Stats                : King of the Skull Servants is a Level 1 Monster, so it is naturally easy to Normal Summon.  It’s Dark, making it Chaos compliant, another nice perk, and a Zombie, the only type right now to rival Warriors for support.  The ATK is “?”, meaning the Monster’s effect will define it later.  There is one downside to this – “?” doesn’t count as a number, so unless this is in play, anything that references an ATK (like most searchers) can’t target King of the Skull Servants.  The DEF is 0, which is a concern: no matter how high the effect can make the ATK, any of the many position changing cards can render King of the Skull Servants as weak as it can be.

 

Effect(s)            : The “original ATK” if King of the Skull Servants is equal to the number of Skull Servants and King of Skull Servants in your graveyard multiplied by 1000.  This means that, via its own effect, unless you swipe an opponent’s, it caps at 5000 ATK.  It’s not apt to be that big, at least all but the last one you play.

 

There is a second effect: if King of the Skull Servants is killed in battle, you can remove a Skull Servant or King of the Skull Servants from your graveyard to revive it, though obviously this lowers the ATK by 1000.  Now, why revive it if it was weak enough to die in battle?  Oh yeah, the low DEF means it’s usually going to die in battle via a position change… so it’s nice to get it back again, at the very least to block a direct attack from an opponent’s second Monster.

 

I will mention, King of the Skull Servants’ effect tying into a card that until now was honestly near useless (though with a strong fan base), is pretty cool.  Unfortunately, since Skull Servant is such a weak card on its own, it lowers King of the Skull Servants’ playability.  Guess you can’t win them all.

 

Uses and

Combinations  : Sadly, what might have turned him into at least a common sight in decks is only legal in Traditional: Painful Choice.  Still, there are many cards common to decks that work for discards: Tribe Infecting Virus, Graceful Charity, Card Destruction, Lightning Vortex, and Raigeki Break.  Some of them are in nearly every deck, and all are pretty easy to add.  When you look at more specific deck types (like bounce), you find even more options (like Back to Square One).  Just be careful as it randomly discards off the top of your deck until it hits a Spell or Trap.  You can also let your opponent help you out: you do choose what you discard for the second card discarded by Delinquent Duo.  Another option is Magical Merchant.  It is a low level Light/Insect we have reviewed before, and isn’t too bad for Chaos decks. 

 

Okay, now for some tricks that pertain more directly to the cards stats.  It is a Level 1 Monster.  This screams for Opti-Camouflage Armor, which allows a Level 1 Monster to which it is equipped to attack directly.  A direct 2000-3000 damage I actually pretty nice.  Level Limit-Area B and Gravity Bind are wonderful can proved a good amount of protection; especially early on when it may only be at 2000 ATK.  We also stumble upon another way to make use of those Skull Servant and early King of the Skull Servants cards you pull: use Metamorphosis and change them into Thousand-Eyes Restrict.  Granted, you usually would use that on a Scapegoat-provided Sheep Token, but tell me, why is it bad to have that option?  Does that hurt Sinister Serpent?  No, of course not; an extra option, no matter how redundant, is still better than no having it.  I mean, imagine if both these Monsters were Level 2.  Well, that and I love trample and have been using cards like Ojama Trio and Windstorm of Etaqua more, so Scapegoat isn’t always an option.  I’ve seen good players become “Goat Locked”: they used Scapegoats, expecting me to kill such and such Monsters… and I don’t.  Now maybe they are stuck with four Sheep Tokens and a Sangan, desperately trying to top deck a Metamorphosis.  Sure, that gives them time to build… but it also gives me, the player who can actually make use of his Monster zones, a chance to build a solid field presence.

 

Aside from feeding Chaos Monsters, being Dark doesn’t have a lot of combos (like it needs more than Chaos), so let us touch upon why being a Zombie is so good for this card.  In Traditional, it means a deck built to take advantage of having 6 recursion cards available for King of the Skull Servants: three Book of Life in addition to the standard Call of the Haunted, Monster Reborn, and Pre-Mature Burial.  So it really just becomes a matter of drawing into a Painful Choice in order to get a solid beatstick out.  The Book of Life aspect would normally lead one to think that they should remove the Skull Servants first… but that might not be the right idea.  Remove the King of the Skull Servants first (for the revival effect).  Why?  So that you can use Return from the Different Dimension later on, then follow up with traditional revival cards.  Getting back your D.D. Warrior Lady, D.D. Assailants, and/or two 3000 ATK beatsticks sounds pretty nice to me.

 

Another benefit of being a Zombie, particularly one with a DEF of 0, is that Pyramid Turtle can fetch it from the deck.  Once you have at least two of the pre-requisite Monsters in the discard, it becomes a very worthy candidate, especially if both copies of Vampire Lord are already out of the deck.  Speaking of Vampire Lord, he compliments King of the Skull Servants: one fears death via battle, the other via effect.  So let one “absorb” the methods of defeating the other.

 

Ratings

 

Traditional       : 3.5/5-This is a decent Monster to include if you can find room.  Why?  First, there are the cards to support it here, even though its second effect is much less likely to get used.  Second, while Skull Servant is a horrid top deck in this format, chances are you King of the Skull Servants won’t be as you’ll already have two or more of the requisite Monsters to fuel it in the graveyard.

 

Advanced        : 3/5-This is a composite score.  With respect to just tossing it into a deck, it is more of a 2/5: it can work with the standard Chaos build, but not especially well.  On the other hand, your typical Zombie build already has everything needed to make it a good card, and a little extra effort will make a suitable deck for King of the Skull Servants.

 

Limited            : 3/5-Since it is a Common, you stand a decent chance of pulling it in multiples.  That means you could probably make decent use of it in a deck.  I wouldn’t bother with it unless you get three copies: that is enough to have a 2000 ATK beatstick (third copy) and then if need be, a 1000 ATK and then 0 ATK meat shield or Tribute fodder (if they somehow over-power it).

 

Summary

Over all, I like the concept and the execution of this card.  Personally, I think they need to give the “Harpy” treatment to more cards: that is, now we need a “new” Skull Servant with an effect that makes sure it is treated as being named Skull Servant and either some slightly better stats, or probably better a complimentary effect.  If they keep this up, a lot of the former filler will start to be useful, or can be safely “forgotten”.