Shadowclashin’ Part 2: The Dark Side of Draw Power  

10.15.04  If you’ve managed to snag a Shadowclash Collectors Tin or read a spoiler, then you know that Darkness has several new ways to achieve draw power in Duel Masters’ 4th set. Being able to sift through a Darkness based build to get kill when you need it is invaluable, and many duelists opted to splash cards like Brain Serum into their Darkness decks for that purpose. It’s refreshing to have more draw options for Darkness, especially since previous Darkness hand advantage piggybacked on cards with drawbacks like losing shields. Let’s take a look at 2 Darkness draw options from Shadowclash:

Notices:

*Card text and names may change when the set is released in English. All Japanese translations come from Edo’s site.

^Card is as it appears in the English game. Card is available now at the time of this review.

Demon’s Contract*

Spell / Darkness / 2 / Common

- Choose any number of cards in your Mana Zone and put them into your graveyard. 

Afterward, draw that same number of cards.

Like Ghastly Drain from Rampage, this is the desperate or daring player’s draw option. Instead of snaking your shield zone for cards you’re siphoning your mana zone in order to draw from your deck. This isn’t a completely horrible proposition depending on when you use it and what deck type you run. However, burning one resource to get another when there are less devastating ways to accomplish the same task seems unfavorable me—unless it comes in creature form or I’m running a low mana curve deck, and it doesn’t make me destroy a creature or a shield. So, it really does depend on the deck, the situation and the player. I tend to do a lot of things that other players wouldn’t, often leading to magnificent victories or crushing defeats. ; ) But I don’t see myself decking Demon’s Contract. At least not until I mess around with a few deck ideas first.

The price of this card is considerable: spending 2 mana and losing x amount of mana to draw x amount of cards. If you only draw one card with it, then you’ve simply replaced 1 card in your hand. But, you’ve also lost 1 mana to the graveyard and 2 mana to pay Demon’s casting cost. You’re back were you started hand size-wise and lost 1 mana in exchange for thinning your deck by 1 card. This isn’t a completely aweful exchange if you run sufficient mana gain or do the drawing with Demon’s Contract late in the game when you’re working with more mana and can fill your hand with more cards (albeit by losing more mana to the graveyard). I would much rather splash Water for draw than rob my mana zone with this spell—especially in a Mono-Darkness control deck. If I used this spell, I’d be weary of zapping away more than three mana in one shot and I wouldn’t want to cast it multiple times—thus not max it out in a deck. Also, I wouldn’t deck this in a build that runs several other mana-zapping cards—that can be very dangerous if you face a mana-destruction happy opponent or simply just cripple you too much.

One deck type that I see this card being play tested in is a Darkness/Fire Weenie Rush deck. Many of that build’s dedicated players saw Bone Piercer as a welcomed addition to the deck, so they’ve grown accustomed to losing mana to place cards into their hands. As long as you have 4 mana you’re still able to cast 1-3 creatures a turn or play 1-2 key spells with a Darkness/Fire Weenie Rush deck sans expensive cards like Terror Pit. With many low cost creatures and spells in most Darkness/Fire Weenie Rush decks there’s less need to hug the mana zone so tightly. Also, if you run a bit of recursion in your deck, creature cards snaked from the mana zone could be retrieved for battle duty. But there are better things to run in the 2 spot in those decks like all those nifty little weenie hitters.

Strengths:

--It’s a cheap spell so you might be able to do something with the rest of the mana you’re not snaking if it’s late game, or you could cast it early to grab one card without writing yourself out of the duel

Weaknesses:

--Strips the mana zone so you’re not going to be drawing many cards with it unless you’re the kamikaze type

Mongrel Man^

Creature / Hedrian / Darkness / 5 / 2000 / Uncommon

--Whenever another creature is destroyed, you may draw a card.

The Duel Masters COTD team reviewed this card, so you know that many of the site’s staff considers this creature to be great. So many decks can utilize Mongrel Man that’s it’s crazy. Where the heck was this creature Base Set when B/U/G dominated my meta? I would have giggled with joy having this guy on the field with the Aqua Sniper + Vampire Silphy lock and some recursion. Sometimes I had more than 20 mana to work with and could easily have exploited Mongrel Man. But I digress…

Since I gave a rather short review of Mongrel Man for the COTD I’d like to discuss the card in more detail and clarify a timing issue that has sparked debate in various Duel Masters communities. Continuous draw potential packed into one card is a welcomed mechanic—especially for Darkness since it packs a lot of creature destruction options. Pair Darkness’ destruction with that of Fire’s limited lot and you’ll have some explosive card drawing potential with Mongrel. If you manage to have two Mongrels in the battle zone, then you could be looking at double the drawing fun. But, that’s discussing an ideal scenario, and Mongrel Man is easy to kill at 2000 power. Even though it’s a very weak creature, it’s worth decking if you run Darkness—a given in mono-Darkness.

Mongrel Man’s bound to stay on the field at some point to give you card(s) depending on when you play it—say if you run effects that sack your own creatures or drop late game widespread kill and summon Mongrel Man the same turn/very soon before you’d see those effects resolve. If you were to play Mongrel Man and it survives a turn to see you drop Searing Wave on a Rusher, then you could be looking at some nice card drawing. You could team up its effect with “suicide” guys like Marrow Ooze, Bone Spider and Wailing Shadow Belbetphlo to net some cards. That potential really explodes in a Jack Viper/Mongrel Man deck because of the recursion—your guys get sacked, they come back to your hand, you draw from your deck, repeat. And that’s in addition to whatever creature destruction you execute. Speaking of which, the 8 mana Darkness evo coming in Shadowclash, Ballom Master of Death (which destroys all non-Darkness creatures in the battle zone when it hits the field) is sure to be found in a deck sporting Mongrel Man. Another observation worth noting is that Mongrel costs 5 mana, which isn’t great but manageable. Turn 5 is often the moment when some Darkness builds start running into anemic hands. Mongrel almost comes in the nick of time, even though it’s not a sturdy creature and is best used in the late game. 

I’d like to address a timing issue that has popped up on many forums about ‘chaining’ Mongrel Man to widespread weenie destruction cards like Vampire Silphy and Searing Wave. The question that arises is whether or not you get to draw cards with Mongrel Man since those destruction cards destroy it along with other creatures at the same time. As explained by Chris of Wizard’s Customer Service:

“[Assuming that other creatures are sent to the graveyard when Mongrel Man is destroyed by Vampire Silphy], Mongrel Man sees those creatures go to the graveyard the same time that it does, therefore its effect triggers.”

So, there you have it folks. Mongrel Man does “chain” to widespread kill. Enjoy.

Strengths:

--Draw boost for Darkness based decks

--Could net you more than one card over more than one turn 

--You can chain its effect to widespread destruction spells like Burst Shot, Vampire Silphy, Searing Wave and Scarlet Skyterror

--Draw effect is optional, so you don’t have to deck out drawing with it

Weaknesses:

--Low power leads to easy kill; guy just screams “Hit me with a Hammer!” & “Smoke me!”

-- Draw is not a ‘come into play’ effect; you can cast it and receive nothing

--I Like the Japanese name for this card more—Trash Man—hey, just look at him!

Right now you can slap Mongrel Man into your Darkness based builds. Top decking cards like Critical Blade when you’re playing against blocker-less decks can leave a lot to be desired, and Mongrel Man can go a long way toward helping circumvent that occurrence. Have fun experimenting Mongrel Man. Next week I’ll focus on deck fixes in the Kaijudo Dojo Garage. If you have any questions, want to see something covered in an article, or just want to chat, then drop me a line at kaiserpso@hotmail.com Cheers!