Nephthys, the Sacred Flame – Yu-Gi-Oh! Review

King of
Lullaby

Hello Pojo Fans,

Nephthys, the Sacred Flame is the first Link Monster for the archetype, and fittingly it is of the original Sacred Phoenix. Winged Beast and FIRE to stay with the theme of the archetype (aside from some WIND monsters), you need a Ritual Monster for the Link Summon. That clause could be difficult, but with Devotee’s ability to pull itself from the grave and back onto the field that shouldn’t be too hard of an issue. In fact, the Ritual Summon of Devotee will facilitate most of the requirements for Nephthys, the Sacred Flame.

You want Nephthys, the Sacred Flame in your Extra Monster Zone. Not only will you have all the link points working in your favor, but you will have protection for your Nephthys monsters from attacks. This helps protect your smaller Nephthys monsters that lack any kind of strong attack. The more Ritual Monsters used to Link Summon Nephthys, the Sacred Flame, the better. Protection from battle destruction is the easiest to attain, and with it being the sole attack target while in the Extra Monster Zone makes it a giant wall. If you use two Ritual Monsters you get more protection, this time from card effect destruction, and you gain an ATK boost of 1200. A 3600ATK boss that can’t be destroyed and is the only thing your opponent can attack will stall their game state. If you give up three Ritual Monsters for this Link Monster you gain protection from targeting effects and another 1200ATK boost. In all, your Nephthys, the Sacred Flame could be 4800ATK and an unkillable force on the field drawing all attacks.

Giving up three monsters for one Link Summon isn’t hard, but when it revolves around Ritual Monsters it is different. You are committing resources for those Ritual Summons, and then using those monsters for this. Yes, Devotee can Special Summon itself from the grave once per turn by popping a Nephthys in your hand, then you could Ritual Summon a Devotee, but that leaves one more Ritual Monster.

If you can get the three Ritual Monsters to max out Nephthys, the Sacred Flame without committing everything, go for it. Even with one Ritual Monster used, Nephthys, the Sacred Flame will be a tough monster to get through.

Advanced-4/5     Art-4.5/5

Until Next Time
KingofLullaby

WarlockBlitz

I get it, I just don’t like it. Nephthys, the Sacred Flame is a Link 3 Fire Winged Beast-type Link Monster with 2400 Atk and with all 3 Bottom Arrows. 2400 Atk isn’t really high enough, but I get the call back to the original card. Fire could have been Wind to make more sense with the new monsters and to help dodge Trap walls. Winged Beast is good and makes sense. The arrows could really enhance plays, but Ritual decks don’t really utilize the Extra Deck, so meh to that. Speaking of Rituals, you need one or more to properly Link Summon this card. While in the Extra Monster Zone, monsters cannot target Nephthys monsters from your Main Monster Zones. Then Nephthys, the Sacred Flame becomes more selfish with its effects. 1+ Ritual Monster for its Link Summon grants immunity to battle destruction, 2+ for immunity to card effect destruction and 1200 more atk, and 3 makes it un-targetable and another 1200 more atk. The maximum effect is great, but if you had the resources to put all those Ritual Monsters on the field at the same time, then you’re probably winning anyway. 2 is probably the goal to make this boss worthy and immune to original Nephthys. The problem is that this Link Monster doesn’t really help you Ritual Summon. I was hoping the arrows would point to zones that don’t require tributes for Ritual Summons. Instead we have a boss that does nothing upon being removed from the field. I am glad that this card can be used in current and future Ritual Decks, but I feel the deck as a whole is not strong enough. 

Score: 3/5     Art: 3/5 Kinda hard to make out, but I like the colors. 

Crunch$G

Each of the Hidden Summoners archetypes were given Link Monsters, where Nephthys got two of them and today we are looking at the bigger one of the two in Nephthys, the Sacred Flame.

Sacred Flame is a Link-3 FIRE Winged Beast with 2400 ATK and arrows pointing Bottom Left, Bottom, and Bottom Right. 2400 ATK on a Link-3 is fine by me, especially since this can gain ATK, FIRE is another poorly supported attribute sadly, but Winged Beast is alright as a whole, and the arrows on this thing are great. The summoning requirements are any 2+ monsters, as long as one is a Ritual Monster. This isn’t hard to summon at all, but will only see play in decks dedicated to Ritual Monsters. While this card is in the Extra Monster Zone, your opponent cannot target Nephthys monsters in the Main Monster Zones for attacks. Nice protection for your Nephthys monsters as all but two of your Main Deck Nephthys monsters have very low ATK. This monster also gains the following effects based on the number of Ritual Monsters used for this card’s Link Summon.

1+: This card cannot be destroyed in battle.

2+: This card cannot be destroyed by card effects and gains 1200 ATK.

3: This card cannot be targeted by card effects and it gains another 1200 ATK.

The first effect is good considering it requires the least investment, battle protection is good for this thing considering it has great arrows and 2400 ATK while good, isn’t the hardest to run over. The second effect is very achievable based on how fast your Ritual Deck is at getting Rituals out and having protection from destruction effects and battle with 3600 ATK is great. The final effect is very difficult, but the pay off is great as it will also get targeting protection along with the other protection it gets and 4800 ATK. I feel the Nephthys archetype will rarely if ever get the effect for using 3 Rituals, it can probably get 2 Rituals for this but not too often, so it is more than likely that this will be summoned with 1 Ritual in the Nephthys deck, and it has a Link-2 to help get to a Ritual play, so summoning this in Nephthys isn’t truly hard at all. I like how other Ritual archetypes can really make use of this and Nekroz can probably get the effects for 2 or 3 Ritual Monsters without problem and I’m sure other Ritual Decks can as well with the Impcantation monsters, I just don’t know if Nephthys will be the ones to get all the effects on this thing, but it makes up for that with the fact that this protects your Nephthys monsters. A solid boss monster for different Ritual Decks, worth throwing in one in the Extra Deck if you play Rituals.

Advanced Rating: 3.5/5

Art: 4.25/5 The Scared Phoenix has evolved.

Alex
Searcy

And from Ritual to Link, to keep the Nephthys family more modern, we come to Nephthys, the Sacred Flame.  Link 3, requiring 2+ Monsters, one of at least, which must be a Ritual, a Fire Monster of the Winged-Beast variety, with 2400 attack and arrows that point directly below, as well as diagonally below on either side.  Obviously, even given the new Rituals, one may scoff at being ‘forced’ to play Rituals just for this.

But let’s see, first we see a protection effect, where if this card is in an Extra Monster Zone, your opponent cannot Target your Nephthys Monsters in your Main Monsters Zones for attacks.  They’re still vulnerable to effects, as well as Magic and Traps, BUT, protecting any number of your weaker Nephthys Monsters (that are new and we reviewed or not) is still an advantage for you.

Finally, this card gains effects based on the number of Ritual Monsters used for its Link Summon, as follows:

*1+–Battle immunity, which is nice, as 2400 attack, while solid, isn’t a brute force, but that just means an effect/Magic/Trap is destroying this card instead.

*2+–Unable to be destroyed by card effects, which IS a great thing, on top of the already listed not being able to be destroyed by Battle…as well as 1200 extra attack, so 3600 now.  

*3–Neither player can target said card with card effects, AND another 1200 attack on top, so we’re up to 4800 now.  

This card could end up being trouble, you just have to be willing to invest enough into it, and I can absolutely see it winning some games, possibly even in OTK/FTK style.

Rating:  4.35/5

Art:  5/5  Love the color here again, the red body, surrounding by the gold swirls, draping the purple background, just phenomenal.