Friday

Dragon, Queen of Tragic Endings...I love when the most interesting card of the week ends the week...We have a Level 6, Dark attributed Dragon, with 1900 attack and 2600 defense, and a neat bag of tricks.

You can't Normal Summon or Set this card, and it can only be Special Summoned by controlling three or more Continuous Magic Cards.  Making the Level of this card all but irrelevant.  When this card attacks and does Battle Damage, your opponent selects and discards one card to the Graveyard from their Hand.

Furthermore, you Draw one card.  If this card is in your Graveyard, during the Standby Phase, and was sent there from the Field, you can send a Continuous Magic Card you control to the Graveyard to Special Summon this card back to the Field.  Now, let's review what all this means.

Built in Discard for the opponent is good, Drawing when you inflict damage is great...the Special Summon via three Continuous Magic Cards could be harder than it sounds, but isn't ridiculously difficult, and it has revival.  I think our Queen needs her own Deck to fully flourish, but it could work. 

(Yes, I ignored that if she had 2600 attack and 1900 defense she would be awesome...)

Ratings:

Traditional:  2.5/5 

Advanced:   3.5/5 

Art;  5/5

Dragon Queen of Tragic Endings …

I hate this name … It’s stupid and long for no reason.
But the monster itself? … Well, 1900 aint a lot of ATK for a level 6 … but since it can’t be normal summoned anyway, u don’t really have to sweat the tribute aspect. It has a heck of a DEF score though, and that can really work in its favor. Basically, u need to have a deck constructed for this girl to make her worthwhile. With 3 continuous spells on the field, she can be special summoned. Fine. As there is no limit to the amount of her u can HAVE on the field, u may be able to swarm a few of them if u have ‘em in hand. Great! Of course – her downside is the amount of spell/trap destruction that plagues pretty much any duelist anyway, but as soon as she GETS to the field, it doesn’t really matter at that point. So u can wait till u have her in hand before u activate them. She inflicts battle damage? – Your opponent drops and card, and u draw a card. How beautiful is THAT?!?! … Quite!

And if she can’t get any MORE awesome? – she’s tough to kill. If she leaves the field by ANY means and is sent to the graveyard, u can special summon her back by sending a continuous spell u control to the grave. And it doesn’t even say “the turn after she is destroyed”, so u can wait a few turns till u GET that continuous spell, or just till the timing is right, to resurrect her. Plus, like I mentioned before – her DEF is wicked. So even if her 1900 ATK can’t get at your opponent’s life points, a well timed book of moon on her will send them rushing head long into her 2600 DEF wall, generating her effect.

I kinda love it.

Traditional: 3.5/5
Advanced: 4/5

- FREEZA

Ok now this is the card I was actually looking forward to reviewing. Dragon Queen of Tragic Endings. What a card, it can only be special summoned, and only when you control 3 or more face-up continuous spells. So lets talk about that first, not many good continuous spells are really out there, Level Limit - Area B, Messenger of Peace, Card of Safe Return (which is banned now), and a few others. This is where Crystal Beasts come in handy. When they get destroyed they can save themselves by placing themselves in your spell and trap zone as continous spells. There are many ways to fill your spell and trap card zones with Crystal Beasts, Crystal Tree and Crystal Blessing are both really good examples. And when you have 3 Crystal Beasts/Continuous Spells on thef ield, Dragon Queen of Tragic Endings can make an appearance. Now it has a Spirit Reaper like effect only it doesn't have to attack directly, when it inflicts damage the opponent sends a card from their hand to the graveyard, but you also get to draw a card, which is pretty good, much like Airknight Parshath's effect just you discard a card from the opponents hand. Now there is one more part to her effect, during the standby phase, if Dragon Queen is in your graveyard and was sent there from the field to the Graveyard, you can send a continuous spell you control to special summon Dragon Queen from the graveyard. With 1900 attack and 2600 defense points, I'd say this card is ideal for any Crystal Beast user.

Traditional: 4/5
Advanced: 4/5

I am short on time, so I will forgo my normal formatting… it would have just made things longer.

Dragon Queen of Tragic Endings is nice first and foremost because it’s a female monster that doesn’t make you look like a pervert for playing the game: she is quite a fearsome looking beast.  So much so that in a short review, I dedicated two sentences to it!

She is Dark (potentially useful), Level 6 (okay), and a Dragon (nice).  She has only 1900 ATK with a solid but questionably useful 2600 DEF.  The 1900 ATK is just enough because of her effects.  She can’t be Normal Summoned or Set, which is why her Level is okay: if you absolutely need to get out a Synchro Monster, she and a Level 2 Tuner will make a Level 8.  Still, higher Level Tuners have less options and that isn’t bad either: makes her harder to steal away and then use for a Synchro Summon by the opponent.  She can only initially be Special Summoned through her effect, but it’s been ruled that after that you can revive her through conventional means.  In order to initially Special Summon her, you have to have three Continuous Spell Cards in play.

Continuous Spells suffer because there is too much easy removal in the game.  Instead of reinforcing your Monsters like they so often do in the fiction, you play them, maybe enjoy their effect for a turn or two, then kiss them good-bye as your opponent drops a backfield clearing card.  Even without mass removal, there is an overabundance of excellent cards that can nail a single Spell or Trap with little or no cost, like Mystical Space Typhoon.  So at a glance, this seems like it should wreck the card.

It doesn’t.  Thankfully Heavy Storm is a Normal Spell, so you can drop three Continuous Spells, maybe even benefit from them, and still Special Summon Dragon Queen of Tragic Endings.  Unlike Hamon, Lord of Striking Thunder you don’t send them to the Graveyard and that is important.  A few Continuous Spells have finally broken through to see mainstream play, and Card of Safe Return had to be banned because of how easily abused it was in the current format.  There are many hidden gems that were ignored in the past that might be worth bringing back as well if Dragon Queen of Tragic Endings is strong enough to warrant it.  I always loved Chain Energy.  There are also the Crystal Beast cards: they both become Continuous Spells after being destroyed (as Monsters) and have some good support cards that are also Continuous Spells.  With either approach you should be able to easily get Dragon Queen of Tragic Endings out in a single turn, even your first attacking turn of the game.

Now, the reason you’d want to come from the next few effects.  When she does attack and do damage (sadly, no tricking the opponent with Quick-Play ATK altering cards), first she forces them to chose a card and discard it, and then you get to draw a card!  Each attack, barring outside considerations, is a +2 then (they are down a card, you are up a card).  If she manages two attacks, you just “paid” for those three Continuous Spells and herself!  Note that they must discard, so if their hand is empty, you don’t get to draw.  And you must draw if they discard, so don’t be a fool and deck out.

Her final effect is a built in revival effect: just send a Continuous Spell from the field to the Graveyard during your Standby Phase.  You don’t even have to do it right away: you can wait until you have a Continuous Spell you don’t need anymore and do it later.  It is also worded so that she can use it again and again (instead of a one time deal).  There might even be a way to get around her initial Summoning requirement since she just has to be in play before something sends her to the Graveyard...

Maybe she’ll be the star of her own deck.  Maybe she’ll just boost existing decks, like Crystal Beasts.  Just please don’t ignore her because she’s complex, as she is worth the effort of running.

Ratings

Traditional: 1/5 – Well, not here.

Advanced: 4/5 – If that seems high, remember she is deck specific.

Dragon Queen of Tragic Endings:

     I will start right out by expressing my fondness for Crystal Beast decks.  With that being said, this card is one I've been waiting for a very long time.  Crystal Beasts are insanely easy to accumulate in your s/t zone as continuous spells because of their own effects and the enormous cache of support cards they have to back them up (such as Crystal Blessing).  In short, special summoning this card should be no problem in a Crystal Beast deck. The draw effect will add even more speed to an insanely quick deck.  The BEST thing about the Dragon Queen is that after it leaves the field, assuming it's not RFG'd, you will almost always be able to bring it back during your standby phase by sending a crystal beast to the graveyard!  This will become very annoying for your opponent.  Outside of a Crystal Beast deck, this card doesn't have much use unfortunately, which is why it doesn't score higher than it does.

Traditional:  1.0

Advanced:  2.0  (would be higher if crystal beasts were dominating the meta or something...)