Monday
 
Malefic Stardust Dragon opens the week, and introduces us to the new Malefic monsters in the game of Yugioh.  Most of these cards are absolutely atrocious, and as good a card with the words "Stardust Dragon" in its name should be, this is as well. 
 
First, you have to remove the original version of said card to Special Summon (the only way these cards can be Summoned) from your Deck or Extra Deck.  I want to know why you would remove your Stardust Dragon for this...
 
Anyway, only one face-up Malefic monster can be on the Field at a time.
 Some of these monsters have no effects, some of these monsters have effects that suck.  Here, we have the latter.  MSD protects Field Magic cards from being destroyed by effects, prevents you from attacking with your other monsters, and destroys itself if you have no face-up Field Magic card.
 
Ratings:
 
1/5, both Formats, like wh0a 
Art:  Even doesn't look as cool as the original.  2.5/5

Malefic Stardust Dragon ...
 
These Malefic monsters ... They're pretty cool, and ridiculously easy to summon ... they're only downside is what keeps them from being outright banned - they can't swarm. Their ruling doesn't allow there to be more than 1 Malefic monster on the field at a time. So if u WANT to swarm, u'll have to do it with other monsters. But wait - they can't attack! So - what's the point? Well if u HAVE a field full of mosters already, they u probably won't need to bring out a Malefic one. But if u don't ... and u have a field spell up and running, then this 2500 ATK dragon is a great top deck.
 
That all being said ... the original Stardust is a far better monster, all in all, and only made one of the easiest of Synchro monsters to summon ... pitching it from your extra deck in order to summon MSD might not be the best allocation of resources unless ur already up the creek without a paddle, and this is one of ur last resorts.
 
uhm ...
 
Traditional: 2/5
Advanced: 3/5
 
- FREEZA

These Malefic monsters are giving me a headache.  Not because they are so good, just because I was unfamiliar with them. 

So Malefic monsters are “corrupt” versions of existing monsters (well, the members released are) that debuted in the last Yu-Gi-Oh movie as the villains big bad theme.  Thank goodness it’s so stupid it’s funny, or else my headache would be back and worse.  In Japan, they are “Sin” monsters. They do have one feature that makes them fairly potent: while they are nomi monsters that have to be Special Summoned via their effect, that effect is removing the original version of the card from your deck (or Extra Deck, in the case of today’s card).  That’s pretty fast.  Like Toon monsters, they added a lot to balance out that power: Malefic monsters go “boom” if there is no face-up Field Spell, other monster’s you control can’t declare an attack, and you can only have one face-up Malefic monster on the field at a time.  I listed those restrictions in what I consider to be order of importance.  I’ll also add that some of their abilities from the source material were altered, the main thing I am aware of being the relevant monster was just sent to the Graveyard in the movie.  That was probably a necessary change: we love messing with our Graveyards in Yu-Gi-Oh. 

Being dependant on a Field Spell in general is better than being dependent upon a specific one, but it is a big vulnerability: besides all the S/T destruction in general, if your opponent runs a Field Spell they can just play theirs to kill yours!  Ironically, Field Barrier ends up being as much a blessing as a curse: your opponent can drop it to block your Field Spell, especially if it is just a side deck card and they don’t run any Field Spell with it. 

Your other monsters being unable to attack is bad, but not as bad as that: this is Yu-Gi-Oh and odds are you won’t be building up a field full of Monsters unless you build your deck to do it in a single turn.  Getting a huge beatstick at the cost of removing from play a specific Monster from your deck/extra deck is mad speed and worth the inconvenience.  You can still have some “supporting” Monsters in play after all. 

Being restricted to a single Malefic monster in play at a time sounded horrible at first, and then I read what we got.  Since they’d block each other’s attacks anyway… yeah not really a problem at all.  With this and the last restriction removed, you’d be looking at OTK territory, and that’d be no good for the game’s health.  Notice the last restriction mentions nothing about “side of the field”: first person to get theirs to the field is the only one who gets theirs to the field. 

All that, and I am just getting to the actual Card of the Day, Malefic Stardust Dragon.  At first I was very disappointed with this card: all it protects is the Field Spell!  We have other cards that can do that.  It isn’t like you can drop this along side one of its friends – you drop it and that’s the Malefic monster to work with.  Then again, it neutralizes what I said was the biggest restriction on the card and if it’s a potentially useful Field Spell, you’ve got quite the deck set up.  After all, Stardust Dragon might be a valuable card, but you can run three and you never have to worry about accidentally drawing into it.  You open with this and you can play it.  If it hides from you, your deck will be hurting but unlike its kin it’s your call whether or not you can still play it (that is, as long as you didn’t use all copies of Stardust Dragon from your Extra Deck).  I could see an interesting lockdown deck using this card, Royal Decree, and Secret Village of the Spellcasters.  You’d still need a Spellcaster on your side of the field, but you also still have a Normal Summon so that’s a quick lock. 

Becoming a Malefic monster results in one major stat change between the Malefic monster and its original form: it is now Dark-Attributed.  Did you just grin like I did when that hit me?  Monsters that used to be Light might lose sweet tricks like Honest, but Stardust Dragon is a Wind monster – becoming a Dark Monster costs it almost nothing and gives it a fantastic level of support.  This simple change allows you to cash in on the remaining core Virus cards, Deck Devastation Virus and Epidemic Eradicator Virus.  So you can attempt to break even if something is going to destroy Malefic Stardust Dragon, or get rid of it once it’s served its purpose and cash in on card advantage.  That’s on top of the other Dark support you might enjoy as well. 

Have I left anything out?  It’s a Level 8 monster, so you can use it to fuel Trade In if it doesn’t seem worth the effort.  It’s a Dragon monster so you know you’ll have some Trade In using decks for it, plus all the sweet Dragon support that can get behind it (even speeding into some useful incredibly high level Synchro Monsters). 

I haven’t even gotten to perhaps the most obvious deck for it: Skill Drain.  Yes, you lose the nifty bonus of protecting your Field Spell, but if I read the rulings right you also can have every Monster you control attack and won’t be destroyed if your Field Spell gets nuked.  Skill Drain decks are more than happy to get fast Special Summon to compliment what they already run.  The effect preventing you from having multiple Malefic monsters in play is technically negated, but not on any Malefic monsters in your hand.  I think the only way to bypass this is to use a card like Book of Moon to flip the in-play copy down, then Special Summon another one and flip the first one back up.  Complicated, but since Skill Drain decks already like to run Book of Moon, still worth mentioning. 

Ratings 

Traditional: 3/5 – Smack in the middle.  Why?  Field Spell dependence = bad.  Super fast Special Summon = good.  Dark = Chaos Food = good.  Might even work with certain OTK decks since you can always launch this with Catapult Turtle as easily as a Fusion. 

Modified: 4/5 – I think I am going out on a limb here.  I haven’t heard of these cards before I went to do the CotD.  I confess I’m far behind on my normal sources for staying up to date, so maybe I just missed it? 

Summary

I haven’t been including this section much anymore because a lot of cards didn’t need it.  The ratings I gave above are pretty much general deck ratings.  Can any deck run this card?  No – without a Field Spell or Skill Drain it’d be dead weight.  Adding both isn’t as crippling to a deck as it sounds, especially when it means a nice high pressure opener early game or amazing “near” top deck late game.  Nothing states you can’t use this as Tribute fodder so it seems surprisingly versatile.  It won’t fuel a massive swarm rush, but not everything has to.  If your deck already runs a Field Spell, you’re almost certainly already running Stardust Dragon in your Extra Deck, and you are running this in your main deck.

This week starts off with Malefic Stardust Dragon (or Sin Stardust Dragon, depending on how much you hate name changes). It has some of the same conditions as Malefic Blue-Eyes White Dragon: It's your only attacking monster and and it has the Earthbound Immortal clauses. However, a HUGE difference is that you only remove a Stardust Dragon from your Extra Deck to summon it. This means that you can special summon this 2500 ATK beatstick with no real cost at all.

Furthermore, Malefic Stardust protects your fields from destruction by effects, meaning it's very unlikely that the opponent will likely not get around this. In Crystal Beasts, it gives you the attack and stability you need. In any deck that uses fields, really, this is a giant, walking Field Barrier that won't screw you over. I'd rather not give things away, but in a certain deck I use, this thing comes out of nowhere to crush opponents and ensure field sweeps (think about playable field spells, like Geartown or A Legendary Ocean + Codarus) even when things aren't going well.

4/5
Art: O_O
Fun Fact: Stardust is in every single rarity except common and rare.
Tomorrow: We start reviewing Hidden Arse 2 cards.

Malefic Stardust Dragon
Effect Monster/8 Stars
Dragon/DARK
2500ATK/2000DEF

"This card cannot be Normal Summoned or Set. This card cannot be Special Summoned, except by removing from play 1 'Stardust Dragon' from your Extra Deck. There can only be 1 face-up 'Malefic' monster on the field. Field Spell Cards cannot be destroyed by effects. Other monsters you control cannot declare an attack. If there is no face-up Field Spell Card on the field, destroy this card."

Today's review is of "Malefic Stardust Dragon."  One of the first things I notice is that this card is a Nomi monster.  Only one way to summon it.  And at first glance, it doesn't seem hard at all.  Remove 1 Stardust Dragon from your extra deck.  But alas, here's the kicker: a Field Spell must be in play in order for it to be face up on the field.  That's a little bit trickier, as most competitive decks don't run field spells, outside of Gravekeeper's and their "Necrovalley."  It does have a neat ability built in, which allows for protection of field spells, making his "drawback" a little easier to cope with.  He's a Trade-In target, an Allure of Darkness target, and a fun beatstick with the same stats as the original Stardust Dragon.  Hell, with Gravekeepers, you can mix him in and be able to run a fun "Virus" version of the deck.  But here's my problem.  Extra Decks usually contain 1-2 Stardust Dragons.  You want to use them.  The ability of a Stardust Dragon is incredible.  Would you be willing to lock yourself out of one of your Stardust Dragon cards, in order to play this one?  Personally, I wouldn't.

Traditional: 1.5/5
Advanced: 2/5