Monsters with 50 in their attack and defense...it irks me and I don't know why. Cairngorgon, Antiluminescent Knight...that name is a mouthful. Rank 4, Rock type, Dark attribute, as one might expect, with 2450 attack and 1950 defense. XYZ Summoned with two Level 4 Monsters. Rocks I consider to be a very undervalued type of Monster. They have interesting Monsters, and can be very annoying. This guy is interesting, but is he annoying? During either players' turn, when a card or effect is activated to target ONE (and only one) card on the Field, by detaching an XYZ Material from this card, you can change the target of that card to another appropriate target. So he's selectively protective. The 2450 attack isn't bad (just annoying) and the effect can help, I just don't think it's going to help you enough to warrant room in the Extra Deck. Rock isn't very likely to help you much either, but Dark is always a good thing.

Ratings:

Traditional: 1.75/5
Advanced: 2.75/5
Art: 4.5/5

Cairngorgon the Antiluminscent Knight

First of all, pronunciation:
Kay - earn - gore - gun

Main point: don't be fooled. This isn't a control card. It's a lockdown card.

Your opponent (if you play against good opponents) won't be stupid enough to use a card that they know will be redirected right back at them.

Its a soft lockdown but it can shut down some plays like Dark World's Grapha nonetheless.

You can redirect cards that say "target/destroy 1 card on the field" but if the effect is something like "destroy 1 card on your OPPONENT's field", you have to redirect it to another one of your cards, and you don't +1 off of that, so what's the point? The Fire/Ice Hands and Atlantean/Mermails specify the opponent. Its vulnerable to non-targeting cards and requirement cards. Yep, this card is useless against D Prison and Bottomless.

XYZ's are meant to punish opponents. Ragnazero punishes archetype support. ARK punishes aggro. But this card doesn't punish anything due to its passive nature. XYZ's generally need to activate ASAP to regain the resources you spent. This card hopes your opponent is playing a deck that needs to target cards to destroy them.

At 2450, it stands as one of the strongest drawback-free generic LV4 XYZ's. Its lockdown effect can become somewhat useful, but mostly I just see this card as a beater. It can definitely find use in the right meta though. I just don't think that time is now.

Traditional - 1
Advanced - 3

Today we are looking at a card that has gone a bit under the radar, Cairngorgon, Antiluminescent Knight. Cairngorgon has the ability to redirect card effects to another legal target. Honestly, I want to like this card. It is physically stronger than the monsters commonly played at the moment, getting over the strongest monster in a current rank 4 extra deck (Ragnazero). However, it’s effect screams “floodgate”. Chances are your opponent will never activate an effect that will benefit you if Cairngorgon can redirect it. Though this means your opponent’s options will be limited.

Being a floodgate, that relatively high attack is important, as floodgates are only as good as they are hard to get rid of. That being said, I don’t think Cairngorgon is likely to stick around too long and thus will probably only be used on occasion as a way to block very specific outs the opponent might have. Thus, it could technically become a game clincher at some point.

That being said, at the moment he is just slightly above average. That could change, but we’ll have to see what happens.

One thing I would like to reiterate before I go (and potentially one of the most debilitating problems with this card) is that it can only switch effects to another legal target. If your opponent activates a card that can only affect your cards, you will merely get to choose which card it affects, you will not be able to make it affect the opponent. That could be a huge problem for this card in the long run.

So Cairngorgon gets a pretty average review from me. It has potential, but its drawbacks will likely outweigh its benefits.

Traditional: 1/5
Advanced: 3/5