Okay, so what’s my excuse this time?  I said I was catching up, right?  Well, it turns out that mice (and their nests) aren’t very conducive to phone lines.  The little critters decided that weather was warm enough to come out of their hibernation and “get busy”.  This slowed my connection speed down to the point that even getting plain text e-mails took a while.  I got my connection back after about a week of no access, and a lot of stuff started piling up.  So the previous four CotDs should hopefully being going up with this one, which is a little late as well.

Stats                : Cyber Blader a Fusion Monster.  While this tends to be better than, say a Ritual or pretty much any nomi Monster, it still is a mixed bag.  The card itself won’t ever detract from your deck, but getting it out in any reasonable way might.  Fusion Summoning it looks to be difficult: peeking ahead at its effect, we see it can’t use Fusion Substitutes.  Looking at the components, that’s definitely not happy: Etoile Cyber is a Level 4 1200/1600 Earth/Warrior whose effect is a 500 point ATK bonus when it attacks directly.  Here I will make this an educational review by pointing out that “Etoile” means star.  The other piece is Blade Skater, a normal Level 4 1400/1500 Earth/Warrior.  Her main contribution is having her gender identified in her flavor text, since Etoile Cyber and Cyber Blader are somewhat ambiguous.  At least since both are so small and Earth Monsters, they can be searched out via Sangan and Reinforcements of the Army or be searched out and Special Summoned via Giant Rat, Warrior Lady of the Wasteland, and Last Will.  Obviously, being a Warrior is a benefit as well.  So is being an Earth Monster, as it presents an alternative way to Special Summon this Monster.

For a Level 7 Monster, 2100 ATK is pretty weak and 800 DEF is abysmal.  Fortunately, this is an Effect Monster as well, so let’s see if (s)he has anything worth using.

Effect(s)            : The effect is variable, constantly checking the amount of Monsters your opponent has in play.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t stack.  So this means your opponent can control you fairly well by manipulating what effects you get.  At least the effects are quite nice.  You can’t be killed in battle if your opponent has one Monster.  That means they can’t just Special Summon a Cyber Dragon to suicide with you.  If they go for two Monsters, then Cyber Blader’s ATK is doubled.  If they have three Monsters, then Cyber Blader is immune to your opponent’s cards’ effects.

If they stacked it’d be sweet.  Even if there was an option for 4+ Monsters giving you all three it might not be too bad.  As is, it will take a lot of work to make use of this card, though it is possible.

Uses and

Combinations  : Cyber Blader needs so much special support (s)he is not meant for anything but a dedicated deck.  Ground Collapse means that your opponent can have three Monsters at most.  Ojama Trio ensures they have three Monsters in play.  If they have less, Cyber Blader will become vulnerable to effect (be it Monster, Spell, or Trap) based removal, but can’t die in battle.  If they have two, you get a nice 4200 ATK Monster.

Of course, we run into a problem again: so many other cards do it better.  Ground Collapse is a Continuous Spell, so it’s screaming to get destroyed, which breaks the “lock”.  Likewise, anything you add to allow Cyber Blader to do anything useful (like attack directly) also is vulnerable to being destroyed, making the lock pretty useless.

Now compare to what you can do with similar cards.  Two successful uses of Ojama Trio, combined with an action to destroy one of the Ojama Tokens (since you can’t activate the second copy until there is room for it) and finishing it all off with Spatial Collapse results in a real lock.  Spatial Collapse limits each player to no more than five cards in play at a time, and it does count tokens.  So your opponent is truly locked down: only Exodia or (if they already used it) Final Countdown can let them win.  Well, or your doing something stupid.  Toss in a now perfectly safe burn card or direct attacker, or your own auto-win condition outside of Destiny Board and you win.

Fortunately, this is a Fusion.  Huh, didn’t I everything I just said point out the card is useless?  Well, the thing is while this is a Fusion that can’t use Fusion-substitutes; there are many ways to Special Summon a Fusion that don’t count as a Fusion summon.  Metamorphosis is one example.  Cyber Blader is Level 7, putting it in good company.  Or bad company, depending upon how you look at it: of the 11 or so Level 7 Fusions, only three are effect Monsters: Cyber Blader, King Dragun, and The Last Warrior from Another Planet.  King Dragun, even if used without any other Dragons, is quite formidable and user friendly.  The Last Warrior from Another Planet is a tricky card to use properly, and needs support to really be good.  Then again, so does Cyber Blader.  A Monster Special Summoned via Metamorphosis is not considered Fusion summoned.  So she might as well be in your Fusion deck so that, if the opportunity presents itself, you can Morph a Level 7 into her, probably because your opponent is down to two Monsters in play with no Spells or Traps and 4200 ATK will kill something bad or be enough to score a win.  You can also use The Earth – Hex-Sealed Fusion and one of the two component pieces to Special Summon Cyber Blader as well: using the second part of a Hex-Sealed Fusion Monster counts as a Special Summon, but not a Fusion Summon.

Ratings

A quick note: since the card itself technically can’t hurt you, it’d be an automatic 5/5.  I will instead give a score based upon how I feel a deck built around Cyber Blader would perform.

Traditional       : 1/5-It’s like trying to build a house of cards outside on a windy day: at best maybe two pieces will get set up right before it all collapses.

Advanced        : 2/5-Let me emphasize, this is a score most “fun decks” beat.  The top decks in the format would be four or higher.  Then we have good, coherent decks that just can’t win the big events.  Then we come to solid, coherent decks that just can’t win most events.  This is the lowest a “real” deck, which is something with a coherent theme that does strive to a reasonable win condition, can get.  Anything less is something that isn’t even a real deck.

Limited            : 1/5-You can’t actually build a deck around it since I can’t find a way to fuse it or Special Summon it in its own set.  It still has the default value of one, since we can’t go any lower, and like all Fusion Monsters in a Fusion Deck, can be used to bluff.

Summary

Like all Fusions that can be Special Summoned in a manner outside of a true Fusion Summon, it can be used in the Fusion deck with little problem.  I wouldn’t go out of your way to get it though: King Dragun will usually be better if you actually need a Level 7 Monster.  The card itself is barely capable of supporting its own deck.

-Otaku