Tri-Brigade Mercourier – #SDAZ-EN001
When your opponent activates a monster effect, while you control a Fusion Monster that mentions “Fallen of Albaz” as material (Quick Effect): You can send this card from your hand or face-up field to the GY; negate that effect. If this card is banished: You can add from your Deck to your hand, 1 “Fallen of Albaz”, or 1 monster that mentions it, except “Tri-Brigade Mercourier”. You can only use each effect of “Tri-Brigade Mercourier” once per turn.
Date Reviewed: May 23rd, 2022
Rating: 3.67
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,
Tri-Brigade Mercourier begins another week where we are covering more “Branded” support.
A little Winged-Beast, Mercourier acts like a hand trap when involved with the Fallen of Albaz archetype. You need a Fusion Monster that mentions Albaz to activate it on the field or in the hand, so it can be more than a hand trap. Negation of a monster effect but no destruction…we’ve been over this, it isn’t as good as running a staple trap that can negate and destroy/banish, or even Impermanence.
You can banish Mercourier though (unlike those staple traps) to search “Fallen of Albaz” or another monster that mentions him. The second effect may be better than the first one to be honest. You can discard this for almost anything and then banish it to get that search: it is easier to activate and requires nothing specific. In terms of “Tri-Brigade” it searches Kitt, so not much to tie into the Tri-Brigade strategy. Mercourier searches either version of Albaz, Albion, Incredible Ecclesia, Kitt, and Golden Swords
Tri-Brigade Mercourier is a decent Albaz search card and can be a little added protection for your Albaz Fusion monster, even if it doesn’t destroy the monster it negates. I would still lean on getting this little bird in the grave and banish it to get that search before depending on it to negate.
Advanced-3/5 Art-3/5
Until Next Time
KingofLullaby
Crunch$G
New Structure Deck means new cards to look at, and this one gives us two full weeks of new cards to review, starting with Tri-Brigade Mercourier.
Mercourier is a Level 4 DARK Winged Beast with 800 ATK and 0 DEF. So pretty bad stats on a Level 4, but being both DARK and Winged Beast does count for something. First effect is a Quick Effect in the hand or while face-up on the field when the opponent activates a monster effect and you control a Fusion Monster that lists Fallen of Albaz as material, letting you send this from the hand or face-up field to the graveyard to negate that effect. It’s pretty simple negation for a monster effect, and getting a Fusion that needs Fallen of Albaz as material is far from difficult to achieve. This is also pretty searchable as is any other monster that mentions Fallen of Albaz in their text. Giving the Albaz stuff a searchable negate of a monster effect is pretty nice, and making it a Tri-Brigade does open up a Tri-Brigade Branded strategy, though that was better when Predaplant Verte Anaconda wasn’t banned. The second effect is clear Tri-Brigade synergy, triggering when banished to search for a Fallen of Albaz or any other monster that isn’t another copy of itself that mentions Fallen of Albaz, so more reason to try Tri-Brigade Branded with Albaz and friends. Hard once per turn on each effect, something you’d expect on most cards now. Mercourier is a pretty decent card for the Albaz strategy, and helps warrant mixing the stuff with Tri-Brigade more. It’s not that great for pure Tri-Brigade, but at least there’s some synergy there still.
Advanced Rating: 3.75/5
Art: 4/5 Just a bird, but I like it.
Alex
Searcy
A little bit of variety in CotD this week again as we kick things off with Tri-Brigade Mercourier. Level 4, Dark/Winged-Beast is an interesting pairing, and 800 attack (with 0 defense) is nothing we ever want to see on a Level 4. A Quick (Negation) Effect lets you send this card from your Hand or face-up Field to negate an opponent’s Monster Effect as long as you control a Fusion listing ‘Fallen of Albaz’ as Material. Protection is good, even if it’s oddly specific requiring as this is, and it’s a bit of a downer it’s limited to Monster Effects. You’re likely only ever going to send this guy from your Hand, cause it’s just a big Target sitting on the Field with that paltry attack. This card being removed from play nets you a Fallen of Albaz or a card that mentions it, other than itself, naturally. That’s fun, and you can banish the card yourself to achieve that Effect, also, which is helpful. But that likely means your opponent isn’t going to do it for you. Each Effect is once per Turn. This card does a couple of nice things, just vaguely so, and it might take more work than you’d like to fully capitalize off these Effects. Maybe more work than you’d like to put in.
Rating: 3.25/5
Art: 4/5 Pretty, fun, the sky is the winner here for me though
Mighty
Vee
This week takes a break from Battle of Chaos (though not from the Albaz lore!) and covers the recent Albaz Strike structure deck, filled with support for the Despia archetype and the Branded and Albaz mini-archetypes. The first card is Tri-Brigade Mercourier, a level 4 DARK winged beast monster. Being a DARK winged beast gives it mild synergy with Raidraptor and Blackwing cards, though because of its effects it’s unlikely you’ll be using it in either deck. Other than that, it can be searched and utilized by various Tri-Brigade cards by virtue of being a Tri-Brigade and some Fallen of Albaz support (the reason for which will be abundantly clear soon). For a level 4 monster, it packs a wimpy stat spread of 800 attack and 0 defense, so hopefully it won’t be battling anything any time soon.
Each of Mercourier’s effects are a hard once per turn. While Mercourier is a Tri-Brigade monster by name for lore reasons, as you’ll soon find out, it’s actually support for Albaz, which makes sense considering it debuted in the Albaz Strike structure deck. On a quick effect, Mercourier can be sent from your hand or field to negate a monster effect as long as you control a fusion monster that lists Fallen of Albaz as a fusion material. Not only does this provide extra disruption for your endboard (which hopefully has an Albaz fusion on it, the strongest of which we’re not covering this week), but as long as you have an Albaz fusion on the field, you can even shield yourself from hand traps! Mercourier’s other effect triggers if it’s banished (a common occurrence in Branded combos), allowing you to search Fallen of Albaz or any monster that mentions it except itself. This effect has some neat synergy with Golden Sarcophagus, Fairy Tail – Snow, and Allure of Darkness if you choose to play them, and while there aren’t too many major playmakers you can search, having an extra card in hand is always helpful. Overall, a versatile card that can do quite a few things in Branded Despia decks; a lot of topping lists have seen success running it at least at 1 copy.
Advanced: 4/5
Art: 3.75/5 Not much to say, though lore fans might recognize this as one of Shuraig’s drones, one of which he gives to Albaz in Tri-Brigade Oath.
Albaz sure has gotten a lot of support recently and I’m all for it. Mercourier is a Tri-Brigade monster, part of an archetype that (until very recently) has been a top contender in the competitive scene. But it’s name doesn’t really matter too much as it doesn’t really do “Tri-Brigade” things.
Mercourier functions primarily as a Hand Trap for the Albaz deck. So long as you control one of his Fusion counterparts, you can pitch Mercourier from Hand (or even Field) to negate any monster effect. Stopping Monster Effects is probably the most important thing to stop in today’s game, so that’s really nice. Too bad it doesn’t also destroy the source of the ffect, but honestly, that’d be a bit too strong, I think.
But there’s one other thing Mercourier can do: when it’s Banished, it can fetch Albaz or a monster that mentions him from Deck to Hand. I’ve seen some people use Gold Sarc to trigger this effect, but there are plenty of ways to do it (Allure of Darkness being my favorite).
Overall he’s a great card, just not broken (which is good for the game as a whole). Branded / Albaz/ Dogmatika / Despia / Insert Archetype of choice here Decks have been seeing a lot of play thanks to Branded Fusion and I could definitely see them running Mercourier. Although I doubt decks would max out on copies of him.
Advanced Rating – 4/5
Art – 3/5 (The art is drawn well and the design is good, but it’s not something I personally care for)
Therion
“Captain”
Tav
Hi everyone, and a great start to your week! Over the next few days, we will be looking at some of the cards that found their way into the game via the recently released Albaz Strike Structure Deck, one of the most immediately impactful releases we have seen in quite a while.
We start off with the seemingly innocuous Tri-Brigade Mercourier, a level 4 Winged Beast-type DARK monster with a measly 800 attack and 0 defense points. The stats on this don’t really matter too much, though, as this is a monster that will mostly be put in the “hand trap” category of modern Yugioh cards, probably the most important aspect of the game as it is played nowadays.
Tri-Brigade Mercourier has a hard once-per-turn on both of its effects. The first one says that you can use it as a quick effect while you control a Fusion Monster that mentions “Fallen of Albaz” as material and then you can send it from your hand or face-up field to negate an opponent’s monster effect activation. Okay, so this is already interesting in a number of ways. Effect Veiler is the generic hand trap used to negate monster effects, but can only be used in the enemy main phase and not just on monster effect activations. This, on the other hand, only negates one specific effect, but can be timed much better and has a ton of other technical disruptive applications. Why am I comparing this card to specifically Effect Veiler? Because that is the clear alternative even when playing some form of Albaz Fusion deck and it is important to compare cards on their individual merit against similar card type slots.
Mercourier’s negation effect is much more useful in its timing and targeting restrictions – you can use it whenever your opponent activates an effect and it doesn’t just negate monster effects on the field, which means that this can be used to negate opposing hand trap monsters, probably one of the most important axis of interaction in the current game! Then again, Mercourier does not negate the monster’s other effects until the end of the turn. It also doesn’t destroy the opposing monster after negating, either. So it is more flexible, but also quite narrow. For what it’s worth, Tri-Brigade Mercourier can optionally be used from the field, should you somehow bring it back there with an effect (De-Fusion from the side deck would be quite a funny one if playing the mirror!).
Needless to say, Mercourier’s restriction on Fusion Monsters using Fallen of Albaz is the biggest strike against it, which makes it hard to include in multiples. If you get disrupted while in the process of fusing into one of the many strong Fusion boss monsters (Albion, Lubellion, Mirrorjade, Spring or Titaniklad immediately jump to mind), this just sits in your hand doing nothing, which is of course the worst case scenario for any hand trap type of card. For that reason, this monster’s negation capabilities are best used going first to protect your already menacing Fusion boss monster and is pretty much irrelevant going second.
Fortunately, the second effect allows you to get some value from this card even when it’s not live as a hand trap! If it is banished, you can search your deck for either Fallen of Albaz or a monster that mentions it in its text box, except another Tri-Brigade Mercourier (which would be busted). Captain Obvious is here to tell you that this is best used with the Quick-Play Spell “Branded in Red”, which fuses at instant speed and allows you to banish materials from your hand or field – with this, you also get a free search on top of that, which is a pretty amazing deal, if you ask me! Plus, this might randomly get banished by opposing card effects and then trigger another search, which is just gravy.
Last but not least, I have to mention the strange fact that this little critter is both a DARK-Attribute monster and belongs to the “Tri-Brigade”-theme, the latter which I don’t quite understand, but I guess there are Yugioh in-world lore reasons for. This being DARK is great, since many of the Despia/Albaz Fusion monsters ask you to provide a DARK (or either DARK or LIGHT) monster as a material, so this seems tailor-made for that archetype. Not to mention the already seemingly infinite ways of banishing DARK-monsters for some kind of profit from your graveyard (like chaos-type cards). As a Tri-Brigade monster, this benefits from a lot of the effects from that deck, which are too numerous to mention. In that regard though, this card’s sole existence gives that additional incentive to splash the Albaz/Branded Fusion cards in your Tri-Brigade deck, which is a cool aspect of the nifty little bird.
To sum things up, this is a super neat role-player that is flexible, can perform a ton of different roles and is never a complete brick if you built your deck correctly. It may be an archetype-only card, but a very powerful one at that. Since the negation hand trap aspect of Tri-Brigade Mercourier is obviously the most versatile and useful way to unlock the full potential of Mercourier, and since that effect is bound to you having an Albaz Fusion monster out, this will probably never be played in multiples since then it is more likely to brick your hand. But the fact that it can go get you something else if used correctly more or less assures that in any deck sporting Fallen of Albaz and Branded in Red will be looking at playing one copy of this just for the free utility. The opportunity cost of including it in your Branded-themed decks is just too low – what an amazing little monster!
Rating: 4/5
props:
great versatile role-player in its archetype, bonus protective/disruptive negate hand trap going first, super useful searcher if used correctly, banish effect can be triggered in a number of ways (both obvious and creative)
slops:
its most powerful effect hinges on you already having summoned a big Fusion monster, can be a brick going second, cannot search itself
Art: 5/5
A shiny metal bird with an antenna sticking out of its back gliding over some gorgeous barren landscape in the background. It’s so cute, what’s not to love? This is why Yugioh can be such a joy to play while enjoying the artwork – on the one hand, you have the typical power fantasy-driven mega anime monsters, dragons, brutal beasts or superwarriors and on the other hand the cute, whimsical little critters supporting you, like this one.
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