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From: SeanoOfTheDead@aol.com
Date: Thu, 28 Apr 2005 23:08:26 EDT

VERSUS - Silent Swordsman vs Horus the Black Flare Dragon - Sean

Hey all, Sean of the Dead here, with the first installation of my line of submissions, were I plan to take two similarly themed/used cards or groups of cards (in today's case) and pit them against each other. Today's bloody battle royale of twisted, burning card board is Horus the Black Flame Dragon versus Silent Swordsman. These two lines of level monsters are strikingly similar, yet strikingly not similar. Horus is also, almost universally regarded as being superior. Hopefully by the end of this article you'll either understand why or be shown otherwise. For the first round we have...

Silent Swordsman Lv.3 versus Horus the Black Flame Dragon Lv.4

STATS:
Silent is clearly deficient here. 1000 ATK ain't smacking much and 1000 DEF ain't keeping him from being smacked. However, these stats are probably the best thing going for Lv.3 because they make him highly searchable. Silent also happens to have the extraordinary blessing of being a light/warrior. And for some reason no one plays him. This means he can be searched by Sangan, Shining Angel and Reinforcement of the Army, all highly playable cards on their own, and makes him an ever desirable dish of chaos food.
Horus on the other hand looks better at first glance, but proves himself otherwise. He does have an almost decent ATK of 1600, meaning he could probably hold his own pretty well. However, this also makes Horus completely unsearchable. No Sangan, no UFO Turtle, no Masked Dragon, nuttin'. This is a very big setback for a bottom level LV. monster. Fire and even dragon (though fairly
useful) are both vastly inferior to light and warrior.

EFFECT:
Silent hardly has anything like a game breaking effect. Immunity from targeted spells doesn't mean a whole lot when you can be trounced by anything bigger than a Magician of Faith. His other effect is pretty nice. All Lv.3 has to do is be around during your standby phase and he automatically gets bumped up to Lv.5. This is pretty easy to accomplish. Waboku, Threatening Roar, Book of Moon, Interdimensional Matter Transporter all make this a fairly reasonable task, as does reviving him via Call of the Haunted at you opponent's end phase.
Probably the easiest level up method for the level monsters.
Horus again falls short. Where Silent is protected from all targeting spells, Horus is safe only from those which take away control of him, something I don't see as being a huge threat to your little metal birdie. Also lame is his level up method. In exchange for par ATK he's expected to use it to kill something if you want to level him up. Also, you get the higher level Horus at your end phase leaving him vulnerable all next turn (though no too much). Still, this is one of the less desirable level up methods.

ROUND 1- Silent Swordsman- though neither of these do a lot, Silent does what he does better than Horus here... but next round we have...

Silent Swordsman Lv.5 versus Horus the Black Flame Dragon Lv.6

STATS:
Silent happens to be level 5. He's now light, warrior and level 5, all of which are wonderful. Although at this point warrior loses a lot of it's helpfulness (he's now too high in level to be "reinforced") level 5 is the ideal metamorphosis level as he can now become Balter if need be. He has an entirely passable 2300 ATK, enough to take down anything commonly played aside from Jinzo, Mobius, GAF and BLS and a mundane 1000 DEF.
Horus also has 2300 ATK but is unfortunately level 6, which doesn't do much at all for him, but isn't a huge deal. His DEF is also a bit higher, but Horus
6 isn't the kind of monster you want to have in defense mode very often (it's only 1600). Overall Silent takes a very slight lead so far thanks to his morphability.

EFFECT:
Silent is safe from any opposing spells. This means not only is he not destroyed by your opponent's spells, not only is he not snatch stolen or creature swapped, but he can also fight thru swords of revealing light. This also means he still vulnerable should he be resurrected via Premature Burial since he's still entirely vulnerable to your spells. But still, if he wasn't he'd lose morphability. And a Silent Swordsman 5 equipped with Fusion Sword Murasame Blade is pretty scary. This guy's level up requirement sucks big time. Much more unwieldy than Horus 4 in that he actually needs to attack directly, something your opponent will be extra sure not to allow.
Horus on the other hand is unaffected by ALL spells, which pretty much gets him everything Silent has plus he's safe from Premature Burial. I also believe this keeps him from being a legal tribute for Enemy Controller, not that you want to do that anyway. Plus he can't be morphed into anything good, so overall I'd say the two teenage level monsters are pretty equal. Horus also has the same level up requirements as his little brother, which is much better now that he's such a dominating force.

ROUND 2- Draw. These guys are really both excellent tribute monsters with pretty balancing pros and cons. I'd say Silent is slightly more useable just because he's chaos friendly, but that's not actual goodness, just how easy he'd be to splash into a cookie cutter deck. However, Horus is much easier to level up, and much more worthwhile...

Silent Swordsman Lv. 7 versus Horus the Black Flame Dragon Lv. 8

STATS:
And now Silent tail spins and explodes in flames. Silent's stats are decent, but kind o sub-par for a level 7 monster.
Horus has 3000 ATK and solid DEF. That's really all you need to know here.

EFFECT:
Horus stops any spell at will. No cost, no obligation, stop whatever you feel like whenever you feel like. Slapped onto BEWD stats this thing is...
pants-wetting.
Silent on the other hand stops ALL spells. This just sucks. Being forced to not use spells just utterly sucks, especially when you're still vulnerable to the ever present BLS (unlike Horus). This isn't just an effect you probably don't want to try to get, it' probably one you don't especially want to have at all and makes Silent very unwieldy in any set not meant especially for him.

ROUND 3- Horus. In a big way.

So you see, Silent may be easier to get big, but Horus is the one you actually WANT to get big. Still the middle level of both lines are very playable, and a Silent Swordsman deck revolving around getting Lv. 5 out would be pretty decent I think, but Horus is the one you'd actually want to go all the way with.

Next time we'll be comparing Dust Tornado to Nobleman of Extermination and I swear it won't be as long.

Send whatever to SeanoOfTheDead@aol.com, I love human interaction!