Stats: Plaguespreader Zombie is today’s CotD.  It is a Level 2 Dark/Zombie/Effect/Tuner/400 ATK/200 DEF.  Where to start with just those stats?  Well, I’ll do it in the order that requires the least repetition.  Dark is probably the best and most supported Attribute.  Zombies aren’t the most or best supported Type, but they are near the top of the list, having both quantity and quality.  Already, this card has some serious potential.  The ATK and DEF are puny and only a handful of played cards won’t beat them, but they are also small enough that you can search out and Special Summon Plaguespreader Zombie with Mystic Tomato or Pyramid Turtle or searched and added to hand via Sangan or Goblin Zombie.

 

It is a Tuner Monster, giving Zombies an on Type candidate.  It’s Level of 2 is actually good given all the above: you can drop it into play easily, and target it with Zombie Master if need be to revive it from the Graveyard.  It also means that any Level 4 (like the aforementioned Zombie Master) is fuel enough to Synchro Summon several useful Level 6 Synchro Monsters.

 

Effect(s): Besides enabling you to Synchro Summon, you can Special Summon this card from your Graveyard by returning a card from your hand to the top of your deck.  Also, when Plaguespreader Zombie is removed from play after that (for whatever reason), it is removed from play instead.  The trade off to Special Summon it seems fair, especially since any deck focused on the card will have ample opportunity to turn it into a blessing.  The removal clause makes perfect sense since otherwise even I can figure out how to turn this into a FTK deck.

 

As is, this effect clearly benefits the card more than Turbo Synchron’s effect did.  Plaguespreader Zombie can be Special Summoned via its effect alongside the Normal Summon of a Monster fairly easily, thus enabling you to Synchro Summon a Level 6 Synchro Monster very, very quickly, where as Turbo Synchron was ironically slower, with an effect that required you go into battle with it first to get a fairly restricted Special Summon out of it.  Also worth noting is that you can find more mundane uses for Plaguespreader Zombie, if you must, such as simply being Tribute fodder.

 

Uses and

Combinations: As stated earlier, if it didn’t remove itself from play, then you could constantly re-use it simply with two other cards: Mass Driver would let you Tribute it, then you would use Plague Spreader Zombie’s own effect to revive it.  What about the card returned to the top of the deck?  Use Card of Safe Return to constantly re-draw it.  Making the deck more reliable, you could add in Foolish Burial, Goblin Zombie, Sangan and perhaps Archfiend’s Oath, Cannon Soldier.  Well, as you probably guessed by now, I wasn’t just wasting time warning you about this FTKO.  Oh, thankfully it can’t be done due to the remove-from-play clause, unless you found a way to prevent that clause from taking effect.  Enter the Continuous Trap card called Imperial Iron Wall.  Its effect keeps cards from being removed from play.  It prevents you from using effects that use removing something from play as a cost, but anything that would remove itself from play instead of heading to another destination (hand, Graveyard, deck, etc.) still work: the card(s) just go to where they should have gone, if I understand this correctly.  So… already nice for Zombies since it blocks D.D. Crow, Imperial Iron Wall enables a OTK strategy using all those cards (plus Quillbolt Hedgehog) I was mentioning “could have been” a First Turn Kill.  So it looks like you could run this as a dedicated OTK deck, or even splash the bits into an otherwise functional Zombie deck: in fact the only piece that wouldn’t probably be in the deck anyway would be the Mass Driver.

 

There is even more to Plaguespreader Zombie, though.  If the above OTK does not work (and I really, really hope it doesn’t), not only is this a Tuner that can easily fit into Zombie, Dark, and of course Dark Zombie decks, but it even has two exclusive Synchro Summons: Doomkaiser Dragon and Revived King Ha Des.  Both are even Level 6, the super special awesome easy Synchro Summon Level for a Level 2 Synchro.  Both are solid cards, and in Zombie decks especially are well worth running.

 

If you work hard, you can even take advantage of that forced top deck of a card in hand.  For example, Destiny Hero – Diamond Dude doesn’t have to worry about dead Spells in hand if you have a Plaguespreader Zombie in your discard pile.

 

Ratings

 

Traditional: 3/5 – If the OTK is real, then it would be… a weaker version of FTK decks already here.  Still, you could probably win with such a deck, and even a dedicated Zombie deck has some chance here.

 

Advanced: 4/5 – I really feel this is a must for Zombie decks, and probably a good idea for many Dark Decks as well.

 

Art: 4/5 – I don’t like the art… its creepy and gives me the willies.  But it is a zombie, and that is what it’s supposed to do.  According to my friend who plays, there is a World of Warcraft unit called “Abomination” that matches this card: also being a misshapen meshing of limbs of different creatures to form a zombie.

 

Summary

A superbly designed card that sadly may end up becoming “broken” because of a potential OTK, Plaguespreader Zombie is otherwise an excellent addition to the game.  It’s a Tuner that can be added to Dark based decks with easy, enables two exclusive Synchro Summons, is easily searched out and/or Special Summoned and can even use itself simply as Tribute Fodder if no good Synchro Summons are available.

 

-Otaku