Wednesday

Look, it's a different colored Watapon! Spore, is a Wind attributed Tuner, who is Level 1, and a Plant type monster, with 400 attack and 800 defense. Now, let's start with some good. When this card is in the Graveyard, you can Special Summon it by removing a Plant-type monster from your Graveyard.

If you Special Summon Spore in that manner, this card has its Level increased by the Level of the monster you removed from play. Each player can use the effect of Spore once per Duel. I like this Tuner a lot more than yesterday, although only being able to remove a Plant monster really hurt this cards playability.

Ratings:

Traditional: 1.75/5
Advanced: 2.75/5 (3.75 for Plants)
Art: 3.5/5

Spore

This is another card that we thought was going to be broken, and it turns out it is even better than I thought. It is a level 1 Tuner WIND Plant with 400 ATK and 800 DEF. The stats are actually not that bad for a level 1 monster, but still bad.

The effect is that you can remove from play a Plant monster to Special Summon it from the graveyard and it gains levels of that monster. Oh, but you can only use it once per duel for all of your Spore monsters.

This means that you can use it as a regular Tuner and ONLY activate the effect when you need to. Plants needed a kick in the pants and this card just might give it to them. It makes it that much easier to get the exact level you need for the right Synchro for the job.

Nettles already kicked out Copy Plant in most decks, this just made the transition permanent. People may still play Nettles, but only because they can't activate 3 Spore effects a game. This is a great card, and ANOTHER Tuner that can Special Summon itself that much easier.

Traditional-1/5
Advanced-5/5

Spore:

I love plants. Seriously. Everytime more support is released for them I rejoice. Now we finally get a decent tuner that has a plaguespreader-ish effect as it can special summon itself from the graveyard with relative ease. They got smart with this one though, and added that whole "only once per duel" thing to the effect. Which actually seems sort of harsh, but it's understandable as it keeps the card balanced. Note though, it doesn't say that it can't be special summoned from the graveyard after its effect has been used, so gigavise decks can still use this guy as a replacement for copy-plant (thank God) for that oh-so-important Power Tool Dragon synchro. Keep in mind that even with multiples of the card in your deck, you can only use the effect one time, after that, the others are useless. Plant decks get one step closer to becoming a decent stand-alone type...

Traditional: 2.0
Advanced: 3.5

Spore is an interesting card that Konami has already "limited". Only once per game, Spore can eat a dead plant and poof itself back onto the field, gaining its level. This can be a very tricky card to use, but won't always work in something like Quickdraw because you'll need your Dandylions and maybe your Lonefires. By eating one of these level 3 plants, Spore comes back as a Level 4 Tuner ready to make a Synchro Summon with, say, that Hamster your opponent bumped into.

Spore's usefulness is entirely dependant on the monsters you're using, even right down to the levels of your supporting monsters, how much you'll use the cards they support, and whether or not you'll recycle them. For instance, if you use two Tytannials instead of one, you'll recycle your Lonefires more often and won't be able to bring out Spore. If you don't have enough Level 4 monsters that are mainly for bursts of support (Hamster comes back into the picture) or if you don't use lots of level 3 monsters or make enough Dandylion tokens, or if you run lots of Caius and Light and Darkness Dragon, it won't work.

This is one of the most interesting cards we've gotten in a long time. You'll have to use it for yourself to see how useful it really is, because there are so many factors that go into how consistent it will be, but it mostly comes down to how much you use Lonefire Blossom, how many Fluff tokens you summon, and how many supporting monsters you use.

4/5
Art: Almost. Almost. *hugs Watapon*
Fun Fact: Winged Kuriboh (and the winking one), Watapon and Spore are best buddies. Hanewata's the ugly one.
Tomorrow: Something ugly warps into the COTD section because it's jealous of Spore.

Wednesday: Spore

Spore is a very interesting and well-designed card. It tends to resemble Ronintoadin (which is not very well designed due to Substitoad and Swap Frog interactions) in its exact effect. Unfortunately, due to its very nature, I would recommend running one copy even if you can find a use for it (two at max if you are feeling frisky).

The card is decent for Quickdraw. It provides a free outlet to create numerous monsters. It serves as a great “ambush” type card that lets you drop a monstrous Light and Darkness Dragon or Caius that can swing the game.

The card is also solid in Plant decks of all flavors. Plant decks generally tend to play many tribute monsters due to either Gigaplant-based strategies or Mark of the Rose-based strategies. I'm not entirely certain why Spore was given the short end of the stick while Ronintoadin, which is basically freely generated for free by Substitoad's absurd effect, is allowed to flit on and off the field like a noble samurai frog.

It would have been cool to see different interactions such as Burial from the Different Dimension and even Return from the Different Dimension with Spore and Mark of the Rose type cards.

T: 4/5
A: 4/5