Masquerade the Blazing Dragon – #BODE-EN038
1 “Despia” monster + 1 LIGHT or DARK monster
While you control this Fusion Summoned card, your opponent must pay 600 LP to activate cards or effects. If your opponent controls a Ritual, Fusion, Synchro, Xyz, or Link Monster, while this card is in your GY (Quick Effect): You can Special Summon this card, but banish it when it leaves the field. You can only use this effect of “Masquerade the Blazing Dragon” once per turn.
Date Reviewed: February 11th, 2022
Rating: 3.50
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,
Masquerade the Blazing Dragon ends the week look at Despia and Branded archetypes with this big Fusion target.
One of the targets for Branded in High Spirits and Branded in Red, Masquerade is rather easy to Fusion summon as long as you have at least one Despia monster. Slightly larger Red-Eyes Flare Metal Dragon (a favorite of mine). The Fusion Summoned restriction is a good balance, as Masquerade may be Special Summoned at some point using Ad Libitum, or its own effect. Speaking of that effect, it is a give-in that your opponent will at some point control an Extra Deck monster, unless you are playing against quite the rogue deck. When that happens, Masquerade can Special Summon itself for free. While you won’t get the burn capabilities, you get that big Dragon back on the field and even though it gets banished when it leaves the filed, you still have access to it with stuff like Ad Libitum or something like Branded Bond.
In terms of all the Fusion Monsters Despia, Branded and everything in-between that use Fallen of Albaz, Masquerade isn’t the best. It lacks protection for itself, doesn’t gain you field advantage, nor give you anything when it is banished/sent to the grave/destroyed. However, it can still bring itself back rather easily at least once, and you have a host of ways to Fusion Summon or Special Summon this card. It isn’t even the best Fusion Monster that used Despia monster(s) but it is still a good card that can do some good burn damage (especially when going first before the opponent can unload a combo) and will pull itself back to be at the very least a body on the field.
Advanced-3.5/5 Art-4/5
Until Next Time
KingofLullaby
Crunch$G
The week ends off with the latest Dragon Fusion to join the Albaz lore lineup, though this one doesn’t specifically need Fallen of Albaz. I’m talking about Masquerade the Blazing Dragon.
Masquerade is a Level 8 DARK Fiend (another Dragon that isn’t a Dragon) Fusion with 2500 ATK and 2000 DEF. Fine stat lineup, DARK is always great, and Fiend is pretty good despite this obviously being a Dragon that doesn’t have the typing. Fusion Materials are any Despia monster and any LIGHT or DARK monster (which basically includes all the Despia monsters and Fallen of Albaz). Easy enough to summon. While you control this Fusion Summoned card, your opponent must pay 600 LP to activate cards or effects, which can really add up over time if they don’t get rid of this. 5 effects alone is a 3000 LP cost, which is reasonable to expect. Some combo strategies can even use 10 effects or more, which starts to really get heavy in cost, so they’ll 100% want to get rid of this before doing a full combo, otherwise they run out of LP to not be able to continue their plays. Second effect triggers while this is in the graveyard and the opponent controls a Ritual, Fusion, Synchro, Xyz, or Link Monster, allowing you to revive this from the graveyard as a Quick Effect, but it’s banished when it leaves the field. So you don’t get to get that 600 LP cost off reviving it, but that’s more than fair cause otherwise it might get a little ridiculous. Getting the free body on board for another Fusion Summon potentially is fine, even if it’s only one time since it’s banished afterwards, but you can easily get it back from there with Ad Libitum. Hard once per turn to revive it, so you don’t get to swarm the board with multiples for an Xyz or Link. It’s a pretty cool Fusion really, the 600 LP cost for effects can inch your opponent closer to defeat quickly considering how many cards and effects most Decks use in a turn anyways now. Probably one of the Fusions you’ll want to run in Branded Despia.
Advanced Rating: 3.75/5
Art: 5/5 Another cool looking Dragon for this lore.
Alex
Searcy
Wrapping the week up, is a Fusion, in Masquerade the Blazing Dragon (what a name!) Dark/Fiend, Level 8, 2500/2000 (not great but could be worse) and everything else there is fine. Reasonably open Fusion requirements needing a Despia Monster and a Light or Dark Monster. So, while Fusion Summoned under your control, your opponent has to pay 600 Lifepoints to activate Cards or Effects. Awesome. The problem I see here with no protection, the 600 Lifepoints is likely going to be the first Card or Effect to destroy this card, and THAT is going to be worth those points methinks. I still rather like the ability though, if you can (literally) get your opponent to start paying into it and keeping this on the Field, you could have some trouble going really quickly for them. A Quick Effect lets you Special Summon this from the Grave, so long as your opponent controls an XYZ, Synchro, Link, Ritual or Fusion. Odds of that happening at about any given time are quite probable, so despite the slightly different spin on revival here, this is good, too. It’s removed from play when it leaves the Field, which hardly matters with these cards, and the latter Effect here is only once per Turn. I wish he had a bit more body to his attack or a little protection to go with that Effect, but it’s still a decent enough card that does fun and good stuff.
Rating: 3.5/5
Art: 4/5 This is fun while being bland to me at the same time. I kinda feel there’s too much red, even if the red aesthetic is part of the Theme.
Mighty
Vee
Closing out the week is Despia’s third fusion monster, Masquerade the Blazing Dragon, a level 8 DARK fiend (???) fusion monster. Much like its Despia brethren, it requires any Despia monster as fusion monster along with any light or dark monster, which should be pretty easy to fulfill in a Despia deck as all of them are light or dark. 2500 attack and 2000 defense aren’t particularly high stats for a level 8 fusion monster, but I guess it’s balanced out by the easy fusion materials.
While you control a (fusion summoned, very important!) Masquerade, your opponent will have to pay 600 LP to use any effects at all. Much like Red-Eyes Flare Metal Dragon, if your opponent finds themselves unable to out this guy and play a combo deck, they might end up burning themselves until they can’t activate effects at all, or at least reducing their LP to OTK range. Masquerade’s other effect is a quick effect and is a hard once per turn; if it’s in the graveyard and your opponent controls a ritual, link, fusion, synchro, or XYZ monster, you can special summon Masquerade from the graveyard, though it’ll be banished when it leaves the field. Unless you combo it with Branded in Red, there’s really not much reason to bring it back on your opponent’s turn, since you’ll lose out on the burn damage due to it no longer being fusion summoned. This effect’s best application is to let you use Masquerade as fusion fodder on follow up plays, so you can bring out Despian Quaeritis or any flavor of Albaz fusion you like. Summoning multiple Masquerades turn 1 can lead to some funny burn damage, though it’s up to you whether Quaeritis (which has the exact same fusion materials) is better to summon.
Advanced: 3.25/5
Art: 4/5 Step aside, Odd-Eyes, the real clown dragon has come to town.
We would love more volunteers to help us with our YuGiOh Card of the Day reviews. If you want to share your ideas on cards with other fans, feel free to drop us an email. We’d be happy to link back to your blog / YouTube Channel / etc. 😉
Visit the Card of the Day Archive! Click here to read over 4,000 more Yu-Gi-Oh! Cards of the Day!
