Stygian Street Patrol …

Easily the best card of the week.

Dark. Fiend. Stygian. All good things.
Well … “Stygian” is debatable, but all the previous Stygians have been pretty good, and this is one of the best. 1600 ATK is respectable enough as it will kill a fair amount in battle. That will yield its burn effect which aint too bad. Sure – it’s only 100 points per level, so it would only have a real significant impact if it were to take down a STRONG monster … and at 1600, killing the big dogs won’t happen too much … but it’s decent enough to have in its back pocket. But then should u LOSE SSP, that’s when he’ll give u one last going away gift. Remove him from play to special summon a Fiend type monster with 2000 or less ATK points.

I’m not going to even begin to get into all the types of abuse that can be had with this card, but start with Infernity, and then work from there.

Pretty much if u are playing ANY Fiend centered deck, u better get down with SSP. He rocks just as awesome as his picture.

Traditional: 4/5
Advanced: 4/5

Stygian Street Patrol finishes the week.  I’ll start with the superfluous: I like the name and the art.  Stygian can refer to the river Styx of the underworld Hades from Greek myth.  Stygia as a nation exists in the fictional Hyborian Age setting of most versions of Conan the Barbarian.  So we hit a famous fantasy novel setting and Greek myth with this name, while setting up for a whole family of cards.  Given the card’s classification as a Fiend, it probably refers more to the Greek Myth: Stygia was populated by humans in the Conan stories, though apparently multiple sorcerers Conan faced were from Stygia.  The Japanese name for the Stygian cards is… Hellway.  Not bad, but I think I like this one better.  Too bad that makes for some “fake” theme support since we have Stygian Dirge and that isn’t a Hellway card. 

Street Patrol is even something I can appreciate: simple, effective, descriptive.  With some of the translation “gems” we’ve gotten in Yu-Gi-Oh before, I feel the need to point out when they don’t butcher something they easily could.  The art makes it look like it could be the rider or the motorcycle that is the source of the “Fiend” the card is classified as.  Also, it does get a small bonus for being part of a name theme family, though the Stygian monsters don’t seem to have any support yet to make it worthwhile. 

So the actual card is a Level 4 Dark/Fiend/Effect monster.  Level 4 makes it a nice, easy drop.  Dark lets it fuel some classic favorites and provides it some nice support options.  Fiend is less impressive but still gives it an established pool of additional support, and of course Dark and Fiend often work well together.  I’ll come back to the effect since we need to see the ATK to really evaluate it: 1600 ATK is just high enough to function as a beatstick, if you’ve got a strong, themed deck going on.  It won’t be able to take out any other serious attackers on its own, but at least it can eat supporting monsters with little trouble.  The 1200 DEF is low but passable: you won’t be defending unless you’re desperate with this card, or your opponent forces you to shift.  If it comes down to it, at least it’s enough to shrug off a Sangan or the like. 

So what will make or break this card is the effect, or rather, effects.  The first is just a little extra burn damage: when this card destroys a monster by battle and sends it to the graveyard, you’ll score burn damage equal to the level of the destroyed monster x 100.  A small bonus, but welcome and it does open a few potential combos.  The second effect is probably what will get the card played: when this card is in your Graveyard, you can remove it from play to Special Summon a Fiend-Type monster with 2000 ATK or less from your hand.  It is restricted swarm, but it is still a swarm tactic.  Being restricted to the hand hurts a little, but still works.  Often you should at least be able to add some Synchro fodder, Tribute fodder, or a solid beatstick. 

Some quick rulings that affect playability: as expected, cards that don’t go to the Graveyard (Tokens) or aren’t monsters when they go to the Graveyard (like Embodiment of Apophis), removing it from play is a cost (not a surprise) and while you must have a legal target in hand to activate the effect, you don’t have to show it.  This is a bit of a surprise but nice: your opponent won’t know if they should negate the Summon until it is too late (at least for many cards). 

Now let us see what combos we can uncover.  Besides normal swarming, it functions as a bit of “recovery” against field clearing cards (unless they remove it or you have no targets in hand).  Minor insurance against something common is still worthwhile.  This can be a little bit of help to Infernity decks by getting a “stuck” monster out of your hand, including Infernity Archfiend and his “triggers when Special Summoned” effect.  There are even some high Level Fiends that can be Special Summoned with the effect, like Yubel or Mefist The Infernal General.  Archfiend decks in general have quite a few decent candidates to Special Summon. 

Now, one thing I can add that the other reviewers decided to skip is how you can make good use of that first effect.  There is the classic Shrink trick: anything that was under 3200 ATK becomes fair game.  Shifting opposing cards to DEF position can also allow some nice, high level monsters to be destroyed.  Still, that doesn’t seem like much: pretty much anything remotely likely to be played will also be Level 9 or less.  Rush Recklessly is also an option but hey, there is actually some Type themed support we can use: Bark of the Dark Ruler.  It isn’t a powerful combo, but it seems almost tailor made for the card.  You have a shot at breaking even in LP while trading a Trap for an opponent’s monster.  Now if we didn’t have so much easy monster removal, it’d be great.  As is, it’s just a nice unexpected trick that probably won’t make it into your deck.  Oh well. 

Ratings 

Traditional: 2/5 – It is still Chaos food, but I don’t think it helps enough of the other deck mainstays. 

Advanced: 4/5 – If you’re running a decent hunk of Fiends, you need to make room for this.  Simple but effective. 

I am still selling my former collectables on eBay.  I’ve had a lot of hobbies over the years, so at various times I’ll have comic books, manga, action figures, and video games on the auction block.  You can take a look at what’s up for bids here.  I usually add new stuff on Wednesdays and Saturdays.  Just a reminder, Pojo is in no way responsible for this and was merely kind enough to let me mention the auctions here. ;)