Wandering Gryphon Rider – #GRCR-EN028
Date Reviewed: December 21, 2022
Rating: 3.92
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is bad. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
King of
Lullaby
Hello Pojo Fans,
Wandering Gryphon Rider is our #8 choice for the year and one I completely glossed over because I valued the Continuous Spell for Adventurer Token more than any of the monsters.
Strong DEF Level 7 WIND, Gryphon Rider depends on the Adventurer Token to Special Summon itself from the hand. You also could Special Summon it if you control no monsters, making it a great monster to drop on your first turn. 2000ATK won’t win too many battles, but it isn’t useless. If you have that Adventurer Token on the field, Gryphon Rider becomes a negater that cycles itself back into the Deck to negate and destroy any card effect.
Gryphon Rider returning itself back to the Deck to negate and destroy a card/effect happens all at once, making it terrific at avoiding other negation cards. Its Quick-Effect also is available in the Damage Step, something that isn’t often available to monsters unless directly involving the manipulation of ATK/DEF. With two cards able to produce Adventurer Tokens you have ways to keep them reliably on the field for this effect to happen, and Fateful Adventurer will search this out again and again.
You likely aren’t going to drop this in as an extender into different decks because there are better ones. In the Adventurer archetype, Gryphon Rider is a great negation and recycles itself to be searched again and again.
Advanced-3.5/5
Art-3/5
Until Next Time
KingofLullaby
Crunch$G
Coming in at number 8 is a card that was pretty popular in the first half of the year with the whole Adventurer package, from The Grand Creators, we have Wandering Gryphon Rider.
Gryphon Rider is a Level 7 WIND Winged Beast with 2000 ATK and 2800 DEF. Alright stats, middling Attribute to have, solid Type. First effect is a Quick Effect in the Main Phase to Special Summon this from the hand if you control no monsters or you control an Adventurer Token, so an easy and free Level 7 body to get on board. The second effect was the selling point to the whole Adventurer package, being Quick Effect negation and destruction for any card or effect if you control an Adventurer Token by shuffling this into the Deck, which is why the engine was ever played and why this is now banned in the OCG in order to release the other Adventurer cards from their list. Gryphon Rider is the defining factor of the Adventurer cards to help many different strategies get bodies on board and negation so your plays can go through or you can stop the opponent’s if your cards do resolve. Hard once per turn, but that’s fine. If we ever see hits to the Adventurer Token package in the TCG, assuming it takes off over here again, this is likely getting the axe and Konami calls it a day there.
Advanced Rating: 4/5
Art: 4/5 The OCG might get to ride with you again one day, we never know.
My #8: Gigantic Spright
Mighty
Vee
Clocking in at number 8 is the infamous Wandering Gryphon Rider, the actual boss of the Adventurer series. Another card we’ve covered before, Wandering Gryphon Rider is a level 7 WIND Winged Beast, giving it mild synergy with Simorgh and Harpie decks if you really wanted to play it. With an unimpressive 2000 attack but solid 2800 defense, you’ll usually be summoning it in defense.
No point in going over all the effects again; the main meat of this monster is its omni negate, shuffling itself back into the deck to negate and destroy any effect activation. Gryphon Rider is the primary end goal of the Adventurer Engine, running three copies of Rite of Aramesir and Water Enchantress of the Sanctuary for reliable access to an omni negate as long as your deck doesn’t need its Normal Summon effect. Phantom Knights and Prank-Kids in particular used this engine well, but recently, Spright and Scareclaw have seen success with it as well. While the engine is untouched in the TCG, the OCG put heavy hits on the engine after Adventurer Phantom Knights terrorized their format shortly after the release of Grand Creators. Relatively recently, Wandering Gryphon Rider itself was banned in the OCG, with the other engine pieces slowly coming back to three copies as a result. While not currently in the spotlight, the Adventurer engine remains extremely powerful, and only time will tell if Konami TCG will end up bonking Gryphon Rider or keeping it around.
Advanced: 4.25/5
Art: 3.75/5 When this card was first revealed I thought it was a new Fur Hire monster.
Alex
Searcy
I’ll point out again I didn’t submit a list, but if I had, I wouldn’t have included this card. The Mecha Phantom beasts did the Token dynamic better, in my opinion (E.G. Galaxy Tomahawk and Dracossack). The Adventure Token engine is a weird one, but a fun and effective enough one, too. Wandering Gryphon Rider is a Level 7, Wind/Winged-Beast, with an undesirable 2000 atk but makes up for it with a good 2800 def. Special Summon via the Hand, as a Quick Effect, no less, if you control no Monsters or only an Adventure Token is good, let’s not deny that. This can only be done during the Main Phase, which seems a bit unnecessary, but I suppose it keeps the card from being too broken. A second Quick Effect lets you Shuffle this card back into your Deck when a Card or Effect is activated, and if you do, you negate the Card/Effect, and IF you do that, you destroy said card. It does the right things, but IMO, it does it the wrong way. Too much if here, cycling a high Level back to the Deck just for that Effect, even one to drop so easily, just doesn’t do it for me. I’m not at all trying to say it’s a bad card (clearly it’s not) just I’m not a fan of this particular engine.
Rating: 3.5/5
Art: Meh…3.75/5 I like the nature and scene here more than the Monster(s?). It’s a little busy and just weird.
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