Stats                : Hamon, Lord of Striking Thunder is a Level 10 Monster, but as it is a nomi it mainly matters for random cards that check Level.  It is a Light Monster, which opens up some support (and means that hey, at least it’s Chaos Food) and a Thunder-Type (which has no support).  It does boast a sizable 4000 ATK and DEF, which are as high as it apparently gets in this game, barring Fusions, which is actually quite nice.

Effect(s)            : Most importantly, this is a nomi Monster due to its Summoning requirements: it can’t be Normal Summoned.  It can’t be Special Summoned either, except through its effect.  Yup, that’s a nomi.  Hamon requires you send three face-up Continuous Spell cards from your side of the field to the Graveyard to Summon it.  This isn’t too difficult, but does mean that this monster “costs” at least three more cards to Summon than your average Level 4 beatstick, but it can be Summoned during your first turn.

Hamon also has two other effects.  The first makes it hard to stall out against it: when Hamon destroys an opponent’s Monster and sends it to the Graveyard via Battle, Hamon inflicts 1000 points of damage to the opponent.  The second is somewhat confusing: if Hamon is in face-up DEF position on your side of the field, another Monster can’t be targeted for attack.  I guess two would create a lock.  Of course, why you’d go to all that trouble for even one of these just to be a defensive wall I don’t know.

Uses and

Combinations  : This card has to be used in its own deck for any hope of success.  On the bright side, you can use Messenger of Peace and Level Limit – Area B to both stall for your set up and then when they are no longer needed pay for the Summon of Hamon.  Given how Hamon works, I would then encourage you (provided the opponent has no Spells or Traps and not many Monsters) to slap an Equip on this bad boy and go for broke, cause that’s about all it can do to help you win.  Big Bang Shot, Megamorph, Twin Swords of Flashing Light – Tryce, and Wicked Flamberge – Baou all have helpful effects to more or less try for a OTK via an attack.  Perhaps Final Attack Orders would also be good, since it ensures you are facing opponents in ATK mode… or something like that.

Then again, you would want to run Wave-Motion Cannon in the deck, since that can be used to pay for the Summon of Hamon, and if even one of those go off and you Summon Hamon, that probably means you can attack for game.

Ratings

Traditional       : 1/5 – Too much effort, and fairly trivial effects as far as this format is concerned.

Advanced        : 3/5 – I can have a deck built around it.  The deck will not win most tournaments, though an unwary player can be hammered by it.  Due to rounding down, the scores a bit lower than what it deserves.

Limited            : 4/5 – Let me clarify something, this is assuming you pull three copies of Samsara (the only Common/Continuous Spell in the set), and preferably a few Ancient Gear Castle as well (Super-Rare) in addition to needing this bad boy yourself (an Ultra Rare).  If you do get that stuff, then yes this card is good to run.  It probably won’t do you a lot of good most games, but when you do get it out it’ll be fantastic.

Summary

Hamon, Lord of Striking Thunder is a step in the right direction for… well… Egyptian god styled cards that are actually legal and not broken.  This one seems a little underpowered, but is at least solid enough for a second/third-string deck to work around it.  It mainly fails because after all that investment, there’s no built in protection for it, nor is there any real Support just for it: Phantasmal Martyrs doesn’t exactly thrill me.