Surfacing Big Jaws – #ROTA-EN001
If this card is used for the Xyz Summon of a WATER monster, it can be treated as a Level 3 or 5 monster. You can only use each of the following effects of “Surfacing Big Jaws” once per turn. During your Main Phase, if a Spell Card was activated this turn: You can Special Summon this card from your hand, also you cannot Special Summon from the Extra Deck for the rest of this turn, except Xyz Monsters. If this card is Normal or Special Summoned: You can add 1 Fish “Shark” monster from your Deck to your hand.
Date Reviewed: October 28th, 2024
Rating: 3.83
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,
Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water. This week we’re looking at new WATER monsters in Rage of The Abyss, starting with Surfacing Big Jaws.
Generic stats for a Level 4 WATER, Big Jaws ability to change its Level to 3 or 5 when being used for an Xyz Summon expands your potential for multiple Xyz Summons, as well as shrinks the pool of monsters you have to play for those Xyz Summons. Its extender ability during your Main Phase is easily attainable: activating a Spell is something you’ll likely do before even summoning this monster, and being locked into Xyz Monsters after the Special Summon of Big Jaws isn’t going to hurt you. Like most “drawbacks” or “restrictions” you can play around them with relative ease.
Big Jaws is your RoTA for Fish “Shark” monsters in your Deck. While you can play this in any WATER-based deck or archetype, if you want that search, you’ll have to play some Fish-Type “Shark” monsters. There is no shortage of monsters you can search, you can even search Wind-Up Shark. However, Hammer Shark and Lantern Shark look to be good choices because of their Special Summon abilities off their summon. Cyber Shark is also an option to go alongside Big Jaws to make a Rank 5.
Surfacing Big Jaws is an easy to use extender, RoTA for Shark Fish-Type monsters, and enables easier range of Xyz Summons. If you play WATER and Xyz Summon, this may be a tech choice for you, even without benefiting from the RoTA.
Advanced- 3.5/5 Art- 4/5
Until Next Time,
KingofLullaby
Crunch$G
Now for dedicated archetype support waves from Rage of the Abyss, starting with the Shark support that’s featured on the cover and a retrain of Shark’s classic monster: Surfacing Big Jaws.
Surfacing Big Jaws is a Level 4 WATER Fish with 1800 ATK and 300 DEF. A good ATK stat for a Level 4, as it was when Big Jaws was Level 3, plus it’s a WATER Fish, which has a lot of support. First effect lets you treat it as a Level 3 or 5 monster for the Xyz Summon of a WATER monster, similar to some of the other Shark monsters. The remaining effects are each a HOPT, the first letting you Special Summon this from the hand if a Spell Card was activated this turn. The anime effect of Big Jaws is now on the retrain, along with it having a better Level for Xyz plays. You run some good Spells in Sharks, and you’ll get another with Seventh Tachyon soon for a searcher for your Deck. You cannot Special Summon from the Extra Deck for the rest of the turn, except Xyz Monsters, which is fine for a dedicated Xyz strategy. Upon being Normal or Special Summoned, you can search for any Shark monster that’s a Fish-type. A Stratos for monsters like Buzzsaw Shark and Abyss Shark to keep your plays going is great for the archetype to have to keep making Rank 4 monsters, a searcher that felt a bit overdue for us to have. Surfacing Big Jaws isn’t a Shark itself, but it doesn’t hold the card back much with all the good generic Fish support there is. It’s a starter and extender for the Shark Deck for making your Rank 4 monsters, so play 3, even when you get Seventh Tachyon to search for it.
Advanced Rating: 4/5
Art: 4/5 Case of basically being an alternate artwork of the monster it’s retraining, which is fine here since the original Big Jaws art wasn’t too inspired.
Mighty
Vee
Has it been that long since Duelists of the Abyss?! We’re diving into the titular Shark support in Rage of the Abyss, starting with Surfacing Big Jaws, a level 4 WATER Fish monster. That’s completely expected of a Shark monster, since you can search it with Buzzsaw Shark and Abyss Shark, plus being a level higher than the original makes it more applicable for Rank 4 Xyz (though we’ll see why that doesn’t matter as much in a bit). Most importantly, you can also search it with the upcoming card Seventh Tachyon (name pending) once we get Maze of the Master– that’ll come into play later. Big Jaws shares the same stats as the original, with a decent 1800 attack but a horrible 300 defense. The original Big Jaws was a pretty bad beater that didn’t even have that great of an attack stat, so let’s see how it fares in 2024.
True to Shark’s gimmick, Big Jaws can be counted as either a level 3 or 5 monster if you use it to Xyz Summon a WATER monster; this makes it incredibly versatile since sometimes you’ll want to make Bahamut Shark, while other times you’ll want Xyz Armor Torpedo or LeVirtue Dragon. Big Jaws’s other two effects are both hard once per turn, the first only being usable if any Spell was activated that turn– it’ll let you Special Summon Big Jaws at the cost of locking you into Xyz monsters from the Extra Deck for the rest of the turn. The Xyz lock shouldn’t matter anymore in the slightest, as Shark’s new combo tools make Abyss Keeper obsolete. On the other hand, needing a Spell is kind of a stupid restriction, which is where Seventh Tachyon comes into play; it’ll conveniently provide a Spell usage so that you can immediately summon Big Jaws for free. Fortunately, if you don’t have a Spell, it’s not the end of the world because Big Jaws’s last effect triggers if it’s Normal or Special Summoned, searching any Fish monster with the Shark name. You can just Normal Summon Big Jaws if it comes down to it, letting you access Abyss Shark or Drake Shark, which we’ll get to tomorrow. While the Spell condition is annoying, Big Jaws is a very strong new starter for Shark with excellent combo potential; even if you don’t have Seventh Tachyon, it’s still a solid monster to Normal Summon, so I’d still run 3 copies regardless.
+Fantastic as a starter or extender
+Versatile level range for Shark combos
-Needs you to use a Spell to summon itself
-Xyz lock prevents the use of Abyss Keeper and generic Links
Advanced: 4/5
Art: 3.75/5 Remind me to never go swimming in the ocean…
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