Scapegoat is one of the ever impressive Quick-Play Spells, giving it the speed of Spells with the Spell Speed of a Trap (allowing it to be activated in response to other happenings).  Scapegoat is the best of the token generating cards: while a Level 1/Earth/Beast/0/0 “Monster” that can’t even be used for a Tribute Summon doesn’t sound like much, getting four of them is a fantastic deal even at the cost of summoning anything else that turn.  The reason is that at worst, your opponent will have to expend something to get rid of them all just so they can attack you.  Of course, you can minimize the “cost” to yourself by activating it on your opponent’s turn, when you normally can’t summon anything anyway.  You can also activate it in response to most S/T removal, letting you even up the card cost.  In fact, Scapegoat is one of those cards that, as a whole, tends to be “broken”, but subtly.  After all, a card can’t be broken in a vacuum, so it’s the uses and combos that one needs to look at.  So when Scapegoat was totally unrestricted, cards like Enemy Controller and Creature Swap were deck mainstays: your opponent’s Black Luster Soldier – Envoy of the Beginning attacking your empty field?  Use Scapegoat, forcing them to “eat” two Sheep Tokens, then Creature Swap them one of the remaining Tokens (that you’ve shifted to Attack Position) in exchange for their Black Luster Soldier – Envoy of the Beginning.  Now attack and the effect of Black Luster Soldier – Envoy of the Beginning to attack again, probably nailing them for 6000 damage… or forcing them to destroy Black Luster Soldier – Envoy of the Beginning with another card.  So… you’ve used one and three-fourths of a Spell verses one of their Monsters and probably a Trap at that point.  You even have a Scapegoat left to burn.  Then there was using Metamorphosis to bring out Thousand-Eyes Restrict, which was so easy with Magician of Faith and Scapegoat aiding it.

 

Surprising how much you can do with “worthless” Tokens, eh?

 

Right now, though, we still have a few mass removal cards (and plenty of single removal) which affect the game in two ways:

 

1)       Scapegoat Sheep Tokens might be blown up quite quickly thanks to things like Torrential Tribute and Heavy Storm (the latter forcing you to use it at a less than opportune time).

2)       Players are scared to commit too much to the field, which means it is unlikely an opponent will clear more than two Sheep Tokens a turn by manually attacking them, necessitating you use some removal cards or give your opponent precious turns to build up something in hand.

 

So maybe people think I’ll be overrating this card.  It does have some built in drawbacks, and using it carelessly can result in you nearly locking your own field down with the Tokens.

 

Ratings

 

Traditional: 3.5/5

 

Advanced: 3.5/5