Ancient Warriors – Graceful Zhou Gong – Yu-Gi-Oh! Review

King of
Lullaby

Hello Pojo Fans,

Ancient Warriors – Graceful Zhou Gong is one of the members of the WATER side of the Ancient Warriors.

Spell/Trap searcher for the Ancient Warrior archetype. A good 1-for-1 within the archetype. Ancient Warriors Saga – Three Visits is the card you want to combo with the Ancient Warriors effects, being a searcher off a Normal/Special Summon and granting you a Special Summon from the hand. The card hits the grave at your 2nd Standby Phase, so you want to get rid of it after getting the most out of it. Cards like Tenki and Tensu that net you advantage through one or two uses respectively are optimal targets for these kind of effects as well. Sun-Liu Alliance can lock your opponents monster effects down, but only for the Attribute(s) of Ancient Warriors you have (there are no LIGHT OR DARK yet). Popping a card to get to a better Ancient Warrior Spell/Trap is something you want to do so you can get to your Extra Deck with these monsters. While it isn’t the best WATER Ancient Warrior monster, it does thin the deck and allows you to search the same Spell/Trap you pop on the field.

Advanced-3/5    Art-3/5

Until Next Time
KingofLullaby

Crunch$G

From one Normal Summon to another, we got more ground covered in Ancient Warriors with Ancient Warriors – Graceful Zhou Gong.

Zhou Gong is a Level 4 WATER Beast-Warrior with 1600 ATK and DEF. Fine stats, Beast-Warrior is good with Tenki and Tensu, WATER is still odd. Zhou Gong can target a Continuous Spell/Trap you control and send it to the graveyard to search for an Ancient Warriors Spell/Trap out the Deck. Another good way to get rid of your Tenkis or to trigger your Ancient Warriors Spells when going to the graveyard, alongside a search for another Ancient Warriors Spell/Trap to do some different things. You can use this to search for a Black Whirlwind of the archetype, some ATK boosts, attack prevention on your Ancient Warriors, a card that will replace itself when it leaves the field, and a card that makes your Ancient Warriors immune to everything and destroys stuff when they battle. There’s some versatility here to appreciate. The second effect is that if another Ancient Warriors Monster activates its effect (again barring the Damage Step), you can target a monster the opponent controls and negate its effects for the turn. This can be solid against certain threats, will be hard to use this in response to a Quick Effect though. It can at least bait something out if your previous cards didn’t do so already, which is highly unlikely early in the game. Each effect of Zhou Gong is a hard once per turn, which is fine. It’s a useful card for the archetype, and you’re running a plethora of Ancient Warriors Spells and Traps, so some number of this is fine. It’s staple in the Deck, but you can experiment with ratios.

Advanced Rating: 3.75/5

Art: 4/5 Bigger fan of yesterday’s art more.

Solember
YouTube

Ancient Warriors – Graceful Zhou Gong

   A video copy of my review can be found at https://youtu.be/1UixrjWIW6I

   Ancient Warriors – Graceful Zhou Gong has two effects that are complementary to the Ancient Warriors archetype. The first effect can send a Continuous Spell or Trap card you control to the GY in order to search for an Ancient Warriors Spell or Trap card and add it to your hand.

   The search is strong, as most searches are, though the conditions required to perform said search are a bit unreliable. While there are plenty of good cards to choose from due to the cost not being archetype reliant, you have to target said card. This means that Zhou Gong can be interrupted by any card that destroys the target in addition to any card that can negate searches or Monster effects.

   As for search targets, I find the current selection of Ancient Warriors Spell and Traps lacking, but Ancient Warriors Saga – Three Visits is usually a potent selection, and it pairs well with Zhou Gong.

   The second effect can activate when another Ancient Warriors Monster activates its effect, and allows for negation of a Monster that your opponent controls. This effect is slow as far as Monster negation is concerned. Since it relies on the activation of another Ancient Warriors Monster, it won’t ever be able to be activated as a higher chain link than an opponent’s monster. It can deal with problematic Monsters on your turn easily, but in many cases, the opponent will just chain the Monster’s effect if possible.

   This card is balanced with HOPTs. The first effect requires this, though the second could probably get by without it.

   The art is excellent. Just like yesterday’s card, this one looks like a water color painting and doesn’t use the Yu-Gi-Oh! glowing border. The design really captures the commanding presence Zhou Yu is known for.

Versatility – 1

– This card is a one trick pony.

Rogue Plays – 4

– I found this card was best at making a comeback due to the potential for momentum.

Art – 5

– I really appreciate how this archetype stands out.

Balance – 4

– I wouldn’t mind if it was a bit more liberal with the second effect.

Uniqueness – 4

– I only took the point because of Sun-Liu Alliance also negating effects within the same Archetype.

Overall, I give this card a 3/5. It does work within the deck, but it feels slow and has a lot of risk for an average reward.