Gaia the Magical Knight – Yu-Gi-Oh! Review

King of
Lullaby

Hello Pojo Fans,

Gaia Week begins here on CoTD and we’re starting things off with Gaia the Magical Knight.

There have been a few Gaia cards released to emulate the original vanilla “Gaia The Fierce Knight”, but the new ones out of the Rise of The Duelist pack do a better job with the strategy of the original Gaia. This card benefits from your opponent having a big monster on the field or you having no monsters, leading to turn 0 summons. The effect to Special Summon is theme-based and specific to the point that this monster has to be used within its archetype, unless you are running it in a deck revolving around Level 7 monsters. You don’t always have to summon “Curse of Dragon”, but if you are using this card you are likely going for summoning Curse of Dragon, the Cursed Dragon to get a card from your deck and potential negation power, or Curse of Dragonfire for a Fusion Summon. GtMK does benefit from being LIGHT instead of EARTH, but that alongside its Special Summon ability are the only things really going for it outside its own archetype. I can’t see it being used elsewhere with too much utility.

Advanced-2/5     Art-3.5/5

Until Next Time
KingofLullaby

Crunch$G

Time for Gaia to ride again as we look at the most recent Gaia support from Rise of the Duelist, starting off with the newest Gaia retrain: Gaia the Magical Knight.

Magical Knight is a Level 7 LIGHT Warrior with 2300 ATK and 2100 DEF. A decent overall statline for Level 7, plus you gotta like LIGHT and Warrior. It’s always treated as a Gaia the Fierce Knight monster so it synergizes with the archetype without giving up a name as good as this. If you control no monsters or the opponent controls a monster with 2300 or more ATK, you can Normal Summon this without tributing, which is good in comparison to tributing 2 monsters to Normal Summon this. On Normal or Special Summon, you can summon a Level 5 Dragon from your hand or graveyard in Defense Position, which is a good effect to revive a monster or summon the retrained Curse of Dragon to get a search. You don’t need the monsters on field for Fusion Materials, so summoning from hand might not always be a priority unless you want a summon effect. It’s a hard once per turn effect, which I doubt you were spamming this out enough to matter anyways. It’s a solid retrain over the old Gaia monsters without a doubt by helping you get plays going, no reason not to run it in your Gaia strategy.

Advanced Rating: 3.5/5

Art: 5/5 I feel like it’s hard to mess up the artwork of a Gaia monster, they all look great before and they still do.

Alex
Searcy

Welcome to a week of Gaia and Curse of Dragon variants opening with Gaia the Magical Knight.  There are a handful of these now, and honestly, even any effect, no matter how lackluster, is an improvement over the original.  Same overall body and base as the original, but also Light, which is an improvement.  Being able to Normal Summon (yuck but fits the theme) if you control no Monsters or if your opponent controls one of 2300 or more attack IS good.  Meaning this Gaia is easier to bring out compared to his companions.  Likely making this a good early or late game card.  A Normal or Special Summon here, which we appreciate, bets you a Level 5 or higher Dragon from your Hand or Graveyard in defense position.  Nice open optioned effect here too.  They’re pushing a Dragon Champion Fusion here hard (but you’re not locked into that, which is cool).  Regardless, the card is decent.  By no means broken but just the same, not crap either.  

Rating:  3/5

Art:  4/5  Certainly an improvement over the original Gaia.  Looks like he’s been working out.  I get Dark as opposed to Light vibes here though.