Wednesday

Noble Arms of Destiny closes out our short week, another of the Noble Arms Equip Magic cards. I've got nothing against the Noble Archtype, I'm actually fairly fond of it because most of them have excellent art. These cards I'm not so fond of, however. You can only control one of these face-up and it can only be equipped to a Warrior Monster. Once a turn, the equipped Monster cannot be destroyed by Battle or Effects. That's actually rather good, aside from being able to destroy this card itself. But if your opponent can't, that's annoying for sure. When this card face-up is destroyed, you can target another Warrior Noble Knight you control and equip this to that Monster. Honestly, it probably is one of the better Equips for Noble Knights, but that still doesn't make it great.

Ratings:

Traditional: 1/5
Advanced: 2.5/5
Art: 3/5

Today, we will cover a underrated Super Rare from the Lord of the Tachyon Galaxy booster set and a key ingredient for the Noble Knight archetype, Noble Arms of Destiny.
 
It is an Equip Spell with 2 useful effects. The first effect is pretty straightforward. It protects the equipped monster from being destroyed by battle or card effects once per turn, which is pretty nice and offers defensive power for your slower Noble Knights, like Gwalchavad. It also helps gives Artorigus, King of the Noble Knights some extra protection when it retrieves Noble Arms of Destiny back from the Graveyard to equip to himself.
 
Also, it gives Noble Knight Medraut a new role. Normally, you would drop Medraut and then give it any Noble Arms, Special Summon another Noble Knight, and then use both as an Xyz Summon. Now with Noble Arms of Destiny, you can use it also as defense. If they try to destroy your Medraut, they have to attack it twice, which makes it harder. If they go after the Noble Knight you Special Summoned with Medraut, next turn you can use Medraut's trick all over again esp. since you hasn't use your Normal Summon yet that turn.
 
For example:
 
Turn 1, you Normal Summon Medraut and then equip it with Noble Arms of Destiny. Use Medraut's effect and Special Summon any Noble Knight (like Gawayn) in Defense Position. End your turn.
Turn 2, your opponent Normal Summons a monster and runs over your Defense Position Gawayn.
Turn 3, you use Medraut's effect again and Special Summon Gwalchavad. Destroy Noble Arms of Destiny and give it to Gwalchavad. Use Gwalchavad's effect to get Gawayn back to your hand and then destroy Noble Arms of Destiny again. Special Summon Gawayn and then either make a 2-material Rank 4 with any 2 Noble Knights (like Starliege Paladynamo) and go for a 3-material Rank 4 like Number 16: Shock Master or Number 69: Heraldry Crest. Lastly, keep in mind that you hasn't used your Normal Summon yet so that play basically gives you a free 2-Material Rank 4 play and you can Normal Summon another monster and make a 2nd 2-material Rank 4 Xyz monster.
 
A lot of options available with such minimal set-up.
 
Lastly, this can be equipped to any Warrior-type monster so you could even give it to your Blade Armor Ninja and give it additional protection power if you ever feel the need for it. The rest of the text is pretty much the same as any other Noble Arms card so no need to go through such details.
 
All-in-all, it is a very good card that allows the Noble Knight archetype to take a different route: playing the control game. It gives Medraut a brand new role in the deck and, at the same time, makes certain strategies possible that wasn't available before like dropping a Noble Knight Artorigus and then giving it Noble Arms of Destiny to defend it until next turn. Lastly, it gives your Xyz monster the ability to protect itself when it is time to go for the victory.
 
Traditional Format: 2/5 (It may have use there but I doubt it. It is worth keeping in mind just the same.)
Advanced Format: 3/5 (It is not a bad card for the deck and is solely needed to increase the flexibility of plays that this deck can do. It is worth keeping a playset around if you want to play this deck competitively. It's worth the trouble.)

Noble Knight monsters (not counting Joan) are based off one of the Knights of the Round Table, and all of the currently released Noble Arms are meant to be their swords (thankfully you can equip them to any Noble Knight you want; if you could only equip them to the same Knight, that would be horrible!). The Noble Arms are a series of Equip Cards; at the time of this publication, there are four, and it is reasonable that more will be made. They can only be equipped to Warrior monsters, and if these get destroyed, they can be picked up again by a Noble Knight. Equip Spells are normally shunned as they tend to get minimal benefit but are so easily destroyed; the recyclable factor of the Noble Arms make them a lot more playable.
 
Destiny is unique from the other Noble Arms, not only since it does not give a stat boost or is not named Noble Arms – Destiny, but also since it gives a distinct protection effect. This is similar to Stardust Dragon in the manga or The Seal of Orichalcos; any (or at least the first) attempt on the equipped monster’s life will be thwarted. (Normally, I would go on a spiel now about how you can use this protection to your advantage to activate Scrap Dragon’s effect without needing to destroy your own cards, but since the Noble Arms can regenerate themselves after getting destroyed, this will only be important to Destiny if you don’t have any Noble Knights on the field.) This highly unique effect allows Destiny to be more splashable in general Warrior Decks outside of Noble Knight. You can use it to protect your most important Warriors (e.g. Heroic Champion - Gandiva), and after it finally gets slain, Destiny’s shield will get transferred to another Noble Knight (but if your opponent is smart, they’ll wipe out all your other Noble Knights first, which is usually only a small inconvenience). You can also use it to shield a Level 4 Warrior for a turn to help ensure you’ll be able to use it for Synchro or Xyz Material the next turn, then equip it to a new Noble Knight afterwards (however, the way Noble Knights are designed, they can Xyz Rank 4 almost instantaneously). As I mentioned earlier, you can also use this to protect important Synchros or Xyzs, like Crimson Blader or Junk Archer. I think you can even use this to keep Utopia from destroying itself by its own effect.
 
Despite the criticisms I put in the parentheses, the benefits I listed still make it the best of the currently four Noble Arms. Most of all, you will use it in the Noble Deck to guard your most important monster, Artorigus, King of the Noble Knights. When summoned, he will grab three Noble Arms from the Grave and equip them to himself. This will help beef up his miniature 2000 ATK to something hopefully more durable, to the point where there is no other option but to destroy him by card effects, and Destiny will help against that (except it unfortunately won’t save him from being returned to the Extra Deck or changing control). Destroying his Equips is a normally good idea, but Destiny, like the other Noble Arms, regenerate when destroyed. If you’re really desperate, after Destiny has protected once, you can use Mystical Space Typhoon on your own Destiny to make it regenerate and give you protection again.
 
Trad: 2/5 (it can save you from Chaos Emperor Dragon or Raigeki or Tribe-Infecting Virus and that’s all I really care about)
Adv: 3.2/5 (it’s like Safe Zone, but for Warriors only, and you don’t chain it, and it only gives one protection per turn, plus it can be searched by King of Noble Knights or Laundsallyn, and when it gets destroyed, it regenerates instead of taking your monster with it)
Aesthetics: 4.7/5 Destiny represents the shield and sword of Noble Knight Gwalchavad, who is based off Sir Galahad, son of Lancelot. Galahad’s sword is the only one with a whole story behind how he got it (not counting King Arthur’s Excalibur). Galahad takes upon the quest for the Holy Grail, a mission in which no other had survived. King Arthur walks Galahad out to the river to a stone. The stone has a sword in it and on the stone is written, “Never shall man take me hence but only he by whose side I ought to hang; and he shall be the best knight in the world.” Galahad takes the sword effortlessly and King Arthur recognizes him as the greatest knight ever. Galahad then sets off on the search for the Holy Grail. Galahad is also famous for carrying his white shield with a great red cross on it (that shield is also in this card’s picture, but I’m disappointed how the cross is barely visible). I also like how Cameliard (King Arthur’s castle) is in the background of this card, complete with the river.
 
Philosophy Corner: I’m not brave. I just know how to hide my fear.
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Hey guys, today we are going to be doing Noble Arms of Destiny. It's effect reads:

You can only control 1 face-up "Noble Arms of Destiny". Equip only to a Warrior-Type monster. Once per turn, the equipped monster cannot be destroyed by battle or by card effects. If this face-up card on the field is destroyed and sent to the Graveyard: You can target 1 Warrior-Type "Noble Knight" monster you control; equip this card to that target. You can only use this effect of "Noble Arms of Destiny"
once per turn.

Unfortunately there is still more to desired from the Noble Arms deck.
Konami did a great job of making the deck balanced and brought equip spell cards (a dying art since they've been released) at decent measure, but even with this card they seem to be still be missing key components to the deck. This card is really good in it's effect, but the usefulness is hindered by the deck itself. Maybe that's the reason it has a broader range being able to be tech'd in other warrior decks.
Overall not a bad effect warriors just need to be revamped.

Traditional: 1/5 (No way)
Advanced: 2/5 (Pretty good card, has potential, just waiting for more support)

We are going to delve into the Noble Knight archetype today with the equip card Noble Arms of Destiny. But first, a little color commentary to wet our appetite. The Noble Knights are based on the Knights of the Round Table and King Arthur so fittingly; the Noble Arms cards all depict swords that are embedded in stones. The archetype itself is based around noble warriors that uses equip cards for their weapons. All of these equip cards have one thing in common. They automatically re-equip themselves to a Noble Knight on the field when they are destroyed once per turn.
 
Noble Arms of Destiny will protect your Noble Knight from destruction (effect and battle) once per turn. If you have an MST, you could even destroy your own Noble Arms of Destiny to have it re-equip and gain the protection one more time. The real issue is not with the protection effect, but with resources. If you are using Destiny to save your monster long enough to Xyz summon a monster, you are using up 3 resources to get one monster. Of course, if that one monster is Artorigus, King of the Noble Knights, then you turn those 3 cards into a monster and a bunch of Noble Arms cards and the ability to destroy your opponents spells and traps.
 
The real benefit of Noble Arms of Destiny and the other Noble Arms cards is that they trigger the effects of your Noble Knights which can get a Noble Knight to the field or to the hand to help with Xyz summoning. Event though the Noble Arms come with added protection, I am never in favor of combos or equip cards. They tend to create too many negative card advantages, be too slow, and be inconsistent. Today’s meta is all about speed, so a Noble Knight theme would just get run over and crushed.
 
Traditional: 1/5
Advanced: 2/5