Veda Kalarcanum – #AGOV-EN005
Pendulum Effect – Once per Chain, if a monster(s) is destroyed: Place 3 counters on this card. This card’s Pendulum Scale is increased by the number of counters on it. You can remove 12 counters from this card; Special Summon it.
Monster Effect – Cannot be Normal Summoned/Set. Must be Special Summoned by its own Pendulum Effect. You can only Special Summon “Veda Kalarcanum(s)” once per turn. Once per turn, if your opponent Special Summons a monster(s) from the Extra Deck (except during the Damage Step): You can banish 12 cards from your hand, field, and/or GY, face-down; it becomes the End Phase of this turn. Once per turn, during your Standby Phase: Return this card to the hand, then you can Special Summon 1 of your “Veda” monsters that is banished or in your hand, Deck, or GY.
Date Reviewed: December 8th, 2023
Rating: 2.08
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,
Veda Kalarcanum ends the week with our only Pendulum Monster we’re reviewing, and one of the two Main Deck Veda monsters.
Lets start with it as a Pendulum Spell, since its Special Summoning depends on it. You have to remove 12 counters to Special Summon this card from the Pendulum Zone. No side-steps, no tricks, this HAS to happen to Special Summon this card. Thankfully, it gets you 3 counters per every chain where a monster(s) are destroyed. Excluding board-wipe effects, it will get you three counters per battle and three counters per targeting effect. After one full turn you’ll have more than 12 counters on this card unless you brick horribly, or get hit with a board-wipe effect. The scale increases with each counter, giving this card the ability to reach the highest pendulum scale before you Special Summon it, could be handy if you were playing other, smaller scale Pendulum Monsters.
As a monster it has 0ATK but a beefy 4000DEF. You aren’t summoning it for ATK. Once on the field, Kalarcanum can force the End Phase but at a steep cost: 12 banished cards from anywhere on your field/hand/grave. Wow. Just, wow. That is a quarter of the Main Deck. It happens in response to your opponent Special Summoning, but it is still a large amount of cards. On top of that, Kalarcanum is going back to the hand during your next Standby Phase. Sure, you get to Special Summon the other Veda monster from your hand, Deck, or graveyard, and you can simply replay Kalarcanum in the Pendulum Zone, but now you’ve gotta wait for four more monsters to be destroyed to Special Summon it again. The effect to force the End Phase seems like it isn’t worth it. It buys you one turn at the cost of 12 cards. Banish decks would love an effect like this with the reliability of playing it, but you still need the cards in the grave. The cards are banished face-down as well, so you won’t be using banished effect(s) or getting them back unless you use Necroface or something like that.
I may be missing the point of Kalarcanum, but I’m not so sure. Can be searched via Veda Realm, can be Special Summoned from the Pendulum Zone, but you have to hope it doesn’t get destroyed first, and you have to destroy monsters or have your monsters destroyed to make this summon happen. It just feels like it isn’t worth it.
Advanced-2/5 Art-4/5
Until Next Time
KingofLullaby
Crunch$G
The week ends off with a big Pendulum boss for the Visas/Veda lore that’s only a Pendulum for functionality purposes: Veda Kalarcanum.
Kalracanum as a Pendulum Scale is a Scale 0, good low Scale naturally, that once per chain, if a monster(s) is destroyed, you place 3 counters on it. Pretty easy to do with Mannadium with how much you’ll destroy your Tuners with Visas Starfrost and Riumheart, or the opponent’s monsters with Vicious Astraloud or Baronne de Fleur. Its Scale is increased by the number of counters on it, so it can get a high Scale fast. Finally, you can remove 12 counters from this card to Special Summon it, which is where the monster effects would come in.
As a monster, Kalracanum is a Level 12 DARK Warrior Pendulum with 0 ATK and 4000 DEF. A very beefy DEF stat, plus DARK/Warrior is always a nice combo. It cannot be Normal Summoned or Set and must be Special Summoned via its Pendulum Effect, which was already discussed, also you can only Special Summon one of these once a turn. Once per turn, if the opponent summons a monster from the Extra Deck, you can banish 12 cards from your hand, field, and/or graveyard face-down to make it the End Phase of that turn. Ending the turn is nice, but banishing 12 cards face-down is a lot to ask. Mannadium probably can fill their graveyard with 12 cards they don’t mind to banish after their combos, but not every Deck can say that. Also the requirement for the opponent to summon a monster from the Extra Deck for you to have the chance to end their turn is something they likely won’t walk into without outting this, since it has no natural protection itself. If they don’t summon anything from said Extra Deck, then this likely sits there til your next Standby Phase, where it would then return to your hand to then let you summon a Veda monster that’s banished, in your hand, field, or graveyard. I mean, you could at least get Kalanta for whatever that’s worth. This overall feels very win-more for Mannadium, the only Deck I can imagine this being ran in right now. It can still be a lot to get the 4 destructions needed to gather the 12 counters to get it onto the field, and then it’s big ask to banish 12 cards face-down, even if from the graveyard, only after the opponent Special Summons from the Extra Deck, assuming they do. They could of just made this a simple turn skip after it was Special Summoned, but that probably would of been too broken and some weird strategy would abuse that. As is, you can try and pull it off, but you can run Mannadium or whatever else without it to be honest.
Advanced Rating: 2/5
Art: 4.5/5 What a waste of perfectly great artwork.
Mighty
Vee
Wrapping up the week is the formal boss of the Veda mini-archetype, Veda Kalarcanum, a level 12 DARK Warrior Pendulum monster with a scale of 0. Scale 0 seems great, but once you read its Pendulum effect it’ll get more and more funky. As a Mannadium-adjacent monster, it’s searchable with Realm Elegy, making it indirectly searchable by Visas Amritara too. Kalarcanum makes up for its pitiful 0 attack with a glorious 4000 defense, tanking all but the strongest monsters.
Kalarcanum’s first Pendulum effect can be triggered once per chain, placing 3 counters on itself each time a monster is destroyed (which happens fairly regularly in Mannadium!) and increasing its Pendulum scale for each counter. Thus, if you’re looking for a reliable scale 0 monster, Kalarcanum probably isn’t a stable choice, especially in decks that regularly destroy for their combos (like Dracoslayer). Finally, Kalarcanum can Special Summon itself from the Pendulum Zone by removing 12 counters. Destroying 4 monsters doesn’t seem too hard, but don’t forget you have to actually search and activate Kalarcanum first, by which point you’ll have already summoned Visas Amritara and gone through a good chunk of your combo.
Accordingly, Kalarcanum can’t be Normal Summoned or Set, stuck to being Special Summoned only by its own Pendulum effect once per turn. Fittingly, Kalarcanum’s other two effects are both soft once per turns, and trying to use them multiple times is a futile exercise anyway. First, if your opponent Special Summons any monster from the Extra Deck, you can banish 12 cards from your hand, field, or Graveyard face-down to make it the End Phase, effectively skipping their turn. This sounds pretty nasty on paper considering most meta decks (Floowandereeze being the sole true exception) currently need the Extra Deck. However, despite Mannadium’s combo-heavy playstyle, you’ll be at a massive resource deficit by banishing all of your cards, though fortunately Kalarcanum’s last effect mitigates it slightly. Kalarcanum’s last effect triggers during your Standby Phase, forcing you to return it to your hand and Special Summon another Veda monster from banished or your hand, deck, or Graveyard. Since Kalarcanum is a Nomi monster, you’re stuck with Veda Kalanta as the sole target. Kalanta can help beat your opponent into submission following the turn skip considering Kalarcanum has a pathetic attack stat, but you’ll still need the remaining 5500 damage from somewhere. There’s also the elephant in the room: nothing’s stopping your opponent from simply outing Veda, either with Book of Moon, Dark Ruler No More, Infinite Impermanence, or any Main Deck monster with a negate or removal effect (Kashtira Fenrir, anyone?). If your plan is just Kalarcanum, it will crumble pretty quickly. Overall, it’s a cute alternative wincon for Manandium, but until Veda gets fleshed out, it’s far more practical to do the deck’s bread and butter plays.
+Can result in easy wins if you summon and resolve it
-Forces you to forgo the standard combo to search and summon it
-Zero protection and vulnerable to almost every boardbreaker
-Can result in massive resource deficit in the long run
Advanced: 2.25/5
Art: 3.75/5 Isn’t there a Gundam with a backpack that looks exactly like the thing behind him?
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