Stats                : Divine Sword – Phoenix Blade is an Equip Spell.  For many cards, this is a kiss of death.  It isn’t always their fault.  Try playing using just structure decks.  You get a good idea of what is really bad and what suffers because certain elements are too common in the game.  I’ll avoid a full scale rant, but any Spell or Trap that remains in play for all or part of the duration of the effect suffers because there is far too much general Spell/Trap removal.  I have no problem with it being theme specific, especially if it’s not so much.  Right now, though, we have one mass removal Spell with the minor drawback (and sometimes benefit) of also nailing all your own Spells/Traps, one Quick-Play Spell that can nail any one Spell/Trap, up to three Traps that can nail any one Spell/Trap and allow you to Set another Spell/Trap afterwards, one Monster that can either be a Level 4/1900 ATK beatstick or a Level 4/1600 ATK “small” beatstick and nail one Spell or Trap card, or a single Tribute 2400 ATK beatstick that gets to nuke up to two Spell and/or Trap cards when successfully Tribute Summoned.  That’s quite a bit that anyone deck can get away with.  Then there are some otherwise balanced cards that can be added on top of that.  What’s an Equip to do?

 

Effect(s)            : Have a recursion effect, apparently.  Divine Sword – Phoenix Blade only grants a 300 ATK boost, and only to Warriors, but it differentiates itself by allowing you to reclaim it at your leisure.  The only catch is that it’s Main Phase only and requires two Warriors be removed from the Graveyard as payment.  Personally, I find this just a bit too weak.  There’s a “double restriction” theme wise.  Personally, the restriction of only Warriors being able to equip it seems a bit much: they are already required for the recursion effect, and while Warriors are popular and powerful in all decks, the D.D. family removes itself anyway, so it isn’t really viable as a Sinister Serpent replacement.  At least outside of Warrior decks…  I mean, you even need two Warriors, not one.

 

So the effects of this card seem substandard: they probably could have let other Types use it or have given a better ATK boost.

 

Uses and

Combinations  : I can see two uses for this card, and both require Warrior heavy decks.  First, it might be something of a pressure card.  The ATK boost isn’t especially great, but if you have something that’s already 1800+, it can really annoy an opponent: Ninja Grandmaster Sasuke becomes big enough to block Cyber Dragon, Goblin Attack Force can harass pretty much all but the bigger two-Tribute Monsters, etc.  Now, the boost is so small, it is really, really annoying to “waste” Spell/Trap removal on it.  It’s nice if the opponent’s equipped Monster crashes headlong into a big enough Monster so that Dust Tornado or Mystical Space Typhoon results in their assisted suicide.  However, it will probably be used that way only in desperation: I would otherwise expect it to be used to tack on just a tiny amount of extra damage and mostly for defensive purposes.  That is, making something that survived its attack into a slightly bigger offensive wall.

 

What if you do nuke it?  That’s one less card you have to handle things like Call of the Haunted, Sakuretsu Armor, Torrential Tribute, etc. and if you killed a Warrior after doing this, they are halfway towards being able to revive it.  The text gives the impression that you don’t have to revive it right away, meaning you never know when it might pop-up and just edge you out of something.  It’s almost like the effect says “Remove two Warriors in your Graveyard from play.  Either your opponent discards a card whose effect destroys at least one Spell card in play or one of your Monsters gets a 300 ATK bonus”.  Looking at it that way, it’s still just a hair week.

 

We still have one other use: discard fodder.  In an E-Heroes deck, you can use it to fuel Elemental Hero Thunder Giant.  If you decide you really need to use the effect and don’t have a hand, remove two E-Heroes to get Divine Sword – Phoenix Blade back.  Likewise, it can reduce a Warrior deck’s susceptibility to discarding effects.  Additionally, it sets up for combos with Return from the Different Dimension and Dimension Fusion.

 

Ratings

 

Traditional       : 1.5/5-There are better options for reducing discard costs, though Chaos Decks should have a solid supply of Light and Dark Warriors to use this card.

 

Advanced        : 3/5-Scored for decks with a lot of Warriors; if a deck doesn’t have at least 8 Warrior Monsters, it just wouldn’t be worth it.  There are quite a few cards more deserving of Main Deck space, I think, though it might not be bad as a Side Deck option.

 

Limited            : N/A-Currently this card is only available in the Warrior Structure deck.  However, should it be released into a set and you are able to draft several Warriors, it should be worth looking into.  Or if it is a Structure Deck based Limited Event (something I don’t think officially exists in Yu-Gi-Oh, but which exists in other games), it isn’t the first card I’d cut from the Warrior Structure deck.

 

Summary

Divine Sword – Phoenix Blade is nice idea that appears to have overcompensated, even by my standards, for a good, Warrior-deck specific, recursion effect.  Just 200 more ATK, it might have been one of the few equips seeing regular play in its theme.  As is, I am just not seeing something especially potent.