Friday

Black-Winged Dragon closes my week, the Big Daddy of Synchro monsters in this set. We have a Level 8, Dark attributed, Dragon type Synchro, who is Synchro Summoned simply with a Tuner and one or more non-Tuner monsters, who has 2800 attack and 1600 defense.

Whenever you would take Damage from a card effect, place one Black Feather counter on this card instead. This card loses 700 attack for each counter on it. Now, while that attack loss isn't ideal, by removing the counters, which you can once per turn, you can have a monster your opponent controls lose 700 attack for each counter removed...

Just as your monster here did, but the beautiful part here is that you inflict damage equal to your opponent for all the attack lost by that monster as a result of the effect of Black-Winged Dragon. Not to mention this is ridiculously easy to Synchro Summon...

Ratings:

Traditional: 3.75/5
Advanced: 5/5
Art: 5/5

Black Winged Dragon

So this is the big bruiser of the set. The last of the 5 Dragons and the ultimate form of the Blackwing Synchro. He starst of nicely with being a generic Synchro with 2800 ATK and 1600 DEF on a DARK level 8 Dragon. The stats are nice, but if it had been a w=Winged Beast it would have been better.

The effect boils down to this. If you would take effect damage, you put a Feather COunter on it and stop the damage. It loses 700 ATK for each feather counter on it. Then you can remove a Feather COunter to have an opponents monster lose 700 ATK and inflict 700 damage to your opponent.

There are no burn decks, so it is not very practical. However, it can cobo with Against the Wind very nicely, stopping you from taking damage, getting you precious Blackwings form the graveyard and weakening your opponent.

The problem is that Blackwing Decks do not make level 8 Synchros very often, relying on 7 and 5 to get the job done. As of right now, this is the weakest of the 5D's Dragons, but is by no means bad, just not in it's element right now.

Traditional-1/5
Advanced-3/5

Black-Winged Dragon …

This is a weird monster here … and not “weird” in a good way …

For starters it’s not a “Blackwing” monster, even though it might have u thinking that it is … (check the type and spelling), also for the fact that it’s a Dragon and not a Winged Beast. Fail right there.

So does it have anything else worthwhile going for it? – 2800 ATK aint nothin’ to scoff at. It’s Dark. That’s nice. No weird Synchro requirements. But why the heck play this over say … ANYTHING else?!?! – 1 reason – Anti-burn. Not that u come upon many burn decks these days, but if u did – The BW Dragon would be your very best friend. It can add up feather counters for each time u get hit with a burn, and instead of u feeling the damage, BWD loses 700 ATK each time. Now assuming your opponent doesn’t have many strong ATK monsters, as most Burn decks won’t, they still shouldn’t be able to fight over BWD any time soon, unless they burn you more than twice in the same turn. So next turn, if this Dragon is still alive, u can drop the counters (sending its ATK back to 2800) and reduce one of your opponents monster’s ATK by how many ever counters X 700. Of course, again, your opponent probably won’t have any or many strong monsters on the field anyway, so you won’t get that much of a diminish, and their monster’s ATK will just fall to ZERO. Thusly, your opponent won’t ever feel that heavy of BWD’s reflect burn, but the good news is – after the burn – they will also have a 0 ATK monster on the field. Ideally, for whatever reason, it is now in ATK mode, so you can now attack through them with your 2800.

Yeah … I know what ur thinking … a whole lot of “ifs” and “maybes” and “ideal situations” going on with this guy … and u are right. He’s just way too dependent on an optimal situation to be useful, and that can never make for a good card. Siding against burn might even be a bit of a stretch …

Traditional: 2/5
Advanced: 2.5/5

- FREEZA

Finally, we get to the cover card for The Shining Darkness booster, Black-Winged Dragon. This card gets a lot of bad wrap so to speak, people say its bad, that it isn't worth running. Im here to say at least 1 is worth running. It is technically a part of the Blackwing series, but notice that you don't need a Blackwing tuner or a Blackwing non-tuner for its summoning requirements. This means that it can be used with any tuner and any non-tuner(s). This cards effect however may seem rather lame. Whenever you would take damage, from a cards effect, a Black Feather Counter is placed on Black-Winged Dragon instead. It loses 700 attack for each counter, and by removing all the counters, a face up monster the opponent controls loses 700 attack for each counter and inflict damage to the opponent equal to the attack lost by that monster because of Black-Winged Dragons effect. Back when Dark Strike Fighter was running around, this card probably would've helped some. But right now, aside from it not needing anything Blackwing related, its effect doesn't help much right now, and the main good thing about it is its a easy to summon level 8 with a decent 2800 attack. If you want you can use Red Dragon Archfiend or more Colossal Fighters, since most people would prefer them over Black-Winged Dragon.

Traditional: 4/5
Advanced: 2/5

Black-Winged Dragon:

I'm not real sure what the purpose of this card is. Sure it blocks burn damage, but other than Caius, who's running anything that burns their opponent anymore? Would have been nice to get this card back when DSF was out, but that's a long-gone threat. So in reality, you are most likely never going to use his effect... which gives us a 2800 atk, 8 star, vanilla beatstick with no synchro requirements. I guess thats cool, but there are better choices for an 8 start slot in the extra deck. Unless there is some sort of burn combo coming out soon that I haven't heard about, this card seems like a waste to me. STOP MAKING ANTI BURN CARDS! There are enough out there already, and too few people play burn anyway!

Traditional: 2.0
Advanced: 2.0

Black-Winged Dragon is supposedly the 5th and final Signer Dragon because 5D's is really choppy and thrown together. Furthermore, this card isn't a Blackwing and has nothing to do with the Blackwing archetype. If you're going to take damage from a card effect, Black-Winged Dragon will suck up the damage for you and lose 700 attack, which eventually means Burn decks will be able to kill him unless you stick him in DEF and the battle goes nowhere.

You can also unload those counters for some quick damage and a strike at a card's stats, which will do nothing because you'll only get this effect against Burn. Use that against any other deck and Black-Winged Dragon will be taken out by an opponent. It's not worth running and it's not even worth siding. An extremely disappointing Ghost Rare, but then again we've gotten used to that by now.

1.5/5
Art: What?
Fun Fact: The Infernity Destroyer kid also pulled this as a ghost -_-
Tomorrow: Saturday.

Black-Winged Dragon

Unfortunately Extra decks have grown quite big (to the point where people can't fit certain Synchros in their Extra deck any more). Black-Winged Dragon is a terrible Synchro monster. I have no idea what they were doing when designing it. I can imagine it seeing some play when Burn becomes popular. However, at this moment I can't think of a single commonly played burn effect (outside of Burn).

T: 1/5

A: 1/5