Whee!  It’s Kyle Gibney!  Oh wait, this is a different super-hero named Wildheart…

 

Elemental Hero Wildheart is a Monster that doesn’t lend itself to my normal breakdown style, because nearly everything about his stats is colored by his effect is colored by his combos.  First and foremost, he is an Elemental Hero.  So, for better or worse, all the Elemental Hero support is his.  The “or worse” is just there because a lot of the support is haphazard.  Some might feel that it’s better than no support, but others feel that having support raises expectations and thus bad support is worse than no support at all.

 

As a quick reference, here are the currently released Elemental Hero support cards that can help Elemental Hero Wildheart.

• Bubble Shuffle – Quick-Play Spell.  It requires Elemental Hero Bubbleman and an opposing Monster both in face-up ATK mode, plus another Elemental Hero in hand to activate.  It shifts them both in play Monsters to DEF Position and then Tributes the Bubbleman to Special Summon the Elemental Hero in hand.

• Cyclone Boomerang – Equip Spell.  The bad news is it is an Elemental Hero Wildheart only equip.  The good news is that it has respectable 500 ATK increase and when the equipped Monster is destroyed by an effect, you not only destroy all Spell and Trap Cards on the field, but inflict 100 points of damage for each card destroyed by the effect.

• Elemental Hero Wildedge – Fusion/Effect Monster.  The Fusion of Wildheart and Bladedge.  Fusion Summon only.  Can attack all of your opponent’s Monsters.

• Hero Barrier – Normal Trap. If you have a face-up Elemental Hero in play, you can activate this and negate one attack from an opponent’s Monster.

• Hero Heart – Normal Spell.  You select an Elemental Hero you control, halve the attack, and during the Battle Phase, it can attack twice.  Note that it halves the ATK at the activation: adding an Equip card will provide the full bonus.

• Hero Signal – Trap card.  If one of your Monsters in play dies as a result of Battle, you can Special Summon a Level 4 or under Elemental Hero.

• Miracle Fusion – Normal Spell.  Wednesday’s CotD, so you can read up on this alternative to Polymerization then.

• Skyscraper – Field Spell.  When an Elemental Hero attacks a Monster with whose ATK is higher than the Elemental Hero’s ATK, raise said Elemental Hero’s ATK by 1000 during the damage step.  More on this later in the week.

• Wroughtweiler – Effect/Monster.  When it’s sent to the Graveyard as a result of Battle, you can reclaim one card with Elemental Hero in its name, and a Polymerization.

 

I tried to list all their support that would actually matter for Elemental Hero Wildheart himself.

 

Back to the actual card itself, Elemental Hero Wildheart is blessed by a near perfect combination of stats… perfect if you game balance means more than “everyone has access to the same cards”.  For those who like cards to be reasonably powered but work best in a theme… well, this is pretty much spot on.  A Level 4 Monster means a no-Tribute Normal Summon.  Being a Warrior means even more support, and unlike the Elemental Hero specific support, this stuff borders on broken.  For example, Reinforcements of the Army can nab it from your deck with ease.  Being an Earth type is also quite solid.  Earth has some good support, so thanks to the effect (nearly to it) it has a place there as well.  The 1500 ATK is a bit low, but makes it über-searchable: Sangan, Last Will, Giant Rat, and Warrior Lady of the Wasteland can all nab it due to that “low” ATK score.  Note it is the highest ATK score that would permit this.  Ironically, it almost could use being 50 points lower, so it could slip under Messenger of Peace.  The DEF is a nice solid 1600, which means the opponent will usually need a “real” beatstick to take it down.

 

But in the end, it’s the effect.  What is the effect? Elemental Hero Wildheart is immune to the effects of Traps, at least while it’s face-up and in play.  It can be chosen as a target for Traps, but when that part of the effect resolves, it won’t do anything to Elemental Hero Wildheart.  So if you summon it with Call of the Haunted, once its in play Call of the Haunted just sits there, inert.  Just like if it had revived Jinzo.  If you activate Torrential Tribute, you blow up every Monster but Elemental Hero Wildheart.  Because it was listed in the rulings, if you choose a Trap like Two-Pronged Attack and chose Elemental Hero Wildheart as a target, when it resolves, the other Monsters die, but Elemental Hero Wildheart stays alive.  This versatility has earned it a place in decks other than Elemental Hero, and makes it more a less a staple in Elemental Hero decks.  Warrior Toolbox should like it for a solid ATK Monster that ignores Gravity Bind, Bottomless Trap Hole, Torrential Tribute, Magic Cylinder, Sakurestu Armor, Widespread Ruin, etc.

 

Ratings

 

Traditional       : 1.5/5 – It probably won’t be too useful: it’s not the right Attribute for Chaos and there’s so much Monster- and Spell-based removal it just won’t be that useful.

 

Advanced        : 3.5/5 – This is a composite score.  For decks in general, it rates a little lower, but is still useful.  For specialized decks, like Elemental Hero and Warrior Toolbox, it’s much more vital and thus scores higher.

 

Limited            : 3/5 – As far as I can tell, he’s only in Elemental Energy, which means that there is a single Trap in the entire set, Chthonian Blast was the only Trap I could find that would affect him.  He doesn’t even appear to have any support in this set other than Hero Barrier in the set.  There’s no card to initiate a Fusion Summon, so Wildedge, also in this set, doesn’t count.  Still, for Limited, he is a solid Monster just for his stats.  Not great, but solid.

 

Summary

Elemental Hero Wildheart may be the best of the Elemental Hero cards, at least so far.  His full potential can only be seen in an Elemental Hero deck, but he can fit into Earth and Warrior decks at the very least, as well.  There might be a few other decks based on Traps that can abuse his immunity.  All in all, a good card.