Skull Guardian, Protector of the Voiceless Voice – #PHNI-EN037
You can Ritual Summon this card with “Prayers of the Voiceless Voice”. Gains 2050 ATK while you have “Lo, the Prayers of the Voiceless Voice” on your field or in your GY. You can only use each of the following effects of “Skull Guardian, Protector of the Voiceless Voice” once per turn. If this card is Ritual Summoned: You can add 1 “Voiceless Voice” monster, or 1 Ritual Monster (Warrior or Dragon), from your Deck to your hand. When your opponent activates a card or effect while you control “Lo, the Prayers of the Voiceless Voice” (Quick Effect): You can negate the activation, and if you do, destroy that card.
Date Reviewed: April 12th, 2024
Rating: 4.0
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,
Skull Guardian, Protector of the Voiceless Voice ends the week and is the upgrade to the original Ritual Monster carrying the first part of its name.
Easily Ritual Summoned using Prayers of the Voiceless Voice and Lo as ritual material. The 2050ATK stat line is a call back to the original Ritual Monster Skull Guardian, thankfully he gets double the ATK if Lo is on the field or in the graveyard. With Barrier you want Lo on the field, and you want Lo on the field as well because she’s the entire tribute for your Ritual Summons and she can get you to the archetype Spell/Trap cards, so having the ATK boost happen on field as well as in grave is beneficial.
When Ritual Summon, Skull Guardian is a Manju, adding a Ritual Warrior or Dragon, or a Voiceless Voice to your hand. Previously mentioned this week, the other Main Deck Voiceless Voice monsters can end up being 1-card Ritual Summon pieces, while searching another Ritual Monster would set up another Ritual Summon if you happen to have the pieces in place to do so. As Prayers can be banished in response to you losing a Ritual Monster to facilitate a summon of a Ritual from the Main Deck, it may not be necessary to search a Ritual Monster, unless they need to be “Ritual Summoned” to gain effect(s). Great that it gives you back something upon summon.
Here’s where it gains its importance to the archetype though. If you control Lo, Skull Guardian is an omni-negate. No once per turn on this, with Lo on the field you have a 4100ATK omni-negate that costs nothing. It would be more balanced if you had to discard a card or a Voiceless Voice card to activate this, but all you need is to have Lo on the field. Barrier forces your opponent to attack Skull Guardian or another LIGHT Warrior or Dragon Ritual Monster, while also protecting them and Lo from targeting effects. You have to get rid of Barrier to get to Lo but you can’t because Skull Guardian will negate whatever effect(s) you throw at it.
Skull Guardian may be tied to Lo for optimal success, but the the archetype sets it up so that isn’t hard to come by. On its own, it will be a 4100ATK beatstick that gets you a monster upon Ritual Summoning. With Lo, it’s a field-controlling boss monster that, alongside Barrier, would be untargetable. It may need Lo to be at full power, but it isn’t hard to do that.
Advanced- 4/5 Art- 3.5/5
Until Next Time,
KingofLullaby
Crunch$G
We end the week off with a retrain of a classic Ritual Monster from an old Tournament Pack: Skull Guardian, Protector of the Voiceless Voice.
Skull Guardian 2.0 is a Level 7 LIGHT Warrior Ritual with 2050 ATK and 2500 DEF. Decent stats, LIGHT still remains great, and Warrior has nice utility. You can Ritual Summon this with Prayers of the Voiceless Voice, which we did cover on Tuesday. It gains 2050 ATK while you have Lo on your field or in your graveyard, making this a 4100 ATK body to get over most of everything in the game. The remaining effects are each a hard once per turn, the first trirggering on Ritual Summon to search for any Voiceless Voice monster or any Warrior/Dragon Ritual from your Deck. Weird the Ritual doesn’t have to be a LIGHT monster, but it likely will be anyways since those synergize best within this archetype. Having a searcher on Ritual Summon for a wide range of cards is also pretty nice. The final effect can only be used while you control Lo and the opponent activates a card or effect, giving you a Quick Effect to negate the activation and destroy that card. A simple omni-negate is sometimes good enough, and it should be live often with Lo being able to revive herself after you Ritual Summon this out and Barrier giving her protection while you have her and this out. Skull Guardian 2.0 here is a key part to the end board for Voiceless Voice, searching on summon and being a negate each turn. 3 might be overkill, especially when you have other Ritual Monsters you cards can work with still, but it’s another case where 1 doesn’t feel like enough, so 2 has become the standard seemingly.
Advanced Rating: 4/5
Art: 5/5 A bit of a design upgrade for Skull Guardian here.
Mighty
Vee
I already let this guy’s name slip earlier this week, because it’s hard to talk about Voiceless without mentioning it! Skull Guardian returns as Skull Guardian, Protector of the Voiceless Voice, the boss monster of the Voiceless archetype. Skull Guardian is a level 7 LIGHT Warrior monster with 2050 attack and 2500 defense, which is amusingly identical to the original Skull Guardian. While its defense is good, its attack at base value leaves much to be desired; fortunately, we won’t have to worry about that. Skull Guardian, like many Ritual monsters, is extremely easy to search, but as with yesterday’s Saffira, the most common way you’ll search (and summon) it is with Saffira, Dragon Queen of the Voiceless Voice.
Predictably, Skull Guardian’s recommended Ritual Spell is Prayers of the Voiceless Voice, but your bread and butter combo summons it with Saffira’s banish effect, using Lo as your sole tribute fodder. Skull Guardian gains 2050 attack while Lo is on your field or in the Graveyard, giving it an incredible 4100 attack overall, overcoming most other boss monsters in the game. Skull Guardian has two hard once per turn effects, the first triggering if it’s Ritual Summoned to let you search any Voiceless Voice monster or a LIGHT Warrior or Dragon Ritual monster. Many people opt to search Sauravis, the Ancient and Ascended for a free Hand Trap, though you can also search Lo or Saffira for follow up if you want. Skull Guardian’s main meat comes from its other effect, a simple omni negate and destroy Quick Effect for any of your opponent’s activated effects, which can only be used if you control Lo. Lo will thankfully revive itself when you use it to summon Skull Guardian, so Lo should pretty much always be sticking around. Some combos Link Skull Guardian into Dyna Mondo so that you can re-summon it and Lo during your opponent’s turn to place Radiance of the Voiceless Voice for more disruption, though note this combo is vulnerable to Graveyard disruption. Skull Guardian’s only real weakness (aside from Ritual brick issues) is lacking innate protection, but between Barrier’s targeting protection and Prayers’ floating effect, you shouldn’t need to worry about Skull Guardian dying to a slight breeze. Many decks play two copies– one to summon, of course, and another as a target for Prayers if it manages to die.
+Excellent stats with Lo and packs strong omni negate
+Search is great for follow-up
-Classic Ritual brick issues
-Lacks innate protection requiring Barrier and/or Sauravis
Advanced: 4.5/5
Art: 4.5/5 The original art makes him look kinda creepy (probably why they decided to call him Skull Guardian), but with this art he definitely lives up to his intended name of “Law Guardian”!
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