Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier is one of those staple cards that belongs in everyone’s Extra Deck that can possibly Synchro summon. While not as powerful as it once was due to the new Effect Timing Rule and this being the age of Xyz, it is still an amazing card even in this era. The ability to bounce your opponent’s big monsters, Xyz monsters, and their entire field can not be underrated.
 
With Effect Veilers being run in threes in most decks, any deck that can summon a level 5 monster should have Brionic in its Extra Deck. Dragon, Hieratic, Inzektor, Wind-Up, and Six-Samurai decks are some of the more popular decks in play today that can make good use of Brionic.
 
Traditional: 4/5
Advanced: 5/5

Today, we're digging up Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier, a gold rare from the new Haunted Mine set. The once mighty Brionac is still a threat should he hit the field. Brionac is a level 6 Synchro, needing 1 Tuner monster and 1 or more non-tuner monsters, with 2300 ATK and 1400 DEF. Brionac's effect is You can discard any number of cards to target the same number of cards on the field, and return those cards to the owner's hand. This effect can be used on every one of your turns. so with a healthy hand, you could clear a field of cards on each of your turns. Don't let the recent change in rulings fool you. Brionac can still ruin anyone's day with the best of them, and can turn the tide of a duel. Here's a quick tip for a deck that can really utilize Brionac, discard Ojamagic to get three Ojama cards to help Brionac clear the field. You're welcome.
 
Traditional: 2
Advanced: 4   Is still a threat, regardless.
Tomorrow:  Who is the master?

This is probably the single most evil Synchro you will find in a generic Extra Deck, easily summonable with likely a 3 + 3 or 2 + 4 Synchro.

Any Black Luster Soldier that was summoned, any Zenmaines that may be protecting your opponent, the Shooting Quasar Dragon that was so difficult to summon, a single discard thwarts it all. (Arguably, returning an Xyz or Synchro to the Extra Deck is worse than having it sent to the Graveyard.) Not only that, but if the opponent has Gateway of the Six Samurai loaded up or any other backrow combo that your opponent has that's locking you down, Brion will indiscriminately dismantle it.

Aside from clearing away any problem cards, Buryunaku's perhaps most deadly asset is clearing the field for the final push. Usually a big problem I see with enemy Brions is that they completely exhaust their hand trying to remove all my Traps, then attacking me for huge damage...but I live to throw all my Traps down again and their left with no hand (that's one flaw with Brionac: its lacklustre ATK means it's easily overpowered by an easily-summoned Leviathan Dragon, or you're left with the decision to pitch your hand to bounce away scary facedowns and attacking for only fair damage OR attacking anyway and walking into Dimensional Prison). When you're attacking for the final push, of course, it doesn't matter as much. If the opponent does survive, you might be in a bad situation with a mangled hand. For instance, in my Final Countdown Deck, oftentimes my opponent will summon Brionac and bounce my Spirit Reaper and Messenger of Peace, the use it again to target my Trap, only for me to reveal it's Waboku (goes without saying it's best to target facedowns first if you intend to bounce everything). Although Brion is most often used to help fuel OTKs, I find it makes a sickening duo when used alongside Dark Armed Dragon.

Also, remember that Brionac's effect can also allow you to bounce back your own cards, although you will rarely do so. In my Countdown Deck, I've used it before to bounce my own Gravity Bind, then to discard that same Bind to bounce something else, if I think that straight-out attacking wil win me the game faster than the Countdown will. In a generic deck, probably the most likely thing you will self-bounce is Call of the Haunted, although other one-off cards work too, such as Wind-Up Factory, Rainbow Ruins, Breaker, and Stratos. Also, I guess, you can bounce one of your own monsters restrained by Fiendish Chain, forcing your opponent's Fiendish Chain to sit worthlessly on the field (unless your opponent's own Brionac bounces it back!) while you can just resume on your monster. One crazy idea is to bounce your own Black Luster Soldier continuously to constantly resume on him and to reuse his banishing effect, later reusing Return From the Different Dimension to summon up to 3 monsters used for BLS' cost and attacking for scary damage. This'll probably never happen, but I'm just pointing out Bionac's omnipotent potential.

Finally, since you likely KNOW what cards are in you opponent's hand, Mind Crush or D.D. Designator will remove those. Adds from the opponent's hand.

So, to summarize, Brionac is lacking in some area, but it is extremely versatile and will rarely disappoint. Virtually no Extra Deck should exclude Brionac. Against an opposing Brionac, if it does not kill me outright, I struggle to push my luck into tricking my opponent to waste the entire hand fruitlessly and I need to capitalize on my opponent unproductively exhausting the one copy of Brionac allowed in the Extra Deck.

Oh, there does exist one question: Should I discard all my cards at once to bounce back each one of my opponent's cards or should I do it one at a time? Um, that usually depends on the situation, but most of the time it should be one at a time. There's no sense in discarding your entire hand and watching your opponent use Divine Wrath or some other effect negator. There also exists one possibility, however, that the opponent has Compulsary Evacuation Device set, and if you discard a single card and CED is chained, you only get that one bounce. It's much more likely that CED would be used in response to the summon, but maybe the CED user is waiting for Brionac to waste its discard cost so that it could chain...but really, it would have to depend on the situation.

Niche Decks: Brionac is an Extra Deck staple, but Ojamas get a special mention due to antics they can pull with Ojamagic. And also Fabled and Infernities, I guess...

Traditional: 3/5 (milling out your hand isn't exactly ideal, not to mention you need to question what cards are truly worth bouncing in this format, but I do admit Sinister Serpent is evil discard fodder)
Advanced: 4/5 (would go up to 4.3 had it been Unlimited)
Aesthetics: 2.5/5 Calling it the Dragon of the Ice Barrier yet it's a Sea Serpent. Smashing. It's nice to see a Sea Serpent that's actually considered to be a good card (although they've been expanding more on it). Calling it a "Dragon" is sorta an insult to the godly Trishula, though. I suppose Water monsters do happen to have a theme of generating great card advantage, so Brionac, like fellow Dragon of the Ice Barrier Gungnir, can use Water support cards such as Salvage to help their cause. As for Brionac itself and its nice snowflake head, that's the name of the spear of Irish god Lugh.

Philosophy Corner: I totally forgot to mention this yesterday, but I always upkeep my quota of never missing a single CotD (I may be late at times, but if you check back on it sober or later, my article will always be there). My first review was Gagaga Girl. I had the chance to review the Inzektor week prior to her, but I was still getting used to the job (but if you want my opinion, Inzektor Hornet = 5, Inzektor Dragonfly = 5, Inzektor Giga-Mantis = 3.9, Inzektor Exa-Beetle = 1.8, Inzektor Swod Zekticaliber = 4).