Friday, May 28, 2004 – Signal Flare

 

Today we get to look at another staple for fantastic four decks.  I know what you may be thinking…. “Isn’t the threshold cost for this card too high to be running 4 in my deck?”  Nope!  This card actually begs to be used later in a duel anyway.  How so?  Simple, a good duelist knows to keep their ratios right.  No sense in running a lot of 5, 6, and 7 drop characters if you can’t use them right away.  The great thing about this card is that it allows you to keep the number of high-cost character cards down, while still allowing you the opportunity to get these characters on the field when you really need them later on down the road.  Can’t seem to draw that level 5 Thing, Heavy Hitter?  Well look no further than your local Signal Flare to solve all of your problems.

 

So a card this good has to have a downside, right?  Yep…if we make this card too powerful then everyone would stop playing brotherhood decks and would start playing fantastic four decks instead (j/k) J.  Actually there are a couple of downsides to this card.  First of all this card is a rare, and since you will want to run 4 in a fantastic four deck, it will be hard to get (=$$$).  Next, you have the all important negative cost for using this card.  In this case, to use this card you have to discard a fantastic four character from your hand.  Not an easy thing to accomplish if you do not have one in the first place…or you are trying to hang on to a character for one reason or another.  Personally, I feel as though this effect hurts this card’s playability just a bit…but I guess you have to take the good with the bad in any game….

 

Ratings:

Fantastic Four Constructed Deck – 4.5/5.0 ….It can definitely come in handy when you need it most….

 

All else – N/A …..You would have to play at least two fantastic four characters to even think about running this card (In a drafting situation I may give it a 2.0/5.0 because you are not likely to pull many fantastic four characters)

 

-Nakaiya21