Okay, today I promise to read through the CotD spoiler and card scan three times before I begin writing.  If you don’t know why that matters, check out yesterday’s CotD (and if my error is still there, keep rechecking and hopefully the corrected CotD will be up soon).

 

Stats: Iron Chain Repairman is part of the new Iron Chain family of Monsters.  Because I like puns, I tend to think of them as a gang.  If you didn’t get it, don’t feel bad as I am sure the people who did catch that weak bit of humor wish I hadn’t even mentioned it.

 

Iron Chain Repairman is also an Earth/Warrior.  Few combinations know more or better support than Earth/Warrior cards.  More importantly, the Warrior portion of the support contains two simple Spells that have always done Warriors (and made Warrior Toolbox decks work so well): Reinforcements of the Army and The Warrior Returning Alive.  There are enough other Warrior cards to justify running a copy of either (and probably two) in an otherwise dedicated Iron Chain build.

 

Iron Chain Repairman has a respectable 1600 ATK, which is where I draw the line at being a beatstick (unless one has an appropriate effect to make up for it) and 1200 DEF, which is small enough to be an issue but better than many other beatsticks and even a few high Level Monsters.

 

So this card has good stats that would be great to obscene with higher ATK/DEF scores.

 

Effects: The first effect is weak – you just get 300 pints of burn damage if you destroy a Monster in battle and send it to the Graveyard with this card.  What really makes this card shine is that once per turn it allows you to Special Summon an Iron Chain Monster to the field from your Graveyard, except for another copy of Iron Chain Repairman.  Doing so means this card can’t attack this turn.  If they didn’t add both those clauses, we’ve seen how this kind of effect can help too many decks and not its intended theme.  Easiest, off the top of my head thought would be swarm decks (for both restrictions) and Monarch decks (if it could target it's self).  For that matter, even its intended beneficiary of the Iron Chain decks might be broken: one Repairman fetches another fetches another: only one needs survive to next turn to repeat, and if two survive, you can fill your Monster Zones no problem.  So again, I can completely see why the effect has those two restrictions.

 

What is annoying is the third restriction I almost missed: it can only fetch Level 4 or less Iron Chain Monsters.  So no reviving Iron Chain Dragon, which is irritating but not a deal breaker.

 

This effect let’s use easily re-use Iron Chain Monsters, and when we get to the next section I’ll explain just how useful that is.  In general though, I can tell you this kind of effect has almost always been good, even when restricted to “related” cards and excluding itself.  So one weak effect and one good effect are still good together.

 

Uses and

Combinations: Facilitator of the Iron Chain deck, I’d think.  He is just big enough that Shrink can punish most commonly played Monsters, and Rush Recklessly can handle your standard fair that isn’t a Synchro Summon, Tribute Summon, etc.  Easy to search and retrieve thanks to the Warrior support cards mentioned earlier, you should have an easy time keeping him in play.

 

Now the question is “Why keep him in play?”  Of course, field presence is always valuable, and he’s the biggest Iron Chain Monster that isn’t a Synchro Summon.  You can use him with Card of Safe Return for some extra draw power.  Throw in an Elemental Hero Wildheart and so long as it or Iron Chain Repairman are already in play, Iron Chain Snake becomes really annoying to your opponent: you can safely kill any opposing Monster with less than 2300 ATK, and suicide with actual 2300 ATK Monsters, and discard some cards from their deck.  If Wildheart seems random, remember he’s a Level 4 Earth/Warrior as well.  You can also constantly re-summon and reuse an Iron Chain Blaster for 800 points of burn damage a turn.

 

Most important, though, is Inferno Reckless Summon.  Iron Chain Repairman only targets Monster’s small enough to be Inferno Reckless Summon friendly, so you can turn two cards into four Monsters in play.  Yes, your opponent needs at least one Monster in play.  Yes, they then get up to another two copies of that Monster Special Summoned to the field.  Why is that worth it?  The combos, of course.  First, we have Poison Chain.  A vulnerable Continuous Spell with a nasty discard effect: one card from the top of the opponent’s deck for each Iron Chain Monster of yours that didn’t attack.  Second, unless the timing is wrong you get a card in hand from any copies of Card of Safe Return you have in play once you start getting Monsters from your Graveyard with Inferno Reckless Summon.  Third, we have a Monster that Tributes other Monsters for decent damage.  If Iron Chain Repairman is your Normal Summon, you can then use his effect to get Iron Chain Blaster to the field, activate Inferno Reckless Summon to get two more copies of Blaster, then launch it all 3200 points of damage.  On its own, not a game winning move.  When repeated three times, it is enough damage.  Short term stall cards are easy to find.  Lightning Vortex or just smart choices can handle whatever your opponent gets from Inferno Reckless.  Then let us remember we can combine this with the occasional attack and a lot of discarding: the above combo would mean Poison Chain could discard 4 cards.  Doesn’t sound like a lot, but if your opponent is running low on cards, you can also use Inferno Reckless Summon with Iron Chain Repairman targeting Iron Chain Snake.  You’ll need another attacker (preferably a multiple attack capable Monster), but you could score an easy nine-card discard with it.

 

As a quick note, I’ll remind people that the discard effects must be used carefully due to the number of decks that like cards in their Graveyard right now.  Fortunately, most decks want specific cards they’ll mill from their decks on their own.  So Dark Armed Dragon decks will be annoyed when you mess up their Dark Monster count and/or throw away their Spells or Traps, Zombies won’t like all their Spell/Trap Support being flushed away, and Lightsworn decks mill themselves so much that you just need to survive long enough for one or two major discards to finish them off.  Against anything else, and you probably will only enable a Destiny Hero Malicious or Treeborn Frog or a decent Monster Reborn target, and that is well worth the risk.

 

Ratings

 

Traditional: 2/5 – This deck like shaving Dark Hole, Raigeki and many other things legal.  Unfortunately it isn’t an actual FTK, and only occasionally could be a OTK, and Harpie’s Feather Duster is a problem.

 

Advanced: 4/5 – Key component of Iron Chain decks and it shows in its score.  It is nearly useless without any of the other Iron Chain Monsters, though, so it is most definitely a dedicated deck score.

 

Art: 3.5/5 – Seems very appropriate, and it’s nice to see a Warrior Monster that doesn’t have the physique of a stock super-hero or bishonen.

 

Summary

 

Iron Chain Repairman was crafted so he’d be useless without at least one more Iron Chain Monster.  He still might be able to be added to off-theme decks, but you’ll need at least one other Iron Chain Monster he can revive to make it worthwhile, and that’s a lot of slots.  In the deck he’s meant for, he allows the conservative player renewable field presence and the daring player insane, game winning combos.

 

-Otaku