Since we are looking at Goldd, Wu-Lord not as part of a Dark World deck, I’ll make this an abridged review.  Now, for those who have forgotten where my recent play experience comes from, I am a “casual” gamer.  Some of this is because I just can’t make tournaments.  Most of this is because I haven’t seen a Ban/Forbidden List comprehensive enough to make tournament play worthwhile, so why make time and throw good money away to lose?  After all, I am roughly an average player who likes to go “rogue”, and apparently Konami sees that as a worthless market. If they thought we were worthwhile, they’d either make a serious Ban List, accepting they’ve done a lousy job of making cards both good and balanced or really get serious and just switch to a format based on Set Rotation a la Pokémon and Magic: The Gathering.  For those who don’t know, that means sets stay legal for one to two years before the whole set is no longer legal for play in the format.  Sounds lame at first, but it beats the “will they/won’t they” waiting for cards to be banned so randomly.  It also means the list only changes once per year.  Then again, this assumes Konami won’t reprint the most broken cards or create new ones, which they’ve proven is a foreign concept.

 

Oh well.  Just making sure you know where I am coming from.  It doesn’t make my observations worthless: not every sports commentator is a former sports All-Star, after all.

 

So I’ve been testing a Dark World deck online with some friends.  Goldd most often goes off not because my opponent discarded it, but because I did.  So he’s mainly some brute force that makes an opponent rethink using Morphing Jar and Card Destruction (cards I regularly use and just “accept” the risks involved), occasionally getting discarded by a Dark Deal, Spirit Reaper or Don Zaloog once in a blue moon.  Outside a Dark World deck, it’s even harder for it to pay off.  Now, when it does go off, even though it’s rare, it’ll be quite spiffy… well, if the opponent has anything in play worth targeting.  After that, it’s small enough a Goblin Attack Force can suicide into it.  For that matter, Warriors also provide many generic methods of Monster removal that can be searched by Reinforcements of the Army: D. D. Warrior Lady, D.D. Assailant and Exiled Force easily remove it.  So does Smashing Ground.  The Monarch Monsters are all bigger, as are many other commonly played Tributes.

 

The above may be common Monster weaknesses, but of course they hit Monsters that require more resources worse.  Sure you can bypass the Tribute, but it requires discarding, which is often harder than it sounds.  When it gets discarded and nails your opponent’s only two cards in play and they have no hand, it’s brilliant.  Most of the time, it’s a weak Tribute Monster.  Even when it’s a Special Summon, without the Support of the Dark World theme, it’s not really enough on its own.

 

Now, maybe this card will let you dominate a tournament scene.  If it does, it speaks more to a problem being a player issue.  I’ve seen it happen in Yu-Gi-Oh and other games too, like Pokémon.  Players get stuck thinking a certain way, and don’t notice a weakness in their deck.  Usually, the best players are aware and just waiting to adapt or even are looking for ways to exploit it themselves.  TecHing in a single Goldd, or more bizarre still running multiples of it outside of Dark World, basically only helps when you’re a luck sack and draw into it with your Graceful Charity or the turn before your opponent slams into you with Spirit Reaper or friends.

 

TecH Ratings

 

Traditional: 3.5/5 – Oh, here things seem to be discarded often enough that it actually works out pretty well.

 

Advanced: 2/5 – It can help, but there are probably better things to run.