Article # 43 - The Character Cards

Alright, well, for today’s article, I’ll be reviewing 3 cards that I’ve received many requests for to be reviewed. These cards are the three Character Cards, or cards that depict some of the main characters from the show on them. All 3 of these cards were Japanese Promo cards, so there is no telling when they might be released in English. We begin with looks at Yu-Jyo, otherwise known as Friendship, and (Keesoku) Unity.

Yu-Jyo (a.k.a. Friendship)

Normal Magic

Effect: Offer your opponent a handshake. If they accept, each player’s LP are halved. If you have a {Unity} in Hand, and you show it to your opponent, they must accept the handshake offer.

*Depicts Yugi and Joey shaking hands*

Unity

Instant Magic Card

Effect: Select one of your own Monsters on the Field. Until the End Phase of the activated turn, the chosen Monster’s DEF strength becomes the total of the base DEF strengths of all of your face-up Monsters on the Field combined.

*Depicts Yugi, Ryugi, Tristan, Teá, and Joey in a group*

Now these 2 cards are certainly on the interesting and original side.. Definitely no other cards that do anything like what these cards do, and probably never will be. Anyways, let’s first take a look at Yu-Jyo.

What you do with this card is simply activate it and offer your opponent a handshake. That offer is somewhat of an activation requirement, and then if your opponent accepts, both players LP are halved. Note that your opponent does not have to accept your handshake offer, but if you have a Unity in Hand and can show it to them to prove it, then they must accept your handshake no matter what.

Halving each players’ LP can be a pretty effective way to aide in defeating your opponent. It may not seem that great in that it doesn’t put either player in a direct advantage as to the LP difference, but this is a Destruction Ring-like Effect without destroying a Monster. Imagine using it at the beginning of the Duel and your opponent accepting the handshake. That’s an immediate 4000 LP loss for each player. Note, though, that halving each players LP does not count as doing “damage” to either player. So things like Barrel Behind the Door cannot be used with/against this card.

Still, though, halving each players’ LP is nothing to laugh at, and doing so could make it a lot easier for you to come away with a victory if your opponent doesn’t think you have some sort of strategy to go along with using Yu-Jyo. Because fact is, during any Duel, Yu-Jyo would be the card your opponent would probably be least-expecting you to use. So it could be nice to catch your opponent off-guard with this, and without thinking, even if it would put you in an immediate game-winning situation, your opponent could be likely to accept your handshake if they‘re not forced to due to you having a Unity in Hand. Another thing that could lure your opponent into accepting the handshake would be if your LP is lower than theirs. For example, there could be a clear Field with the LP count at 3800 to 2000, opponent in the lead, with you having a Yu-Jyo and a 1900 attacker in Hand. Activate Yu-Jyo, and when they accept the handshake, it’ll be 1900 to 1000. Bring out that 1900 Attacker of yours, and game over, you win. Just a little example situation there, but it could work out similarly in various other situations. And little do they know that if you activate Yu-Jyo when your LP is lower than your opponent’s, they’ll be losing more LP than you’ll be.

Yu-Jyo isn’t a great card, and it’s not even that good, but it can be a fun card to use, and in some situations, it could be nice to have in your Deck and make it a lot easier for you to come away with a win, but the same could be said for your opponent if you were to use this card, so it’s a card to be careful with if you choose to use it for any reason.

I’d give Yu-Jyo an overall rating of 6.3/10.

Unity’s certainly an interesting card, as well. Being an Instant Magic card, it is of course chainable to opponent’s cards. It can be great in Defensive Decks, and especially so if you’re using a certain card that combos well with Unity as I’ll be explaining soon here.

Its Effect is pretty simple. Select one of your Monsters and that Monster’s DEF strength becomes the total of all of your Monsters’ DEF strengths combined until the end of the activated turn. The other Monsters’ DEF strengths don’t become 0, they’re simply used to figure out what your chosen Monster’s DEF strength will become. Imagine having a Big Shield Guarder, Battle Footballer and Metal Reflect Slime on the Field. You could simply choose your Big Shield Guarder, and its DEF strength will be raised all the way up from 2600 to a devastating 7700. (2600 + 2100 + 3000) Just remember that it only accounts for the face-up Monsters on your side of the Field.

Now, use multiples of this card in a Defensive Deck with multiple Shield and Swords, and your opponent will be in for some massive damage taking. Just imagine my example above with a Shield and Swords in the mix. You’ll have a 7700-ATK Level 4 Attacker, as well as a 2100-ATK Battle Footballer on the Field to do some attacking for what would likely be a win. Even having something as simple as like 2 Giant Soldiers of Stone on the Field could be devastating to the opponent. Get those 2 out, play Unity to raise one’s DEF to 4000, use Shield and Sword to have a 4000-attacker and a 2000-attacker in two Level 3 Monsters. Unity could be made to be pretty powerful in the right Decks.

Unity, too, is a pretty fun card to use, and it’s a great card to use in Defensive Decks, as I pointed out earlier. It’s probably the most useful of these 3 cards in today’s article, as well, not to mention what can be made to be the most powerful. I’d give Unity an overall rating of 6.8/10, and 8.5/10 for Defensive Decks.

For the third and final card of today’s article, we take a look at Pharaoh’s Judgment.

Pharaoh’s Judgment

Normal Trap

Effect: Pay half your LP to select and activate one of the following Effects.

If you have a {Yu-Jyo} in your Graveyard, your opponent can’t Set, Normal, Special, or Reverse Summon any Monsters until the end of the turn.

If you have a {Unity} in your Graveyard, then until the end of the activated turn, negate the Effects of your opponent’s Magic and Trap cards on the Field, and they cannot activate or set any Magic or Trap cards.

*Thanks to Edo for that translation*

*This card depicts the Pharaoh Yugi*

Now this card is certainly.. Well.. Pretty weird, to say the least. It has a choice of Effects, but to use either one of them, it’s going to come at quite a hefty cost of half of your own LP. Let’s take a look at what each of these Effects can do.

If you have a Yu-Jyo in your Graveyard, you can prevent your opponent from Summoning or Setting any Monsters in any way for the activated turn. Now this could prove to be useful in some situations, but most of the time activating this Effect would be pointless and unnecessary. Why? Well, because for one, you can’t be sure your opponent was even going to Set or Summon any Monsters during that turn anyway. They may not have been able to, may not have wanted to, etc. Not only that, but having to assume your opponent was going to affect you with some type of Monster Summoning during that turn, but to have to pay half of your LP to prevent them from doing so simply isn’t worth it.

The other Effect can be activated when you have a Unity in your Graveyard. This Effect can certainly be made out to be a lot better than the first with the cost that’s required to use it, but still, it’s not too great either. This Effect will prevent your opponent from setting or activating any Magic or Trap Cards, and will negate the Effect of any M/T cards your opponent may have out on the Field for the activated turn. That could certainly be useful to you in various situations, but at the cost of half of your LP, it’s probably not something you’ll want to be able to do too often.

Pharaoh’s Judgment is not really a card I would recommend using in any Deck whatsoever. Its Effects can be useful, but at the cost of half your LP, neither of them are really too worth it at all. They’re both Effects you’ll want to activate at the beginning of your opponent’s turn, but rarely will they help you out as much as you’d like them to. This is the least-effective card of this bunch, and it’s situational in that it requires you to have certain cards in the Graveyard, and its Effects, at the cost of half your LP, really aren’t worth all of the trouble you’d have to go through. I give Pharaoh’s Judgment an overall rating of 2/10.

The following is a Defensive Deck example using the 3 cards of this article. It could be pretty hard to utilize, but very fun to use nonetheless, and it can be very effective once you can figure out how to work with it to your own liking. If you do not know what some of these cards are, and would like to know, you can e-mail me questioning them, and I will let you in on them.

Monsters: 16

1x Android Psycho Shocker

1x Blowback Dragon

3x Big Shield Guarder

2x Gear Golem

2x Aztec Statue

2x Battle Footballer

2x Giant Rat

1x Black Forest Witch

1x Critter

1x Killer Snake

Magic Cards: 17

3x Cyclone

3x Unity

3x Shield and Sword

1x Yu-Jyo

1x Pot of Greed

1x Angel’s Gift

1x Raise Dead

1x Premature Burial

1x Dark Hole

1x Heavy Storm

1x Snatch Steal

Trap Cards: 7

2x Metal Reflect Slime

1x Pharaoh’s Judgment

1x Sixth Sense

1x Call of the Haunted

1x Mirror Force

1x Waboku

Total: 40

I’ll be needing your guys’ help on deciding which cards to review next, so for the first time since my 34th article, here’s another poll for you all to vote on.

What Next? You Decide. Retrained Monsters Kaiba Cards Demons/Fiends [Current Results]

And that’ll do it for Article # 43 - The Character Cards. You can e-mail me with any questions and/or comments at dm7fgd32@hotmail.com

Until next time..

~DM7~