Dark
Paladin |
Wednesday
Axe of Fools is a fairly interesting Magic card,
although when was the last time you saw someone play
Axe of Despair? That should about wrap things up
here, but let's say for the sake of argument it
doesn't. Like Axe of Despair, the equipped Monster
gains 1000 attack. However, unlike Despair, said
Monsters effects are negated, and the controller of
the Monster equipped with this card takes 500 points
of Damage each turn. The Damage is negligible, it
would have to really add up to be a problem. The
effect negation is good if you're using it on your
opponent's Monster, but 1000 attack increase is a
lot.
Ratings:
Traditional: 1/5
Advanced: 2/5
Art: 2.5/5
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Philosophical
Psycho |
Equip Cards have always had a bad rap. Not only
are they destroyed easily since they need to be
faceup all the time, they also get destroyed if the
equipped monster is removed from the field or gets
flipped facedown. The effects they provide are
usually minimal (good cards can destroy other cards
or get you more cards, not change your stats), so
they better be pretty darn good. Worse, if you’re
relying on that ATK boost to beat an enemy monster
and MST is used on attack declaration, you will
hurt. Does our Foolish Axe cut the chase? Similar to
the “Forbidden Garden” Quickplays (Forbidden Lance,
Chalice, Dress), Fools has positive and negative
effects. Its positive effect matches the classic Axe
of Despair’s 1000 ATK boost, which is respectable,
enough to get the monster stronger than other
monsters of its Level. Now, a negative value
multiplied by a negative value is positive, so of
course you’d want to Equip this to a strong monster
with bad effects. The 500 damage each turn is more
annoying than anything else.
There are two ways to really use Fools; you can
equip it on your monster for the ATK boost and to
negate your ill effects or equip to an opponent’s
monster to cancel its effects and consistently deal
500 damage per turn. “Multi-functional,” sure, but
these are two very different ways to use the same
card and I’d rather have a single, dedicated card
that suits my theme than to throw a bunch of cards
together with ragtag strategies. It’s a very
unimportant card, but I guess I’ll list its uses in
the next two paragraphs.
A Skill Drain Deck uses the likes of Beast King
Barbaros and Fusilier Dragon the Dual Mode Beast to
use their effects to summon themselves easily then
rely on the Skill Drain to remove their negative
qualities after they get on the field. Usually
running triple Skill Drain would be enough, but
Fools is unique as a Spell Card that can act as a
“mini Skill Drain.” If I haven’t gotten my Skill
Drain yet, I can summon Beast King Barbaros, equip
him with Fools, then watch him go up to 4000. Even
if Fools gets destroyed, he’ll still be at 3000.
However, Forbidden Chalice is a Quickplay that also
negates monster effects, and since Barbaros and
Fusilier only need to be negated once to be
unleashed, Chalice is just more convenient. In this
regard, you would only ever need Fools for elongated
use such as for Beast Machine King Barbaros Ür or as
a backup protection like for Malefics, but that is
really clumsy. There is a new 3000 ATK monster
coming out this August 9 that can be Normal Summoned
without Tribute but will destroy itself afterwards.
The ruling on whether it still destroys itself with
Axe of Fools is somewhat unclear, but I think it
does. Since your own card is dealing effect damage
to you, you can take advantage of it with
Prime-Material Dragon or Black-Winged Dragon, but
this is usually more trouble than it’s worth.
It’s even worse when you use it defensively. Sure,
you can equip it to the opponent’s monster, negate
its effects, and deal 500 damage (veeeery sloooowly).
That assumes your opponent doesn’t Tribute the
monster or uses it for Synchro/Xyz, too. I would
assume you have some attack protection, so the 1000
ATK increase doesn’t matter as much (although giving
your monsters ATK boosts is something best avoided).
It’s unique in how it can both negate effects and
burn, but it does a poor job at it. Besides, stall
burn is not as good as it was a few years ago and
nowadays, the rare Burn Deck prefers to deal its
damage all in one blow, usually with Magical
Explosion or Chain Strike. If you are indeed going
the stall route, I’d rather use Lava Golem (does
twice as much damage and sooner, can also remove
problem monsters, and even has the same scenario of
giving your opponent a big monster) or Fiendish
Chain (stops the target from attacking and using
effects, and is just a good card in general).
Trad: 1/5
Adv: 1.5/5 (I admit it’s a pretty unique card the
way it can negate an effect on the spot, but not one
worth bothering over, especially if you have
Forbidden Chalice)
Aesthetics: 4.5/5 Exiled Force is a Level 4 monster
that used to be a popular form of monster removal.
As seen in the Continuous Traps Royal Oppression and
Royal Prison, they used to have trouble with the
government and got thrown in jail. They later took
up jobs as mercenaries, and gained the ability to
lynch other monsters. If you look at the art of
Exiled Force, you can see a bald guy with a metal
brace on his head. They started to travel across the
country and became the Nomadic Force, turning from
Earth to Wind Attribute. During their journey, they
picked up a lot of Equip Cards, although they were
only able to afford Equip Cards that hurt them.
Baldie in particular picked up the Axe of Fools. The
negative Equips tolled on them; their troop dropped
to only four members, turning them into the
Dark-Attribute Missing Force. Baldie, still carrying
his Axe of Fools, has now taken an interest in
flowers and butterflies. The design of Axe of Fools
was likely based off of the old Equip Axe of
Despair. There are five different “Axe” Equips, but
based on the Japanese name, some of them are “Akkusu”
and some aren’t even Axes. Axe of Fools, Axe of
Despair, and Gravity Axe – Grarl all fall in the
“Ono” category, practically killing any chance of
creating an “Axe” support group. That said, Fools is
a really nicely designed Equip Card (artwise).
Philosophy Corner: Yesterday I said I will be
writing about my Decks. I invite you to tell me
about your Deck so I can review it as well, and if
you permit me, I will also publish my review of it.
abc_at_123.com@hotmail.com
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