Gate Guardian – #MRD-000
Cannot be Normal Summoned/Set. Must first be Special Summoned (from your hand) by Tributing 1 “Sanga of the Thunder”, “Kazejin”, and “Suijin”.
Date Reviewed: January 15th, 2022
Rating: 1.00
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is awful. 3 is average. 5 is excellent.
Reviews Below:
Crunch$G
We hit another weekend and now we’ll look at the classic boss monster of the Paradox Brothers: Gate Guardian.
Gate Guardian is a Level 11 DARK Warrior with 3750 ATK and 3400 DEF. So we got good stats, Type, and Attribute. Level 11 is strange, but it’s not like it’s a negative. So this cannot be Normal Summoned or Set and must be Special Summoned by tributing 1 Sanga of the Thunder, Kazejin, and Suijin. In exchange, you get no effects and half the stats of the three tributed monsters combined. I mean, beatsticks can be nice to have, especially back in the day, but they had to be easy to summon and getting 3 Level 7s on field with no real protection minus making an attacking monster have 0 ATK when they battle only once isn’t great. Pendulum Summoning at least made getting the three pieces on field easier, but you had to draw them and Gate Guardian alongside those scales. If you had some strong effects, this might be worth it, but you just get 3750 ATK. It’s fun to build a Deck around still, sure, but this is in desperate need of a retrain.
Advanced Rating: 1/5
Art: 5/5 I loved Gate Guardian as a kid and still do.
Alex
Searcy
As I get my stuff together and join in our retro weekend reviews, here’s Gate Guardian. So yea, we see 3750 attack. We see no Effect whatsoever other than needing the pieces all in your Hand, as well as this card, just to be Special Summoned. Having an absurdly high attack and no Effect doesn’t have to be a bad thing, per say. Look at Blue Eyes Ultimate Dragon (though we had ways around some of that, Cyber Stein, and the such) but you don’t really have much in terms of ways to easier get those pieces out (varying Monsters that can get your guys out for 1 Tribute instead of 2 does help, although Kazejin only requires 1 Tribute to begin with). Too much investment and difficulty, without new support and/or a better retrain, there just isn’t much going for Gate Guardian.
Rating: 1/5
Art: 4/5 The art all together is pretty awesome
Mighty
Vee
You might have noticed that we’ve been doing bonus reviews on the weekend, and I just had to say something about our old pal Gate Guardian, a classic monster from the DM era. Gate Guardian is a level 11 DARK warrior, making it one of the few monsters from the DM era above level 8. Gate Guardian sports a hefty attack stat of 3750, which still manages to tower over many modern boss monsters, and its defense is also quite high at 3400. That’s about all the credit I can give Gate Guardian.
Despite being a fan-favorite, Gate Guardian has been utterly left in the dust and is among the worst boss monsters in the game. It can’t be normal summoned or set; you’ll have to special summon it by tributing one each of Suijin, Kazejin, and Sanga of the Thunder. It’s important to note that all 3 of these monsters are level 7 monsters without innate summoning conditions, so you’ll have to go through the trouble of summoning all 3 of them (thankfully, Gate Guardian does not require your normal summon, not that it helps much). Even after you assemble all 3 pieces somehow, you’ll still have to gain access to Gate Guardian itself somehow. For all that trouble, you get a 3750 beater with zero protection or disruption; all your hard work goes down the drain as soon as it’s popped, bounced, banished, or even simply beaten over by the plethora of monsters that exceed 3750 attack. You can, however, still search it with Isolde, Two Tales of the Noble Knights and equip it to Zubaba General for a 5750 attack beater, which still is not competitively viable but much more practical than actually summoning Gate Guardian. Konami’s track record of DM era support might be hit-or-miss, but given the sorry state of Gate Guardian, it’d be hard to miss.
Advanced: 1/5
Art: 3/5 Still one of the most iconic monsters in the game, even if it looks a bit tacky nowadays
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