used to
be so bad, but that was before every deck
practically required two Solemn Warnings, a Solemn
Judgment, and a handful of Seven Tools of the
Bandit. It's getting more and more likely you won't
be able or won't want to use your Skill Drain when
you draw it.
Traditional:2/5 Could possibly be useful sided in a
sort of anti-meta deck, since it shuts down many
OTKs.
Advanced: 4/5 There's still no other card like Skill
Drain. It's very unique and powerful at what it
does.
