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YamiBakuraFan's Little Shop of Horrors
Earth Structure Deck – Fortress of the Divine Protector!
December 21, 2005

A new structure deck has been recently released in Japan! This deck is the seventh addition to the new themed deck collection and is an earth based structure deck that focuses on a bounce/burner angle. The deck contains a few reprints of somewhat rare cards like Brain Control, Ectoplasmer, and Mallet of Luck. Not to mention containing everything you would need for a rock based deck! Sphinxes, Megarock Dragon, Giant Rat, its all here. Three exclusive cards are also being released with the structure:

Divine Protector Exordo
Earth Main-type
Rock Sub-type
Level 8
0/4000
This card cannot be Normal Summoned. This card can only be Special Summoned by sacrificing a Monster with [Sphinx] in its name. When this card is face-up on the
Field, every time an Earth main type Monster is successfully Reverse Summoned, deal 1000 damage to your opponent’s life points.

The Great Spirit
Earth Main-type
Rock Sub-type
Level 4
500/1500
Once per turn, this card can be flipped to face-down defense position. When this card is successfully Reverse Summoned, you can switch the original attack and defense strengths of a face-up Earth main type Monster on the field until the end phase of the turn.

Fault Zone
Field Magic Card
When a Rock sub-type monster is attacked while in defense mode, the battle damage done to the controller of the attacking monster is doubled.

I like the fact that the structures are giving us three new cards instead of one now. We still have a huge nomi-monster as the main card in the deck, but we get a bit more support in the form of another monster and a field magic card. Exordo himself is interesting enough. He shares a huge resemblance to another creature of similar name and form, our old friend Sealed Exodia (Exodia the Forbidden One). Exordo however shares nothing in common with his dead ringer in the fact he doesn’t give you a one turn win, but an interesting burn engine. Every time an Earth main-type monster is flipped face up your opponent takes 1000 damage. This is more or less a giant version of Grave Ohyja and somewhat supports the Ohyja deck type. Exordo can only be summoned by sacrificing one monster with “Sphinx” in its name though.

This leaves it quite open unlike other nomi monsters as you can choose from a variety of monsters to sacrifice. We have Hierocosphinx, Criosphinx, the ever so popular control card of the past, Guardian Sphinx and if you really wanted you could even use the three movie promo Sphinxes for his effect (Teleia, Andro, or Thenian). With a hefty 4000 defense points no monster is getting past the giant wall that Exordo creates. The Great Spirit is the second monster in the deck, and although he is far overshadowed by Exordo, he may just be better than him. When flipped summoned, The Great Spirit gives an Earth main-type monster a Sword in Right Hand Shield in Left (Sword and Shield) for one turn. This can be abusable because many Earth main-type monsters, especially the rock monsters in this deck have very high defense points. Not to mention it could possibly give Exordo 4000 attack for a turn.

The last card was quite unexpected to me, a field card! Fault Zone makes all Rock monsters that are attacked while in defense mode into instant Aztec Statues (Stone Statue of the Aztecs). This can help out the Aztec TKO idea as well as making rocks and even deadly deck type (Water monsters had Atlantis a.k.a. A Legendary Ocean, its about time rock monsters got a field of their own.) Again the cards are somewhat lackluster, all three of them being a rehash of various other effects, and the nomi monster is still hard as ever to summon and can be easily killed with various 1 for 1 advantage cards. From a fun point of view they look great though! More support for rock decks, which they really needed!

SD7 Complete Card List

Divine Protector - Exordo
The Great Spirit
Giant Rat
Giant Rat
Giant Rat
Maharagi
Guardian Sphinx
Gigantes
Gigantes
Aztec Statue
Sentry Golem
Criosphinx
Hieracosphinx
Moai Reflector Cannon
Moai Reflector Cannon
Megarock Dragon
Guardian Statue
Medusa Worm
Sandmoth (Check my Review on SOI for this card)

Fault Zone
Cyclone (Mystical Space Typhoon)
Early Burial (Premature Burial)
Sealing Swords of Light (Swords of Revealing Light
Shield in Right Hand, Sword in Left Hand (Sword and Shield)
Shield in Right Hand, Sword in Left Hand (Sword and Shield)
Mallet of Luck (Magical Mallet)
Hammer Shoot (Hammer Shot)
Ectoplasmer
Brain Control
Wiggling Shadow (Shifting Shadows)

Emissary of Harmony (Waboku)
Compensation of Blood (Ultimate Offering)
Magic Drain
Magic Drain
Thieving Goblin (Robbin’ Goblin)
Traveler's Riddle (Ordeal of the Traveler)
Traveler's Riddle (Ordeal of the Traveler)
Reckless Greed
Forced Ejection (Compulsory Evacuation Device)
Forced Ejection (Compulsory Evacuation Device)

Overall a very themed structure with some fun twists, I could see this being something players will enjoy straight out of the box. Having so many doubles and even triples of some cards amazed me because it gives the deck a more professional feel as well as brining up the playability a notch. However, there are many cards that would have been very well suited to the theme that were just skipped right over. Cards like The Legendary Jujitsu Master which would have worked well in the bounce theme, and Rock Throw (Rock Bombardment) which could have sped up the deck. The Shallow Grave would’ve made for a combo with Rock Throw and a way to revive all of the rock monsters in this deck that like to be face down.

In addition, this structures starts up a theme and sticks with it, which is pretty cool. A good player should be able to take a lot of these cards and add a few of their own to easily create a smoother more playable version of the deck, while many of you may just be buying it for nothing more than easy access to Brain Control. Either way this structure is bound to sell quite well, just like the last 6 and it will probably do just as well, if not better when released in the states in a month or so. Rumors also point to the next structure deck being a Wind based deck with Harpy support! I really hope this is true because Harpies need a little push just like Earth did. I hope that you all purchase this structure for yourself, I know I cannot wait to test it out!

Thank you all for reading and I hope that you will return for my next article!

-YamiBakuraFan