Stats :
Harpie Lady 1 is a Level 4
Wind/Winged-Beast. Being a Level 4 Monster is
fine: she can be dropped into play without any
hassle. Wind, although you might not know it,
has some pretty solid Monsters: Slate Warrior,
Luster Dragon #2 (he Level 4, 1900 ATK one),
Spear Dragon, etc. It’s just that, aside from
the Harpies, the good Wind cards tend to
lend themselves to a basic Beatdown deck, and
that’s just not enough. As for Winged-Beasts,
there are cards that support them, but only one
exclusively helps them: the pathetic Equip from
LOB: Fallow Wind! It “shares” with other
types on support: usually Beasts and
Beast-Warriors. It makes it rather odd: you
have support, but you don’t have support.
Moving onto the ATK and DEF, we see a somewhat
puny 1300/1400. It is too low to handle
anything but spent Effect Monsters. The only
real bright side to the ATK/DEF is that you can
legally search and Summon Harpie Lady 1
from your deck via Flying Kamakiri #1.
These are the same as the original Harpie
Lady. It wasn’t enough for her then. Will
the effect make it enough for this one now?
Effect(s) :
The first effect just says to treat this card as
if it were named Harpie Lady. Given that it’s
worked in other games, why not just call the
card that to being with? Oh well. This means
you can only run a total of three of her, the
next two CotDs, and the original Harpie Lady.
So you could have Harpie Lady 1/2/3
as an even spread, or two copies of Harpie
Lady 1 and one copy of Harpie Lady 2,
but you cannot have more than three of all of
them together.
The second effect is the real effect: as
long as she’s on the field, Harpies Lady 1
grants all Wind Monsters an extra 300 ATK. This
is a pretty solid effect: it means Harpie
Lady 1 is effectively a 1600 ATK Level 4,
which can handle a lot more Monsters. The
effect also stacks, so if you have two out, you
have solid 1900 ATK beatsticks. Just remember,
it affects all Wind Monsters, yours and your
opponents. Other than perhaps Slate Warrior,
that shouldn’t be too common a problem.
Uses and
Combinations :
Harpies excel at swarming. This is due
to the Spell Card, Elegant Egotist, and
two Monsters: the aforementioned Flying
Kamakiri #1 and Birdface (when it
dies in battle, you can move a Harpie Lady
from deck to hand). Combining them, you
should almost always have two Harpie Lady
cards out at the same time.
If you don’t want to use them, you still might
consider Harpie Lady 1 for Wind-themed
decks; she isn’t quite as good
Attribute-oriented booster as, say,
Hoshinigen is for Light Monsters, but she is
more sturdy on her own than it is.
Ratings
Traditional :
3.5/5-That’s basically the rating for the deck,
not just her: she is absolutely vital to
Harpies decks. I personally consider her
to be the best of the three new Harpie Lady
cards. However, Harpies are meant to
swarm and attack… and that’s not going to cut it
here.
Advanced :
4/5-Again, this is more the “deck rating” than
here rating. Again, she is the best of the
three new Harpie Lady cards, and if you
are running a Harpie deck, she’s the best
choice to use. Swarm and attack!
Limited :
4/5-Here she is actually being rated for
herself! You have what (thanks to her effect)
is a solid attacker in this format… and there
are seven other Wind Monsters in Rise of
Destiny. Other than Harpie Girl and
Ultimate Insect LV3, they either have solid
Stats and/or effects for limited. What’s more,
five of the useful ones are commons and one is
basic Rare.
Summary
Harpie Lady 1
is the best Harpy Lady available in
America. She’s okay on her own, but when
combined with all the support for Harpie Lady
in particular and/or a few bits of general
Wind or Winged-Beast support, she can be quite
potent.
