Tyranno Infinity
may be the best Dinosaur monster we have. It is
a Level 4 Earth Monster, though the Attribute
hardly matters. It has a 0 DEF that is one of
its two main vulnerabilities, and its ATK score
is printed as a “?” because it’s entirely
dependant upon its effect (and if it was 0 it’d
be sickly easy to get into play from the deck).
The effect is simple but effective: the ATK is
1000 x the number of Dinosaur-Type monsters
removed from play. How effective is this? I
had a fight with a friend, roughly a year ago,
because after I complained that too many of his
“creative” decks were winning due to lucky
Cyberstein assaults (to be fair,
Cyberstein at least fit his theme). I then
accidentally made a near OTK deck out of
Tyranno Infinity. I am running short of
time, so I can’t look up exact release dates,
but it was well before we had any recent
Dinosaur Support. I think Hyrdogeddon
was out as was Tyranno Infinity (of
course), but I mean all the recent stuff was
naturally unreleased in English. Yet a
Tyranno Infinity/Bazoo the Soul-Eater/Skull-Lair
deck kicked much casual deck booty, and was even
a pain for more mainstream decks. Had a more
skilled deck builder been designed, I honestly
believe such a OTK would have been viable then,
at least at anything sub-Regionals.
So, is this card any better? There are three
shifts in the metagame that do hurt it, but I
believe the added support just begs for this
card to be exploited. First, let me explain the
drawback. It gets big. Really big. So big, in
fact, that it is entirely likely that nailing it
with Ring of Destruction (which hadn’t
returned when I first tested it) can force a
draw anytime past early game. The second threat
comes from anti-Stein measures.
Kuriboh is annoying, since Tyranno
Infinity has no special protection, blocking
that one attack you cleared the field for will
probably result in them successfully setting up
new defenses and/or destroying Tyranno
Infinity. Although many have told me it is
quite foolish, I have seen at least a few
players begin to run Magic Cylinder, in
the hope that either someone will be stupid
enough to run Cyber End Dragon into it
(yeah right) but mostly because its simply a
game winning card if you can keep it
until late game, when all the LP expending cards
and probably a double dose of Ring of
Destruction has your opponent at that 2000
LP mark. Given the more casual atmosphere one
expects to use a Dinosaur deck in, at least for
now, then one should be ready for those kooky
things that would get you laughed at in higher
level play.
Tyranno Infinity
is also weak to position change effects (less
common now, obviously), and just clogging your
hand early game.
The easiest way to prepare for Tyranno
Infinity would probably be Magical
Merchant, Survival Instinct, and
Return from the Different Dimension. The
first should be obvious: dump a bunch of
Monsters into your Graveyard. The second is
obvious if you know the card: Survival
Instinct is a Normal Trap that lets you
remove as many Dinosaurs from your Graveyard as
you wish, and gain 400 LP for each one removed
in that manner. The latter may seem
counter-productive, but realize that when done
properly the deck will be successfully removing
quite a few Dinosaurs and you can probably spare
room for the four best to return, plus you can
always wait until after Tyranno Infinity
has attacked. Besides, it’s quite likely that
it will be the easiest way to get Tyranno
Infinity itself into play (remove it and
then Return for it). Although it halves
the effective Life gain from Survival
Instinct, you’re mostly using that just to
set up for Tyranno Infinity anyway.
Otherwise you can consider running some handy
alternatives for removal like Bazoo or
Skull-Lair, but while they give you a better
return for the investment, they aren’t available
to quickly remove vast quantities of Dinosaurs
all at once. With Survival Instinct, you
just need Dinosaurs in the Graveyard to remove
(so you might even make them waste some S/T
removal).
Finally, remember that Babycerasaurus can
be used to search for Tyranno Infinity if
only you can get it destroyed via a card effect
(probably the sole reason to even consider
running Volcanic Eruption). Otherwise
just go with the basics and perhaps some of the
useful Dinosaur stalling options (Black Stego,
Black Ptera) combined with Magical
Merchant to get a quick, dedicated set up,
or even just add the combo into many other
Dinosaur decks: even a single Tyranno
Infinity and Survival Instinct can
get you a big fatty.
Ratings
(Dinosaur deck)
Traditional:
1.5/5
Advanced:
3.75/5
