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GeneralZorpa on Yugioh
I Heart Jank
February 11, 2009

Junk+Junk=Jank
 
There is no secret that I love random cards. Really I do. Yu-Gi-Oh! has always been about mixing and concocting things in odd ways, something that Magic cannot do due to the costs on every single card that force you to be somewhat themed. It has been great when you take all of the best cards that you can imagine and throw them into a deck and you have fun. Well, I guess that is what Synchro DAD is (it stopped being Tele-DAD when we dropped the Teleports). You took the best cards in the game and made a deck around them.
 
Well, as I currently have no GF, easy classes and am on taper for swimming (I'm usually a busy guy) I have been looking through my common/rare boxes looking for some hidden gems. Penalty Game! was one, but that card just got destroyed on testing. I am talking about slightly more "reliable" monsters, spells and traps that can actually work quite well together.
 
Sasuke Samurai #4, Dark Core, Compulsory Evacuation Device, Bottomless Trap Hole and Mirror Wall actually caught my eye. All of these cards have at some time been considered for competitive play, but either fell short or where considered inferior to other cards that were already released. Well, I actually put them all in a deck together, and it did pretty well. By no means a top tier deck, but one that made my Lightsworn deck stumble a little. 
 
Chidori
 
He is nowhere near as popular as Naruto's friend, but Sasuke Samurai #4 is in a league all of his own. 1200 ATK and 1200 DEf on a WIND Warrior is actually pretty good. 1200 is not ideal, but he can kill Lumina and a bunch of defense position monsters fairly easily. Like with most cards in this game, it is all about the effect. Whenever he battles, you flip a coin and call it. If you call it right, the monster battling with the Samurai dies before damage calculation even takes place.
 
WOW!!!!!!! You have instant destruction on a searchable Warrior that can actually do some damage to your opponent's lifepoints? Where has this guy been all my life! Well, the answer is almost certainly his Attribute. The top decks right now either use LIGHT or DARK monsters, so WIND is not actually going to make the cut most of the time. The second answer is that his effect is not a sure thing. But people play Snipe Hunter and he can actually lose you far more cards than Sasuke ever could.
 
Well, most of the problem with Sasuke is that people never really played him right. People just plunked him down on the field and hoped that he did his thing with their fingers crossed. Relying on luck is a poor way to win the game. That is why you back up your Samurai with tons of defensive cards. Compulsory Evacuation Device, Phoenix Wing Wind Blast and Bottomless Trap Hole are especially effective. These will deal with the "weak" monsters that your opponent will likely send out to attack your Samurai. Then your opponent will likely have to take a gamble and attack with a Synchro or a Boss monster, all of which get very costly to attack with when Sasuke does his thing.
 
The second important thing to note about Sasuke is his psychological impact. Most players would note his ability and try to get rid of him as quickly as possible with removal. As removal tends to be monster based right now, that is actually very easy to counter. You kill the Dark Armed Dragon and you kill their removal. But, the thing is that Sasuke forces your opponent to respond with something big, meaning that you can save up your own Boss monsters for use when your opponent has overextended in an effort to curb all of the momentum and advantage that Sasuke can create.
 
Did I mention that he gets around Stardust Dragon? I did didn't I? No? Well he does. There is not for sure going to be a destruction, so Stardust cannot negate it, similar to Snipe Hunter. This is important as Stardust is the second most commonly played Synchro. Mot to mention that Sasuke is glorious in battle against Colossal Fighter, the most commonly played Synchro. It is rare to find a card that can be used against both of the Big Synchros and can still deal some damage to other cards as well. The only other card that I can think of is D.D. Warrior lady, and she does not even live to tell the tale of the time she killed a Synchro. If Sasuke does not get around Stardust, please let me know, the rulings site is not operational atm, so I have no way to check it.
 
So your best move with this guy is to plop him on the field with a Compulsory, Solemn and maybe a Bottomless set to take advantage of your opponent trying to get rid of him. He is one hard little sucker to kill. Phoenix Wing Wind Blast can be an easy answer, but it is very costly, and your opponent will just summon him again next turn. Crush Card Virus does not kill him, so that leaves Dark Armed Dragon, Mirror Force and Torrential Tribute. DAD is easily killed by Anti-Meta tech like Thunderking Rai-Oh and Royal Oppression (all of which work very well with Sasuke BTW) so he is more of a mild concern. The other two you can just play around or kill with spell and trap removal. Outside of those cards, the Synchro DAD deck has no really good answers to Sasuke.
 
So like I said, play this guy with backup, and he can do wondrous things to your opponent's monsters. Vote for Sasuke Samurai #4 and all of your wildest dreams will come true!
 
 Get To the Core of The Matter!
 
The biggest problem with Dark Core is it's status as a Spell card. if it was a trap, Phoenix Wing Wind Blast would be out of a job. The ability to just remove from play a face-up monster is what made Caius so good. The discard is actually not really a cost anymore, as sending cards to the graveyard is an integral part of pretty much all of the top decks at this point. The major thing that this card does is that it can accelerate your own graveyard agenda while you deny your opponent a monster in the graveyard.
 
Stardust Dragon is the bane of many decks, especially Gladiator Beasts. They generally have no way around it besides Book of Moon, Gladiator Beast War Chariot or just outright Solemning it. Dark Core gets around that problem. It can get you that key Bestiari or Laquari in the graveyard for use with Darius, or any other Gladiator Beast card to get back with Equeste. Add that to the fact that you are removing from play the biggest single threat to the entire deck, and that sets this card up to work great in Gladiator Beasts instead of Smashing Ground or Hammer Shot.
 
It can also remove from play obstacle monsters, like Colossal Fighter, Spirit Reaper or any of the Boss monsters. There is not much to say about this card, except that a one of in a deck could actually prove very useful in a mirror match for Tele-DAD. You remove their Synchros while discarding your own Malicious or Plaguespreader to further your strategy. Sounds good to me.
 
GTFO!
 
Compulsory is basically removal at no cost. Granted it is temporary removal, but that is often all you need to be able to swarm for game. Most recently this card has been used for tech against Synchro decks, as then the card actually begins to have som card advantage attached to it. Tributes and equipped monsters also help you to balance out the cost of this card.
 
Compulsory is often compared to Phoenix Wing Wind Blast, but it really shouldn't. This card is for spot removal. It gets rid of the one card in your way from achieving victory, and it does this very well. Stardust Dragon and Colossal Fighter are generally the cards that get Compulsoried, but Celestia, Lightsworn Angel, Monarchs and Dark Armed Dragon are all valid targets, getting their big monsters out of the way so that you can blast them with your own. As it is free to use, you are essentially setting back your opponent's strategy by as much as a turn and can even be more effective than Threatening Roar at protecting yourself from an Alpha Strike.
 
What this card does better than any card except for perhaps Forced Back is that it gets rid of your opponent's Normal Summon. Zombie Master is the best one to hit with this card, as your opponent loses the card for the effect of Zombie Master as well as losing field position from their Normal Summon. Using a combo of Bottomless Trap Hole and attack negation, you can really disrupt your opponent's plans with this rather unassuming little card.
 
The best part of this card is that it is chainable, as it can save one of your own monsters as well. This is especially important when Judgment Dragon is unleashed, as if you bounce the Dragon, your opponent will just summon it again. You bounce one of the cards that they were trying to kill, and you have a fighting chance to make a comeback. Against Torrential Tribute it is also good, turning what looks like a +1 play for your opponent into an even trade, especially when they are triggering their own Torrential.
 
It is true that it does not disrupt drawing, nor can it affect spell or trap cards, but it should not be used in place of PWWB, it should be used in CONJUNCTION with it. Using these cards, you have access to reliable monster removal without really investing too much in defense. Most people use PWWB in exactly the same way as CED anyway, so using them both leaves you free to use one or the other when it is actually appropriate to use them rather than using them wrongly.
 
I have to say that this card is at least side deck worthy, or maybe even main deck worthy in decks that want to control the field like Gladiator Beasts or Gadgets. This card really starts getting fun when you combo it with hand control cards though. D.D. Designator and Mind Crush each give you good knowledge of an enemy's hand, but you need to know what is in their hand in order for you to play them. CED makes it so that you know at least one card in their hand, so you can activate the hand control cards, reduce their options/kill the card you bounced as well as breaking wide open your opponent's strategy so that you can counter it.
 
There are really even more combos with this card, but there is not enough time here to list all of them. Try it out, and you may actually find yourself playing it over PWWB just because it is so much more combolicious.
 
 It keeps on Going and Going and Going......
 
BTH is one card that used to be run in pairs in pretty much every deck. Monarchs, Gladiators and the dreaded DAD Return decks all used many monsters with over 1500 ATK, so it was a good choice for you to use for removal of their monsters. It fell by the wayside due to the fact that Krebons and Malicious are less than the threshold for BTH to work. Thus, your oppnent could just get Stardust and you are out of luck.
 
However, now you can combo it with other removal that will get rid of that pesky dragon and Bottomless can focus on the other cards that will give you grief. Zombie Master, Lyla, Garoth and Dark Grepher are all great choices for Bottomless, as they are key Normal Summons that can really end up with you controlling the game on your next turn if you can get them to be Summoned. Colossal Fighter also hates this card, as it leaves him removed so that Monster Reborn cannot get him back.
 
What is even better is that in rare cases, it can kill MULTIPLE monsters. This was most recently seen with Dark World monsters, where Card Destruction, Morphing Jar ot Graceful Charity would have you Special Summon several Dark World monsters. Bottomless would take them all out, so that you don't have to pick and choose. As far as I know, because of this it doesn't target? As I said before, the site is down so I cannot carry around every ruling on every card in the game with me. What am I? A Judge? But this is is significant because you can hit Thought Ruler Archfiend with it.
 
Bottomless is also great against the Boss monsters. Your opponent will lose DAD and JD instead of just bouncing it or spinning it for another go round next turn. Gyzarus thinks this card is the pits, as it removes their precious Bestiari that was targeting what you thought was just a harmless Phoenix Wing Wind Blast as well as removing Gyzarus itself, where Darius, Monster Reborn and Equeste have no say in the matter.
 
It will also pretty much kill any basal monster your opponent will be using. Beaters as well as anti-meta cards like King Tiger Wanghu and Thunderking Rai-Oh all fall because their strength becomes their biggest weakness against this card. Removing your opponent's Lightsworn monsters is also a great strategy, as they will often target this card with Lyla, and you just activate it and deny them a monster in the graveyard for Lumina and JUdgment Dragon as kind of a bonus.
 
Basically, it is a good, solid card that could actually be used in a variety of decks to keep the competition away as well as providing good, all around solid destruction in trap form.
 
I Just Hit the Wall Man!
 
Mirror Wall is better than Shrink. There I said it. Happy now? It affects the whole of your opponent's field as well as lasting until the end of turn, effectively comboing the effects of both Threatening Roar and Shrink into a rather effective package. There is the little bit about the 2000 lp cost to keep it around, but you can just not pay and it will go the way of Shrink anyway. There were games where this card could simply keep my opponent locked down enough that I kept it around and won the game because my opponent was suddenly about as aggressive as a mouse.
 
It had made the cut in Gladiators because of it's reliance on battle, and it is actually kind of a super powered Waboku that you can't chain or use on your own turn. In fact that is the biggest downside to the card, as you cannot use teh effect to go aggro. So it is best springed as, well, a trap. Masquerading it as a Waboku or Gladiator Beast War Chariot is a good ploy, as your opponent would not expect such a violent reaction to their attack. It will also make an opponent wonder what the hell else is in your deck. When I busted out my Gladiator Beast deck for the first time, I was nearly unstoppable because my opponents had no idea what to do about Mirror Wall, Dimensional Fissure or Burden of the Mighty.
 
Mirror Wall is a very slective card, usefull in few situations, but those situations come up often enough that at least a copy of this card is worth teching in an aggro deck that can use some solid aggressive defense. Oh, and like Bottomless Trap Hole, Mirror Wall does not target, so Thought Ruler Archfiend has no bearing here and is a nice surprise if they are bringing him out to counter Phoenix Wing Wind Blast or Compulsory Evacuation device.
 
Well, there is not really anything more to say about this guy, except that it is great offensive defense and it can really work well if you can spring it on an unknowing opponent.
 
As always, you can reach me at raptor1k@hotmail.com for anything YGO related, although I am not the best resuorce on rulings, I would ask a judge for that.
 
Thanx for reading!
GZ