Mermail Shadow Squad – #ROTA-EN018
(This card is always treated as an “Atlantean” card.)
You can discard 1 card to the GY; WATER monsters you currently control become Level 7 until the end of this turn. If this card is sent to the GY to activate a WATER monster’s effect: Special Summon 1 Level 4 or lower “Atlantean” or “Mermail” monster from your Deck, except “Mermail Shadow Squad”, also you cannot Special Summon from the Extra Deck for the rest of this turn, except WATER monsters. You can only use each effect of “Mermail Shadow Squad” once per turn.
Date Reviewed: November 19th, 2024
Rating: 3.75
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,
Attack Squad got more members in it is seems in the form of Mermail Shadow Squad.
Always treated as an Atlantean card, Shadow Squad is able to make all your WATER monsters Level 7 for the turn simply by discarding a card to the grave. While it isn’t great to have a monster with 0ATK on the field that uses up your Normal Summon, Shadow Squad will become Level 7, and aid in the Xyz Summon(s). Chaining Call of the Atlanteans in your opponent’s End Phase will net you 3 Level 3 or lower Sea Serpent monsters for next turn to use in conjunction with Shadow Squad, giving you four Level 7 monsters without having to be locked down by CotA’s Special Summon restriction. In addition, any Mermail or Atlantean that triggers off discard or being sent to the grave will activate off this effect to change every WATER to Level 7.
Shadow Squad, when sent to the grave for a WATER monster’s effect will Special Summon a Level 4 or lower Mermail or Atlantean from the Deck. Restricting this activation to needing it to happen with a WATER monster’s effect and not just by leaving the field or hitting the Graveyard is an attempt to balance it. Locking you into WATER monsters from the Extra Deck for the turn isn’t really any kind of restriction. You are more likely to use Shadow Squad on the field though to spur multiple Rank 7 plays, but if you were to have another copy in hand then getting something to replace itself while helping something like Abyssmegalo maintains hand presence and won’t put you at a disadvantage.
Rank 7’s aren’t the easiest summons to make outside of Dragon Rulers (Tidal at 2 another card that could see play in the Mermail/Atlantean archetype again), so to streamline the process a monster had to be made to do so. Discarding it part of the archetype’s strategy and as long as you can summon Shadow Squad after putting a few WATER monsters on the field then you are free to get things rolling. At worst this should help make it easier to get one Rank 7 on the field.
Advanced- 3.5/5 Art- 3.5/5
Until Next Time,
KingofLullaby
Crunch$G
From an Atlantean treated as a Mermail to a Mermail treated as an Atlantean, we now have Mermail Shadow Squad.
Shadow Squad is a Level 3 WATER Sea Serpent with 0 ATK and 1900 DEF. A strong DEF stat, plus a nice combo of WATER and Sea Serpent. It’s always treated as an Atlantean card, so Neptabyss can search it and send it to grave. You can discard a card to the graveyard to have all WATER monsters you currently control become Level 7 until the end of the turn, which is a great effect once again to trigger more Atlantean Mermails and make your monsters a good Level to make your Rank 7 Xyz monsters. We also see a classic Atlantean effect, where if this is sent to the graveyard to activate a WATER effect, you can Special Summon any Level 4 or lower Atlantean or Mermail monster directly from the Deck, besides Shadow Squad, and once again you’ll be locked to WATER monsters from the Extra Deck for the rest of the turn. We always appreciate floating from Deck here. You got another way to get to Neptabyss if you don’t already have it, or you can summon Abysspike from the Deck to discard another Mermail or Atlantean to search for any Level 3 WATER in the game. You can also just summon an Atlantean Dragoons you can use to make a Rank 4 like Bahamut Shark or Abyss Dweller so you can trigger the Dragoons effect when you detach it. HOPT on each effect is standard. Shadow Squad is probably one of the better cards in this wave of Mermail Atlantean support. It helps make your Rank 7 monsters and it summons your key combo pieces from the Deck to continue your combo. A staple 3 of for modern Atlantean Mermail, to be honest.
Advanced Rating: 4/5
Art: 4/5 And now we inspire more from the Atlanteans, and this doesn’t look out of place in that army.
Mighty
Vee
Even the Atlantean fish people are getting in on the Mermail action with Mermail Shadow Squad, a level 3 WATER Sea Serpent monster. Once again, it’s a union of the Atlantean and Mermail archetypes, so it’s treated as an Atlantean card and as such can be searched or milled by Neptabyss, the Atlantean Prince– as well as the plethora of ways to search the Merlantean crows (Atlantean Dragoons, Mermail Abysspike, and Mermail Abyssteus, ho!). As a nod to Atlantean Heavy Infantry, Shadow Squad shares its pitiful 0 attack (which makes it searchable with Piri Reis Map if you wanted to, for some reason), while getting a slight bump in defense for a total of 1900. Well, better than nothing?
Shadow Squad comes with two hard once per turn effects, the first letting you discard any card to make all of your WATER monsters become level 7. In addition to extending your plays by discarding a jobber, this is an excellent way to field Mermail Abyssgaios (and the new boss monster) using any leftover monsters with an inappropriate level. The deck has a lot of monsters that aren’t level 4 or 7, including Shadow Squad itself, so being able to turn something like Moulinglacia the Elemental Lord into Xyz fodder is great if you can’t use them as Link fodder instead. Shadow Squad’s other effect triggers if, what else, it gets sent to the Graveyard as cost to activate a WATER monster’s effect, letting you Special Summon any level 4 or lower Mermail or Atlantean monster except itself from your deck, locking you into WATER monsters in the process. This is one of the few times where I’m bummed that you can’t summon another copy since you’ll need an external way to revive Shadow Squad to use its on-field effect. Thankfully, it’s not difficult since Neptabyss, Abyss-Sting Triaina, and Marincess Coral Anemone are all able to revive it. Much like Abyssrhine, it’s not a combo starter on its own, but it can make for some fantastic combo lines when paired with other monsters, so again I would recommend running 3 copies despite the risks.
+Enables Rank 7 Xyz plays
+Excellent value as discard fodder
-Needs an outside way to revive it to make use of its on-field effect
-Bricky if you don’t have a way to discard it
Advanced: 3.75/5
Art: 3.5/5 The Heavy Infantry have some new clothes! But why do they still have 0 attack?
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