Wednesday
 
We looked at two of these Dragons in out top 10 countdown for Lord of the Tachyon Galaxy.  These Dragons vaguely resemble the Elemental Lords, but not quite as difficult to Special Summon, and return to the Hand after being Special Summoned as opposed to losing a Battle Phase when leaving the Field.  Redox, Dragon Ruler of Boulders is a Level 7, Earth attributed Dragon with 1600 attack (crap) but 3000 defense (excellent).  Now, as you might be familiar you can Special Summon this card by removing from play two Earth and/or Dragon type Monster from your Hand and/or Graveyard.  You can discard this card and one Earth Monster to target a Monster in your Graveyard and Special Summon it.  See, here's my issue.  If you Special Summon this card, you're still giving up two resources, even if they come from the Graveyard, regardless of them being actual Tributes.  Second, to Special Summon a Monster with this effect, that's still two resources for one Monster.  Furthermore, if this card is removed from play, you can add an Earth, Dragon type Monster from your Deck to your Hand.  The two of these guys we looked at before were certainly playable.  This one, not so much.
 
Ratings:

Traditional:  1/5 
Advanced:  2/5 
Art:  4/5 

It is time to talk about one of the game changing Elemental Dragons or Dragon Rulers. Up first is Redox, Dragon Ruler of Boulders. The four hard to pull Elemental Dragons all have the same effects except for one difference. Each of them has an effect based on their attribute. Wind blows a monster to the hand, Water deep sixes a monster to the grave, Fire burns a card on the field, and Earth resurrects a monster back to the land of the living.
 
The Elemental Dragon effects work like this: When one is banished, you get to add a dragon with that attribute to your hand. Redox will get an Earth/Dragon. You can discard Redox and an Earth monster to special summon a monster from your grave. You can also special summon Redox from the hand or grave by banishing two Earth and or Dragon monsters from your hand or grave. All pretty nice effects, but you only get one effect per turn. When played with the other Dragon Rulers and the Baby Dragons, Redox becomes one piece to a powerful puzzle, as the other Elemental Dragons can banish Redox to special summon themselves and then you get to add an Earth/Dragon to your hand. They just keep replacing themselves and special summoning themselves from the hand and grave. The idea is to get two of the level 7 Elemental Dragons on the field to special summon a rank 7 monster, ether Dracossack or Big Eye.
 
The Elemental Dragons are not just for Dragon Ruler decks. Each of them work well in decks that run their attribute. Redox, Dragon Ruler of Boulders works well in any deck that runs all Earth monsters like Psychic, Six Samurai, Rock, and X-Saber decks. Psychic decks especial like to banish monsters and manipulate the graveyard and would be a good fit for Redox and Grandsoil, The Elemental Lord. If you are going to run your big Elemental Dragons in an attribute themed deck, you will also want to run a couple of Baby Dragons as they have the effect to special summon the big dragons from the deck. With Redox, you will be running Reactan, Dragon Ruler of Pebbles.
 
Yes, the Elemental Dragons have changed the game in a big way. In a deck by themselves, they are dominating. They also make other decks of their type even better. When you add cards like Gold Sarcophagus and Sacred Sword of Seven Stars to banish Redox, you plus one yourself and thin your deck. By adding Super Rejuvenation, we replenish our hand. The Dragon Rulers are crazy good and have impacted the game in a big way.
 
Traditional: 4/5
Advanced: 5/5

Today we are reviewing a monster from the Dragon Ruler archetype. If you’re a competitive player then you’ve probably seen this card already in Dragon Ruler decks. It’s a fantastic card that has even seen play in other decks too. Let’s see what this card can do!!!

Redox, Dragon Ruler of Boulders
Attribute: Earth
Types: Dragon/Effect
Level 7

If this card is in your hand or Graveyard: You can banish a total of 2 EARTH and/or Dragon-Type monsters from your hand and/or Graveyard, except this card; Special Summon this card. During your opponent's End Phase, if this card was Special Summoned: Return it to the hand. You can discard this card and 1 EARTH monster to the Graveyard, then target 1 monster in your Graveyard; Special Summon that target. If this card is banished: You can add 1 EARTH Dragon-Type monster from your Deck to your hand. You can only use 1 "Redox, Dragon Ruler of Boulders" effect per turn, and only once that turn.
ATK/1600 DEF/3000

This monster is really solid because it’s easy to summon in Dragon Ruler decks and also lets you add an Earth Dragon-type monster from your deck to your hand when it’s banished. It also goes back to your hand during your opponent’s end phase. The main reason that this card is so good is because it helps give easy access to Rank 7 plays. This monster also has the ability to special summon monsters from your grave by just discarding this monster and another Earth Monster from your hand. This effect is really important because it makes the card splashable in any deck that uses a lot of Earth monsters. This makes it useful in decks like Gadgets and can also be used in almost any deck that uses Grandsoil the Elemental Lord.

Advanced: 4.5/5
-This card is fantastic!! The only problem with it is its low attack but that really doesn’t matter all that much as long as you have Big Eye or Dracossack.

Traditional: 5/5
-Dragon Rulers are amazing in this format with Future Fusion and Painful Choice to play with. That’s why this monster is so good here.

Art: 5/5

After a short break, I am back; and today we are looking at: Redox, Dragon Ruler of Boulders

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English
If this card is in your hand or Graveyard: You can banish a total of 2 EARTH and/or Dragon-Type monsters from your hand and/or Graveyard, except this card; Special Summon this card. During your opponent's End Phase, if this card was Special Summoned: Return it to the hand. You can discard this card and 1 EARTH monster to the Graveyard, then target 1 monster in your Graveyard; Special Summon that target. If this card is banished: You can add 1 EARTH Dragon-Type monster from your Deck to your hand. You can only use 1 "Redox, Dragon Ruler of Boulders" effect per turn, and only once that turn."

Not a whole lot to say about this guy. He is smaller than most of the Elemental Dragons (Edragons), but gets the job done. Outside of Edragons he acts as a pseudo monster reborn, but why on earth would you play him outside of his tier 0 deck? Seriously, Edragons are a big thing right now, and probably will remain so for the foreseeable future.

Advanced: 5/5
Traditional: 5/5

There are certain powerful monsters I consider very splashable because they only require certain Attributes in your Graveyard. Dark has Dark Counterparts, perhaps the most famous of them being Dark Armed Dragon. Light has a variety of Lightray monsters, and also Soul of Purity and Light. Of course, there are many "Chaos" monsters that require you to Banish one Light and one Dark monster from your Grave. Fire, Rock, Water, and Wind all have at least two monsters that are summoned by Banishing one corresponding monster. Fire has Spirit of Flames and Inferno; Rock has The Rock Spirit, Gigantes, and Gigastone Omega (Omega needs two). Water has Aqua Spirit and Fenrir; Wind has Silpheed and Garuda the Wind Spirit. Fire, Rock, Water, and Wind also have the Elemental Lords, which you can plop down by having exactly five monsters of an Attribute in the Grave. Now what we got are the Dragon Rulers.

There are four Dragon Rulers, one for each non-Light/Dark/Divine-Beast/Creator-God Attribute out there. Each monster has three effects, and you can only use one of these effects under its name per turn:
1. Banish two Dragons and/or your own Attribute from hand and/or Grave and summon this from hand and/or Grave (usually you'll be banishing from the Grave to play this from the Grave). This is NOT something like the aforementioned "banish from your Graveyard to summon" cards because this effect can be chained to.
2. Discard from your hand this card and a shared Attribute from your hand to activate your unique ability.
3. When this card is banished, add a Dragon from your deck with the same Attribute.

The Dragon Rulers for Fire and Water were in our Lord of the Trachyon Galaxy Top 10 Countdown, presumably because how splashable they were into the popular Fire and Water Decks coming out (particularly Fire Fist, Fire King, Hazy, Mermail, Atlantean). Redox is splashable too in Earth Decks. 1600 ATK isn't very powerful, and the 3000 DEF can't protect you for long since Redox will bounce itself when Special Summoned at the end of the opponent's turn, but it can act as a Monster Reborn when needed and afterwards continuously Special Summon itself for whatever use you'd like. However, in a Dragon Ruler Deck (more popularly referred to as the Elemental Dragons, EDragons for short), you will be using ALL THREE COPIES OF THESE DRAGONS.

In the EDragon Deck, the only thing that separates the different Dragons is their unique ability. Redox's is pretty nifty, putting itself and another monster in the Grave to summon out another. Redox and the other monster can then be used as costs for other Dragons, although in honesty you probably won't use that effect very often. You're supposed to use the baby versions to help summon out the Level 7 versions from your deck, use the first EDragon ability to summon them out of your Grave, and at the same time activating the third EDragon abilities of those that are banished to add clones to your hand. Then you Xyz Summon Rank 7 like crazy.

Trad: 2.5/5
Adv: 4.7/5 (it helps that the very splashable Cockroach monsters, especially Maxx "C", are Earth)

Philosophy Corner: "The Dragon Rulers serve as part of a natural cycle meant to spread the purified power of the Attributes."

Aesthetics: 5/5 The power unleashed by the "Dragon Rulers" spreads evenly across the world, giving power to desolate lands. And as "Dragon Rulers" grow to adulthood, taking over the energy of the other Attributes again, conquering and absorbing the other Attributes of the land into their bodies, the circulation caused by the "Dragon Rulers" keeps a balance of power between the Attributes of nature. "Reactan, Dragon Ruler of Pebbles", having unleashed the power of Wind, reincarnates in the mountains, giving birth to "Redox, Dragon Ruler of Boulders".

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