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YamiBakuraFan's Little Shop of Horrors
Cards from the Undead Lock
September 9, 2005 

Yuugi and friends run through the murky dark tomb and have almost arrived to their destination, but a duelist from the past  reappeared with a new and powerful deck of horrors! Yes, Yami Bakura is back, and this time he’s not using his Occult deck from Battle City but a variant of the deck called the “Undead Lock”. Why is it the undead lock deck? I won’t spoil it for you, but let’s just say it focuses on Undead monsters. 

Only three of the many cards used in Bakura’s new deck have been released as promos in the OCG. Death Callibre Knight is a recently released card in Valuable Book 8. Dead Spirit Zoma and Earthbound Spirit’s Invitation were released as a pair in the Duelist Master Guide in Japan. Now I’ll look into these cards that go bump in the night. 

Dead Soldier – Death Callibre Knight
DARK main-type
Demon sub-type
Level 4
1900 / 1800
This card may not be special summoned. When the effect of an effect monster is activated, immediately sacrifice this face-up card on your side of the field to negate the effect and destroy it. 

Death Callibre Knight is the first card I’ll be looking into today. It was used quite early on in the duel against Little Yuugi and really had no actual place in Bakura’s undead lock deck itself, but was just a beat stick. It still is essentially but there have been some major changes to the way that Death Callibre Knight will be played. In the manga, Death Callibre Knight was a non-effect 1900 attack undead monster. Now it’s a 1900 attack demon monster with an effect. I believe that undeads are in great need of a good beat stick, since demons already have so many with Newt, Demon Soldier, Giant Orc, Goblin Elite Team, etc.  

Despite this little rearrangement, there is no denying that Death Callibre has wonderful stats. With a hefty 1900 attack and 1800 defense it’s a good card in either position. It’s also a Dark, demon monster which is very good judging on the sheer amount of decks it can fit into if needed. The effect is where it really counts though, because the effect of a monster can either make or break it.  

First of all, this monster cannot be special summoned.( Which is a major bummer in my opinion.) That means no Puppet Master or any other recursion cards, or some other great cards for demon decks like Soul Line and such. Now we get to the interesting part. When any monster effect is activated, you have to sacrifice Death Callibre Knight to negate the effect. This can be good or bad depending on the situation it is used in. Your opponents monsters like E-Virus and Magic Warrior Breaker are fine targets for this effect. It can stop other cards like Mobius and the other Emperors as well as Vampire Lords revival from the cemetery.  

This is good, stopping your opponents monsters effects can effectively shut them down quickly for an easy win. But then there’s the problem. If any of your own monsters effects are activated while Death Callibre is on the field you must offer him to negate and destroy your own monsters as well. A smart duelist can work around this, but it can be a rather unnecessary thwart in your plans if you want to play a trump card and can’t.  

I recommend that a player already using a demon deck try out one or two Death Callibres just to get the feel of them and later sideboard them and save them for a special occasion. Death Callibre takes a bit of skill to use effectively, so if you play smart and love Demons this guy is all for you. Other uses for Death Callibre could be in an Ouija Board deck, defiantly a great way to protect the board from Breaker and friends. With all of the magic and trap removal around Death Callibre could fit right in.   

Dead Spirit Zoma
Trap / Continuous
After activation, this card becomes a monster card and is summoned into a monster card zone in face up defense position. (DARK main-type, Undead sub-type, Level 4, 1800 / 500 )

When  this card is destroyed as a result of battle, inflict damage to your opponents life points equal to the attack of the attacking monster. (This card is still treated as a trap card)

First a card that was used against Jounouchi in the earlier chapters of the Memory arc, Zoma reappears in the Undead lock was vengeance. In the manga, Zoma had the power to transform into an ectoplasm and hit his opponent directly for damage equal to double the attacking monster. This effect was greatly toned down in the card game, mostly because it was utterly sick and unfair. Not to say that this incarnation of Zoma isn’t though.

Zoma is a trap monster. If you’ll notice my last article on the trap monster deck was utilizing three Zomas in it. This is because besides Metal Reflect Slime, Zoma is the best trap monster there is, and in some situations it may just be the best. Zoma obviously has the same strengths and weaknesses of any other trap monster out there. He can be special summoned at any time, and does not take away from the normal summon of the turn either. He’s still a trap though, so his magic/trap zone is counted as filled when he hits the field. He’s also susceptible to magic and trap removal cards and can be negated by Psycho Shocker.  

But enough about his flaws, on to his powers. Zoma’s a walking 1800 attack Magic Cylinder. He’s not limited at the time so you can basically use three Zomas and a Cylinder in your deck at a time. This will deifnatly make your opponent think twice before attacking! Although he’s summoned in defense position, you may just summon him on your opponents turn and change him back on yours. 1800 attack is still quite high, and he can go on a small rampage if your opponent is too scared to attack him. The monster Zoma becomes is an undead monster so Zoma may have some use in undead decks that involve Soul Draining Bone towers and such. Other than that he’ll be a good addition to any deck at the current time.  

Now that we have a lot less to choose from in the trap department, Zoma can fill some of the spaces for that nice surprise factor that all trap monsters pack. He’s also a good swarm engine and can be a dummy card to keep your real trump card alive, or just for a free sacrifice. This card reminds me of Devil’s Sanctuary because it’s a card that can be greatly abused, but is not too good that it has to be limited or banned out of sheer playability measures.  

Earthbound Spirit’s Invitation
Trap
You may activate this when your opponent declares an attack. This cards controller selects that attack target of the attacking monster.  

The final card I’ll be looking at in today’s article is actually the least interesting of the bunch to me. Earthbound Spirit’s Invitation has great art in my opinion. The hands of dead souls reaching out of the grave to redirect an attack target makes me all fuzzy and warm inside. This is one of those cards you’ll either love or just toss out casually. It’s definantly not a Zoma or Death Callibre Knight, but has it’s uses among the others.  

In the manga  Bakura used this card to force an attack on his Zoma thus activating it’s ectoplasmic burn effect. One of the many combos that can be played with this card is right there. Force your opponent to attack your Zomas, or other great damage reflectors. Reflect Bounder. Hell Soldier and Amazon Sword mistress come to mind.   You can also have them attack a face down Sphere Bomb or a Metal Devil token that was produced by Devil’s Sanctuary. Searchers like Critter, Killer Tomato, and others can see abuse here. Or just make them attack a Dimensional Warrior or Warrior Lady for quick removal. There’s always the obvious idea of making there little monsters suicide into a bigger one. Or the one turn wall with a Soul Hunting Spirit or Marshmellon.  

This card is very experimental; try it out in ways that will scare your opponent off from attacking you at all. If you pack one or two of these bad boys in a deck with any of the following combos in mind you may just be surprised how efficient it can be. Other than that there just isn’t much more to say about this card. 

Now I’ll be building a deck with the three cards in it. I’ll try and work in a good amount of combos and tactics to make using these cards more fun to the player and a nightmare to the opponent. I won’t be building an undead lock deck like Bakura, mostly because all of his undead lock cards are not released for play in the OCG as of yet. So I’ll be building a demon deck that can abuse these cards, especially Death Callibre Knight. 

01)  Dark Necrophia
02)  Dark Necrophia
03)  Lord of the Underworld – Hades
04)  Dead Soldier – Death Callibre Knight
05)  Dead Soldier – Death Callibre Knight
06)  Newt
07)  Newt
08)  Newt
09)  Killer Tomato
10)  Killer Tomato
11)  Nyudoria
12)  Nyudoria
13)  Dark Jelloid
14)  Dark Jelloid
15)  Critter
16)  Night Assasin
17)  Metamol Pod
18)  Jar of Greed
19)  Cyclone
20)  Tempest
21)  Black Hole
22)  Confiscate
23)  Early Burial
24)  Theft
25)  Scapegoat
26)  Forced Transfer
27)  Forced Transfer
28)  Book of Moon
29)  Shrink
30)  Shrink
31)  Devil’s Sanctuary
32)  Foolish Burial
33)  Foolish Burial
34)  Deck Destruction Virus of Death
35)  Tidal Wave
36)  Cry of the Living Dead
37)  Dead Spirit – Zoma
38)  Dead Spirit – Zoma
39)  Earthbound Spirit’s Invitation
40)  Magic Cylinder   

That’s it for today’s article on the undead lock cards! 

Stay tuned for future articles! 

And have a great day! 

^.~  

-YamiBakuraFan