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Pojo's Yu-Gi-Oh Card of the Day

Shinato, King of a Higher Plane
Super Rare

This card can only be Ritual Summoned with the Ritual Spell Card "Shinato's Ark". You must also offer monsters whose total Level Stars equal 8 or more as a Tribute from the field or your hand. When a Defense Position monster on your opponent's side of the field is destroyed and sent to the Graveyard by this card as a result of battle, inflict damage to your opponent's Life Points equal to the original ATK of the destroyed monster.

Type - Fairy/Ritual/Effect
Card Number - DR1-EN178

Card Ratings
Traditional: 1
Advanced: 1

Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale 1 being the worst.
3 ... average. 5 is the highest rating.

Date Reviewed - 01.19.06

ExMinion OfDarkness	Shinato, King of a Higher Plane Okay...again, short review for sucky card. You're giving up 3 cards to get one monster with 3300 ATK with inverted Trample (where you deal the original ATK of the monster as damage instead of the difference between ATK and DEF.) Given the average life of a monster on the field is at most, one of each player's turns (unless it's Spirit Reaper or something), bad investment. I can think of a million better possible ways to spend three cards. Most of them involve some combination of Don Zaloogs, Cyber Dragons, spell/trap destruction, and an opponent getting owned in the face and spending the rest of the duel topdecking. Oh yeah, and almost all viable one turn kills require exactly three cards, whether it be the billion possible combinations of cards that could set off Magical Scientist in one turn in Traditional, or the Advanced Format style of Rescue Cat + Last Will + either Giant Trunade or Heavy Storm. Just try to trade this one away while you still can, kids. 1/5 all. Again.
Coin Flip	Shinato, King of a Higher Plane is far more playable than yesterday's card, which unfortunately says very little indeed. See, rituals are very playable. The greatest advantage engine ever released has not come to America yet, but maybe you've heard of the Gadgets. They're all small weenie machines with 1200-1400 ATK and 3 stars. The basic concept is that whenever one of them is summoned, they can search out another one from the deck. So the Green Gadget, when summoned, pulls out a Yellow Gadget. And then when that one is summoned, it pulls out a Red Gadget. And when that one is put on the field… GASP! It pulls out a Green Gadget, to repeat the cycle for generations to come! Or not. The theory behind them (which works tremendously well, so you skeptics can… Well, you can do something that I can't say while keeping this a family column) is that whenever they're summoned, they give you +1 advantage. So whenever one of them dies, it's not a problem, because they've replaced themselves. And even though they will, in theory, die a lot, with adequate protection it's difficult or impossible to destroy them in battle. And if you destroy them by means of something like Sakuretsu Armor or Smashing Ground, then you've spent one card to destroy a card that has already replaced itself – a -1 in card advantage. If they take it, then your removal has already cleared the way for a direct attack, meaning that they lose LP advantage. Something like a small swarm of 1300's is really dangerous if it goes unchecked. The closest thing we have to that in America is the Speed Relinquished deck. The deck (which doesn't work competitively) is based upon the premise of the advantage monsters – Sonic Bird, Senju of the Thousand Hands, and Manju of the Ten Thousand Hands. The concept is that they will replace all advantage you lose by performing a ritual Summon, giving you a free powerhouse like Relinquished or Shinato. Shinato is the most powerful Ritual in the game, and Relinquished is powerful in card advantage (think Thousand-Eyes Restrict…). The rest, with the exception of a few like Dark Master – ZorC, all suck. Granted, next set we'll get two more powerhouse rituals that each emulate effects on the Envoy monsters… But even those probably won't see much play (which isn't saying that they're bad, just that they won't see play). So the moral of the story is that there is a powerful advantage engine waiting to be used for Rituals. I mean, a maneuver like "Summon Sonic Bird, Summon Manju of the Ten Thousand Hands, ritual out Shinato, King of a Higher Plane" gives you two cards to start with, two more cards from those two, and then ends by losing three to get out one. How it went before was you playing the ritual, losing one or two cards from your hand (if you were lucky and could fulfill stars with that few) and then getting out the card. The advantage engine augments this process and makes it easier. As well, Thunder Dragon has always been good for Ritual decks. Always. The problem is that Shinato still doesn't have protection. My general rule of thumb for monsters is that they have to have one of three defining characteristics to be worth playing. The first is that it has to have some method of replacing itself if it's lost. Meaning that if you summon a 2400 (we'll compare Beast of Talwar and Mobius the Frost Monarch), it has to give you some advantage if all that happens is that it's Bottomless Trap Hole'd (or, more realistically, Sakruetsu Armor'd a turn or two later). Mobius kills two cards, breaking even perfectly at the very least. Dark Magician of Chaos is an excellent example of this. The second is that the card has to have some protection. This means Jinzo, or Dark Ruler Ha Des, or Silent Swordsman LV5. SSLV5 won't be Smashing Ground'd, Jinzo gives himself protection and all other monsters on the field protection, and Dark Ruler stops Newdoria, D. D. Assailant, D. D. Warrior Lady, as well as breaching a bit upon the second characteristic of breaking the game open while it is on the field. The third is that it's so good that the mere CHANCE of it pulling its effect off is worth playing it. This would be the case for Airknight Parshath, for example. This one doesn't have either of the first two, so it has to rely entirely upon the third. Its effect is merely doing a little bit of extra damage, which won't even apply if something like D. D. Assailant or Warrior Lady kicks in, or if the monster's in attack position, or if it has 0 for ATK (scapegoat) or if it's a Spirit Reaper… Yup, Spirit Reaper again. Gotta love that little guy. Basically, this guy's not worth it, but you'd only play him in his own deck, so he's not worth rating. Have a nice day.
Leon	Shinato, King of a Higher Plane. Once again, a card I can see the other reviewers mindlessly trashing. But it, too, isn't that bad. It boasts the highest attack of any Ritual Monster and trumps those other high attack rits by actually having a halfway decent effect. If it hits facedowns the opponent takes burn equal to the mons attack. Granted this most likely won't be very much but it can certainly put it above BLS classic, Masked Beast, and Magician of Black Chaos. The biggest problem would be the discard fodder for it. You need 8 stars. My recommendation would be to try it in a three Lava Golem aggressive burn. Just to see how it suits you.
Dark Paladin	Today we look at another monster used on the anime, and the only card we've looked at before...Shinato, King of a Higher Plane. First, some comments about Shinato. Shinato is stated "KING" yet has boobs. Just something to think about... Shinato is a Level 8 Ritual Monster of the Light/Fairy type. Shinato is one of the more powerful rituals out there. Boasting an excellent 3300 attack and an equally solid 3000 defense with a neat effect also. If Shinato destroys a defense posistion monster, the original attack of that monster is dealt to your opponent as damage. Is that better than trample? In my opinion, it could be. The attack of the monster is fairly high, it may be more damage than the trample would be. Shinato doesn't really see much play, but one use outside of the obvious fairy deck could be an Agent/Sanctuary in the Sky deck. Shinato is a Fairy and the effect could help with various Agents later. Ratings: Traditional: 2/5 Traditional Agent/Sanctuary in the Sky deck: 3.5/5 Advanced: 2.5/5 Advanced Agent/Sanctuary in the Sky deck: 4.0/5 Art: 4.5/5 You stay classy, Planet Earth :)
Bob Doily	Shinato review Hmm, I think that this is the first Ritual monster that I have the pleasure of insulting…. Er I mean reviewing…. Yeah that’s it!!! Well, akin to my hatred of E-heros, is that of most rituals. (I have a strange like of White Paladin). As you may know by now I dislike cards that lead to a loss of advantage without achieving something very important. And that is where rituals come in. Since they need the ritual monster in hand, the corresponding spell and tribute fodder, to me they take up a lot of resources. Shinato continues the trend that ritual monsters are big brutes, and hence high levels. This means that they take even more fodder….. Shinato’s effect is too weak and situational to make it worth running, that extra damage provided (NOTE: it IS different from trample) really isn’t worth it since Sinato will just die. And then at a loss of advantage you’ll be hurting to make a comeback. Traditonal: 0.8/5 Advanced: 0.9/5
Dark Maltos	Shinato - King of a Higher Plane Shinato is the most powerful ritual monster in the whole game IMO, but he’s by no means the best. Obscene Stats, awesome effect , and yet he falls short. Shinato is a level 8 ritual, and until there’s better support for rituals over lv 4 then they won’t happen. Shinato is the 3rd card this week that’s very powerful, but totally un - playable outside of casual. Traditional - 1/5 No chance Advanced 2/5 Potential….slight potential. Unfortunately Sakurtsu and Smashing has eliminated most of it’s summon potential. Art : 5/5 Very cool for a Fairy
Ryoga	Shinato, King of a Higher Plane: This actually is a Ritual. And rubbish! Why? 1. It's a Ritual. Go bad resource mangement! 2. It can die just as easily as anything else in existence and provides no protection, indestructibility or card advantage for the bother of getting it out. 3. It's effect is useless. It only triggers against DEF position monsters and does damage equal to that thing's ATK. If it's in DEF maybe its becuase it doesn't have much ATK? 4. Did I say I disliked Rituals? Never play. Every. For any reason. I don't care if you like it. Traditional: 1/5 Advanced: 1/5 Casual: 1/5 Share and enjoy, Ryoga