2 Level 4 Warrior-Type monsters
Once per turn, when a Level 4 or lower monster(s) is Special Summoned to your opponent's side of the field (except during the Damage Step): You can detach 1 Xyz Material from this card; destroy that Special Summoned monster(s).
Card Ratings
Traditional: 2.25
Advanced:
3.67
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale
1 being the worst.
3 is average.
5 is the highest rating.
Date Reviewed - Dec. 5, 2012
Shifting to the XYZ front, we come to Heroic
Champion-Gandiva. This is a Rank 4 XYZ Monster, XYZ
Summoned with two Level 4 Warrior type Monsters. Gandiva
has 2100 attack and 1800 defense, both which are
rather low for a Rank 4, but using Mondays card, you
have a Monster with 3100 attack, that's worth
pointing out. So what can Gandiva do? Once per
turn, by discarding an XYZ Material, you can destroy
a Special Summoned Monster (or Monsters) your
opponent Summons, except during the Damage Step.
I'm not a fan of that minor restriction, although
it isn't all that big of a deal. The fact it can't
take out, potentially, more than one Special
Summoned Monster at a time via its effect IS good,
but the low attack can be a problem. It would be
better too if you could use the effect more than
once a turn.
Ratings:
Traditional: 2.25/5
Advanced: 3.25/5
Art: 5/5
John Rocha
Heroic Champion – Gandiva is a very powerful Xyz
monster in the current format. Just think about all
of the deck types that are wrecked by this card. By
detaching a material, you can destroy a level 4 or
lower monster that is special summoned once per
turn. Let’s take a head count of some of the decks
and monsters that rely on special summoning level 4
or lower monsters: Psychic, X-Saber, Synchron,
Rabbit, Tour Guide, Wind-Up, Geargia, Deep Sea Diva,
Heroic, HERO, and Six Samurai to name just a few.
If you are playing a Warrior deck like Heroic, HERO,
X-Saber, and Six-Samurai, then you will want Heroic
Champion – Gandiva along side your Steelswarn Roach
in your Extra deck. With 2100 in attack, it is not
going to get over many monsters, but it will not
have too if your opponent can not summon enough
level 4 or lower monsters to special summon a
Synchro or Xyz monster. Where Gandiva falls short is
against decks that summon big monsters like
Hieratic, Chaos Dragon, and Prophecy decks. It also
suicides against Cyber Dragon.
Heroic Champion – Gandiva should be a staple in a
Warrior deck as it definitely makes the grade for
the current format.
Traditional: 2/5
Advanced: 4/5
Miguel
Middle of the week brings us to a Heroic monster
that I hope doesn't get overlooked by Warrior users,
Heroic Champion - Gandiva. A Rank 4 Xyz
EARTH/Warrior monster, with 2100 ATK and 1800 DEF.
Gandiva needs 2 level 4 Warrior-Type monsters to Xyz
summon.
Once per turn, when a level 4 or lower monster(s) is
special summoned to your opponent's side of the
field (Except during the damage step): You can
detach 1 Xyz material from this card, destroy the
special summoned monster(s)
Right away, this card is an answer to any deck using
Rescue Rabbit/Tour Guide, assuming you can get
Gandiva out before that darn rabbit or the lovely
Tour Guide hits the field. But this card, teamed
with Steelswarm Roach can shut down pretty much any
special summoning your opponent may try. If Gandiva
hits the field before your opponent can get out Tour
Guide or Rabbit, you really put them in a corner and
will force them to use things like Dark Hole or
Torrential Tribute just to get rid of this card. You
can use cards like H.C. Extra Sword to give it a
1000 point boost so it won't get attacked over by a
monster with 2100 or more ATK, and Overlay Regen to
give Gandiva another shot at stopping your
opponent's special summoning. Samurais, Heroics and
any decks that use a lot of level 4 Warriors can use
Gandiva. I like it, in Warrior decks only of course.
Traditional: 2.5
Advanced: A gift, for me????
Philosophical
Psycho
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before:
When a Level 5 or higher monster would be special
summoned: You can detach 1 Xyz Material from this
card; negate the Special Summon and destroy it.
That is the effect of Steelswarm Roach, a 1900 ATK
Rank 4 monster that, in the early eras of Xyz, was
feared because of its ability to literally stop just
about any Synchro and most boss monsters. However,
what Roach suffered from was its inability to defend
against fast Xyz plays such as Utopia.
Hiroikku Chanpion Gandeva, whilst having her (at
least I think Gandiva is a her) use being limited to
only Warrior Decks, is a very welcome addition and,
in my opinion, is more impressive than Heroic
Champion – Excalibur. Slifer the Sky Dragon and King
Tiger Wanghu, when used rightly, can become very
annoying, as they have effects that instantly
eradicate monsters with low stats (like Infinite
Dismissal, but better). While Steelswarm Roach can
halt large plays, Gandiva works by taking out the
small monsters that are required to MAKE those
bigger plays. Here’s the scenario: Imagine your
opponent has out four Level 4 Warriors. That’s when
Gandiva comes out. Once Gandiva comes out, it can be
assumed the next two low-Level monsters you bring
out will be instantly slaughtered. Low-Level
monsters are practically necessary to conduct most
Synchro or Xyz Summons, so unless you have a way to
summon a monster with over 2100 ATK WITHOUT the help
of any of these low-Level monsters and you can’t get
any Traps or Spells to help you soon, prepare for a
rough time.
Lol…Gandiva reminds me of the #1 mistake of building
a deck: Using too many high Level monsters.
There are some limitations to Gandiva, of course,
that stop her from being a complete monster.
Firstly, Gandiva can’t snipe Normal Summoned
monsters, so at least I can still Normal Summon a
Tuner and then Special Summon a Level 5 monster for
some Synchro, exploiting her paltry 2100 ATK.
Although Gandiva doesn’t negate the summon, she has
an advantage over most other summon-thwarting cards
in that she is not prone to missing her chance (for
example, she doesn’t need to negate the actual card
that does the summoning; Steelswarm Roach can’t
negate Ritual Spells or Monster Reborn because Roach
cannot negate chainable effects, and by the time the
monster is actually summoned, it’s too late, a
problem that Gandiva does not have). Also, she can
use her effect only once per turn, so if you have
can find a way to summon many low-Level monsters
independently of each other, you can bait out her
once-per-turn clause and summon something big.
Gandiva’s own text means she cannot negate something
summoned by Mystic Tomato, Giant Rat, etc. Those
don’t see a lot of play anyway. When you’re using a
Warrior Deck, you have a large amount of options for
Rank 4 Xyz. Personally, I enjoy using Blade Armour
Ninja to try and win the game as swiftly as I can,
but if you like to play more carefully, Gandiva is
the best defensive Rank 4 Xyz for anticipating your
opponent’s plays, even better than Utopia.
Trad: 2/5
Adv: 3.25/5
Aesthetics: 3.7/5 You know, I never really got the
point behind the Heroic Challengers, but all three
of the Heroic Champion cards I’ve seen so far seem
to have some historical or mythological backing.
Excalibur is a reference to English knights, and
Kusanagi is based off samurai. Gandiva is not as
clear, but I think she was based off of the heavenly
bow of Gandiva, from Hindu mythology. It was used
with two bottomless quivers (arrow holsters) by
several people before the hero Arjuna used it in the
Kurushetra War; afterwards, he put the Gandiva into
a river to be returned back to the gods. The Gandiva
was not a crossbow, nor was it attached to your
wrist, but I still think this monster is pretty
cool. This is funny as earlier this Thursday, I
happened to see a very beautiful painting of the
Greek goddess Artemis jumping up with her bow raised
and it fit perfectly along the crescent of the moon
in the background (if you Google “artemis moon bow”
it should be the first thing you see). She also
reminds me a lot of Lady Godiva, a British legend
back all the way to about year 1000; her husband was
a nobleman who put a really high tax on the people,
and she made a deal with him to take the taxes off
if she would go horseback riding throughout the town
without clothes on. (Yes, this is also where the
chocolate Godiva gets its name also.)
Philosophy Corner: continued from yesterday
Remembering Han-Kat: Out of all the people I
personally knew that have passed away, no one was
ever as close as Han-Kat. When she stopped
responding, everyone feared the worst, myself
included, even though I didn't show it, my
expressionless, gaunt outlook as usual. Her
boyfriend didn't seem to know what to think. Other
young friends of ours were angry at me because I
implied I didn't know whether she was truly dead or
was just sleeping but clues pointed to the former. I
threw no tantrum. I uttered no prayer. I produced no
tear. But I kept looking over her last word over and
over on the screen: "Bye." I was working that night,
but throughout the entire night, I kept falling
asleep and suddenly waking up back and forth, back
and forth. As a hobby, I liked to copy down my
dreams after I woke up from them and described them
with great detail, but this time I had a lot of
really short dreams that made absolutely no sense at
all. Each time I woke, I constantly looked over my
shoulder, wondering if her ghost would appear in my
living room.
I was finally debriefed about fifteen hours
following the incident. I shed no tear until
forty-seven hours following this, when Jesse pulled
me aside to give me his own eulogy and talked about
my relationship with Han-Kat.
Han-Kat said that her favourite pair of people was
Little Sister and me. She was many things to many
people: Daughter, sister, girlfriend, friend. Not
only was she bright, she was a dedicated worker that
knew of her priorities. When Little Sister was going
through sad times, Han-Kat was there for her also.
On the side, Han-Kat was a very silly prankster, but
she also happened to be very ticklish!
I had a whole list of things I wanted to tell her, a
list I wish I remembered so that I could tell her
before she died or perhaps could've saved her, but
you never remember such things until it's too late.
I forgot to remind her how she was just about ready
to go to college after holding it off for so many
years and how much I kept annoying her to taking an
English major in my footsteps. I forgot to remind
her how I made her promise me to read Never Let Me
Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. And so many so so many other
promises. She would’ve been so good at writing. I
remember last summer I made up a story about her
walking through a luscious green pasture where the
grass was long and it was all wavy from a light
breeze going through it. After that I described to
her what it would be like if we had a rock pool
carved into the floor of the house, with cool
rippling water and a running waterfall. Also in the
summer I was making up funny sentences and tried to
make all the words start with the same letter. I
only got to around M. Throughout last month she kept
wanting me to continue them again but I said no
because I had so much work all the time and I
couldn’t think properly to make the sentence really
funny… Recently, she had gotten rather restless and
would come online right in the middle of the night
looking for her boyfriend. These nights, I was
telling her the story of my life, and I only got up
to when I was age 14 and I promised I’d finish one
day. Most of our time was spent eating popcorn and
playing with the bag afterwards. She loved animals
and she also loved playing heavy metal on the
electric guitar (also she also held a special love
for "Carameldansen").
