Back to looking at cards from the new set we come to a real piece of work in V Salamander.  Fire, Spellcaster, Level 4, 1500 attack and 1300 defense.  This card has a lot going for it, believe it or not.  But it has just as much, if not more, working against it.  This card works only with an XYZ Monster in your Extra Deck (or I suppose a series of them, in various forms of Utopia).  So the playability of this card is very limited.  It can do some neat tricks, eventually being able to setting up to destroy all your opponent's Monsters and inflicting 1000 damage per destroyed Monster.  It can pull off a couple other nifty effects I suppose, but even if you were playing the Utopia series, you're better off without this.  Utopia is ending up with more support than Elemental Heroes, and like E-Heroes, most of it is garbage.
 
Ratings:

Traditional:  1/5 
Advanced:   2/5 
Art:  3.5/5 

We start the week off with a card that I believe could be a lot of fun to play in a fun deck. V Salamander is tailor made to be run in a deck that centers on Utopia. I do not know how many of you have actually played with the Super Starter Deck V of Victory or played in a Super Starter Deck tournament (raises his hand), but it can be rather fun. In this type of deck, making Utopia and Utopia Ray is rather easy and all you need is Rank-Up-Magic Limited Barian’s Force to make Number: C39: Utopia Ray V. Once you make these monsters and use their effects by detaching Utopia, V Salamander becomes a very strong monster.
 
This type of deck can work amazingly well against decks that play Scapegoats or spam a lot of monsters to the field. Imagine attaching V Salamander to your Utopia Ray V and using the effect to destroy all 4 Scapegoat tokens to inflict 4000 damage! Not only do you destroy all of your opponent’s monsters, but you also get to inflict massive damage. Note that you have to destroy all of your opponent’s monsters so if one survives, then you do not inflict damage.
 
V Salamander is a level four monster so it works great as material for Utopia, and it is a fire monster with 1500 attack so it will work with UFO Turtle. It is also conveniently enough a Spellcaster so it works well with the Gagaga monsters in the theme deck. It is kind of like they made Salamander specifically for the Super Starter theme deck. Doesn’t it?
 
There may be an OTK build with this card for those of you innovative enough to create it. Nightmare Archfiends anyone?
 
Traditional: 1/5
Advanced: 2/5

Today's Card of the Day review is a Rare card from the Judgment of the Light booster set: V Salamander, a card that appeared on the Yugioh Zexal anime.
 
This card is a Level 4 FIRE Attribute Spellcaster, which is a weird Type considering the card looks like a fiery fiend from the underworld. It is also Utopia support as well.
 
Personally, the most important part of this card is the effect gained when Normal Summoned, in which it will allow you to Special Summon a "Utopia" monster from your Graveyard. That can be the original Number 39, Number C39: Utopia Ray, or either of the remaining Number C39 that was recently released, Utopia Ray V and Utopia Ray Victory. In this case, the best targets to revive is the 2 Rank 4 Utopia monsters (which is Number 39: Utopia and Number C39: Utopia Ray). Remember that whichever you target, it will come back with its effects but with no Xyz Material.
 
Anyway, once you do so, you can use a Rank-Up Magic card to bring that Rank 4 "Utopia" Xyz monster to go into either of the Rank 5 "Utopia" Xyz monsters. Also, if you are curious, yes, you can bring back Number C39: Utopia Ray and it will eligible for you to play a Rank-Up Magic Spell to bring it up to Utopia Ray V and Utopia Ray Victory. Also, to add to this, since both Utopia Ray V and Utopia Ray Victory only require "Utopia" monsters equipped to it as an Xyz Material, Number C39: Utopia Ray will work just fine if you want to use their effects.
 
This is just one of the abilities V Salamander offers. Another benefit it brings is if you need a mass board wipe. For example, if your opponent has too many monsters on board for you to deal with, V Salamander itself can help you solve that problem. By bringing back a Rank 4 "Utopia" monster, and then Rank-Up-Magic it to Number C39: Utopia Ray V, you can make use of V Salamander's second effect. This allow you to detach an Xyz Material from Utopia Ray V to negate its own effects, destroy all of your opponent's monsters, and your opponent takes 1000 damage for each monster destroyed this way. That's quite brutal. Not only can you wipe the board clean but you also deal a solid amount of damage as well. Another thing to keep in mind is that the monsters doesn't need to go to the Graveyard so this effect will work on Tokens or monsters that would be banished once removed from the field. You can also do it again if Utopia Ray V remains on the field next turn. Lastly, this will allow you to attack with Utopia Ray V just the same if the damage done wasn't enough to end the game.
 
That's quite a lethal power boost and flexibility that this deck needs. It brings back fallen "Utopia" monsters, making Rank-Up-Magic based decks easier to use, and gives those who is willing to run the deck an accessible way to basically Raigeki your opponent's side of the field. Unfortunately, it is almost impossible to search for it whenever you need it but outside of that, this card is quite brutal and, I would say, it is one of the most underrated cards in this set.
 
If you ever want to find a reason to toy with Utopia Ray V and Utopia Ray Victory but is frustrated by the lack of ways to keep them on the field, V Salamander is one of the, if not the, best ways to fix that issue. I know I will be finding a way to put all of these cards and make a budget Gagaga deck with 2 of these and some Rank-Up-Magic spells to make a cheap but yet powerful Utopia-based deck.
 
Traditional Format: 2/5 (This card is actually good enough to be ran there, in my opinion. It's something to consider if you ever get the Yuma fever there.)
Advanced Format: 4/5 (This card is worth its weight in gold for Yuma/Utopia fans out there. It does so much for the deck and it only comes as a 10 cent Rare to boot. It gives a huge amount of playability boost to Rank-Up-Magic Utopia decks that is strangely not even getting a quarter of the attention it deserves. It is definitely something worth exploring for the budget players out there.

V Salamander
FIRE/Spellcaster/Effect/Level 4/1500/1300
When this card is Normal Summoned: You can target 1 "Utopia" monster in your Graveyard; Special Summon that target. You can target 1 "Number C39: Utopia Ray V" you control; equip this monster you control to that target. Once per turn, while this card is equipped to a monster: You can detach 1 Xyz Material from the equipped monster; negate the equipped monster's effects (even after this card leaves the field or the monster becomes unaffected by card effects), and if you do, destroy all monsters your opponent controls, and if you do that, inflict 1000 damage to your opponent for each monster destroyed by this effect.

This week we are looking at some of the cards that didn’t get into the Judgement of the Light Top 10 and first of is V Salamander and support card for the Utopia series of monsters. Statwise, V Salamander doesn’t have anything of interest, but why is it a Spellcaster? Salamanders are amphibians so this card should be Aqua or Reptile. Konami seems to have a big a grasp on biology as the designers of Beast Wars.

But what about its effects, first off when it is normal summoned it can special summon 1 “Utopia” monster from your Graveyard. A handy effect especially since it can be any Utopia monsters and not just a specific monster. Also you can equip this card to a Number C39: Utopia Ray V. Then by detaching a Xyz Material from your Number C39: Utopia Ray V you lose Number C39: Utopia Ray V’s regular effect and now it gets a really powerful effect which is a mix of Raigeki and a more powerful Just Desserts.

However there are a couple of problems. First of all, unless you are playing a lot Utopia monsters and in particular Number C39: Utopia Ray V, this card is largely useless. Second it does cost Number C39: Utopia Ray V its effect even if this card is no longer attached which is a big problem.

Overall, both effects are very powerful and very useful if you play a lot of Utopia monsters but the main effect does come with a lot of drawbacks and the monster itself isn’t anything of note.

Traditional: 3.5/5
Advanced: 3.5/5

Hey guys today we are going V Slamandra and I really feel that this card was a nice add to the Utopia deck. Being able destroy all of your opponents monsters then inflict 1000 points of damage is pretty broke if you ask me. I'm glad this card is a little more situational than there other Utopia cards but the ability to summon Utopia from the graveyard gives you easier access to Ray V. Overall a pretty decent card just not in a great deck.
 
Trad: 2/5
Adv: 2/5