The Phantom Knights of Rusty Bardiche – Yu-Gi-Oh! Ban List Week

King of
Lullaby

Hello Pojo Fans,

The Phantom Knights of Rusty Bardiche is first on our banlist week, and like so many before it, is a ban that hurts a lot of decks, but one archetype specifically.

PKoRB may be a Link 3, but it is a relatively easy to summon, as DARK monsters are the most used Type in Yu-Gi-Oh. Decent ATK, but its effects are amazing. Plus off the Foolish Burial a Phantom Knights monster, get a Phantom Knight spell/trap (Fog Blade) set to the field, thinning your deck all at once. The most common play is sending Silent Boots to the grave for Fog Blade, then banish Silent Boots for another. Three cards potentially each turn from the deck on top of whatever advantage you can continue to gain. Then you get the destruction effect if a DARK Xyz is Special Summoned to a zone PKoRB points to. With the corners lit up you have a great shot of popping a card. Use CoTH to abuse this effect on your opponents turn. Those Fog Blades you searched can Special Summon a “The Phantom Knights” Xyz you have in the grave during your opponents turn, triggering PKoRB and stopping your opponent.

Effects that are simple to use, deck thinning effect and search effect in one, pop effect during either turn, and easily able to summon in almost any archetype that can play a few DARK monsters somewhere. Phantom Knights, Orcust and DANGER! are incredibly popular right now, even with restrictions from the banlist taking effect (it isn’t going to slow them down). You can run three Fog Blades, a few Phantom Knight monsters and a few Orcust monsters in almost any deck because of how splashable they are. Great ban.

Advanced-4.5/5     Art-4/5

Until Next Time
KingofLullaby

WarlockBlitz

Instead of draw we cards, they ban most cards that send specific cards from the deck to the grave. Except dragons, because dragons need rulers, but more on that later. The Phantom Knights of Rusty Bardiche has a long name  and is a Dark Link 3 Warrior-type Link Monster with 2100 Atk and with Bottom Diagonal Arrows, and a Right Arrow. The stats are good and the summoning requirements are easy enough, just any 2 or more Dark monsters. I particularly like that the Arrows are good in the Extra and Main monster zones. There are 2 hard once per turn effects on Bardiche, one being banworthy and the other not so much. As a cost you get to send any The Phantom Knights monster from your deck to the grave, and then you set any Phantom Knights Spell or Trap from your deck to a Spell or Trap Zone. Similar to Dante, the cost aspect is difficult to stop and the actual effect allows for a lot of disruption with Fog Blade specifically. The second effect is a lot more balanced. You get to destroy any 1 targeted card on the field after a Dark XYZ Monster is Special Summoned to one of Bardiche’s Link Zones. While good, this is a lot harder to surprise the opponent with and easier to negate. The first effect is why this got banned. There was just too much this card could do and then the other cards could do even more. Not being able to use it as Link Material was not enough to balance Bardiche. Maybe being banned will be enough.

Score: Banned/5 (5/5)     Art: 4.5/5 Bardiche?

Crunch$G

I would of did this last week since it was the first week after the list came out, but everything was already set to go live, so I thought I’d push it back a week, but here we are talking about some cards that moved on the F/L List, and there were a lot to choose from, but we start with a newly banned card we haven’t reviewed before, The Phantom Knights of Rusty Bardiche.

Bardiche is a Link-3 DARK Warrior with 2100 ATK and arrows pointing Right, Bottom Left, and Bottom Right. DARK Warrior is a good combination, as DARK worked with Orcust decks and Warrior worked with… well Warrior decks, the 2100 ATK is kinda low but fine, and the arrows are great for working in the EMZ or MMZ (which I love) and it doesn’t give the opponent an arrow. The summoning requirements are any 2+ DARK monsters, so your favorite DARK deck could of used this. It cannot be used as Link Material, which probably would of mattered more when something like Firewall Dragon was legal, and while you do sometimes do feel the effects of a restriction like that, it doesn’t make Bardiche bad at all. During your Main Phase, you can send a The Phantom Knights monster from your deck to the graveyard to set a Phantom Knights Spell/Trap directly from the deck. Love how it’s immune to Ash Blossom (as the sending from the deck is a cost) which lets you generate massive advantage. Rank-Up-Magic Launch before it was banned let you summon Azathot on the opponent’s turn, which wasn’t fun to deal with and this card helped facilitate that, but this card could also get you to cards like Fogblade for negation or Shade Brigandine for play extension. Not only that, but it sends a monster from the deck to the graveyard that has a graveyard effect (all Phantom Knights in the main deck do) so you can send something like Silent Boots to search for another Fog Blade, Shade Brigandine, or whatever or send Ancient Cloak to search Silent Boots to Special Summon for more plays, then banish that Silent Boots, or maybe if you want extra deck-thinning you can send Ragged Gloves to banish to send another Phantom Knights card to the graveyard. Also, I can’t fail to mention that having Phantom Knights in the name of this let you revive it with a Fog Blade in the graveyard. Not only that, but when you summoned a DARK Xyz to a zone this guy points to, you can target any card on the field and destroy it. This was useful in something like Orcust of course because of Dingrisu, any deck that used Time Thief Redoer and Azathot before the RUM was banned could make use of that, but there are a plethora of other DARK Xyzs like Break Sword, Dark Rebellion, Evilswarm Nightmare, etc. that this could work with after it is summoned. Each effect of Rusty Bardiche is a once per turn, as you see in a lot of cards in the modern era. Any deck that liked DARK monsters and could benefit from using Phantom Knights cards loved this when it was legal, it allowed for so much advantage to be generated it was insane, so it most certainly warrants the spot on the F/L List.

Advanced Rating: 5/5

Art: 5/5 I like The Phantom Knights as an archetype and their art is another reason for that.

Alex
Searcy

Ahh, any week we talk about Ban List changes is bound to be one of Alex’s favorites.  Opening things this week is The Phantom Knights of Rusty Bardiche.  Currently, this card is Banned in the TCG, and Unlimited in the OCG.  This is a Link 3, Dark, warrior Monster, with 2100 attack, requiring 2+ Dark Monsters for a Link Summon with arrows pointing directly right, as well as the respective bottom diagonals.

Let’s start with, this card is very awesome.  During the Main Phase, you can dump a theme specific card to automatically set a theme Magic or Trap card from your Deck directly to the Magic/Trap zone.  It’s a fair and balanced one-for-one, and great to see in a theme.  Anything that’s going to give you access to nearly any Magic/Trap you run for a Monster you’re likely to recycle later is a win for the player.

Lastly, if a Dark XYZ Monster is Special Summoned to a Zone this card points to, you can destroy a card on the Field.  That is a Target effect, and this card has to be on the Field for that to happen, both are worth noting.  But if you can splash in Darks in this Deck, or the Knights in a Dark Deck, that effect is easy to use and abuse too.  Just a fantastic card overall, kept in tow with its 2100 attack.

Rating:  5/5  if legal

Art:  5/5  There is so much awesome in this picture.  The blue and pink on the body is great, as well as the purple outline, and the black in the shadows in the back of the cape, as well as the contrast of the darker shades in the background.