Trade in is a Normal Spell that lets you discard a Level 8 Monster to draw 2 cards.  For someone who plays a game like Pokémon, this level of draw power seems pretty weak, but of course for Yu-Gi-Oh, drawing two at the cost of two is still pretty great: how many decks out there suffer from having too many cards in them?  I mean, if you could come in under 40, your decks overall utility would drop (less possible reactions), but its stability should rise (getting the cards you want when you want them).  Given the potency of so many cards in this game, a smaller deck would be a huge boon.

 

However, you have to run Level 8 Monsters for the discard cost.  Ouch.  Level 8 Monsters tend to be very low on the utility scale, and as such also adversely affect deck stability; after all a card you draw and can’t use is almost as bad as no draw at all.

 

So clearly we have a card meant to work with the rare high utility (or low utility with obscene power) Level 8 Monsters.  What are such Monsters?  Truth be told, I am quite out of practice.  Just playing the game on my DS due to a lack of time, funds, and truth be told, interest.  I see enough in this game, though, that I don’t want to let it go completely.  With any luck, soon I will be able to play a bit more in Yu-Gi-Oh again.  Just consider that a disclaimer as to why I am so apt to miss something “obvious”.  On the bright side, this does let me look at cards from a different perspective, and that isn’t all bad.  I didn’t see anything that really screamed “play me” when glancing through the list of Level 8 effect Monsters.

 

Trade In reminds me a bit of Destiny Draw, where you have to discard a Destiny Hero to draw two cards.  That card is wonderful in Destiny Hero decks, but therein lays the rub: you’d have to build a Level 8 heavy deck to use this card reliably, and I don’t know of any such deck that works well.  Most Destiny Hero Monsters have a use in the field, and many have a use in the Graveyard.  So while Destiny Draw is a dead card on its own, it is rare that it will be on its own and a good player will generate advantage off the discard more often than not.

 

So in the end, this appears to be another failed attempt at making Level 8 Monsters, as a whole, more playable.  Though it is good that it could theoretically work in any deck, I am not sure if there are even enough specialized decks it can work with.

 

Ratings

 

Traditional: 1/5

Advanced: 1.25/5