Daigusto Emeral – Yu-Gi-Oh! Throwback Thursday (2012)

WarlockBlitz

It’s a bold choice to throwback to a banned card. Daigust Emeral is a Rank 4 Wind Rock-type XYZ Monster with 1800 Atk and 800 Def. 1800 Atk is not great for Rank 4 but if you’re going for ATK just use Lightning. Instead you summon Emeral with any 2 generic Level 4 monsters. For the trouble, you get to Special Summon a non-effect monster from your grave at the cost of one material. That’s the more niche effect but can be useful to perhaps get some plain Link Monsters out of the grave. The ban-worthy effect is that you can choose to pay the same cost and instead shuffle 3 monsters from your grave back into the deck to draw 1 card. Emeral is once per turn, but if you resummon it or somehow have multiple on the field (and enough monsters in the grave) you can draw more cards. Daigust Emeral can come off the list for some Time Thief abuse, but it wouldn’t change the meta. It looks really cool, and I love fusion archetypes (Gem Knight and Gusto).

Score: 4.25/5     Art: 4.75/5

Crunch$G

There are so many Rank 4s I could of went with for Time Thief week, as there are a ton of good or interesting ones, but I chose a card I kinda wanted to review for a while now, especially after it was banned in 2017, so here we have Daigusto Emeral.

Daigusto Emeral is a Rank 4 WIND Rock with 1800 ATK and 800 DEF. Stats are ok, but I’d kinda wish for more with Rank 4s sometimes, and the combination of WIND and Rock is just strange even though I know this is a mix of Gem-Knights and Gustos. The summoning requirements are any 2 Level 4 monsters, which is super simple. Emeral has two effects that you can only activate one of at a time, it’s a soft once per turn as well, by detaching a material:

1. Target 3 monsters in your graveyard and shuffle them back into the deck to draw a card.
2. You can target a non-Effect monster in the graveyard and Special Summon it.

The first effect is the most used effect, as it recycles your cards and you don’t have to worry about this being a dead draw since it’s an Xyz Monster. You can also use this to loop Emerals with other Emerals to make sure you never really run out of monsters. That draw is the cherry on top to make up for the inherent minus for Xyz Summoning. The second effect is more niche, though could be useful in decks with Normal Monsters like Dark Magician, Red-Eyes, or Blue-Eyes assuming you can get to Rank 4s with your builds, but this effect makes me remember an old deck with Legend of Heart that I tried when we had the Clownblade engine at full power along with Lavalval Chain and Daigusto Emeral at three. Emeral is a card that I knew one day might get banned, though I never thought it warranted a ban. It isn’t a card that’s necessarily broken, though looping Emeral with Emeral might be the worst you can do with it in terms of degeneracy. This was banned after Zoodiacs were meta, which I guess made sense considering how much Zoodiac loved Emeral. I just wish to see it at one once again if you don’t want Emeral recycling Emeral. It’s my personal favorite Xyz of all time and one that would be a staple for decks that can use Rank 4s upon return. It’s a really good card with no downside really, but not a broken card that causes insane plays.

Advanced Rating: 4.5/5

Art: 4.5/5 A rare case of a card that looks nice in Gold Rare actually, as most Xyzs do, but remove the Gold Rare and it looks really cool, I would of never thought that Gem-Knights and Gustos would mix well together.

Alex
Searcy

Throwback Thursday brings us to Daigusto Emeral.  This card has had one prior review, back in 2013.

Emeral is a Rank 4, Wind attributed, Rock type XYZ Monster, who requires two generic Level 4 Monsters for an XYZ Summon, and has 1800 attack and 800 defense, both rather meh for a Rank 4.  This card is Banned, but not having been reviewed in six years makes it worthy for a re-review.  Detaching an XYZ Material from Emeral grants you a choice of two effects:

*You can Target three Monsters in your Graveyard to shuffle back into your Deck to Draw one card

or

*Target one non-Effect Monster in your Graveyard, and Special Summon it.

The first effect is fun, and useful, being able to recycle your resources, and get a new Draw out of it.  The non-Effect limitation isn’t in place for the first effect, either, so using any three Monsters in your Graveyard nets you the Draw.  The second effect is useful in a plethora of Decks, anything obviously using Normals, or enough of them to be able to utilize that effect.  The abuse in either side is easy to see.  

Rating:  4.75/5  Still damn good, but the Ban may not be appropriate still, but that’s a discussion for another day.

Art:  5/5  Plain, but fun.  The body has great artwork, and I love the contrasting light and darkness in the background too.