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Saikyo Cardfighter R

Star-Vader, Venom Dancer   Fourth card of the week, it's Venom Dancer. He Legions with Star-Vader, Sword Viper, and for that, after he finishes attacking, for CB1, you stand rear-guards for every unit you have locked on the opponent's field. Normal skill is to CB1 and lock a backrow. As long as you have another unit in the same column anyway (Hafnium, eat your cybernetic, nonexistent heart out).   So basically, you are looking to stand an entire column, if nothing else, to get the mileage out of the skill. So we need to lock 2. Venom Dancer obviously starts the first, then Robin Knight can get another 2, so both front row and a booster stand. They attack again, forcing about 15k guard assuming no triggers and proper field scaling. And this here is why Hafnium is budget; giving approximately 15k to several unit works out pretty much the same in terms of forced guard, except these bring more bite due to the potential to inflict more damage.   Venom Dancer needs a lot of external help in order to get the most out of his own skill, so units that can ensure more locking or at the very least, can keep stuff Omega locked such as Bolt Line and Osmium are helpful, so I'd use him alongside Imaginary Plane Dragon, if only to ensure a decent attack fest with Robin-Knight having two targets to work with.   In summary, Venom Dancer isn't entirely horrible. He hasn't got the near guaranteed "bam, you die" factor, but then not a lot of Link Joker aces do, and for what it's worth, he can at least bring some pressure at the right time.   3/5

Nanya

Star-vader, Venom Dancer   Oh wow, now this is something interesting with the lock.   And that's why!  If you read the lore, you'll see that Venom Dancer was designed to spew poison onto Cray with its dancing movements and weaken the forces.   Oh no!  Someone is polluting the planet horribly!  We must stop it!  Someone call Captain Planet!   Anyway, Venom Dancer legions with Sword Viper.  Sword Viper's ability is, if it hits the Vanguard and your opponent has a Locked unit, you get to lock another unit.   Huh, reminds me of Mobius Breath Dragon, except it only works as a rear guard.  Or Photon, except it has to hit.   Anyway, Venom Dancer here is the unit that works pretty well with yesterday's card if you want to do some mix and matching.  In fact, it was used in the show just for that purpose.  In fact, I'd say Venom Dancer works well with both IPD and Omega MK II, not to mention combining with Garnet Star Dragon.   See, the biggest problem Link Joker had was that it was rather...  Boring, with the effects.  The deck locked the rear guards and then...  What?  Glendios at least had an alternate win condition, which is interesting, both Hafnium and Nebula Lord boost units based on how many are locked, Chaos Breaker Dragon, despite how over-hyped the thing was, could at least draw cards and retire locked units.  But IPD and Omega MKII didn't really do anything other than keep the opponent down, neither were really good for finishing the opponent off.   This, however, is pretty nice.  While the non-Legion skill is a Especial CB1 to lock a back-row rear guard, the Legion skill makes it pretty good.   No more need for Stand Triggers, if you can lock a bunch of units (Robin Fox helps out a lot), you can re-stand a bunch of rear guards, 1 for each unit locked.   I...  I do like this card, a lot.  Garnet Star, IPD and Omega MK II, none of them were really good finishers, per-say.  They were good for set-up.  This is a finisher, and it's very nice that Link Joker can do something other than just lock now.   Heck, Sword Viper should be used in a lot of Link Joker decks, just like Photon, simply because of that ability.  Too good to pass up.   Rating: 4/5 Legion Rating: 4/5