Stats: Puppet Master has little going for it in terms of stats: it is a Dark/Fiend, which is solid combination, but it is a Level 6 Monster with 0 ATK and DEF!  Besides enabling Crush Card Virus, this card obviously will only see play for its effect, and I’ll warn you now that you won’t be cheating the Tribute cost with Mystic Tomato (though adding it to hand with Sangan will still be useful).

 

Effect: When this Monster is Tribute Summoned, you may pay 2000 Life Points to Special Summon two Fiend Type Monsters from your Graveyard.  They can’t attack this turn, though.  This seems rather awkward: the Monsters cost you a Monster in Tribute, a wasted Normal Summon, force you to protect or get rid of a 0 ATK hole in your Defenses (unless you run a crazy combo so you can Tribute Summon in face-up Defense Position) and the summoned Monsters can’t attack that turn.  A few have decent effects that could still be helpful, but no clear “instant advantage recovery” cards.

 

Uses and

Combinations: There is only one place for this card – a Virus deck!  While normally five card combos are a very bad, bad thing, even when they win you the game (how many Exodia decks do you encounter that win tournaments?), there is a nice exception to that rule: when most or all of the pieces have another use.  The Tribute fodder can certainly be used elsewhere.  The Fiends Summoned can be used however they normally would; ditto for the Virus cards.  Even Puppet Master can just be a risky shortcut to bypass extra Tributes for big Monsters.  When it all comes together, you can get the three big Virus Traps all off at once: imagine three turns with no Monsters and no Spells or Traps.  Unless you get really lucky, that is Spells or Traps, but there are plenty of ways to deal with Traps in play and ones you see coming tend to be less effective.  Yes, it means you either have to wait a turn or tack on even more cards for the combo to make use of all this, but assuming you have to wait that is two turns to win the game with virtually nothing your opponent can do about it!

 

Ratings

 

Traditional: 2/5 – Easier FTK and lockdown decks.  Still, you could play it and a Yata-lock later you win.

 

Advanced: 3/5 – I think this card is a definite boon to Virus based decks, though how often such decks are played I can’t tell you.

 

Art: 2/5 – Another evil clown; not very inspired.

 

Summary

An interesting piece to aid some combo decks, it should help Virus decks but will it be enough to matter this meta?  Probably not.

 

-Otaku