Meh, missed the
sanctioned tourney again. At this rate,
I'll never get to go to one. Oh well,
here's today CotD, picked by Pojo himself, Shadow
Ghoul.
Card Text:
Dark/Zombie/5/1600/1300
Effect:
Increase the ATK of this monster by 100 for each
monster in your own Graveyard.
Analysis:
If you look at the
stats alone, 1600 attack power for one tribute
is pathetic, although that defense allows us to
fish it out via Witch of the Black
Forest. Now, why would we play
this monster if its stats are so weak?
Let's look at the effect.
This card makes an
unpleasant surprise to your opponent late in the
game, when your graveyard is sure to be full of
monsters. If you have at least 10 monsters
in your graveyard (including the only you'll
probably use to tribute for Shadow Ghoul), this
guy outpowers Summoned Skull.
Since the average deck these days contains
around 20 monsters, this means you'll need to
get half your monsters in the graveyard.
We need ways to dump monsters in the graveyard.
Some possibilities include The Cheerful
Coffin (although that may leave you
with an empty hand), Card Destruction
(and you get a new hand out of it!), and a
combination of Cannon Soldier, Sangan/Witch
of the Black Forest, and Last
Will (if you don't want to use an
Exodia deck).
The second way to
pump Shadow Ghoul up is using him in a Zombie
combo deck. This deck relies on the effect
of Castle of Dark Illusions to
pump up your Zombie cards by up to 1000 points.
Now, let's add this up. 1600 attack power
+ up to 1000 from Castle of Dark Illusions + 100
for each monster in your graveyard = a lot
of attack power. Problem is, Zombie combo
decks rely on somewhat weak attacking monsters (Dragon
Zombie, Armored Zombie,
etc.). You'll have to be pretty good at
deck building to pull one off.
You could also tech
1 Shadow Ghoul into a beatdown deck, although
those are meant for fast victories, and not for
the set-up that Shadow Ghoul requires. I
tried teching 1 Shadow Ghoul into a beatdown
deck, and the results weren't really worth it,
as most of the time I would topdeck the Shadow
Ghoul, and it would go out around the 6th turn
and get destroyed by a Jirai Gumo
or something =/ If you already have 3
Summoned Skull in your deck and you need another
5-6 level attacker, though, you can choose
either this or Judge Man.
It depends on whether you can get a lot of
monsters in the graveyard without getting too
far behind your opponent. I would suggest
cards like Man-Eater Bug, Hane-Hane,
and Wall of Illusion, as you
can get them dumped in the graveyard without
your opponent gaining a huge monster advantage.
If you don't want such a commitment, or are
looking for quick victories, go with Judge Man
instead.
Of course, even if
you do get to dump a lot of monsters in your
graveyard to pump up Shadow Ghoul, there are a
few ways to trip it up. Since it is a
monster card (well, duh), monster
removal cards will eat it up.
Then again, if they use Raigeki,
Dark Hole, or Mirror
Force on you, that may help you,
because it puts more monsters in your graveyard.
You just have to survive the oncoming offensive
assault. Shadow Ghoul also gets shut down
by the rarely seen Soul Release,
by taking away up to 5 of its monsters.
Should YOU
play it?
If you run a Zombie
combo deck, this is bound to be your main
attacker, so throw at least 2 in. You may
also consider teching 1 into a beatdown
deck or at least sideboarding it.
Score:
I give Shadow Ghoul
a 3.0. It's not the most
powerful card in the game, but if placed in the
right deck in the right player's hands, it can
be devastating.
