Hey everyone, it’s your boy sHecKii from Team Savage and the Card of the Day crew.  Anyone who’s had a chance to talk with me knows that I believe Delinquent Duo is the best card in the game.  I also believe Pot of Greed, Graceful Charity, Black Luster Soldier, Sacred Phoenix of Nephthys, Sinister Serpent, Breaker the Magical Warrior, DD Assailant, and Magician of Faith is ridiculous also.  The reason I am writing this article is to explain to y’all about the “format” we are in.  Have you noticed if you play Delinquent Duo/Pot of Greed/Graceful Charity dumping Sinister Serpent and/or a Tribute Monster, followed up by a Magician of Faith or Apprentice Magician and recur a Spell card from your Graveyard, you win?  The more I evaluate and study this format, I’m realizing that it’s almost as broken as the Traditional Format.  The matches are never ended with the same amounts of cards on one side of the field; one opponent has 3-4 more cards on the field/hand than the other player.  Are we playing Traditional format again?  Yes, and I’ll explain to you the new broken cards.  By the end of this article, I’d hopefully given you guys with a good background on this metagame and the brokenness or certain cards.  If you have time, read over the top 5 cards again.  It’s worth a second look.

            Without any review, these cards are probably self explanatory:  Black Luster Soldier – Envoy of the Beginning, Magician of Faith, Delinquent Duo, Breaker the Magical Warrior, and Sinister Serpent.  Here are some of the uncommon broken cards that probably needs review.

1)       Apprentice Magician

• Remember those days that people tried to abuse The Forceful Sentry, Confiscation, Pot of Greed, Painful Choice...any spell card really.  They ran 2 Apprentice Magician + 2 Magician of Faith (even with the risk of Change of Heart) to achieve complete control of the game?  Well since Change of Heart is banned (and I have no idea why) and they brought back Delinquent Duo and Graceful Charity, Apprentice Magician just got better.  Setting an Apprentice Magician first turn over Magician of Faith is also better because if they waste a Nobleman of Crossout on an Apprentice Magician, it doesn’t hurt you that badly.  Also, I’ve Nobleman of Crossout-ed 3 Apprentice Magicians before (I used another Nobleman using Magcian of Faith’s effect) and then he got off with his 3 Magician of Faiths in the late game.  Also, has anyone realized that Hand of the Nephthys is a level 2 SPELLCASTER?!  It’s a wind monster and its part of a Winged-Beast but you can bring this guy out with Apprentice Magician and abuse the Sacred Phoenix of Nephthys.  You can tribute the Hand of the Nephthys with Scapegoat tokens, a Snatch Stealed monster...basically any 2 monster cards on your side of the field to Special Summon (so if you haven’t summoned yet, you get another summon) Sacred Phoenix of Nephthys.  And why is that good?  That brings me up to the next card, Sacred Phoenix of Nephthys.

2)      Sacred Phoenix of Nephthys

• Normally I never play Lv 7+ monsters unless I am running Strike Ninja or some “techy” deck but Sacred Phoenix of Nephthys seems like a staple to me.  Have you guys realized it’s a 2400 monster that you can search OUT OF your deck onto the field by using Hand of the Nephthys and a Sinister Serpent, Sangan, Scapegoat tokens, etc...???  It’s a Pyramid Turtle into a Ryu Kokki but better.  Now you can destroy your own Phoenix with Exiled Force, Ring of Destruction, Torrential Tribute, etc...to use Phoenix’s Heavy Storm effect.  It’s also a Vampire Lord so they have to kill it during battle or waste a removal and hopefully get a Kycoo attack through.  I believe this the new Chaos Emperor Dragon because it IS ridiculous.  If you can search your deck out for a big creature, you are a) thinning your deck out (aka better chances of drawing better cards), b) you have field presence and your opponent’s way of removing your monster itself is a 2for1 (since they have to go Book of Moon/attack with creature, Smashing Ground + Bottomless Trap Hole, remove it with a DD or some kind, etc...), and c) at worst it’ll suicide with a Jinzo.  If you guys haven’t played this card yet, try it.  I guarantee it’s worth every penny like Chaos Emperor Dragon. 

3)      Dark Ruler Ha Des/End of Anubis

• Sick of the Apprentice Magicians/Magician of Faith/Zombies? Well with Dark Ruler Ha Des, you stop all their Pyramid Turtles, Apprentice Magician/Magician of Faith/Old Vindictive Magician, Ryu Kokki, Sacred Phoenix of Nephthys, Jinzo, and all the other huge monsters.  With End of Anubis, you stop their Call of the Haunted, Premature Burial, Book of Life, and Magician of Faith/Mask of Darkness/Sangan...basically almost every Graveyard recursion effect + big creatures such as Sacred Phoenix of Nephthys and Jinzo.  This virtually puts a lock on most decks, but what’s another card that’s being used in multiples this format?  Book of Moon.  Remember that Dark Ruler’s stats are not bad at all but End of Anubis’ stats are 2500/0...that’s right, 0 defence.  And why IS Book of Moon good in this format?

4)      Book of Moon

• Book of Moon is one of the best chainable/combo cards in the game.  Actually, let me say that this IS the best combo card in the game.  You can Snatch Steal a monster and Book of Moon it to keep it.  You can save a creature from Smashing Ground, Mirror Force, Ring of Destruction, Lightning Vortex, and Snatch Steal.  You can re-use a Flip-Effect monster by Book of Mooning that monster during battle.  You can prevent Enemy Controller from happening.  You can use this card during battle and then use your dead Nobleman of Crossout to destroy the monster in late game.  Basically since Magician of Faith abuse + Lightning Vortex came into this format, Book of Moon (which was already close enough to a staple in at least 1s back in the last ban list) is THE best quick-play spell card (IMO) in the game.  Try playing 3 Book of Moons like me; you’ll agree it’s one of the best cards to have set in the early/middle/late game dxP.

5)      Zombyra the Dark

• I know I know it’s been one of my favorite cards since the Gemini Elf days and I constantly talk about how good this card is.  Right now DD Assailant is one of the best monster cards in this metagame and you’ll see multiple players running 2-3 in their decks.  When Zombyra the Dark can trade with any type of DD monsters, you basically traded a sub-par creature for their 2for1 creature, thus creating a 2for1 yourself.  Zombyra the Dark IS a 2for1 because of the pure fact it’s used to kill the metagame cards.  Back then it was Berserk Gorilla, now it’s Vampire Lord.  Zombyra is one of the best Airknight Parshath killers and Kycoo is really bad against Zombyra also.  So what if you can’t attack directly?  So what you can get “scapegoat” locked and your Zombyra becomes 1300 ATK?  Just let it die and summon another monster to do its job, Zombyra is a 2for1 creature so if you ever killed a creature with it, then you are fine.  Also, this IS a Warrior.  You CAN search your deck with Reinforcement of the Army for this card.  Try this card personally because I can NOT stress how good it is in this format. 

Those are the top 5 cards that I don’t believe get enough love in this format.  Apprentice Magician does see a lot of play but let me stress how good Sacred Pheonix of Nephthys is and how stupid this format is because of the Magician of Faith’s abusiveness.  Other honorable mentions are Thunder Dragon, Morphing Jar, Royal Decree, (my teammate will love this but...) Soul Exchange, and many more but these were the five that I believe deserved another look at.

There are multiple ways to stop certain cards and there are multiple ways to counter THESE cards.  This is not the final say on which cards are playable, I’m just giving out my opinions.  I personally HATE this format because of the Magician of Faith abusing.  I personally abuse Magician of Faith myself (as you guys saw on the metagame.com tournament report on me) but *shrugs* I guess it’s better than me losing to FTK Scientist decks all the time right?  dxP  haha...hope you guys learned a lil something from this article.  E-mail me at jinutym03@cox.net if you guys want to send comments about this article or to me in general.  I’ll try to answer every e-mail possible.  Thanks ^^

-sHecKii aka Tony

Also, I believe I’m the ONLY player to be 2^nd for 2 Cybersteins while my friend Kenzo is the ONLY player to be 1^st for 2 Cybersteins dxP  Kenzo had more combos than me...