Wandering Gryphon Rider – #GRCR-EN028
During the Main Phase, if you control no monsters, or control an “Adventurer Token” (Quick Effect): You can Special Summon this card from your hand. When a card or effect is activated while you control an “Adventurer Token” (Quick Effect): You can shuffle this card into the Deck, and if you do, negate that activation, and if you do that, destroy that card. You can only use each effect of “Wandering Gryphon Rider” once per turn.
Date Reviewed: March 18th, 2022
Rating: 3.75
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,
Wandering Gryphon Rider is the highest level monster that is around the “Adventurer Token” archetype and wraps up the week.
Like the other monsters that have “Adventurer Token” somewhere in their text, Gryphon Rider can Special Summon itself if you have one of those tokens or no monsters, good for a Level 7 being able to do so. The lower ATK, higher DEF isn’t ideal, but with Gryphon Rider’s negation ability it seems like it had to be that way, along with the ease to Special Summon. Shuffle back and you get to negate and destroy a card that was activated. Solid negation and destruction power that can be used either turn. With Fateful Adventure able to search each turn for something with “Adventurer Token” in the text you won’t be without Gryphon Rider for long. As long as you keep Fateful Adventure on the field you can keep Special Summoning Gryphon Rider and have that negation ability. Its low ATK can be boosted by one of the Equip Spell cards in the archetype (as long as you have another card with “Adventurer Token” in the text), but lets not split hairs, it’s job is to negate.
With no generic archetype negation like a Counter Trap, this is the best they’ve got right now, and it’s pretty good. Low ATK, so it isn’t the best to attack with, but cycling it back to the deck to get rid of something just to get it back to the field the next turn is very good. That high DEF can come in handy and keep it on the field until you need to negate.
Advanced-3.5/5 Art-4/5
Until Next Time
KingofLullaby
Crunch$G
The week ends off with the end-game monster you want to setup with your Adventurer Engine: Wandering Gryphon Rider.
Gryphon Rider is a Level 7 WIND Winged Beast with 2000 ATK and 2800 DEF. So decent DEF on the Level 7, WIND is kind of meh, but Winged Beast is nice. First effect triggers during the Main Phase as a Quick Effect, just as long as either you control no monsters or control an Adventurer Token, letting you Special Summon this from hand. So a quick body on board is always good, easier than Water Enchantress since you don’t have to have the Token, a Quick Effect to deploy on the opponent’s turn, and a Level 7 to go with the later Illegal Knight with the same summoning condition to make a fast Rank 7, which is popular in the OCG when the engine was playable alongside Mecha Phantom Beast Dracossack to get 2 Tokens for more Link plays. You might also be likely to keep this on board, however, due to its Quick Effect while you control the Adventurer Token to negate any card or effect and destroy it by shuffling this back in the Deck. So now we see why this engine is so good. It’s so quick and consistent in getting this on board, which helps you make sure your plays go through by negating any hand-trap or whatever without taking your Normal Summon. You did likely give up the effects of monsters on the field you Normal Summon, but strategies like Phantom Knights and Prank-Kids don’t really care for this, and many other strategies like the popular 60-card pile with several engines doing well thanks to this engine of cards. Each effect is a hard once per turn, which thankfully it is otherwise that’s 3 omni-negates without a Normal Summon. This is probably another card you run 1-of in the engine, or maybe 2 if you are doing the Dracossack stuff once we get Illegal Knight, as the card does put itself back into the Deck when you negate so you can at least search it back out with Fateful Adventure to repeat the process.
Advanced Rating: 4/5
Art: 4/5 Would be cool if we got to fly on this thing for our Adventure.
Alex
Searcy
Wandering Gryphon Rider concludes the work day part of our week. WGR is a Wind/Winged-Beast Monster (which is about the best pairing you can get with them) and that does give you some unique support on both sides. Level 7, 2000/2800 atk/def I really wish was flipped cause 2000 atk isn’t going to cut it on a Level 7 boss Monster. A Quick Effect lets you Special Summon from the Hand as long as you control no Monsters (though Adventure Token is allowed in that) so you can drop it to your Field in Defense at least. A second Quick Effect lets you Shuffle this back into your Deck when a Card or Effect is activated, and (if successful) negate the activation (and, again, if successful) destroy said card. Which actually is quite superb. As long as you can manage your dropping this as always a Special Summon and cycle through your Deck likely your 2-3 copies, that does make his stats not so bad. Keeping him on the Field actually seems to be rather irrelevant to most of the things going in this Deck, but it being entirely dependent on when you have it/Draw it (despite the available aid) is a bit troubling to me.
Rating: 3.25/5
Art: 5/5 This is really fun. Who doesn’t want a Gryphon? (Alt art response: Take flight!)
Mighty
Vee
The elephant– or, perhaps, the gryphon in the room, Wandering Gryphon Rider is a level 7 WIND winged beast, and is the ultimate end result of the Adventurer engine. Being a WIND winged beast opens up synergy with decks like Simorgh or Harpies, though the current meta doesn’t really see Gryphon Rider being used that way. It has a middling 2000 attack for a level 7 monster, though having a very decent 2800 defense makes up for it.
Both of Gryphon Rider’s effects are hard once per turn (you want 3 omni negates?!). Like Water Enchantress of the Sanctuary, you can special summon Gryphon Rider for free if you control an Adventurer Token, though you can also special summon it if you have no monsters, making it a level 7 body if you need that for some reason. Curiously, this effect is also a quick effect, so you can special summon it on your opponent’s turn if you feel like you need to dodge something. Gryphon Rider’s other effect can only be activated if you control an Adventurer Token (which is all but guaranteed if you accessed it with the Adventurer Engine), allowing you to shuffle it into the deck to negate a card activation and destroy that card. A one-for-one quick negation with destruction sounds crazy enough, but when you consider Fateful Adventure, you can simply keep searching Gryphon Rider by discarding a card, making it about as omnipresent as Destiny HERO – Destroyer Phoenix Enforcer. Overall an incredibly powerful and generic monster serving as the de facto boss of the Adventurer archetype and beyond; we shall see if TCG goes down the route of OCG by hitting Enchantress, or if it goes for the jugular by banning this guy.
Advanced: 4.25/5
Art: 3.75/5 When this card was first revealed I thought it was a new Fur Hire monster
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