Bone Archfiend – #SDCK-EN003
If this card is in your hand or GY: You can send 1 other card from your hand or field to the GY; Special Summon this card, also you cannot Special Summon monsters from the Extra Deck for the rest of this turn, except DARK Dragon Synchro Monsters. You can target 1 face-up monster you control that has a Level; send 1 Fiend Tuner from your hand or Deck to the GY, and if you do, increase or decrease that monster’s Level by 1. You can only use each effect of “Bone Archfiend” once per turn.
Date Reviewed: October 31st, 2023
Rating: 3.75
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is awful. 3 is average. 5 is excellent.
Reviews Below:
Crunch$G
With a new Tuner, we need non-Tuners to go with it if you want to Synchro, so we got a retrain of Mad Archfiend into Bone Archfiend.
Bone Archfiend is a Level 4 DARK Fiend with 1800 ATK and 0 DEF. A nice ATK stat, and a great combination of DARK and Fiend. If this card is in your hand or graveyard, you can send another card from your hand or field to the graveyard to summon this. You can’t do a Machina Fortress with this, which is fair. You’d probably hope to find a way to get this into the graveyard for other effects and then revive it from said grave, but sometimes you’ll have to use the effect in hand if it means you can play the game. It’s a fast body on board, which you need for your Synchros, especially in a Deck that was lacking in the non-Tuner department before. You’re locked to DARK Dragon Synchros from your Extra Deck for the rest of the turn, but that’s fine. The second effect lets you send a Fiend Tuner from your Deck to the graveyard to target a face-up monster you control to increase or decrease its Level by 1. Good Level modulation while also getting the graveyard setup for other plays. It can put your Red Rising Dragon targets in the graveyard or put Obsessive Uvualoop in the grave for another Tuner to help make Synchros with. The Level can usually go either up or down depending on which Synchro you want to go for, but most of the time I imagine it’s decreased so you can use Soul Resonator to make Red Rising Dragon. Hard once per turn on each effect is fine. It’s a great non-Tuner for the Deck to get your graveyard setup, an easy non-Tuner on the field, and Level adjustment to make certain Synchros. You want to see this as fast as possible as well, so another 3-of might work here.
Advanced Rating: 4/5
Art: 4/5 You know, this is the perfect art for a Halloween Day review.
Mighty
Vee
Bone Archfiend continues our The Crimson King coverage, a retrain of Mad Archfiend and another vital new combo piece for Red Dragon Archfiend. A level 4 DARK Fiend monster, Bone Archfiend is searchable by our new friend Soul Resonator, and naturally has synergy with DARK Fiend decks, if you wanted to use it for some reason. Bone Archfiend shares Mad Archfiend’s unusual stat spread of 1800 attack and 0 defense, a bygone era where having that much attack and piercing was seen as too strong. Sad, isn’t it?
Bone Archfiend also has two hard once per turn effects, the first letting you Special Summon it from your hand or Graveyard by sending any other card from your hand or field to the Graveyard. As Soul Resonator kickstarts the combo by itself, a discard is a small price to pay for consistency, and you can even turn it in your favor with the deck’s smorgasbord of Graveyard effects; I’ve found it satisfying to send Vision Resonator early or, if you happened to open both Bone Archfiend and Soul Resonator, Obsessive Uvualoop or Crimson Resonator are targets that set up extending for later. If nothing else, starting the combo with tomorrow’s card breaks even in card advantage if the discard drives you nuts. Using this effect will lock you into DARK Dragon Synchro monsters for the rest of the turn, which is largely meaningless because almost every other combo piece in this deck will lock you similarly (but it does limit Bone Archfiend’s capacity as a level 4 body, if you hated Photon Thrasher). Bone Archfiend’s other effect lets you send any Fiend Tuner from your deck to the Graveyard to increase or decrease the level of one monster you control by 1. This effect is twofold: it accesses Crimson Resonator if it’s not in the Graveyard yet, since you’ll need it for Red Rising Dragon, and it fixes Soul Resonator’s awkward level of 3; bringing it down to 2 lets you make Red Rising Dragon, but if you are so inclined you can raise it to 1 to go straight into a level 8 Synchro, though I can’t imagine why would outside of niche emergency combos. Bone Archfiend isn’t too impressive on its own, but it’s a major combo piece for Red Dragon Archfiend, and it can help extend in a pinch; many people like running 3, but you can get away with any amount greater than 0.
Advanced: 3.5/5
Art: 3.5/5 Fitting for Halloween, eh?
King of
Lullaby
Hello Pojo Fans,
Happy Halloween to anyone who observes it. Something spooky maybe for today? Lets see if Bone Archfiend can fit the bill.
Level 4 Fiend that Special Summons itself via sending a card from your hand or field to the grave…that’s an easy effect to accomplish, making Bone Archfiend a good extender in pretty much any deck. Like yesterday there’s the restriction to DARK and a Synchro Monster, but this time it has to be a Dragon as well. So now we’ve got an 1800ATK/0DEF Fiend on the field, what else can we do? Target another monster you’ve got and Foolish Burial a Fiend Tuner from your hand or Deck to manipulate their Level. The Fiend Tuner narrows your reach with this card, but it was likely staying in Red Archfiend decks, though there are Fiend Tuner monsters in Infernity and Fabled decks, as well as Rubic in Burning Abyss, so you might see this guy floating around because of that.
Bone Archfiend is all about its Level manipulation to make that DARK Synchro Dragon happen in your turn. His best allies are the Resonator monsters, however, with the mentioned Fabled and Infernity decks, as well as the one Burning Abyss monster targetable for his second effect, Bone Archfiend could see play there, especially because it can change its own Level in that last case to 3 and set up an Xyz of Dante. Bone Archfiend is best searched with yesterday’s card: Soul Resonator, because it will toss another Resonator Tuner from your Deck to the grave and then do its level thing. This simple combo is an instant Synchro of 6-8 with those two monsters alone.
Some of the good Resonator monsters to Foolish Burial with Bone Archfiend are Vision Resonator, who will get you a Red Dragon Archfiend Spell/Trap search, Synkron Resonator can get a Resonator from your grave to your hand if sent from the field to the grave, and Mirror Resonator can Special Summon itself if your opponent controls an Extra Deck monster and you do not, a solid choice if going second.
Bone Archfiend compliments Soul Resonator and is a must in the Resonator/Red Archfiend deck. It gets stuff to your grave while not slowing you down by using your Normal Summon, and can set up one of your Red Dragon Archfiend Synchro options, or, a DARK Dragon Synchro to hold down the field…Beelze of the Diabolic Dragons anyone?
Advanced-3.5/5 Art-3.5/5
Until Next Time
KingofLullaby
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