Unity
is a Quick-Play Spell card. This is very good,
even though at first glance it might seem
useless, given the effect: select a face up
Monster on your side of the field and its DEF
becomes equal to that of the sum of all the DEF
of all your Monsters until the end of the turn.
So for a single Monster, it’s obviously useless:
its DEF would remain unchanged (or rather become
the same amount it already is). Now, aside from
Spirit Reaper, how many Monsters are
going to be seen in face up DEF mode?
Not many.
Still, it has some good tricks. I am
embarrassed to admit that Shone Jump, the
same issue I got the card, actually did point
out at least an initial use for it: they
mentioned the DEF heavy Rock Monsters from
Structure Deck 7 combined with Canyon,
which is nice for that deck. As long as at
least one other of your DEF heavy Monsters is
face up, you can wait until the damage Step to
give a major boost to something else for heavy
damage. Obviously, this isn’t too realistic a
use for the tournament scene: Canyon
won’t last long at all, and even getting
Unity to live through being Set is tricky.
I haven’t even covered winning with such a deck.
Still, for the n00blet just getting into the
game and using that deck, it’s a decent trick
(and Stone Statue of the Aztecs can do it
without Canyon).
Most of you can guess that while some miracle
win is possible via this combo, it is unlikely.
You have Exxod out with its 4000 DEF and
when your opponent crashes a Cyber Dragon
into Guardian Sphinx in a desperation
move and oops, you take 4300 damage or 8600 if
Canyon is out. Yeah. Sure. That will
happen a lot. Yes, the preceding is sarcasm
for those who haven’t had their morning dose of
caffeine. So what are some better uses for it?
Well, in general, Stone Statue of the Aztecs
really does like it, though probably not enough
to warrant using the two in an obnoxious stall
burner, so just slightly more realistic than the
above scenarios. However, try it in your
standard deck. Is there any gain? Yeah: other
than Spirit Reaper, it can save something
from Smashing Ground by redirecting it.
Again, not too likely to prove useful, but if
you find enough of these little uses, they add
up. Still, thanks to Tsukuyomi use, it’s
a little more realistic that they flip Zarbog
down into DEF position when you have a Cyber
Dragon out and attack with Tsukuyomi,
and hey, congrats you saved it and dealt some
damage. Of course, you could just run
Sakuretsu Armor and friends so that
Tsukuyomi is destroyed.
Chaos Sorcerer
also sees some play in face-up DEF mode with
extra Monsters in attendance. Even borrowing
the puny DEF score from a Spirit Reaper
(which would survive since it isn’t actually
being targeted by the effect) would let a DEF
position Sorcerer survive a hit from
Cyber Dragon, and just about any other
Monster survive a Monarch strike. Again,
pretty unlikely, but it all adds up.
Okay, now to hopefully send you away on a
positive note. I tried finding CC uses for the
card. I looked at the most obvious use of the
card. Now I give you the hypothetical use of
the card based on something I don’t have a
ruling for: ATK/DEF swapping cards! I could be
wrong, but the wording sounds like it
temporarily “rewrites” your DEF score. As such,
your DEF, at least for the time being, becomes
the new score (it’s not a floating +XXXX to your
DEF). So, the question is it a floating
rewrite? If so, then this basically ends it
right here: you use Shield and Sword and
its ilk and the old DEF still just becomes the
new ATK, and the new DEF gets the boost.
If, on the other hand, it works like a
“temporary” Limiter Removal, rewriting
the “base” DEF score, at least until the end of
the turn, the fun finally begins. You get a
potential OTK deck, or at least all but a OTK
deck. You could use Marauding Captain to
Special Summon a Big Shield Gardna,
Inferno Reckless Summon to get two more
Gardna. Now use Unity on one of the
Monsters, and follow up with Shield and Sword.
Of course, such a concept works without Unity,
but Unity puts it way over the top. With
Unity, you can expand your pool of viable
candidates, such as Gear Golem the Moving
Fortress, which could use the trick for one
to attack direct with a 7000 ATK direct (and
then the other two easily following suit with
their 2200 ATK scores).
And of course, even if Unity doesn’t work
in such decks, consider what it can still do for
them: like I said, the OTK aspect still works.
I don’t know how effective the Royal Magical
Library burn deck FTK works, but if it is
unreliable, then the burn aspect could be
reduced (perhaps still there, but just harder to
pull off) but adding a OTK element with the
Shield and Sword trick… and Unity to
make the opponent fear attacking anything you
have while your have an S/T set. Think about
it. Cyber Dragon goes to mow down a
Royal Magical Library, and you whip out
Unity. 6000 DEF out of “nowhere” against a
2100 ATK means 3900 points of damage. That’s a
lot less burning they have to do.
Ratings
Traditional :
1/5 – All the removal means any combo like this
tends to flop. Even if the OTK aspect works, we
have real FTK decks here (not that I want FTK
back or anything).
Advanced :
3/5 – This assumes the Shield and Sword
type combos won’t work with this card. It’s not
a bad card then, just we have so many things
wrong in this game, and actual decent effect
becomes superfluous. If the combo I
listed works, then it is probably gains half a
point or so, because it is very useful in
certain decks then. Finally, notice that
I didn’t mention the two cards that gain extra
effects for Unity being in the hand (Yu-Jo
Friendship) or Graveyard (Judgment of the
Pharaoh), because we haven’t reviewed those
yet and if they are a waste of cardboard, my
scores won’t be any lower. If they do score
well, then add anywhere from a fourth to half a
point to this score (as they can prove useful
the above combos). I will explain more in
tomorrow’s CotD.
