Hello Pojo Readers, Crunch$G back here looking at the rest of the Spells the TCG currently has at one. If I’m being honest, this second part looks better than the first cause I’m looking at the cards I’m going to discuss in this one and there’s some great stuff. I’ll save your time and get straight into it.
Monster Reborn
Another one of the most iconic Spells ever and one that has been back and forth a ton on the list. Monster Reborn is a Normal Spell that targets any monster in either player’s graveyard (just as long as it can be Special Summoned, whether the card allows you to or if you properly summoned the monster first) and Special Summon it to your side of the field. An extender, a power play, maybe even a starter depending on the situation, Monster Reborn is one of the most powerful Spells ever printed. Need a push for game? Monster Reborn can revive a boss monster for that last push. Need a combo extender? Monster Reborn will make your boards better. Need a starter play after your board was broken? Monster Reborn can get you going again. Monster Reborn was only ever at three in the first six weeks of the game’s history before going to one in May of 2002, getting banned in August of 2004, coming back to one in March of 2008, getting banned again in September of 2009 just to be unbanned in September of 2010 to finally be banned in the TCG in September of 2013 only for it to return once again in February of 2018.
The card does so much. Now a days, you might not see it reviving boss monsters as much because boards being built are hard to break, meaning you should be winning, but it will likely extend your plays. In rare cases after your board might of been broken, Monster Reborn can also get you back on the ground. It isn’t too broken, so I think one is most certainly fine. The selfish part of me wants to try two because I love Monster Reborn, but one is probably better for the game.
One Day of Peace
One Day of Peace is a Normal Spell that lets both players draw one card, then neither player takes damage until the end of the opponent’s turn. In stall decks, you get a draw and prevent yourself from taking damage, what more could you want? You don’t care how many cards your opponent has just as long as you can keep them from dealing the finishing blow to you. Any stall deck could make good use of this card because having that protection from damage is so good in those kinds of decks. It also can help that you can do damage to your opponent first if you are able to, then activate One Day of Peace to make them unable to dish damage right back at you. One Day of Peace was limited in March of 2013 because nobody likes stall decks.
The only decks this would be used in today are decks meant to stall, and once again nobody likes stall decks. This card gives them draw power and damage protection, everything they basically want. We don’t need more than one of this in the game.
One for One
A good Level 1 really loves this card. One for One is a Normal Spell that at the cost of discarding a monster card from your hand, you can Special Summon nearly any Level 1 monster from your deck. We’d be here all day if I listed all the good Level 1 monsters, but one that was limited the same list as One for One in September of 2009 was Mind Master himself, and we all know where Mind Master sits on the Forbidden and Limited list now. We also had Fishborg Blaster and Substitoad both being powerful cards shortly after this card was limited and we’ve seen a ton more Level 1s rise to power since this card was limited to one and we’ll likely continue to see more good Level 1s get printed.
One for One needs to stay at one. Being able to tutor any monster from your deck with the only restriction being a level is very good, especially when you consider the pool of monsters with that level. There are many good Level 1s in the game and that pool will only expand, so One for One will probably stay at one.
Pantheism of the Monarchs
What an archetypal draw Spell we have here. Pantheism is a Normal Spell that by discarding any Monarch Spell or Trap lets you draw two cards. You aren’t limited to once per turn for this, so you can dig through your deck for tribute fodder or a Monarch to make your plays all while putting something like The Prime Monarch in the grave along with fuel to banish to Special Summon it as a monster. Pantheism does have a hard once per turn effect where you can banish it from the grave to reveal 3 Monarch Spells/Traps from your deck and your opponent chooses one and adds it to your hand while the rest go to the deck. This won’t matter if you reveal three of that Spell/Trap or reveal Tenacity of the Monarchs while you got a Monarch monster in your hand to reveal and search for that one of Spell or Trap your opponent didn’t pick off Pantheism. Or just straight up reveal three Tenacity to really thin the deck. This offers great draw power, has synergy with the deck, and lets you search after you draw so of course it was going to get limited after seeing play in a meta deck and that’s what happened in August of 2016.
Now I’d actually be fine with this back at three. I basically said it with Ehther, but Monarchs at full power now won’t be as top tier as they were a few years ago. Their flaws are going to catch up to them and the deck can still be bricky, even with this at three. Monarchs will be a fun deck to play with this at three, and I think many players would be fine with full power Monarchs again.
Raigeki
Back to more simple, yet effective Spells. Raigeki is a Normal Spell that destroys all monsters your opponent controls. Basically take Dark Hole and remove the biggest negative that card has and you got Raigeki. You don’t have to worry about what board you make because Raigeki only cares about what your opponent has. It was one of the first limited cards in May of 2002 and one of the first banned cards in August of 2004 before Raigeki finally came back to the TCG in October of 2014 in an environment where monsters got effects when they were sent to the graveyard, so Raigeki itself had some negatives now, but it was still a really good card.
Raigeki at one is perfectly fine. It isn’t too powerful now that there are floating monsters existing, but putting this at any more is just promoting OTKs to make all that floating not matter. It’s still a useful card when you need it, and it isn’t overbearingly powerful at one, but you are playing with fire moving this higher.
Reasoning
It’s like Monster Gate with some differences. Reasoning is a Normal Spell that makes your opponent declare a Level and then you excavate the top cards of your deck until you excavate a monster that can be Normal Summoned or Set and if that monster doesn’t have the same level as the declared one, you can Special Summon it, but if it does match the declared level then it is sent to the graveyard, but either way every other excavated card was going to the grave. This is useful in Infernoids when you can excavate all the other Infernoid monsters and hopefully get Decatron if your opponent doesn’t declare Level 1, though you might want to play Raiden to have a monster with a varying level in case they declare 1. Kozmo could use this as well as it is a deck with Levels all over the place. Reasoning was limited in September of 2008 as it was used in those Dark Armed Return and Airblade Turbo decks alongside Monster Gate, but it returned to two and eventually three before the TCG eventually limited Reasoning again in April of 2016.
I’d like to see Reasoning at three again just like Monster Gate. Sure the cards are powerful, but they do still rely on RNG, especially when your deck still has over 30 cards in it. Plus when you are running out of cards, who is to say you got something good left in your deck. The right decks could use this, but I don’t think anything can break it. Also with Reasoning you got to risk your opponent declaring the level of a monster you want to summon.
Reinforcement of the Army
Well what do you expect when a whole type of monster gets its own searcher? Reinforcement of the Army is a Normal Spell that lets you add any Level 4 or lower Warrior from your deck to your hand. There is a long list of Level 4 Warriors, some of the best ones in the meta include D.D. Warrior Lady, Exiled Force, D.D. Assailant, Don Zaloog, Elemental HERO Stratos, the Satellarknight archetype as a whole, Shurit, Strategist of the Nekroz, Nekroz of Clausolas, and that’s just to name a few that were meta. Reinforcment of the Army was semi-limited in July of 2003, it went to three in September of 2008 before going back to one in March of 2009, and then it waited until October of 2014 to return to three in the TCG until November of 2015 when it went back to one.
This card should always stay at one probably, there’s always going to be good Level 4 or lower Warriors in the game and Reinforcement of the Army searches them all. I’d say Satellarknights winning World in 2015 was what brought it back to one, but the OCG had it at one meaning Worlds was going to have it at one, so I guess the TCG just wanted to put it back there.
Rekindling
Soul Charge, only for a very specific kind of monster, and yes I know this card did come before Soul Charge. Rekindling is a Normal Spell that lets you Special Summon as many FIRE monsters with 200 DEF as possible from the graveyard, but banish them during the End Phase. This helped Lavals quickly Synchro Summon a Shooting Quasar Dragon along with making massive Synchro plays. The ease of summoning Quasar Dragon alone was very powerful several years ago, especially with T.G. Hyper Librarian drawing you cards along the way. Also drawing into multiples of this just let more powerful Synchros come out with great ease. Rekindling was limited in April of 2014.
I think Rekindling is fine at three once again. The kinds of monsters it revives is very limited and I don’t think this will make too many broken Link Boards that other decks just can’t do better already. Also using this to summon a Shooting Quasar alone isn’t enough in this day of age. Rekindling is fine at three, there aren’t too many broken FIRE Monsters with 200 DEF, though there are good ones I’ll admit. It’s also to do Synchro Spam in Master Rule 4 even with this at three.
Royal Tribute
The best card Gravekeeper’s had beyond Necrovalley. Royal Tribute is a Normal Spell that makes both players discard every monster in there hand, just as long as you controlled Necrovalley. Necrovalley is pretty good at shutting down the graveyard, so having this discard floaters is good since Necrovalley will prevent them from doing their thing. Gravekeeper’s loved this as they could just summon or set the one monster in their hand, set some backrow, then use this to blow the opponent’s hand away and getting information about their hand while your cards are on the field and hopefully you only discarded a few monsters. Royal Tribute was semi-limited in March of 2011 and later limited in September of 2013.
I think this card at three is fine. Gravekeeper’s might use this only since they got Terraforming and Gravekeeper’s Commandant to search this while other decks would just play Terraforming for the side decked Necrovalley maybe, and I don’t think you’d want to play this when you don’t have the most optimal ways of searching Necrovalley and you’re likely putting Necrovalley in the side deck, plus this card itself can’t be searched. Gravekeeper’s could use this at three and even then they won’t be top tier.
Scapegoat
Ah yes, the card that has a whole format named around it. Scapegoat is a Quick-Play Spell that summons 4 Goat Tokens (Beast/EARTH/Level 1/ATK 0/DEF 0) to your field in Defense Position but the turn you use Scapegoat you are prevented from summoning monsters, but not setting. In Goat Format, you could use this to set up a wall to prevent yourself from taking damage and on your turn use Metamorphosis with a remaining Token for Thousand-Eyes Restrict. This play was very good by 2005’s standards, which got Scapegoat limited in October of 2005 to end Goat Format, but it eventually went back to three in September of 2013 where it was perfectly fine until Master Rule 4 gave us Link Monsters, which could use Tokens as material. Scapegoat was an immediate Link-4 with cards like Missus Radiant, Link Spider, and Linkuriboh being there to Link Climb if you needed. Scapegoat was semi-limited in September of 2018 before being limited in January of 2019.
This is a pretty unlucky card here. It was fine to come back in 2013 after being so good in Goat Format only for Master Rule 4 to allow it to summon boss monsters along with other cards with great ease. Scapegoat might be stuck at one forever this time around, summoning Links with this much ease is so good.
Set Rotation
Here’s some Field Spell abuse. Set Rotation is a Quick-Play Spell that takes 2 Field Spells with different names from your deck and sets one to your field and another to your opponent’s field (your choice as to who gets which one) and while either of them remain set on the field, neither player can activate or set other Field Spells. Any deck that loves their own archetypal Field Spell or is playing one that supports the archetype very well would love this card. If you set a Field Spell to your opponent’s field with this that gets an effect upon destruction, you’ll likely destroy it to get the benefits from destroying it while at the same time getting another Field Spell that helps your deck. You could also play cards like Gateway to Chaos or Oracle of Zefra to lock your opponent from using Field Spells while you use your own, unless your opponent was playing Zefra or Black Luster Soldier (which you’d likely prefer Gateway to Chaos since Zefra is a better rogue deck), because those two Field Spells require you to search for something specific to even activate them. Set Rotation was locking players from their ever important Field Spell, which got Set Rotation limited in November of 2017.
Set Rotation at one is fine since it’ll prevent people from playing the bricks like Gateway to Chaos or Oracle of Zefra in their decks just for the one of Set Rotation and instead play two different Field Spells their deck could use, like maybe Fire King Island and Kozmotown in Kozmo decks. Player’s shouldn’t be locked from their Field Spells if the card is important for the deck.
Sky Striker Mecha – Hornet Drones
A possible starter card for so many decks. Hornet Drones is a Quick-Play Spell that can be activated when you have no monsters in your Main Monster Zones and it then summons a Sky Striker Ace Token (Warrior/DARK/Level 1/ATK 0/DEF 0) and if you have 3 or more Spells in the graveyard when you activate this then the Token’s stats become 1500/1500. Being a Warrior helps Link Summon Isolde, being a Sky Striker Ace monster helps Link Summon Sky Striker Ace – Kagari (which can grab back the Hornet Drones upon Link Summon), being DARK helps for Wee Witch’s Apprentance (arguably the best attribute based Link Monster since DARK is so good) and you can see where plays can potentially get started. People played three of this and three of Sky Striker Mobilize – Engage! to search for the Hornet Drones and get plays started, hopefully with 3+ spells in the grave for Engage to draw you a card. It was a starter card that you basically had 6 of in any deck since decks beyond Sky Striker loved playing a Sky Striker package just for Hornet Drones, so it was limited in September of 2018 to limit that engine’s power or make players start playing cards like Afterburners or Jamming Waves to make Engage less likely to be dead, and while those two cards are good, they don’t get powerful plays started like Hornet Drones can.
Hornet Drones is fine at one. Sure it isn’t hurting the Sky Striker deck since they still get to play three Raye, but Hornet Drones has made the Sky Striker engine appear in less decks in favor of other cards because one Hornet Drones and three Engage isn’t overly reliable, plus drawing the one Hornet Drones makes the three Engage dead unless you got other Spells in your deck. Sky Striker as a deck will get hit soon, but Hornet Drones is good to hit the engine.
Slash Draw
Either building a deck around it or getting plain sacky, this was obviously going to cause FTKs and OTKs with great ease. Slash Draw is a Normal Spell that upon activation makes you discard a card and then send the top cards from your deck to the graveyard equal to the number of cards your opponent controls and then draw a card and get two various effects based on what you drew. If you didn’t draw Slash Draw, then you get to keep the card and return cards from your graveyard into the deck equal to the number of cards sent from your deck to the graveyard off Slash Draw. If you do draw Slash Draw, then you discard the Slash Draw and destroy as many cards on the field as possible then burn the opponent for 2000 damage for each card destroyed. Some decks did love Slash Draw milling cards to trigger graveyard effects while putting good cards back into the deck, but Slash Draw has seen an FTK in the competitive meta. Saryuja Skull Dread helps stack the deck with his draw effect while your Danger! monsters can thin your deck with great ease. Also summoning something to your opponent’s side of the field by using something like Summon Sorceress or Grinder Golem during the combo helps let you activate the Slash Draw. The card was bound to cause an FTK with the right combination of cards and it got limited in January of 2019.
The card does warrant a limit, maybe it shouldn’t of even been printed from the anime. It was bound to cause FTKs with that 2000 burn for each card destroyed upon drawing a Slash Draw, which you could either get lucky and top deck or stack and thin your deck while establishing board presence for you and your opponent if you do this before they get a turn. A very powerful card if it goes off, warrants the limit to make the burn effect impossible unless you pull off some convoluted combos to do it now.
SPYRAL Resort
The third piece that kept SPYRAL as a top tier deck. SPYRAL Resort is a Field Spell that gives your SPYRALs protection from targeting effects from your opponent except for Resort itself, lets you add a SPYRAL monster from your deck to your hand once per turn, and destroys itself unless you shuffle a monster from your graveyard back into the deck. The protection was very nice to give this deck immunity to something like Effect Veiler during the SPYRAL player’s turn. The searching is easily the best effect since it isn’t a hard once per turn, meaning you can use multiple Resorts to get to multiple monsters like Sleeper, Quik-Fix, Super Agent, Drones, etc. This was searchable as well off SPYRAL Master Plan, which could be summoned from the deck with Double Helix and later used for a Link Summon to get the search for Resort and a SPYRAL MISSION card. The shuffling the monster into the deck as a cost to prevent Resort from being destroyed at the end of the turn isn’t really a cost as you likely won’t mind putting certain monsters back into the deck. SPYRAL Resort went to one in February of 2018 to hit the consistency of the deck and make Master Plan less powerful as it can’t search if the one of Resort isn’t in the deck.
SPYRAL Resort deserves to be at one. It helps make the deck consistent along with Quik-Fix and the protection is great when you get SPYRAL Sleeper equipped to a Last Resort on the field. The deck was super powerful and the power is still there with one Resort, just the consistency isn’t.
Super Polymerization
Next to pre-errata Future Fusion as the best Fusion Spell ever. Super Poly is a Quick-Play Spell that upon discarding a card lets you Fusion Summon any Fusion using monsters on either side of the field as Fusion Material and neither player could activate cards or effects in response to this card’s activation. Elemental HEROs love it once they got the attribute based HEROs as it let them disrupt the opponent by using their monsters as Fusion Materials, which while very good in that deck wasn’t enough to get Super Poly hit on the list, so it stayed at three. Shaddolls were what made this card worth getting hit as their Fusions that required specific attributes were far better than the ones HEROs had, especially with Construct, Winda, and Shekhinaga. Super Poly was limited in October of 2014 and later banned in January of 2015 in the TCG due to Shaddolls being so good, but the TCG eventually got Super Polymerization back in September of 2018.
Super Poly might be fine in multiples again. It helps break big boards if the monsters could be fused into something, and having Mudragon of the Swamp makes it much more dangerous for your opponent with this card as its Fusion Materials are just two monsters with different types and attributes, so it can be dangerous if your opponent is summoning a variety of monster types and attributes. Using this against DARK decks is good as well with Starving Venom Fusion Dragon. There are also decks like Shaddolls, HEROs, and even Invoked who might love this back at multiples. I say try two first, then go to three. Two might be the safe spot for this card. It does help break powerful boards, and some of said boards do look like auto wins, so Super Poly would be nice to out them.
Symbol of Heritage
Symbol of Heritage is an Equip Spell that revives any monster from the graveyard just as long as you have three of said monster in the graveyard. Basically this is impossible if you’re only playing one or two of a certain monster or if said monster is at one or two on the Forbidden and Limited list, but there are good cards to revive with this. Lonefire Blossom is the best as it can help put other copies of Lonefire in the grave for this to revive, which I don’t think its a coincidence that this went to one the same list Lonefire Blossom went to three. I’ve seen it in some FTKs as well using monsters in triplicate like Elder Entity Norden when that was legal at three, but I’m sure there are other monsters to revive with this in FTK decks. Also it has the same clause as Premature Burial where the monster it is equipped to is destroyed only when Symbol is destroyed, so you got looping if you can bounce this card back to the hand. As I said, the best use was with Lonefire Blossom, which went to three when this went to one in April of 2015.
I can understand this limit. Having three Lonefire Blossom and then three of this to use Lonefire again sounds crazy, plus the existence of FTKs to potentially use this card are there, so having it at one might be for the best.
Upstart Goblin
Sometimes, you just don’t know what to fill the last slots in your deck with, so that’s where this card can come in. Upstart Goblin is a Normal Spell that lets you draw a card and then give your opponent 1000 life points after. Not truly broken, it’s a break even basically and only drawing one lowers the chances of getting a truly broken draw. This card was limited in the early days of the game, but it went to three when they realized this card isn’t broken like Pot of Greed and life points mattered more when they were harder to deplete. As life points were easier to deplete, however; this card began seeing more play as it allowed you to play a 37 card deck instead of a 40 card deck, meaning your deck was slightly more consistent, and it didn’t matter too much if your opponent had 9000 life points or more cause you can do big combos that make it easy to deplete all of them still. Upstart Goblin was being ran at three in many decks that used 40 cards and didn’t know how else to fill the empty space, so it was limited in April of 2016.
I can understand this card’s limit. The card isn’t broken, but it promotes lazy deck building. It’s an easy Spell to use and it doesn’t ruin your advantage too much as it’s a break even, and rarely will the life point gain for the opponent matter. Now this card does see play in decks beyond 40 cards if you use Pot of Desires maybe or play decks that want you to just activate Spells or have Spells in the graveyard like Magical Muskets or Sky Strikers. The card warrants the limit just on the fact of lazy deck building alone, but it isn’t broken and three won’t make any deck that much more top tier. I, like Konami, just prefer more creative deck building.
In Conclusion
A much more powerful bunch of Spells here, more that are worthy of their spot as being limited than the last time around I believe. Next time I’ll get into the fairly short list of limited Traps before ending with all four Semi-Limited cards in the final article of this series.
Thanks for Reading,
Crunch$G
