Deck Devastation Virus – #WISU-EN058
Tribute 1 DARK monster with 2000 or more ATK; look at your opponent’s hand, all monsters they control, and all cards they draw until the end of their 3rd turn after this card’s activation, and destroy all those monsters with 1500 or less ATK.
Date Reviewed: August 10th, 2023
Rating: 3.92
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is awful. 3 is average. 5 is excellent.
Reviews Below:
King of
Lullaby
Hello Pojo Fans,
Deck Devastation Virus has become quite the popular card as or recent within the Side Decks of the meta, and is our Throwback Thursday choice.
The first virus card after the fabled (now horrendously errata’d Crush Card Virus), DDV needs a 2000ATK monsters or higher that is DARK to tribute. Same thing as CCV except for monsters 1500ATK or less. This card was not very useful when first released. The game was filled with huge monsters, archetypes didn’t depend more heavily on monsters within the targeted range, and there weren’t easily summoned DARK monsters with 2000+ATK that you’d want to trade for DDV. But that was 2005, and a lot of you weren’t even in kindergarten yet. I played during that time and had that card and can tell you it wasn’t useful. Now though, with archetypes that revolve around smaller monsters within this card’s range making waves in the meta, this card has seen a surge in play. It is fantastic to use against decks like Sky Striker, Sprights, Mathmec, Superheavy, Purrely, and Floowandereeze. It is death to hand traps with the exception of Nibiru, and that itself is a reason why this card has seen a surge in play. Even if you get a simple 1-for-1 off of DDV: trading it and a monster you tributed for two cards over the course of three turns, you will still get to see everything your opponent draws for three turns and, if they had face-down monsters upon activation, you’d get to see them as well.
It took some time, and the game had to become more complex, but Deck Devastation Virus finally gets to have its time to shine. There’s many different archetypes to play this card against in your Side Deck, and now more DARK monsters can be Special Summoned easier to fulfill this card’s cost. No virus card will ever impact the game like CCV did, but it’s good to see more of them being played.
Advanced-4/5 Art-3/5
Until Next Time
KingofLullaby
Crunch$G
Throwback Thursday this week gives us a classic Trap to use with your Heavy Borger if you need to take care of a few issues: Deck Devastation Virus.
DDV is a Normal Trap that lets you tribute a DARK monster with 2000 or more ATK to look at the opponent’s hand, all monsters they control, and every card they draw until the end of their 3rd turn after activation and lets you destroy all the opponent’s monsters with 1500 or less ATK. Basically, a reverse Crush Card Virus (pre-errata version) where you sacrifice a stronger monster to get rid of all their weaker monsters. Considering how many hand traps, utility monsters, and play enablers might have 1500 or less ATK, it can still offer a ton of value. It’s no CCV, but you can still do some good damage by destroying the opponent’s weaker monsters and putting them well behind in the game. It was never the broken Virus card, Crush Card was the one to get banned and Eradicator was limited before and looks to be on the chopping block to get hit again, but it still has utility against a ton of matchups, some metas are better than others for it of course, but it’ll never be bad. Overall one of the better Viruses and probably the 2nd best one in the game today since CCV did get that errata.
Advanced Rating: 4/5
Art: 3/5 Crush Card Virus (recolorized)
Mighty
Vee
This week’s Throwback Thursday isn’t particularly related to Vanquish Soul, but if you’ve been keeping up with the meta, you’ll know that this card and its kin have stirred up a bit of controversy lately. Deck Devastation Virus is today’s card, a Normal Trap, giving it synergy with the Labrynth archetype and the Lair of Darkness series, though the former is the main reason the viruses have suddenly gotten scrutiny. Similar to the other Viruses, DDV requires you to tribute a DARK monster with 2000 or more attack; afterward, you look at your opponent’s hand, all monsters they control, and all cards they draw until the end of the third turn after you activated DDV, destroying all monsters with 1500 or less attack. Those who remember the nasty pre-errata version of Crush Card Virus (which is hilariously the inverse of this card) will probably consider this a very powerful effect on paper, and quite frankly, it’s still powerful. Though not every deck will play monsters with small attack stats, enough of them exist such that DDV can ruin your day. Before recently, the Virus cards were mostly considered impractical since the only deck that could use them effectively, Lair of Darkness, wasn’t particularly good itself. Now, with the advent of Labrynth, activating the Virus cards has become easier than ever, especially when Labrynth can simply field their boss monsters with over 2000 attack to fulfill Virus tributes. Personally, I don’t think the Virus cards are viciously problematic enough to warrant being banned, but I can see why people want them all banned, particularly Eradicator Epidemic Virus.
Advanced: 3.75/5
Art: 3/5 Fun fact, the Japanese character reads “demon”. Eat your heart out, Konami TCG!
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