Elder Entity Norden – #CT12-EN003
1 Synchro or Xyz Monster + 1 Synchro or Xyz Monster
When this card is Special Summoned: You can target 1 Level 4 or lower monster in your Graveyard; Special Summon it, but its effects are negated, also banish it when this card leaves the field.
Date Reviewed: December 5th, 2024
Rating: 4.50
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,
Elder Entity Norden is a long-standing Instant Fusion target until it was banned, but is still the Throwback Thursday choice.
Level 4 Fusion that requires two Synchro or Xyz Monsters for its summon, there’s all-but no shot you are committing that much to this card’s summon, even with its great effect. Instant Fusion was the prime way of summoning Norden, as well as Super Poly. Once you summon him, Norden Special Summons a Level 4 or lower monster from your Graveyard, but negates its effects. Banishing the target when it leaves the field make any monster that would activate upon hitting the Graveyard not as useful as they could be. That, combined with the negation was meant to balance this card off, but with it being a Rank 4 or Link 2 at the worst makes it still an incredible card.
There’s a reason why it was banned: It was easily summoned, set up an Extra Deck summon, which furthered your position on the field, despite negating the monster it summoned, then banishing it when it would hit the grave. Elder Entity Norden, despite its requirements for summoning, was easy to use and often led to a game-changing advantage for the player summoning him. Banned for a reason.
Advanced- 4/5 Art- 4/5
Until Next Time,
KingofLullaby
Crunch$G
Throwback Thursday this week brings us to one of the most powerful Fusions in the game, whether you’d actually Fusion Summon it or cheat it out with Instant Fusion: Elder Entity Norden.
Norden is a Level 4 WATER Fairy Fusion with 2000 ATK and 2200 DEF. Strong stats for a Level 4 in general, and the combo of WATER and Fairy are interesting. Fusion Materials are any 2 Synchro and/or Xyz Monsters, making it a super generic target for Super Polymerization. Its only effect triggers on Special Summon, letting you revive any Level 4 or lower monster in your grave, but its effects are negated and its banished when it leaves the field. All the latter stuff doesn’t matter when you’re getting any Level 4 or lower back with this to make Synchro or Xyz plays if you revive a Tuner or a Level 4. Any Deck that could use this to make a Rank 4 would play it with Instant Fusion always guaranteed, and I’m sure Synchro Decks would run it as well if it matched with the Tuners for Synchros they’d want to make. It never existed with Link Monsters, but this would have been a great tool to Link Summon with as well. No HOPT was also useful when Zoodiac would use Fusion Substitute to summon this to keep generating advantage and put it back into the Extra Deck for a copy of Instant Fusion you might have. It can easily start up a combo if you got the right monster in grave, which is why it stays banned. Even if you got rid of Instant Fusion, I don’t think anyone wants to see Super Polymerization turn into a full combo against most Decks summoning Synchro or Xyz monsters. It likely isn’t coming back any time soon without either an errata or the banning of both Instant Fusion AND Super Polymerization, but I’d bet on the former being more likely.
Advanced Rating: 5/5
Art: 4/5 The Entities have given us some interesting and unique artwork, just too bad two of them are some of the most broken cards we’ve seen.
Mighty
Vee
This week’s Throwback Thursday card feels a little out of the blue, but I’ll enjoy talking about it anyway! It’s the infamous Elder Entity Norden, a level 4 WATER Fairy Fusion monster, not something you see every day but it fits the odd nature of the Elder Entity series. It has a rather odd requirement of any combination of two Synchro or Xyz monsters, but anyone that knows about Norden already knows about its true partner in crime, Instant Fusion. For a level 4 monster, Norden has a decent stat spread of 2000 attack and 2200 defense (not that it’s very relevant). It currently sits at Forbidden in both TCG and OCG, and whenever Instant Fusion discourse happens, Norden discourse is soon to follow.
Norden has a single (NOT ONCE PER TURN) effect that triggers on Special Summon, letting you Special Summon any level 4 or lower monster from your Graveyard, though it has the unique stipulation of negating its effects and banishing it when Norden leaves the field (very important!). To a fool, Norden isn’t much better than Monster Reborn or even Number 60: Dugares the Timeless, but Norden’s true power comes from a perfect storm of it being an Instant Fusion target, not once per turn, and being level 4. The primary abuser of Norden was Zoodiac decks, which could use Instant Fusion as an incredibly powerful extender by reviving a level 4 (like, say, the also not-once per turn Zoodiac Ratpier) and immediately going into a Zoodiac Rank 4 or Daigusto Emeral, which is a different can of worms altogether. Because of how Xyz materials work, the “downside” of the revived monster getting banished doesn’t really come up if Norden becomes an Xyz material, and the effect negation isn’t too relevant for Zoodiacs in particular as they’re all 1-card Xyz on their own anyway. Outside of Zoodiac, while it can’t really shine, it’s still a powerful extender as an Instant Fusion target as long as the deck plays any level 4 or lower monster that can be revived, doubly so if it’s not once per turn either. There’s a lot wrong with Norden, though frankly it highlights its nasty synergy with Instant Fusion even more, to the point some builds even incorporated a Predaplant Engine and Fusion Substitute to further facilitate Norden and Instant Fusion– I’ve heard horror stories of summoning a second Norden to revive Norden. Do I think Norden could come back? Not really, especially if Instant Fusion remains legal. Fortunately, if it did come back for some reason, currently I don’t think it would destroy the meta, since it would be difficult to incorporate into Ryzeal combos and with current hits, Zoodiac can’t use it to its full potential. Norden is still an extremely strong card paired with Instant Fusion so I’ll always be cautious of it, but then again I’ll keep an open mind because you never know what kind of crazy stuff in this game ends up being broken or garbage.
+Non-once per turn revival and unique properties gives it nasty synergy with Zoodiac and Instant Fusion
+Level 4 enables Rank 4 plays
-Often needs you to hard open Instant Fusion
Advanced: 4.5/5
Art: 4.5/5 The Elder Entities all have crazy art, and unfortunately Norden is not an Atlantean monster!
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