Hey guys, I hope you are having a happy valentine’s day. (Or single’s awareness day as the case may be) Today we are looking at: Number 40: Gimmick Puppet of Strings

“2 Level 8 DARK monsters
cannot be destroyed by battle except with "Number" monsters. Once per turn: You can detach 1 Xyz Material from this card; place 1 String Counter on all other face-up monsters on the field. During the End Phase of your opponent's next turn: Destroy all monsters on the field that have a String Counter, then inflict damage to the destroyed monsters ‘controllers equal to the original ATK of their destroyed monsters.”

This is going to be another succinct review. (Sometimes less really is more, especially when you have surprise research papers. Yay College!)

This card is good, but it came into a format that is moving too fast for it to do much good yet. With Mermail and Fire Fist running rampant this guy has a very slim chance of actually resolving his effect. Barring the aforementioned decks, there is also a LOT of monster removal running around. Now this is not to say it is a bad card... It’s just not the time for him to make a major impact in the game. It will probably be at least a few ban lists before we see enough balance to use him. But by then, who knows what will be tearing up the Meta. If you run into him, it will probably be in Darkworld, Hieratic, or a Photon Caesar Deck. (Please, someone make a Photon Caesar deck!)

Run him if you have room and run at least a couple of level 8’s, but the world isn’t going to end if you can’t.

 Advanced: 3/5 (If you can get his full effect off)
Traditional: 1/5 (WAY too much destruction in this format.)

Number 40: Gimmick Puppet of Strings
Attribute: Dark
Types: Machine/Xyz/Effect
Rank 8

2 Level 8 monsters
Once per turn: You can detach 1 Xyz Material from this card; place 1 String Counter on each face-up monster on the field, except this card. If you do, during your opponent's next End Phase: Destroy the monsters with String Counters, and if you do, inflict 500 damage to your opponent for each monster destroyed.
ATK/3000 DEF/2000

This monster is pretty good. It has good stats and is both a machine and dark monster. All those things benefit this card seeing that machines and dark monsters have a lot of support. The effect of this card may not seem amazing because you do have to wait a turn to clear your opponent’s monsters off the field. If your opponent destroys this monster before it gets to resolve its second effect then all of the monsters with string counters don’t get destroyed. That seems to be the only down-side to this card.

The best parts about this card are that you can cause mass destruction with ease and that this card is relatively easy to summon in certain decks. Two decks that I immediately thought of when I looked at this card are Dark Worlds and Malefics. Both of these decks can get out level 8 monsters pretty easily. Malefics can overlay their Ancient Gear Dragons or Malefic Stardust Dragon to summon this. Dark worlds can also make this monster easily using two Graphas. Another deck that can use this card eventually is the gimmick puppet archetype. This new archetype is OCG for now but it has some potential and can definitely use Number 40 to its advantage. Sometimes Number 40 might be better to use over the Hieratic Dragon Sun Overlord of the Heliopolis, the other good rank 8 Xyz monster.

So in conclusion this card is pretty great. It isn’t amazing but it is a good option for decks that can summon it. It definitely deserves its spot next to Heliopolis as a staple rank 8 Xyz monster.

Advanced:3.75/5
-It’s a good card but the real downside is that it takes a turn for its effect to really kick in. It has nice stats and is pretty easy to summon in some decks but it’s just not as good as Heliopolis.

Traditional:2.5/5
-This card can be good here because there are a lot of good level 8 monsters in this format. Number 40 card is still probably too slow to play in the traditional format.

Artwork: 3.5/5
-This card’s artwork kind of looks cool. I personally think it could have looked much better if the monster’s body was more symmetrical.

Today's Card of the Day is Number 40: Gimmick Puppet of Strings, the most recent JUMP promo to be released.

This card happens to be the 2nd 2-material Rank 8 that is now TCG-legal which the 1st is the Hieratic Sun Dragon Overlord of Heliopolis.

This card, like the Sun Dragon Overlord, has some matching qualities, one of them is they both has a massive 3000 ATK. They also have an effect that can get rid of cards on the field despite both cards do so in different manners.

The Sun Dragon Overlord does this by tributing cards from your hand to destroy cards on the field up to the number of discarded cards. Number 40 lets you keep hand advantage by getting rid of them in a slower manner. However, you do get burn damage as well. For those who don't know of the effect, look no further.

"Once per turn: You can detach 1 Xyz Material from this card; place 1 String Counter on each face-up monster on the field, except this card. If you do, during your opponent's next End Phase: Destroy the monsters with String Counters, and if you do, inflict 500 damage to your opponent for each monster destroyed."

Pretty much it is a wide-spread ticking clock on everything except itself. This is one way to deal with walls like Spirit Reaper and Marshmallon. This is also another way to win a game without having to attack.

Unfortunately, I feel that this card is too slow to work in this environment. The biggest problem here is that your opponent can still do something with the monsters before they self-destruct, like Xyz Summoning, Tribute Summon, Synchro Summon, etc etc. Even flipping them face-down will save them. Secondly, while this is a minor issue, this does affect your monsters so they will go along with the rest.

With that said and the fact that Rank 8 Xyz Summons is almost unheard of, I doubt this card will see a lot of play since it is too slow to work in this speedy format.

Lastly, it is a Machine so it is Cyber Dragon bait. That is not a good thing and it doesn't help its playability.

It's a fun card, no doubt. I just don't see it being used competitively. Good stuff if you are playing casual though.

Advanced Format: 2/5 (It's decent. Just outclassed by the Sun Dragon Overlord in almost every way.)
Traditional Format: 1/5 (Not worth it.)