Tour Guide From the Underworld – Yu-Gi-Oh! Throwback Thursday (2011)

King of
Lullaby

Hello Pojo Fans,

Tour Guide From the Underworld was the first card I recall in my long time of playing the game where you could play it as long as you played one specific card in your deck: Sangan.

This card caused any deck that ran Sangan back in the day to put three of this into the deck. Didn’t matter what you played, if you ran Sangan, this was a must. Expensive, yup, but it did the job. Sangan activated in the grave, so the negation Tour Guide held the Fiend under didn’t matter, you got your search and you stacked the two for a Rank 3 and went from there. Burning Abyss could use Tour Guide as a degenerate way of getting Dante without having their BA’s blow up. Tour Guide was also a DARK, 1000ATK so she was Crush Card fodder. This of course was all long ago before Sangan and CCV were changed, but it was utterly frustrating and devastating at the same time to see this chick hit the board. Your deck could be unique and run great, but if you didn’t have those three Tour Guides you weren’t playing your best deck. This card years and years later is still pretty good, getting you to a one-card Link 2 or Rank 3 if you play them. Any Fiend-based strategy (PK’s, BA’s) that runs Level 3 or lower will still run as many as the ban list will allow. It won’t ever be as powerful as it once was, but that was because of the game needing to change the card text of certain cards to make them fair as the game evolved.

Advanced-3.5/5- Still very good, but not as good as once before

Art-4/5- Amanda LaPalme cosplayed her while playing in a tournament. Pretty good player and a great representation of the card.

Until Next Time

KingofLullaby

Crunch$G

Throwback Thursday this week gives us a card that can summon all the Links we looked at this week off one card considering it can summon an Effect Monster, Tuner, and a Level 3 just like herself: Tour Guide from the Underworld.

Tour Guide is a Level 3 DARK Fiend with 1000 ATK and 600 DEF. Pretty low stats, DARK and Fiend are nice though. The only effect of this card is that upon Normal Summon you can summon any Level 3 Fiend from the Deck with its effects negated and it can’t be used as Synchro Material. This was weird to be released in Extreme Victory, but then you know the next set was Generation Force and introduced Xyz Monsters. This is where this card came in to summon a monster from Deck, likely Sangan at that time, to go for a Rank 3 and there was a time where you could trigger Sangan by detaching it as material. Even when that wasn’t you could do anymore, Tour Guide was a one-card Rank 3 which was good for Leviair, Number 17, or Zenmaines in any Deck or Wind-Ups could use Carrier Zenmaity since it was generic. It went on the F/L List to semi-limit in the Xyz-era, but later came to 3 just in time for Burning Abyss and their arsenal of Level 3 Fiends to go into Dante. That got Tour Guide Limited and now she sits at Semi-Limited status in the TCG. It’s good Rank 3 fodder still and you got the option for Links. Cherubini comes up since it needs 2 Level 3s and this summons a Level 3. It’s still a great card, especially in Burning Abyss. It’s stood the test of time very well, since summoning from Deck will never be bad. Maybe one day this will go back to Limited it could be Forbidden if we got a Level 3 Fiend Deck that’s broken enough.

Advanced Rating: 4.5/5

Art: 4.5/5 for the original art and 4/5 for the new art. The art is cool with the monsters in the background for the new art, but I like Tour Guide with the bus in the background better.

Baneful

Tour Guide was one of the most iconic cards of the early XYZ era.  It allowed decks to get an XYZ on the board at turn 1.  And it acts like a Foolish Burial on top of it for decks that want to dump something.  This card also got Sangan banned (because detaching Sangan procs the search).  At the time, I felt like Tour Guide was the problem – not Sangan.  But I understand that at the time XYZ was new, and Konami wanted to promote it. 

Solember
YouTube

   Tour Guide From the Underworld is an oddly iconic card. It has seen use consistently since its release due to its simply good effect. Being able to Special Summon a Monster from the deck will probably never be a bad thing.

   In the dawn of the XYZ era, Tour Guide hit the scene hard. She had a very simple combo play; Summon herself, Summon Sangan from the Deck, XYZ summon and (before the rules changed in the TCG) send Sangan as material to the GY to search. That ended up getting Sangan Forbidden for quite some time.

   Now, the same play is used for Link Monsters, and Sangan gets its effect this way. Tour Guide sees a lot of use in Burning Abyss decks, as she gets to take her pick of the archetype. They all have effects that activate in the GY, so there is no downside to bringing them out for a quick Extra Deck Summon.

   The art is an example of something relatively plain being executed well. It is a memorable Monster that can be recognized in other images and on merchandise easily.

   The card could use a touch up on balance, but that isn’t likely to happen. I think it does exactly what Konami wants it to do. The Synchro restriction hardly registers, though the effect negation has some practicality.

Versatility – 4
Rogue Plays – 5
Art – 5
Balance – 3
Uniqueness – 3

I score this card a 5/5. Play it if you run Sangan or in any deck that has targets you can use for a quick Link Summon.