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YamiBakuraFan's Little Shop of Horrors

Yugi v.s. Tenma! Threat of the Devil’s Dread Root!
April 27, 2006

Towards the end of the first volume of the Japanese Yu-Gi-Oh! R Graphic Novel, Yami Yugi has braved his way through many challenges, finally coming face to face to with his new enemy Tenma! Tenma defeated Yugi in their first duel, but this time there’s more at stake, and losing is out of the question. This time Tenma plays a new deck based on summoning the powerful dark god monster, Dread Root. Dread Root is an immensely powerful monster with 4000 attack and defense points! Yugi is definitely in for it this time.

Today I’ll be looking at all of Tenma’s new cards, most that were released in the Japanese Limited Edition 8 (LE8) pack, and a special powerful monster with attack that rivals that of the God Cards! I’ll start off with the first monster Tenma played against Yugi in there duel, Summon Priest.

LE8-JP002
Summon Priest
Dark/Spellcaster/4/800/1600
This card cannot be sacrificed. When this card is Normal Summoned or Reverse Summoned, switch it to defense mode. Discard a Magic card from your hand, special summon a Level 4 monster from your deck. The monster special summoned by this effect cannot attack that turn. This effect can only be used once per turn.

Summon Priest isn’t a very powerful monster on its own, but it has a hidden ability inside it that can call an even stronger monster to the field. By discarding a magic card you can special summon any of your level 4 monsters from your deck to the field. This will not only help to swarm your opponent, but will also thin out your deck and provide you a possible way top easily get your best monsters out of the deck and into play without having to rely on drawing them.

Without cards like Witch of the Black Forest (which is banned from tournament play) players need an alternate way to search out heavy hitters, and Summon Priest does just that. There are quite a few cards you can combo with this card as well. Cards like Magical Blast or Phoenix Blade that can be added back to your hand next turn can be a great card to use to satisfy the cost of this card and set you up to play it again next turn.

Some of the best monsters to summon through Priests effect would be Terrorking Archfiend, who cannot be normally summoned, but has very high attack strength and a good effect. Sacred Crane can provide you an extra draw when special summoned, which will eliminate the cost of summoning it and make it a very good deck thinner. Any high attack level 4 monster can benefit off of Summon Priest, some cards like Goblin Elite Attack Force and Indomitable Fighter Lei Lei will be atop any players list of cards to summon out.

The only drawbacks of Summon Priest is that it cannot be used for a sacrifice summon itself, although it can aid in the summoning of a high level monster. It has low attack on its own, but the fact it switches to defense mode when summoned can help you get around that a bit, since it does have decent defense values. The main problem I see is that the monsters cannot attack the turn they are summoned by Summon Priest, and in the current meta game monsters don’t last very long.

LE8-JP003
Selection of Ark
Trap - Counter
Pay 1000 lifepoints. Negate a Summon, Reverse Summon, or Special Summon of a monster that has the same sub-type as one of the monsters on the field and destroy it.

Selection of Ark is meant to shut down theme decks. It counters your opponent swarming with the same sub-typed monsters and completely shuts down a monsters summoning. It will cost you 1000 life points to activate, but if you play this card properly it may save you from even more damage, and well timed life point payments for important can save players the duel sometimes.

Some of the best combos for Selection of Ark would be with DNA Surgery. You can make every monster the same sub-type and then you will be able to activate Selection of Ark to destroy any monster summoned as long as there is another face up monster on the field.

The main drawbacks to Selection of Ark besides the payment is that it is a very situational trap card that relies on the opponent to be playing a certain theme in there deck or just on the off chance that your opponent will have similar monsters to yours. In a counter trap deck or DNA Surgery deck this card is vital, but anywhere else a player could probably do with out it. This card has the definite look and feel of card for your sideboard, you can then take it out and use it when its needed, but avoid it any other time.

LE8-JP004
Trap of Darkness
Trap - Normal
This card can only be activate when you have 3000 lifepoints or less. Pay 1000 lifepoints to activate this card. Choose a Normal Trap in your Graveyard. This card's effect would become the same as that Trap card. Remove that Normal Trap card from the game afterward.

Trap of Darkness is a very strange card. It is very situational and requires a player to have very low life points to even activate it. After activation it has another 1000 point cost, which will bring you down even lower then before, and teetering on defeat. But this card could save you the duel in the right deck.

When you activate Trap of Darkness its effect becomes the same as any normal trap card in your graveyard that you want it to be. You could turn it into a Magic Cylinder or Dimension Wall if you are about to get attacked directly and lose the duel. Other good choices would be defending traps like Waboku and Hallowed Life Barrier. Back before Last Turn was banned this card could be used in a Last Turn deck to essentially run 6 copies of Last Turn! That would make the Last Turn OTK even more powerful then before, so it could be a good thing its banned now.

Without Last Turn this card doesn’t have a very solid use. You could try it out but it may turn up a dead draw early on in game, and may not be able to save you if its your last bet later on. Trap of Darkness has an interesting effect, but it seems to fall short in the end.

VJC-JP009
Devil’s Dread Root
Dark/Demon/10/4000/4000
This card cannot be Special Summoned. This card can only be Normal Summoned by sacrificing 3 monsters on your field. When this card is face-up on the field, the attack strength of all monsters other than this card are halved.

The final card of today, Tenma’s Trump card, and a huge card at that, Devil’s Dread Root. Dread Root is a gigantic attacker and only two direct attacks would mean game over for your opponent. But the main problem with Dread Root is getting him to the field. Since he cannot be special summoned he MUST be summoned by offering three monsters as a sacrifice, and in a day and age where monsters don’t last long it will take a little bit more work to summon Dread Root with three sacrifices than your everyday sacrifice monster.

Once Dread Root hits the field all of the other monsters will cover under its sheer might and wicked aura, thus dropping all of their attacks in half. This can make any attack Dread Root lands on an attack position monster possibly fatal, and stops any of the larger monsters in the game from taking down Dread Root if they try.

Is it worth it though? In most cases no. Dread Root may be a huge beat stick that can defeat just about any monster in the game in a head on attack but when it comes to dealing with 1 for 1 magic and trap cards that can easily kill it Dread Root falls quicker than a Kuriboh from the hand. Once you get Dread Root to the field you have already wasted a lot of resources, and maintaining it will be hard. I’m not saying Dread Root is a complete waste though. He definitely has power that can be abused in the right hands, but Dread Root will most likely be grounded in semi-competitive decks for the time being.

In that case, today I’ll be building my very own semi-competitive deck based on Devil’s Dread Root! It will focus on swarming the field with many sacrifices and using all kinds of magic and traps to aid me in summoning the wicked god himself!

D.D.R.! Devil’s Dread Root!

2x Devil’s Dread Root
3x Nimble Momonga
3x Giant Germ
2x Mystic Tomato
2x Spirit Reaper
1x Marshmellon
1x Sangan
2x Magician of Faith
2x Apprentice Magician

2x Brain Control
2x Devil’s Sanctuary
1x Graceful Charity
1x Mystical Space Typhoon
1x Heavy Storm
1x Premature Burial
1x Snatch Steal
1x Book of Moon
1x Nobleman of Crossout
1x Pot of Avarice

3x Solemn Judgment
1x Mirror Force
1x Call of the Haunted
1x Torrential Tribute
2x Dust Tornado
2x Metal Reflect Slime

Ahhhh, feels good to be back. I haven’t written articles in awhile because school and work have been in the way, not to mention my own laziness. I’m not down for the count though! As soon as summer spins around you can expect to hear a lot more from me! There are still plenty of OCG exclusive promos to look into, and I’m still burning with a passionate flame to look into each and every one of them!

Until next time, keep those passionate flames burning!

Thanks to Spikes and Barons DMComet for card translations.

- YamiBakuraFan