Yu-Gi-Oh! Galactic Overlord Overview Part 11: OCG Imports

The OCG imports in GAOV are a fairly random mix of cards, picked from all over the place, such as Jump Festa packs, V Jump and Tag Force 6.

Number 11: Big Eye: Rank 7 2600/2000 Dark Spellcaster

2 Level 7 monsters
Once per turn: You can detach 1 Xyz Material from this card to target 1 monster your opponent controls; take control of that monster. This card cannot attack the turn you activate this effect.

Big Eye has a very powerful effect, provided you can summon him, since he’s basically a walking Change of Heart (albeit a more powerful one). Like Change of Heart it doesn’t care about position and can steal face down cards as well as face up cards, meaning it’s useful for breaking past powerful threats and through defenses.

As you might expect given his effect,  it’s fairly hard to summon a Rank 7 in most decks. For example the Gagaga cards can pull this off, since that’s what they’re designed to do. Many other decks need to either go out of their way to summon him or incorporate unusual card choices just for summoning him (such as Octavius in GB). Many times if they could summon him they’d be better off just leaving the two level 7 monsters there instead anyway. In the next set we get a few new cards which help summoning Rank 7s though.

Number 7: Lucky Straight: Rank 7 700/700 Light Fairy

3 Level 7 monsters
You can detach 1 Xyz Material from this card; roll a six-sided die twice and this card’s ATK becomes the larger number rolled x 700, then if the total roll was exactly 7, you can apply 1 of these effects.
● Send all other cards on the field to the Graveyard.
● Special Summon 1 monster from your hand or either Graveyard.
● Draw 3 cards, then discard 2 cards.

Lucky Straight is another Rank 7 and this time it’s even harder to summon, needing 3 Level 7 cards. You need to dedicate yourself to summoning him, and honestly once again the Gagaga route is probably your best bet. Once you do summon him it’s all a massive gamble though. You could get lucky and end up with a powerful monster who wipes the field, or you could do nothing and end up with a tiny monster for the cost. At best he can hit 4200 attack, whilst at worst 700. You’re not that likely to be stuck at 700 though, since you can repeatedly use his effect in the same turn until you get something useful or run out of Xyz materials.

I would really only recommend this card if you decide you want to make a deck based on luck and gambling, otherwise it’s really not worth taking the risk of giving up 3 cards.

Beetron: Level 4 1600/900 Dark Insect

You can send 1 face-up Spell/Trap Card you control to the Graveyard to target 1 Level 4 or lower Insect-Type monster in your Graveyard; Special Summon that target in face-up Defense Position. The effect of “Beetron” can only be used once per turn.

Beetron is new Insect support and it just so happens that one of the big decks at the moment is an insect deck. This means Beetron can pull off some interesting plays in an Inzektor deck, but is probably not actually needed.

Usually it’s quite hard to have face up spell/trap cards for Beetron to destroy, since most decks barely run any. Fortunately though Inzektor decks are full of them, from the Equip cards, to Call of the Haunted, to the Inzektor monsters themselves.

If you’ve failed to get an Inzektor that can detach itself, such as Hornet, he can be very useful for starting your combos off. However by this point you’d need at least 1 of them in the Graveyard, on the Field and in your Hand, which is already quite an unusual position to be in. As soon as you do get someone like Hornet or Ladybug, Beetron will be completely outshone.

His best use would probably be for clearing out dead Call of the Haunteds, but you can’t rely too much on them sticking around on the field.

Overall I think Beetron could give Inzektors a few more plays, but they don’t really need the help, since he’s outshone by the Inzektors themselves.

Influence Dragon: Level 3 300/900 Wind Dragon

Once per turn: You can target 1 face-up monster you control; it becomes Dragon-Type until the End Phase.

Influence Dragon is basically a limited version of D. Tribe which only goes after 1 monster. He’s very limited in his uses, given his tiny stats, and the fact that if you need a Dragon type monster you’re probably already playing them anyway. He can help summon Synchro monsters that require Dragon materials (especially since he’s a tuner too), but if you’re planning to do that in your deck it’ll probably already be filled with Dragon Type monsters. The main use I could see for it would be to steal an opponent’s monster, turn it into a Dragon and then use it for a summon which requires Dragons, such as REDMD. Overall I don’t think he’s worth using.

Bright Star Dragon: Level 4 1900/1000 Light Dragon

When this card is Normal Summoned: You can target 1 face-up monster on the field, except this card; increase that target’s Level by 2 until the End Phase.

Bright Star Dragon is another high attack low level card for Dragons to play with, but unfortunately I feel he’s a bit lacking compared to the others like Koa’ki Meiru Drago. Bright Star is useful for summoning a wider variety of Synchro or Xyz monsters, or making those you already play easier to summon. Unfortunately though this means that on his own he’s no better than a vanilla, and often he won’t actually do you any good. For Synchro summoning you’ll need to already have a Tuner on the field or get one out. For an Xyz summon you’ll either need 1 monster 2 levels below Bright Star, or 2 other monsters with a 2 level difference between them.

He’ll be helpful sometimes, but often he’ll be no better than a vanilla. In fact nowadays a vanilla like Alexandrite Dragon would probably do you better anyway since it can be combined with Rescue Rabbit.

Buten: Level 1 200/300 Light Fairy

During your Main Phase: You can banish this card from the Graveyard to target 1 face-up Level 4 or lower LIGHT Fairy-Type monster you control; it is treated as a Tuner monster while face-up on the field.

After the Forbidden/Limited list Fairy decks, or at least Agents, lost of lot of their ability to Synchro summon easily. Buten is meant to help them get this back a bit, but it’d take a lot more than just this little pig for them to see play again. The restrictions on his effect means he’s limited to a very narrow range of decks, and you need to find a way to get him into the Graveyard. Something like a Herald deck could benefit from him, since he’s easy discard fodder and can turn spent searching cards into Tuners to allow for Synchro summons. He won’t be pushing Fairy decks back into the limelight, but some of them might appreciate having a new toy to play with.

Doom Donuts: Level 1 0/0 Dark Fiend

FLIP: Destroy all face-up monsters on the field with an original ATK or DEF of 0.

The playability to Doom Donuts depends entirely on what decks are popular at the time. If there are decks with lots of 0 Attack or Defense cards being played he can be an excellent piece of removal. If there aren’t he’ll be fairly useless. Currently he probably won’t do much except clear out Snowman Eater, but if Zombies ever make a big comeback he could be an excellent side deck choice against them.

Nimble Manta: Level 2 800/100 Water Fish

When this card is sent from the field to the Graveyard by a card effect: You can Special Summon any number of “Nimble Manta” from your Deck.

Nimble Manta can be a good aid for fish decks, allowing for easy summons of Coelacanth. Unfortunately it will be very difficult to use his effect without forcing it yourself. With only 800 attack and 100 defense there is practically no time the opponent will need to get rid of Manta via card effects, so you’ll have to do it yourself. If the opponent has lots of monsters in your way you could combine it with Dark Hole or Torrential Tribute to leave yourself with two monsters on the field. However unless you can protect them or get the first Manta there without using up your Normal summon, you probably won’t get a chance to use them to summon Coelacanth.

If you’re determined to find easy ways to summon Coelacanth you’d be better off just sticking to Frogs or Mausoleum instead.

Shining Elf: Rank 2 1600/1000 Wind Spellcaster

2 Level 2 monsters
When your opponent Normal or Special Summons a monster(s) (except during the Damage Step): You can detach 1 Xyz Material from this card; that monster(s) loses 500 ATK.

Shining Elf is one of the better OCG imports, but it has a very narrow range of uses, with only decks like Sea Lancer or other Frog engine based decks really capable of making use of him. He might not look too impressive at first, but he helps fill some holes in the Rank 2 lineup. Previously they were mostly defensive (Gachi) or reliant on the opponent (Dark Mist), now you can turn 2 Ronintoadins from 200 to 1600 attack, which could help you end the game when you need that last push for damage, or get over smaller monsters when you lack your big guns. It also means the opponent has to summon a monster with 2100 attack or higher to deal with him, unless they want to resort to removal. This can be a pain for decks full of monsters that cap out around 1900 like Hero decks.

Most decks won’t ever be able to summon him, but for those that can they’ll be glad to finally have an offensive Rank 2 option.

Flelf: Level 2 800/1300 Wind Spellcaster

Once per turn: You can reveal 1 monster in your hand; increase the Level of this card by the Level of that monster, until the End Phase.

Finally we have Flelf, who I assume is a younger / less powerful version of Shining Elf. Flelf is another card that’s meant to help with Synchro or Xyz summons, by allowing easier access to high level or Rank cards. He’s easy to search too thanks to cards like Apprentice Magician. He shines best when you manage to get two copies of him at the same time, since they can both gain the same levels and Xyz summon a high ranked card. If you decide to dedicate some of your deck to him he might be quite useful, but as a general use card he doesn’t really have a place in current decks.

With GAOV finally finished it’s soon going to be time to move onto REDU, which brings with it plenty of new themes and even turns old single cards into full themes. Hopefully it won’t be too long before I can get started on these.

Yu-Gi-Oh! Galactic Overlord Overview Part 10: TCG exclusives

We’re nearly at the end for the GAOV cards, this time I’m going to be looking at the 10 new TCG exclusives added to the set, which either support a variety of themes or are just generic cards.

Noble Knight Artorigus: Level 4 1800/1800 Light Warrior

“No one shall ever know the truth behind
That fateful day. Artorigus went forth
To where the brilliant sword didst lay.
‘Twas the first of many feats so great,
A legend through and through. We sing of him,
Artorigus, the Noble and the brave.

-From the Tales of the Noble Knights“

Artorigus is possibly the start of a set up for some new cards, maybe even a TCG exclusive line. The appeal of this card mainly comes from his art and flavour text, since as a card he doesn’t do much we’ve not already seen. He’s the biggest Warrior you can get with Rescue Rabbit in terms of Attack/Defense, coming in at 300 more defense than Dark Blade, another Warrior card with 1800 attack from a long long time ago. The other advantage is that he’s Light, opening up support from things like Honest.

Ancient Dragon: Level 4 1400/1300 Light Dragon

When this card inflicts Battle Damage to your opponent by a direct attack: You can increase this card’s Level by 1 and ATK by 500.

Ancient Dragon, like Atrorigus stands out mainly for his art, which is quite different from normal Yu-Gi-Oh! standards. I also get the feeling the two will meet at some point.He’s a Light Dragon who gets bigger every time he manages a successful direct attack, meaning that he can soon become a threat capable of taking down monsters normally more powerful than him. Since he starts at only 1400 he can be searched by Shining Angel or Masked Dragon. After 1 direct attack he becomes a 1900 which isn’t bad for something you can get off a battle searcher. The Level increase also means he could be used for higher Rank Xyz summons or higher Level Synchro summons. In a deck based around him Ancient Dragon might become quite threatening, but on his own there are already many better more consistent Dragons out there.

Hieratic Seal of the Dragon King: Level 6 0/0 Light Dragon

This card is treated as a Normal Monster while face-up on the field or in the Graveyard. While this card is face-up on the field, you can Normal Summon it to have it be treated as an Effect Monster with this effect.
● You can Tribute this card; Special Summon 1 “Hieratic” monster, except “Hieratic Seal of the Dragon King”, from your hand, Deck, or Graveyard, in face-up Defense Position.

This is the new Gemini for Hieratics, which is designed to help make summoning Atum easier. There are plenty of other Level 6 Dragons out there in the game which can hit harder than this Seal, but they’re vanillas and can’t gain any benefits from the Hieratic support. If you want to play this card it can help you set up combos by searching another Hieratic from more or less anywhere. However most of the time you’ll just use it for an Xyz summon without worrying about the extra effect. On turns where you have yet to use your normal summon and cannot Xyz summon it could be worth Gemini summoning this card, but you probably won’t do this too often. Unlike the other vanillas this card will always be a terrible top deck since it has no power at all. This Seal can add versatility to the Hieratic deck, but it can also add more inconsistency into the deck.

Evoltile Elginero: Level 2 0/0 Fire Reptile

When this card on the field is Tributed and sent to the Graveyard: Draw 1 card, then, you can shuffle 1 Dinosaur-Type monster from your hand into the Deck, then add 1 “Evoltile” monster from your Deck to your hand.

Elginero solves some of the problems currently faced by the Evol deck. You never want to draw some of the Evolsaurs, since they only get their effect from the deck, and Elginero allows you to send them right back for later. In addition you exchange it for an Evoltile, such as Najasho or Westlo, which you do want in your Hand. This then allows you to set up for even more combos on the following turn. I think Elginero definitely has a place in Evol decks, but I’m not sure you’d want to go much higher than 1 copy, due to the fact it has 0 attack making it useless on its own.

Lightray Grepher: Level 4 1700/1600 Light Warrior

You can Special Summon this card (from your hand) by discarding 1 Level 5 or higher LIGHT monster. Once per turn: You can discard 1 LIGHT monster; banish 1 LIGHT monster from your Deck.

Lightray Grepher is very similar to Dark Grepher, in both summoning condition and effect, except of course based around Light monsters instead of Dark. The other main difference is the fact that he banishes the Light monster from your deck instead of sending it to the Graveyard. One of the main uses could be to set up for Lightray Sorcerer who needs banished Light monsters. If they happen to be Fairy monsters you could also combine it with Miraculous Descent to special summon them back later. Right now to me Grepher seems like he could be a useful support card, it’s just the deck that he could support best doesn’t really exist yet.

Tardy Orc: Level 4 2200/0 Dark Fiend

This card cannot attack the turn it is Normal Summoned.

Tardy Orc is continuing the Tour Guide storyline, and honestly this seems like the main point of interest about the card. We’ve already had another card with the same stats for years in the form of Giant Orc. The only difference between the two is that Giant Orc has to go to defense, so will likely only get one attack, whereas Tardy Orc cannot attack on the turn he’s normal summoned. For use with cards like Deck Devastation Virus there’s not really any advantage to using one card over the other. In the long run Tardy Orc will be the better of the two, especially if you can special summon it, since it will be able to attack more times before being destroyed. Giant Orc is better if you need an immediate hitter though. Right now I don’t really see a deck that could particularly benefit from using him.

Draconnection: Normal Spell Card

Reveal 1 Dragon-Type monster in your hand, add 1 Dragon-Type monster with the same Level from your Deck to your hand, then shuffle the revealed monster into the Deck.

Draconnection is a new searching card for Dragon decks, however unlike other searching cards it doesn’t come free. In exchange you potentially get access to a much wider range of Dragon cards, because most searching cards are restricted to Level 4 or below. Some decks like Hieratics or Malefics use higher level Vanilla monsters which you don’t want to draw, this card allows you to trade those in for other more useful monsters and use the Vanillas later when you actually need them in the deck. You could also combine it with searching cards like White Stone of Legend, which often nets you a free card, to mitigate the fact you lose a card here, as well as searching for a new more useful Dragon.

This card also makes it easier to play single copies of certain cards, since you no longer need to worry about the fact you had no real way of searching them beyond Gold Sarcophagus. Provided you play other monsters of the same level of course.

I think this could be interesting to use in some dedicated Dragon decks.

Trial and Tribulation: Normal Spell Card

You can only activate 1 “Trial and Tribulation” per turn. During the End Phase of the turn this card was activated, apply this effect, depending on the number of the monsters you Tributed from the field and from your hand this turn, except Tokens.
● 1: Draw 1 card.
● 2: Add 2 monsters from your Graveyard to your hand.
● 3+: Destroy up to 3 face-up cards on the field.

Trial and Tribulation is a versatile card that could find uses in quite a lot of different decks.

The first and most obvious would be for decks which perform tribute summons a lot. The problem here is that these will usually only tribute 1 monster per turn, meaning you’ll usually only be able to draw 1 card. Using cards like Enemy Controller could increase this number, or summoning 2 Tribute monsters like Light and Darkness Dragon, or even a 3 Tribute like Obelisk. Although I might wonder how often Obelisk needs even more help, given his in built protection.

Another use is for Ritual decks such as Gishki, since it would usually allow you to get back the cards you used for the Ritual summon, going some way to making up for performing the Ritual summon.

It could also be useful for decks like Hieratics which Tribute all the time and should make it very easy to fulfill this cards requirements. Even Wind Ups could consider it for when they pull of the Hunter loop, but I somehow doubt adding inconsistency to the deck is a good idea.

The main flaw of this card is the fact that on its own it’s useless, so when you’re in deep trouble it probably won’t help you. Also you’ll have to wait until the following turn to fully capitalise on the effects gained by this card. When you’re winning the game this will help you seal the game faster, but it could also be used to just tip the scales a little when the game is evenly matched.

Hieratic Seal From the Ashes: Continuous Trap Card

Once per turn, during your opponent’s turn: You can send 1 “Hieratic” monster from your Deck to your Graveyard. Once per turn, during your turn: You can target 1 of your banished “Hieratic” monsters; return that target to the Graveyard. When this face-up card on the field is sent to the Graveyard: Target 1 “Hieratic” monster in your Graveyard: Special Summon that target.

This is a multipurpose Hieratic support card intended to make playing the theme much easier. Unfortunately since it’s a little slow and doesn’t lend itself to super fast wins the many people will probably overlook it. This card has 3 effects, each designed to help with different parts of the deck.

The first effect will mostly be used to dump the Hieratic Seal monsters to the Graveyard. This thins your deck and stops you from drawing them, but also allows you to summon Hieratic Seal of the Dragon King with your other Hieratics. As a Gemini you can’t summon it from the deck, but once in the Graveyard it’s a Normal monster meaning you can revive it.

The second effect is meant to support Sutekh, allowing you to summon it without completely ruining all your other Hieratic plays. It can also bring back cards banished by the opponents cards for future use.

The final effect allows you to at the very least put up a greater defense when your opponent clears out your Spell / Trap cards, and might on rare occasions even stop them playing cards like Heavy Storm if you have a massive Hieratic that they can’t defeat. If you have ways to destroy it yourself you can also use it to start off your bigger combo plays.

Xyz Wrath: Continuous Trap Card

Once per turn, when a Level 5 or higher monster’s effect is activated (except during the Damage Step), and you control an Xyz Monster: You can discard 1 card; negate that effect, and if you do, destroy that monster.

The final new TCG exclusive is Xyz Wrath, a new version of Divine Wrath. This card is a lot more restrictive than the original, but can also cause problems for much longer. Effects in the damage step can often be some of the most annoying to stop, so not being able to touch them is a bit of a downside for this card. The fact it can also only touch level 5 or higher cards means Xyz monsters and powerful low level ones are immune to it, which means you’ll have a hard time stopping some of your opponent’s combo plays. This is because usually lower level cards with good effects are there to set up big plays into or working with other cards i.e. Tour Guide, whereas higher level cards are usually just powerful in their own right i.e. Black Luster Soldier Envoy of the Beginning.

The fact it also relies on your own Xyz monster means your opponent can shut it down simply by killing that Xyz monster. If you can keep both the Xyz monster and this card around for long enough you can shut down lots of bigger power plays by your opponent. However most of the time I’d think you’d just be better off with Divine Wrath, and that barely sees play as it is.

 

For the final part of my Galactic Overlord series I’m going to be looking at all of the OCG imports, which are of varied usefulness.

Yu-Gi-Oh! Galactic Overlord Overview Part 9: The Rest

For the 9th part of my GAOV overview (once upon a time preview) I’m going to be looking at all the remaining cards from the original GAOV set. This means there’s quite a random mix of things like Effect Negation, burn and just general generic cards.

Negation (Attacks, effects etc)

Tasuke Knight: Level 4 1700/100 Light Warrior

When an opponent’s monster declares an attack, while you have no cards in your hand and this card is in your Graveyard: You can Special Summon this card from your Graveyard, then end the Battle Phase. Each player can only use the effect of “Tasuke Knight” once per Duel.

Tasuke Knight is yet another card which allows its user to end the battle phase and avoid losing for another turn. It joins the monster ranks alongside Battle Fader and Swift Scarecrow, but instead of coming from the hand he comes from the Graveyard. This takes away the surprise factor those other cards have, because you’ll usually not know they’re there until you actually get hit by them. There’s also the issue of actually getting Tasuke Knight into the graveyard. This could be done manually with a card like Foolish Burial or Card Trooper, or it could just be done by letting Tasuke Knight get killed in battle. Unfortunately for the decks that would benefit most from this card (Final Countdown for example) you won’t really have a choice beyond losing him in battle. As an added bonus after using him he actually has quite a decent attack power, meaning he can counterattack a bit better than something like Battle Fader can. He might be useful as a one-off in stall decks, but probably won’t see play elsewhere.

Number 25: Force Focus: Rank 6 2800/2400 Light Machine

2 Level 6 monsters
Once per turn, during either player’s turn: You can detach 1 Xyz Material from this card to target 1 face-up Level 5 or higher Effect Monster your opponent controls; negate the effects of that opponent’s face-up monster, until the end of the turn.

Force Focus is another Rank 6 Xyz monster with a similar effect to Photon Strike Bounzer, by allowing you to negate monster effects. However the conditions for this effect are more restrictive, since it can only be used on Level 5 or higher cards. This means it can’t touch other Xyz monsters or low level cards with powerful effects like Rescue Rabbit or Tour Guide from the Underworld. The advantage it has is that it negates the monster’s effect until the end of the turn, which provides several advantages over Bounzer. Some monsters can use their effects multiple times in a turn, which this can stop. Other cards could have continuous effects that you want to prevent, something which Bounzer cannot do. It also comes with slightly more attack power, but I would guess that beyond fighting something like Grapha the 100 points don’t matter too much. If we had more decks focused around high level monsters then this card could potentially shine, but right now it’s outdone by Photon Strike Bounzer.

Butterflyoke: Normal Trap

When an opponent’s monster declares an attack: Target the attacking monster; change that target to Defense Position, and if you do, equip this card to that monster. Once per turn, during either player’s Main Phase or Battle Phase: You can change the equipped monster’s Battle Position.

Butterflyoke is a new addition to the many many cards we have that allow you to stop an attack. I assume it’s main purpose is meant to be supporting and helping the new Butterspy cards, allowing Morpho to drain all their power, but it can be used outside of this. It’s first effect makes it similar to Kunai with Chain or Enemy Controller when used defensively, allowing you to hopefully overcome its weaker defense on the following turn. If you turn things around and manage to then summon a massive monster you can switch it back into attack mode to hit the opponent for damage. If however you fail to overcome the opponent’s monster that turn you can still keep them from attacking you on following turns, until you can deal with it. Whenever the opponent switches it back into attack mode, you just switch it back into defense and stop it in its tracks.

Xyz cards (Support + countering)

Overlay Owl: Level 4 800/1600 Wind Winged Beast

Once per turn: You can pay 600 Life Points; detach 1 Xyz Material from a monster on the field.

Overlay Owl lets you get rid of Xyz materials for 600 Life points. Sometimes this will be helpful because this can drastically weaken Xyz monsters. The problem is that often it’s just easier to kill the Xyz monster than deal with its materials, unless it’s something like Solda or Tiras. It can be helpful for taking down cards like that, but they aren’t really summoned enough to make it worth including a counter to those individual cards. If you have to drain Xyz materials something like Kurivolt does the job better anyway. The only real advantage this has is the fact it actually has some sort of a body meaning it won’t instantly die in battle should you need to play it in defense. Many things played will still be able to kill it no trouble, but it’s more durable than Kurivolt.

Overlay Eater: Level 2 300/800 Light Reptile

You can banish this card from your Graveyard; take 1 Xyz Material from a monster your opponent controls and attach it to an Xyz Monster you control as Xyz Material.

Overlay Eater is another way to deal with Xyz materials, except this time you steal them. This results in their Xyz monster being weaker and your one growing stronger. The requirements for Overlay Eater are a bit harder to achieve, since you need to have an Xyz monster yourself and Eater in the Graveyard, but if you can pull it off its effect is much better. Since it works from the Graveyard you don’t need to worry about using up your normal summon for the turn, and there are plenty of ways to dump it there that don’t rely on summoning it. It also makes it harder for the opponent to stop it, since most decks tend to pack less cards that can stop effects in the graveyard.

Neo Galaxy-Eyes Photon Dragon: Rank 8 4500/3000 Light Dragon

3 Level 8 monsters
When this card is Xyz Summoned using “Galaxy-Eyes Photon Dragon” as any of its Materials: Negate the effects of all other face-up cards currently on the field. Once per turn: You can detach 1 Xyz Material from this card; detach all Xyz Materials from monsters your opponent controls, then this card gains 500 ATK for each, also it can attack up to that many times during each Battle Phase this turn.

Neo Galaxy-Eyes Photon Dragon or NGEPD for short is a bit odd in it’s concept, since the ultimate Xyz killer is an Xyz monster itself. If you manage to successfully summon NGEPD chances are you’re going to win the game that turn or very soon at least. If you don’t you’ll probably pay the price for investing so many cards into one monster. Even if the opponent only has 1 Xyz monster NGEPD can be devastating, since just two materials will turn it into a 5500 double attacker, which will allow it to swing for huge of damage in one go. For every Xyz monster with 2 materials NGEP will gain an extra attack beyond defeating the Xyz monster allowing it to either hit directly or destroy an additional monster. It would be quite surprising if much was left standing after NGEPD goes into battle. If you summoned it using the normal GEPD then your opponent will be in for an even harder time since all their monsters will lose their effects, probably making it easier for you to hit through or make other additional plays.

Due to the heavy requirements for even playing this card in the first place there aren’t really all that many deck which can successfully summon it. Dragon variants and Hieratics (which are Dragons anyway) are probably your best bet.

Xyz Unit: Equip Spell Card

Equip only to an Xyz Monster. It gains ATK equal to its Rank × 200. If the equipped monster you control would detach its Xyz Material to activate its effect: You can detach this card as 1 of the Xyz Materials.

Xyz Unit provides your Xyz monsters with a power boost and allows them to use their effect an additional time (assuming it only requires a single material). The power boost only really starts mattering for Rank 3 or above cards, since most Rank 2 or 1 cards barely have any attack to start with. However Shining Elf (featured on the card) will find it useful since it means the opponent must summon a 2500 or higher card to be able to match him. Rank 3 cards like Leviair don’t often stick around beyond their first use due to a relatively low attack score, but this can help stave off most of the easy to summon monsters out there. It also means cards like the new Djinns can hit for even more damage than usual. Once you hit Rank 4 the power boost starts feeling quite significant. Steelswarm Roach can make better use of his effect, since he no longer has to worry about 1900 Level 4 cards being normal summoned and clashing with him. Utopia can focus on protecting your other monsters over himself. The Evolzars become even harder to kill because defeating them in battle is no longer an option and Dolkka can negate even more cards than before. Once you get beyond Rank 4 cards the attack boost is generally just going to help you win faster, because very few things can challenge them without the boost anyway. At this point the fact you can use their effect again is the more important matter.

Burn (For / against)

Double Payback: Continuous Trap Card

Activate only when you take 1000 or more damage from your opponent’s card effect: Place 1 Payback Counter on this card for every 1000 damage you took. During the End Phase of your opponent’s next turn: Destroy this card, and if you do, inflict 2000 damage to your opponent for each Payback Counter on this card.

Double Payback as the name suggests allows you to hit the opponent back with twice the burn damage they hit you with. In some instances this might be enough to finish them off in a single blow. 4000 damage ends the game, and even something like 3000 would often be enough to help you win if you’ve just managed to get a single attack through their defenses. Usually you’ll probably only take somewhere in the region of 1-2000 damage in a single hit, so expect to still take out a decent chunk of their lifepoints. There are two major drawbacks to this though. Firstly is the fact that it doesn’t prevent any of the burn damage, which means you could be dead before you manage to pay them back. Second is the fact that there’s a fair bit of a delay between activating this card and causing the burn damage. If your opponent is siding in for anti-burn cards then there’s a chance they’ll be able to destroy it before you can get your own back.

Gamushara: Normal Trap Card

When a Defense Position monster you control is targeted for an attack: Change that Defense Position monster to face-up Attack Position. Then, if the attacking monster is destroyed by that battle and sent to the Graveyard: Inflict damage to your opponent equal to that monster’s original ATK in the Graveyard.

This is a surprising burn card which can lead to sudden victories. Your monsters could be in defense position for 3 main reasons. It could have a high defense but low attack, meaning this card will be useless in those situations. Secondly it could have been forced into defense either by a card like Enemy Controller or because you can’t stop your opponent’s stronger monsters. This means that when the opponent tries to defeat it with a weaker monster you can switch it back to attack position and not only defeat their monster but also burn them as well. Of course this doesn’t work it they just try and hit it with the big monster anyway. The final situation would be the biggest surprise. You can set a big monster bluffing it to be a weaker card, wait for the opponent to attack and then take it down and hit them with additional burn damage. This can could be fun to use for the shock factor and leaving your opponent guessing as to what you’ve got, but unfortunately is useless if you have no monsters or are just staring down lots of big monsters.

Generic / Other

Wattaildragon: Level 6 2500/1000 Light Dragon

“Capable of indefinite flight. Attacks by wrapping its body with electricity and ramming into opponents.
IMPORTANT: Capturing the “Wattaildragon” is forbidden by the Ancient Rules and is a Level 6 offense, the minimum sentence for which is imprisonment for no less than 2500 heliocycles.“

I think Wattaildragon basically exists for 2 reasons. Firstly to give Hieratics a big Level 6 Vanilla, and secondly so they can write joke flavour text.

 
Cardcar D: Level 2 800/400 Earth Machine

Cannot be Special Summoned. During your Main Phase 1, if this card was Normal Summoned this turn: You can Tribute this card; draw 2 cards, then it becomes the End Phase of this turn. You cannot Special Summon during the turn you activate this effect.

Cardcar D is the star card of the set and the new big money card. There is a huge amount of hype surrounding the card but it remains to be seen whether or not it will live up to this. Why the card is good should be obvious to anyone, but it should also be obvious why it’s not necessarily an automatic in for every deck under the sun. Cardcar D is an instant +1, which is always good and it allows you to draw more of your deck adding consistency and speed to some decks. It’s at its absolute best on the first turn, because you’ll probably not be too worried about special summoning and you have no Battle Phase anyway, so you won’t care about ending your turn early.

After this how useful the card will be depends on your deck type and your current position in the game. For passive decks like Burn or Final Countdown this is a godsend, because they more than anything need as many free cards as they can get to stay in the game. For aggressive decks it will slow you down if you’re mid assault, but during a lull in the game it can set you up for future turns if you’d otherwise just be passing anyway. Where it falls down is the times when you need an answer to a problem now, since you won’t be able to use the cards you just drew until your next turn, unless they were things like Effect Veiler. This is where something like Pot of Duality could serve you better, because whilst it also shuts down special summons, you can at least do something after digging for extra options. It’s no good if you’ve drawn the perfect out to the current situation but die before you can use it.

 
Rocket Arrow Express: Level 10 5000/0 Earth Machine

Cannot be Normal Summoned or Set. Must be Special Summoned (from your hand) by controlling no cards, and cannot be Special Summoned by other ways. You cannot conduct your Battle Phase the turn you Special Summon this card. You cannot activate cards or effects, or Set any cards. During each of your Standby Phases, destroy this card unless you send all cards in your hand to the Graveyard (min. 1).

On the face of it this looks like it’s just a silly last resort card, which it is to an extent, but it does have a few uses beyond that. This card comes with heavy restrictions which means most of the time it’ll probably be fighting on its own. At 5000 attack this is nothing to scoff at, but it’ll take two turns before it can start going, and even then there’s no guarantee it’ll break through the opponent’s defenses. If it does then no monster can stand in its way and victory could be swift. Chances are this will only very rarely happen. The fact you can’t do anything alongside him other than summon other monsters makes it very hard to pull off any sort of combos, and these can only be used on the first turn you summon him, since you’ll lose your whole hand next turn and keep on losing it until this card dies. One possibility is using it for quick tribute fodder, but there are probably safer ways than this. Another is to special / normal summon other monsters alongside it and hope that on the following turn the opponent can’t stop them and you manage to win. It is also useful when both players are top-decking, since it’s quite hard to overcome 5000 attack with only a single card. Finally it could be a card to side deck against Skill Drain decks to overcome their high powered monsters.

Personally I feel this guy is a bit too risky to use, but I’m sure someone will give it a go.

Flame Tiger: Level 4 1800/0 Fire Beast

During your Draw Phase, if this card is in your Graveyard, and you control no monsters, instead of conducting your normal draw: You can Special Summon this card from the Graveyard. If this card is Special Summoned with this effect, banish it when it leaves the field.

Flame Tiger gives you a reasonably powerful Beast at the cost of your Draw for the turn. Sometimes you’d rather have that draw and try to get an out to current problems, but other times all you need is some power to end the game. We’ve all had games where all we need to do to win is draw a monster with even a couple of hundred attack and score one last blow to win. This is where Flame Tiger will be perfect, since rather than hoping for a good draw you can guarantee an 1800 attack card. You won’t care that you won’t have got your next card, since you’ll already have won by that point. He’ll also be useful at times when you know you have to clear out a monster with 1800 or less and you can’t guarantee you’ll be able to get one off the top of your deck. Whilst that card will sometimes have served you better there are other times where it’ll lose you the game. Where he’ll shine most is in decks which make use of Horn of the Phantom Beast. If all you’re looking for is a Beast then one with 1800 attack will do you better than just about any other monster you could draw off the top of your deck. He can also be especially useful against Wind-Ups, since after their loop often they won’t have anything left on the field that can stand up to a Flame Tiger, should you happen to discard it during the loop.

Gaia Dragon, the Thunder Charger: Rank 7 2600/2100 Wind Dragon

2 Level 7 monsters
You can also Xyz Summon this card by using a Rank 5 or 6 Xyz Monster you control as the Xyz Material. (Xyz Materials attached to that monster also become Xyz Materials on this card.) If this card attacks a Defense Position monster, inflict piercing Battle Damage to your opponent.

Gaia has now appeared as a Normal, Effect, Fusion, Synchro, Synchro Fusion and an Xyz monster meaning that he’s probably one of the monsters with the most number of forms in the game. This new one will practically never be summoned through the normal means of 2 Level 7 monsters, because for a 2600 attack piercer it’s just not worth the effort. However expect to see him summoned a lot through his alternate method. There are several situations where Gaia Dragon can be useful. Firstly you might upgrade a spent Xyz monster to him to get some extra worth out of the card. One of the most common things you’ll see is a Hieratic deck turning a spent Atum into Gaia so that they can attack on that turn. You might also see cards like Tiras or Adreus turned into him when they run out of materials, since it’s a free upgrade to a better monster at that point in time. The other time you’ll see him summoned is with stolen Xyz monsters, much like you see stolen Utopias changed into Utopia Ray, since this prevents the opponent from being able to get them back. I expect to see Gaia Dragon turning up in quite a few extra decks from now on.

 
Return: Normal Trap Card

When your opponent adds a card(s) from the Graveyard to the hand: They must shuffle 1 of those cards into their Deck.

The final card to cover from the original 80 in GAOV is Return. This is a counter card against decks which rely on adding cards from their Graveyard to their hand. Unfortunately a large number of decks nowadays go straight from the Graveyard to the Field, so it can be a little hard to use this card. Some examples I could think of is using it against Monster Reincarnation or Beckoning Light in Lightsworn, Salvage in Sea Lancer, or Zektkaliber in Inzektors. The problem though with some of those cards is that because they can add multiple cards at once you won’t necessarily be getting rid of the most important ones. Against Monster Reincarnation or Zektkaliber though it will result in your opponent losing the card they’ve just gone through the effort of getting back, and since it’s now it the deck this is usually the hardest place to get the card back from. This card might be good in the future, but since Zektkaliber is probably about the only thing you’ll commonly get a chance to use it against it’s probably not worth it right now.

Having covered the 80 original cards in GAOV I’m now going to be looking at all the TCG exclusives followed by OCG Imports which round off the set.

Yu-Gi-Oh! Galactic Overlord Overview Part 8: Removal and Stat Manipulation

Since I managed to fall massively behind on these Part 8 is now going to be part of a GAOV Overview, rather than  Preview, given that the set is actually out now…  It does mean the cards will have the correct names and texts though. This going to be rather large, looking at a multitude of new removal options we get in the set as well as new ways to alter the stats of cards.

Removal

Scoop Shooter: Level 4 1400/1600 Light Warrior

At the start of the Damage Step, if this card attacks a face-up monster on the field whose DEF is higher than this card’s ATK: Destroy that monster.

Cameraclops is an interesting version of the instant-kill attackers in the game. Usually these sorts of cards only take out defense position monsters, but Cameraclops can defeat cards regardless of their position. Of course usually he will still be defeating defense position monsters, because they are the ones that will have the highest defense. There are some high attack monsters out there though which also come coupled with high defense, such as the boss monsters of most decks nowadays. This means that Cameraclops can succeed where most of his brethren fail, and take down monsters bigger than him. Of course there are still plenty of things around like Thunder King that he can’t deal with, but you can’t expect him to be able to defeat every sort of monster.

Absorbing Jar: Level 3 600/500 Earth Rock

FLIP: Destroy all Set Spell/Trap Cards on the field, then each player draws 1 card for each of the cards they controlled that was destroyed by this effect. You cannot Set any cards this turn.

Absorbing Jar is the first new Jar card in a while, and this time it’s capable of clearing out spell and trap cards. However in doing so it gives their controller free cards, and prevents you setting cards this turn.

There are several possible uses I could see for this card. Firstly and most obviously it’s meant for some kind of game winning play. You clear their protection and hit them hard hoping to win that turn so you don’t have to worry about being defenseless on the following turn. Another use could be combining it with cards like Dark Coffin, which would allow you to gain advantage by taking out more of your opponent’s cards in the process. Finally it could possibly see a place in Deck Out decks, since it can force your opponent to draw and bring them closer to deck out faster.

Nomadic Force: Level 4 1700/1000 Wind Warrior

When this card destroys an opponent’s monster by battle and sends it to the Graveyard: You can Tribute this card to target 1 face-down Defense Position monster your opponent controls; destroy that target.

Exiled Force are back and they picked up some new weapons since last time. Much like the original this card is capable of sacrificing itself to destroy an opponent’s monster. However it is harder to pull off and more restrictive in what it can kill. Honestly if you’re determine to take down face down monsters there are better warriors out there already. The advantage this card has is that the attack score is much higher than all those kinds of cards, and as such can actually do things besides taking out face down cards.

Night Beam: Normal Spell Card

Target 1 Set Spell/Trap Card your opponent controls; destroy that target. Your opponent cannot activate the targeted card in response to this card’s activation.

Night Beam is another Mystical Space Typhoon like card, except this tries to get around the problem all the other cards suffer when facing chainable Spell/Trap cards. Since it prevents the card being immediately chained to it the hope is that it’ll force an even trade off, unlike the -1 you sometimes endure when hitting a chainable card. However there are ways around this, for example if another card is chained to Night Beam, the card that was targeted can then be chained to that. Sometimes this can force the opponent to make plays at inopportune times though, which can still be to your advantage. I suppose it would be most useful when the opponent only has 1 Spell/Trap card since it’ll then be guaranteed to work properly.

That Wacky Magic!: Normal Spell Card

Banish all Spell Cards in your Graveyard; destroy all face-up monsters your opponent controls with DEF less than or equal to the number of Spell Cards you banished × 300.

This is a mass removal card that benefits decks playing large numbers of Spell cards. Even if you’re not playing that many spell cards it shouldn’t be too difficult to overcome common monsters defenses. 7 Spell cards could deal with the vast majority of cards thrown at you, and by the time you reach something like 10 just about nothing could survive. Usually there’s no way to retrieve spell cards in most decks so you honestly won’t mind them getting banished. This card does suffer from the fact that it’ll be largely useless early in the game, and if you don’t draw many spell cards its power can be rather limiting. In spell heavy decks it might be fun to try, but for most decks I suppose there would be consistency issues.

Storm: Normal Spell Card

Destroy all Spell and Trap Cards you control, then destroy as many Spell/Trap Cards your opponent controls as possible, up to the number of your own cards you destroyed.

Storm is just like Heavy Storm, only weaker. The disadvantage this card has is that it will always be a -1, whereas Heavy Storm is usually a way to gain advantage for you. There are already other mass spell/trap removal cards in the form of things like Malevolent Catastrophe, which are more powerful but have more stringent activation requirements. The main advantage this card has over others of its time is that it can be played sooner and is easier to use. However in a world of Heavy Storm and 3 Mystical Space Typhoon I’m honestly not sure it’ll see any play.

Commander of Swords: Normal Trap Card

When your opponent draws for their normal draw in their Draw Phase: They reveal the card(s) they drew, then if any is a Spell/Trap Card, you apply 1 of these effects.
● Discard all cards they drew.
● Destroy 1 Spell/Trap Card they control.

Commander of Swords is sort of like a new age Drop Off, trying to get rid of the card your opponent just drew. It won’t succeed as often as Drop Off, since it doesn’t work on Monsters, but you’ll at least get to know what it was. In addition sometimes the Spell / Trap card your opponent drew might not actually be useful to them at this moment, or you could have another card to deal with it. In this case you can go after one of the other Spell / Trap cards they already control to try and clear out their defenses for your next turn. It’s an interesting card, but given Drop Off no longer and hasn’t seen play for years I don’t think this will either.

Dimension Slice: Normal Trap Card

When a monster(s) is Special Summoned to your side of the field: Target 1 face-up monster your opponent controls; banish that target. If the Summon is an Xyz Summon, you can activate this card the turn it was Set.

Dimension Slice is a piece of targeting removal which banishes an opponent’s card, which is usually quite hard to come by and tends to have a cost attached to it as well. Nowadays just about everyone special summons all the time, so it shouldn’t really be all that difficult to activate this card. It becomes even easier with Xyz monsters since it means you don’t even have to wait a turn to use it. I can see people trying this card out because there are some commonly played monsters which you want to banish to either get rid of them more easily, or make sure they don’t come back.

Sealing Ceremony of Raiton: Continuous Trap Card

Once per turn: You can return 1 face-up WIND monster you control to the bottom of the Main Deck to target up to 2 cards in your opponent’s Graveyard; banish those targets.

We seem to be getting a new Sealing Ceremony card every set, and this time it’s the turn of Wind monsters. This makes all of your Wind monsters into a super D.D. Crow, which could be quite annoying for deck which rely on certain cards in the Graveyard, like Dark World or Inzektors. Unfortunately there aren’t really many Wind monsters in use in competitive decks nowadays, but it could possibly be a good side deck choice in a fun deck like Gustos which is full of Wind monsters. If possible when playing this card you’ll want to either use it to shut down revival effects, or in response to removal on your cards, so you can get the most out of it.

Stat manipulation

Jumbo Drill: Level 4 1800/100 Earth Machine

When this card is Normal Summoned: You can increase the Levels of all Machine-Type monsters you currently control by 1. If this card attacks a Defense Position monster, inflict piercing Battle Damage to your opponent. If this card attacks, it is changed to Defense Position at the end of the Damage Step.

Jumbo Drill serves two purposes. Firstly it can increase the level of all your Machines, which opens up a new range of Xyz and Synchro options for the deck. Secondly when you can’t or don’t want to do this he can hit for quite a lot of piercing damage due to his 1800 attack. I imagine that often you might hit the opponent with Jumbo Drill and your other machines to cause more damage, and then once he’s gone to defense position you turn him into an Xyz or Synchro monster before he can be defeated by the opponent.

Red-Headed Oni: Level 4 1700/1000 Dark Zombie

When this card is Special Summoned from the Graveyard by the effect of a Zombie-Type monster: You can target 1 face-up Zombie-Type monster you control; detach 1 Xyz Material from a monster on the field, and if you do, increase the targeted monster’s Level by 1 and its ATK by 300 (even if the targeting conditions are no longer correct).

Red-Headed Oni is I would assume designed to work with his brethren Blue-Blooded Oni, who can summon him from the graveyard. Alternatively he could be used with one of the many revival cards like Mezuki, Zombie Master or Book of Life. In a Zombie deck you should never have any trouble being able to set up his effect. The problem though is that his effect isn’t really that useful for the effort of bringing him back. Like Jumbo Drill it can help with Xyz or Synchro summoning, the problem though is that normally your Zombies match levels, so changing only one monster’s level could actually be detrimental. The attack boost isn’t massively impressive either.

Mini-Guts: Normal Spell Card

Tribute 1 monster to target 1 face-up monster your opponent controls; its ATK becomes 0 until the End Phase. This turn, when it is destroyed by battle and sent to their Graveyard: Inflict damage to your opponent equal to its original ATK in the Graveyard.

Mini-Guts turns an opponent’s monster into an easy kill with added burn damage on top, but comes at the cost of one of your monsters. In order to make the best use of this you’ll need another monster alongside the tributed one as well, otherwise you won’t be able to kill the opponent’s monster in battle. This card would probably be best suited to decks that can either special summon lots of expendable monsters, or decks which summon lots of tokens, since it makes paying the cost very easy. For general decks you’re probably better off just using plain monster removal.
Falling Current: Normal Spell Card

Target 1 face-up monster you control and declare a Level from 1 to 3; it becomes that Level.

This is another card that could help Synchro and Xyz summons, but probably mostly the latter. It’s meant to help you summon Rank 1-3 cards more easily, however if you want to summon those sorts of cards your deck probably already has plenty of ways of doing that on its own. (Ronintoadin, Tour Guide etc.)

Berserk Scales: Quickplay Spell Card

Target 1 face-up monster you control (except a monster that is attacking directly); it gains 1000 ATK but cannot attack your opponent directly for the rest of this turn, and in the End Phase of this turn, it loses 2000 ATK.

Berserk scales is a powerful attack booster, I think being the most powerful we have that can be used during the damage step. However after you’ve used it your monster will probably lose most or all of its attack power. It might be useful to take a single card out, but you’ll be losing your monster on the following turn anyway. In general unless it’s a card that can only be destroyed by battle you’re going to be much better off just using one of the many straight removal cards at our disposal now.

Nitwit Outwit: Normal Trap Card

Discard 1 monster to target 1 face-up monster on the field; it loses ATK equal to the discarded monster’s original ATK.

Nitwit Outwit could be an interesting card to use in decks with high attack monsters which you’d rather have in the Graveyard, since this will essentially allow you to rob an opponent’s card of all their attack power. The problem with lots of decks nowadays is that they run quite a few smaller cards with the objective of summoning larger ones from the Extra Deck. This means Nitwit Outwit often won’t be able to reduce the attack of the opponent’s monsters by much. As usual though it’s probably going to be better to just stick to straight removal rather than messing about trying to win through battle at the cost of 2 cards.

For the next part of my Overview I’m going to be looking at all the remaining cards from the original GAOV set, such as the well known Cardcar D. Following this I’ll be winding things up with the TCG exclusives and finally the OCG imports.

Yu-Gi-Oh! Galactic Overlord Preview Part 7: Remaining Themes

For part 7 0f my GAOV preview I’m going to be finishing off the rest of the themed cards within the set. I have probably fairly arbitrarily assigned some cards to certain themes, or left certain cards out, so don’t complain that something hasn’t appeared yet. Sooner or later I will cover everything, it just won’t necessarily happen yet.

Gagaga

Gagaga Gardna: Level 4 1500/2000 Earth Warrior

When an opponent’s monster declares a direct attack: You can Special Summon this card from your hand. When this card is targeted for an attack: You can discard 1 card; this card cannot be destroyed by that battle.

Up first we have our 3rd addition to the Gagaga theme, which beyond the name doesn’t seem to have any thematic link to the previous two. Whereas they were about manipulating levels, this card is all about defense. Gagaga Gardna is actually a fairly useful defensive card that serves a similar purpose to Battle Fader. If you absolutely have to survive that turn Fader is of course better, but Gardna can be useful at times when Fader would just be a waste. Since he has 2000 defense he can hold off most Level 4 or below cards, and could actually live for more than a turn after playing him. As a bonus he can also survive an attack at the cost of a card from your hand, for those times when 2000 isn’t enough. In defensive decks like Final Countdown I’m sure they’d love yet another way to extend their lives, and this could actually be quite useful for those purposes.

Dragon

Dragon Witch, Protector of Dragons: Level 4 1500/1100 Dark Spellcaster

While this card is face-up on the field, your opponent cannot target Dragon-Type monsters you control for attacks. If this card on the field would be destroyed by battle or by card effect, you can send 1 Dragon-Type monster from your hand to the Graveyard instead.

Here we have a femal counterpart to Lord of D, who was first seen all the way back in the Kaiba starter deck. Instead of protecting Dragons from effects she instead protects them from battle, which honestly nowadays doesn’t seem all that useful. Dragons have always been about power, and this really hasn’t changed. Dragons tend to be taken down by effects rather than battle, so making it harder to kill them by battle seems a bit of a waste.  Instead of the dragons being hit Dragon Witch will take all the hits, which can either open you to a lot of damage or really drain your hand. I think honestly a Lord of D. with the self protection effect would have been a much nicer card to have.

Dragon Devil – Queen Dragun: Rank 4 2200/1200 Dark Dragon

2 Level 4 monsters
Dragon-Type monsters, except “Queen Dragun”, cannot be destroyed by battle. Once per turn: You can detach 1 Xyz Material from this card to target 1 Level 5 or higher Dragon-Type monster in your Graveyard; Special Summon it. Its effects are negated and it cannot attack this turn.

Queen Dragun is the upgraded version of Dragon Witch and the female counterpart to King Dragun. Much like the smaller version she protects all your other Dragons from battle, but comes with a larger body this time. As with the witch I’m not so sure giving your already massive Dragons battle safety is all that helpful, since it’s fairly rare for them to get challenged anyway. In addition by the time the opponent gets out something big enough to challenge them it’ll also probably be bigger than Queen Dragun, meaning they can just kill her off first them pick the other Dragons afterwards.

What she’s far more useful for is the fact that she can bring a Level 5 or higher Dragon back to life. Since it can’t attack or use its effect for a turn you’ll need to find another use for the card or just wait a turn. One possible use is for high Rank Xyz monsters, another use is banishing for Red Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon, at worst you just use it as a wall.

Water

Hammer Shark: Level 4 1700/1500 Water Fish

Once per turn, during your Main Phase: You can decrease this card’s Level by 1, and Special Summon 1 Level 3 or lower WATER monster from your hand.

Hammer Shark I can see having two uses. Either you use it for quick Rank 3 Xyz summons, or you use it to allow for big tribute summons (assuming you keep him on the field for a turn). Right now we all know there are better ways to make Rank 3 cards and I’m honestly not sure how much this even helps the Bani-shark style of deck. Maybe I’ve missed something obvious, but I don’t really see anything else to say about this.

Number 32: Marine Biting Dragon – Shark Drake: Rank 4 2800/2100 Water Sea Serpent

3 Level 4 monsters
Once per turn, when this card destroys an opponent’s monster by battle and sends it to the Graveyard: You can detach 1 Xyz Material from this card; Special Summon that destroyed monster from the Graveyard to your opponent’s side of the field in Attack Position with its ATK reduced by 1000. Then during this Battle Phase, this card can attack once again.

Shark Drake is a costly to summon Xyz monster, but it can be a very hard hitter once you get it out. There aren’t that many ways to get 3 Level 4 monsters on the field, but there are two obvious ways that seem like possibilities to me. The first one is in Gadget, where thanks to Ultimate Offering you can easily swarm the field with Gadgets, then take your pick of Rank 4 monsters. The other is via Superancient Deepsea King Coelacanth, who can easily flood the field with Level 4 fish. I’m not sure going into Shark Drake is particularly the most sensible idea though, because it’ll leave you with 1 monster left who can’t do anything afterwards. Given that the deck can still put 8000 on the field in one turn (albeit not as easily as before) I’m not sure how often you’ll opt for Shark Drake anyway.

If you do successfully summon Shark Drake the opponent will be hurt if they’re not careful. He basically brings a monster back to smack them about a second time for increased damage. If he’s just taken down a more powerful monster you’ll probably be expecting to hit for about 1500 extra damage, but in some cases you could be hitting for the full 2800 if you took down a defensive card in the process.

Most of the time it’s hard to justify making Shark Drake over other Rank 4 cards, but he does have the highest attack of those so far released, and he can end some games. If you can easily summon him it’s worth including him in your extra deck, but I doubt most ordinary decks will want to use him just in case they happen to need him.

Aquamirror Reincarnation: Normal Trap Card

Target 1 face-up WATER monster you control; shuffle that target into the Deck and return 2 WATER monsters from your Graveyard to the hand.

Here we have a more powerful version of Salvage, but slower and at a greater cost. If a deck can already play Salvage they’ll have no reason to use this instead, but for those decks which play more powerful water cards this could be great for the deck. Overall this is a break-even card, unless chained to some sort of removal, where it would be a +1. This is quite unusual for cards which fetch stuff back from the graveyard which usually leave you 1 card worse off. I imagine that, as the art indicates, this would be most suited to something like Gishki, but I imagine things like Fish or Bani-sharks could also benefit from it.

Spellcaster

Bound Wand: Equip Spell Card

Equip only to a Spellcaster-Type monster. It gains 100 ATK × its Level. If the equipped monster is destroyed by your opponent, and this card is sent to the Graveyard: You can Special Summon that monster from the Graveyard.

Once again Spellcasters get more support and once again it probably won’t make that much of an impact. In terms of attack bonuses this card can’t hope to match ancient cards like Mage Power or United We Stand, but that’s hardly the point of this card. What you’re meant to be doing is using it to make your cards harder to kill, or at least harder to keep dead. I can’t think of anything that particularly benefits from reviving monsters, but it does make tributing /synchroing/ Xyz summoning easier. There is the The Kick Man / DNA Surgery / Rainbow Life infinite Life combo, but honestly that’s not worth trying beyond having a bit of fun.

Light

Sacred Belt: Continuous Spell Card

The activation of LIGHT Effect Monster’s effects cannot be negated.

Sacred Belt will cause a lot of confusion and problems, because people won’t read it properly, or won’t understand properly what it does. Preventing the negation of the activation of Light monster’s effects is not the same as preventing the negation of Light monsters effects. For example what this card means is that Skill Drain, Effect Veiler and Fiendish Chain will still cause problems for all your Light monsters. On the other hand Divine Wrath and War Chariot cannot be used on Light monsters anymore. This means that this card could find specific uses, for example when playing against GBs, but will not be a general use side deck card for Light decks.

Spiritual Light Art – Hijiri: Normal Trap Card

Tribute 1 LIGHT monster you control to target 1 of your banished monsters; your opponent can reveal 1 Trap Card in their hand to negate this card’s effect, otherwise Special Summon that target.

We’ve finally got our Light Art trap card, and much like the Dark Art it can be countered by the opponent, which can put a dent in its usefulness. However Traps are much less common than Spells so the effect is more likely to succeed. Of course another way of looking at this could be that it’s a way to get rid of a Trap in the opponent’s hand if you don’t particularly care about the special summon.

A useful thing to note about this card is that even though to tribute a Light monster to use it, you don’t have to summon a banished Light monster. This makes it more versatile than something like Miraculous Descent, which has to get Fairy monsters. This means that if you play a mixed deck like Twilight you could bring back your Dark monsters instead for example. I’m not sure how many decks will benefit from this versatility, compared to more restrictive easier to use cards though.

 

Probably Dragons and Water will benefit most from these new cards, but we’ll possibly see a few of the other in use. For the 8th part of my GAOV preview I’ll be looking at the removal (monster / spell / trap / graveyard etc) and stat manipulation, as we get closer to the end of the previews.

Yu-Gi-Oh! Galactic Overlord Preview Part 6: Evol

For the sixth part of my GAOV preview I’m looking at the new Evol cards. They’ve existed since PSHW, and the Evolzars (Laggia and Dolkka) have made a massive impact on the game through the Dino Rabbit deck and the increasing popularity of Jurrac Guaiba. However few have opted to use the Evol deck as a whole, despite having cards like Westlo, Najasho, Cerato and Evo-Force. In GAOV we get one new Evoltile, one new Evolsaur, and two new support cards, but it remains to be seen if even these will change people’s minds.

Evoltile Lagosuchus: Level 3 1200/500 Fire Reptile

When this card is Normal Summoned: You can send 1 “Evolsaur” monster from your Deck to the Graveyard. When this card is flipped face-up: You can Special Summon 1 “Evoltile” monster from your Deck.

Lagosuchus is a mixed purpose Evoltile. If you normal summon him you can help set up Vulcano plays by putting an Evolsaur in the graveyard. If you set him and then flip him you can fetch another Evoltile monster such as Najasho, allowing you to set up for Evo-Force plays. Alternatively you could get Westlo to make Rank 3s, but you probably won’t want to make that play very often. I wouldn’t run too many of this card since it has weak stats, and the searching capabilities are outmatched by another card in this set, which we’ll get to later.

Evolsaur Darwinos: Level 5 2200/700 Fire Dinosaur

When this card is Special Summoned by the effect of an “Evoltile” monster: You can Target 1 face-up monster; increase its Level by up to 2.

Darwinos is the latest Evolsaur and this time it opens up Rank 5 plays for the deck, since it can turn another card into a Level 5 alongside himself. Unfortunately there isn’t yet a Rank 5 Evolzar to use this to its full potential, but Tiras and Adreus are nothing to scoff at. Darwinos allows you to have more varied Najasho and Evo-Force plays, but probably won’t be replacing Cerato, Vulcano and Diplo.

Varied Evolution: Normal Spell Card

Add 1 “Evoltile” or “Evolsaur” monster from your Deck to your hand. You can only activate 1 “Varied Evolution” per turn.

This is the most important of the new Evol cards, and finally offers a way to search for Evoltile cards. Previously you had to use Fossil Dig (if anything), which could only get Evolsaurs, which honestly you’d rather keep in the deck anyway. Now you have a much easier time searching for Najasho and setting up all your big plays. Even if you can’t make a Najasho play you could always get Westlo for a more defensive play. This adds some much needed consistency to the deck, and should be played in all Evol decks.
Compensation of Evolution: Continuous Spell Card

Once per turn, if a monster is Special Summoned by an “Evoltile” monster: You can target 1 card on the field; destroy that target.

Compensation seems like a good card when you read it, since it destroys cards for free when you special summon using an Evoltile monster. Since this is pretty much the point of the deck you’d expect this to be happening a lot. Unfortunately it would probably take away from the consistency of the deck. The card is completely useless if you don’t have an Evoltile, meaning you could end up drawing it when you’d rather just have a card you can play instead. If you got it whilst setting up, or even just when hiding behind a Westlo it would make your big plays even easier by clearing out the opponent’s defenses, but I’m not so sure it’s worth the consistency issues.

 

Evol get a powerful boost from Varied Evolution, which should see play in any Evol deck from now on. I expect we’ll probably see Lagosuchus in at least 1 copy in some decks because of the first turn Vulcano plays it can set up, but I don’t think we’ll see more than 1 copy getting played. Unfortunately I doubt the other two will see any serious play in the deck. Next time I’ll be looking at some of the remaining themes in the set, which includes Gagaga, Dragons and Water.

Yu-Gi-Oh! Galactic Overlord Preview Part 5: Bounzers

For part 5 of my GAOV preview I’m looking at yet another anime theme with only a small number of cards. Unlike the butterflies, these guys are all about hitting for heavy damage off their own strength, rather than requiring you to set up the field.

Hammer-Rush Bounzer: Level 6 2300/2000 Earth Warrior

If your opponent controls a card and you control no cards, you can Normal Summon this card without Tributing. If you control no Spell or Trap Cards when this card attacks, your opponent cannot activate Spell or Trap Cards until the end of the Damage Step.

Hammer-Rush Bounzer beats out Cyber Dragon (2100) and The Fiend Megacyber (2200) in terms of pure strength, but comes with the most restrictive summoning condition of these cards. Not only is it a normal summon, but it also requires you to control no cards, rather than just no monsters. However if you continue to control no Spell/Trap cards when he attacks the opponent will be at his mercy for that battle.

One use for this card could be forcing an even trade-off against Dolkka, or forcing something like Forbidden Lance to be used on him during your main phase. In fact he should be able to take down most things in battle nowadays without too much effort.
Blade Bounzer: Level 4 1800/1400 Earth Warrior

Once per turn, at the end of the Damage Step, if this card attacked and your opponent controls a monster: You can discard 1 card; this card can attack once again.

Blade Bounzer would be the main attack force for the deck, because it requires no additional set up. If Blade Bounzer successfully kills a monster you can go after another provided you discard a card. Overall you’d kill two cards for the price of one if this goes through, which isn’t too bad of a trade off. For sheer power in a level 4 it still can’t match Bergzak, but it comes with added consistency, which means he won’t be a dead top deck like Bergzak is.
Phantom Bounzer: Level 6 2400/1200 Dark Warrior

When this card is destroyed and sent from field to the Graveyard: You can add 2 “Bounzer” cards from your Deck to your hand.

Phantom Bounzer is the biggest of the effect Bounzers, just edging out Hammer-Rush by 100 points. Like the other two he makes it easier to beat your opponent down, but in this case by deterring them from making a play, rather than helping you make yours. If they destroy this Bounzer and send it to the graveyard you’ll get two more Bounzer cards. Unless it was destroyed by battle this will mean you’ll gain a card overall. You lose the Tribute and Phantom Bounzer, whilst gaining two more Bounzers, whilst they lose the card they used. If more Bounzer cards get made this becomes even better, since right now your choices are a tad limited.

Photon Streak Bounzer: Rank 6 2700/2000 Light Warrior

2 Level 6 monsters
Once per turn, when a monster your opponent controls activates its effect: You can detach 1 Xyz Material from this card; negate that effect, and inflict 1000 damage to your opponent.

Once again we have a dual archetype Xyz mixing Photons and Bounzers. If you’re playing Bounzers you could make him by combining Hammer-Rush and Phantom, but there are other decks which could benefit from this card. For example it gives Hieratics another Rank 6 choice, should they not want to make Atum. Photon Streak Bounzer is a similar card to Dolkka, in that he negates monster effects, however the range of effects he can negate is more limited. It can only be used on effects that activate on the field, because that’s where your opponent is considered to control a card. This limits his power compared to the smaller Evolzar. He also doesn’t destroy the card in question, which is another strike against him, since some cards will just use their effect again.

He does cause 1000 burn though, which could be quite significant once you get him on the field. If you summon him when the opponent is below 1000 LP you could effectively lock them out of their monster effects as long as he remains on the field, which is quite a big matter. Finally with a 2700 body he is very hard to get rid of in battle, with only a handful of monsters played at the moment able to topple him. This basically means they’ll have to resort to Spell and Trap cards to get rid of him.

Bounzer Guard: Normal Trap

Target 1 face-up “Bounzer” monster you control; this turn, that target cannot be targeted by card effects or be destroyed by battle, and your opponent’s monsters must target that monster for any attacks they declare this turn.

This is the only piece of support the Bounzers get, which makes them even harder to kill. Most of the time they won’t need to worry about dying by battle, but this can protect them when that situation does arise. It can also protect all your other monsters, since the opponent would have no choice but to attack that Bounzer. If the opponent has nothing to overcome your largest Bounzer you can even use this to stymie all their attack for the turn. The protection from targetting can be especially helpful against some decks, however you need to use this before he gets targetted the first time. This will sometimes result in you using up this card just to get a free hit in a single turn.

Right now the Bounzers can hit hard, but will need to be combined with other cards, such as the many warriors out there, in order to build a full deck from them. We’d need quite a lot more of them to come out before they could become a real threat though. Next time I’ll be looking at some of the new Evol cards, which hopefully give the deck another power boost.

Yu-Gi-Oh! Galactic Overlord Preview Part 4: Phantom Butterfly Assassin

The Phantom Butterfly Assassins are a small new theme in GAOV, which look like they come from a one-shot opponent from the ZeXal anime. This means I wouldn’t expect to see much support beyond these cards. The main two cards are Warriors, with only their support monster as an actual Insect. Their Xyz monster also fits into the Photon archetype, meaning it can gain additional support from them.

Phantom Butterfly Assassin Morpho: Level 4 1200/1600 Dark Warrior

Once per turn, when an opponent’s monster’s battle position changes: You can target that monster; that target loses 1000 ATK and DEF.

Morpho is not a particularly impressive card. Neither its attack nor defense is enough to provide a threat, or a decent wall. This means you’ll need to support Morpho with either stronger monsters or Spell and Trap cards like Enemy Controller in order to kill things and use its effect. Unfortunately most of the time you use Enemy Controller on a monster you can defeat it anyway, meaning the stat reduction will be pointless. The fact this effect is only once per turn weakens this even further, since it prevents you setting up any combo plays to sap the opponent’s stats. I don’t see much reason to bother with Morpho.
Phantom Butterfly Assassin Ageha: Level 4 1800/1200 Dark Warrior

When your opponent takes Battle Damage from another monster’s attack: Target 1 face-up monster your opponent controls; it loses ATK equal to that Battle Damage.

Ageha is the slightly more useful of the two, since it comes with a respectable 1800 attack, and deals with something that happens a lot in this game, battle damage. With Ageha around you can pick off the opponent’s smaller monsters in order to weaken their heavy hitter and then take that down. Or alternatively you could overpower one little monster, and in turn weaken and defeat each of your opponent’s other monsters. Of course the idea is to combine Ageha and Morpho to make use of the 1000 attack reduction, but it’s probably not worth the effort.
Moonlit Papillon: Level 4 1200/1600 Light Insect

When this card is sent from the field to the Graveyard: You can Special Summon 1 Level 4 or lower “Phantom Butterfly Assassin” monster from your Deck.

This is the recruiter for the deck, which makes it much easier to get either of the other two cards onto the field. Unfortunately it can’t fetch itself like many other battle recruiters and it also has very limited choices. If there were more cards out there this would of course be better. It’s of course vital for a Phantom Butterfly Assassin deck, but I’m not sure what would convince you to play one of those.

Photon Butterfly Assassin: Rank 4 2100/1800 Light Warrior

2 Level 4 monsters
Once per turn: You can detach 1 Xyz Material from this card; change 1 Defense Position monster your opponent controls into face-up Attack Position, and decrease its ATK by 600.

This is meant to be the trump card for the deck, since it can be combined with both Morpho (position change) and Ageha (stat reduction). However it doesn’t really stand up to some of the other Rank 4 choices out there. Since it’s a generic Xyz monster you don’t have to keep it within its own deck, but once again there are usually better choices. It’s also a Photon monster and as such can benefit from all their support.Probably the best use for this card is to deal game ending damage by flipping your opponent’s final monster to attack position and hitting for lots of damage, much like people did in the past with Black Rose Dragon.

As you might expect from a small theme like this it’s not very impressive, needing a lot more cards to even stand a chance. If you wanted to try them for fun you could always try combining them with Photons to make proper use of the Xyz monster. Next time I’ll be looking at the Bounzers, another anime theme with a small number of cards that I wouldn’t bet on getting much support in the future.

New content: It has been pointed out to me since I originally wrote this that Stumbling would be an excellent card to use with Morpho, which completely slipped my mind at the time. This makes the 1600 defense of Morpho more than adequate because the opponent would need to put down something larger than 2600 to be able to get over him. When combined with the old Clown cards and some Chaos monsters it could be quite annoying to face.

Yu-Gi-Oh! Galactic Overlord Preview Part 3: Inzektors

As the third part in this series I’m looking at the new Inzektor cards. The theme was introduced in Order of Chaos and has since made a big impact on the game. Whilst other decks like Dino Rabbit still perform better it’s not bad for a deck that’s only 1 set old. GAOV gives the deck a new bag of tricks, some of which will see their way into competitive decks. As always apologies if names and/or effect text isn’t entirely accurate.

Inzektor Luciol: Level 1 100/100 Dark Insect

Once per turn: You can equip 1 “Inzektor” monster from your hand or Graveyard to this card. While this card is equipped to an “Inzektor” monster, you can look at all Set cards your opponent controls. While this card is equipped to a monster, increase the equipped monster’s Level by 1, and it gains ATK and DEF to this card’s ATK and DEF, respectively.

The first new card is Luciol, which has an interesting effect, but I doubt it will see much play. Looking at Set cards can be a very useful since it allows you to plan your future plays and play around what your opponent has. However Luciol cannot send himself to the Graveyard, meaning he can’t be used to set off Centipede and Dragonfly manually. Since this is one of the most important reasons why people use some of the Inzektor cards, such as Hopper, this is a serious dent in the usefulness of Luciol.
Inzektor Gruf: Level 2 500/100 Dark Insect

Once per turn: You can equip 1 “Inzektor” monster from your hand or Graveyard to this card. While this card is equipped to a monster, increase the equipped monster’s Level by 2, and gains ATK and DEF equal to this card’s ATK and DEF respectively. You can send this Equip Card to the Graveyard to target 1 monster you control; increase its Level by 1 or 2.

Gruf will probably be replacing Hopper in Inzektor builds once GAOV hits. Which will be a thankful relief because we won’t have to worry as much about whether you can or can’t use Hopper on turn 1 anymore (Although official word would be nice too). Not only is Gruf an easy way to set off Dragonfly/Centipede, due to there being no requirement for the opponent to have played anything, it also opens up more Xyz plays for the deck. Most of the time this would allow for Rank 4 or 5 plays in addition to the Rank 3 plays they currently usually have access to. When you have a field full of Inzektors you could even go to higher Ranks, but that won’t be necessary most of the time. Gruf will definitely be something to look out for once GAOV is out.

Inzektor Wig: Level 4 1000/1000 Dark Insect

Once per turn: You can equip 1 “Inzektor” monster from your hand or Graveyard to this card. While this card is equipped to a monster, the equipped monster gains ATK and DEF equal to this card’s ATK and DEF respectively. When this Equip Card is sent to the Graveyard: The monster this card was equipped to gains 1000 ATK until the End Phase.

Wig provides a power boost to your Inzektors, much like their actual Equip cards, in this case matching Zektahawk for power. As a bonus the monster it was equipped to even gets to keep the boost for a turn when Wig goes to the Graveyard. Of course the other card worth comparing this too is Giga-Mantis, because he also provides the Inzektors with a hefty power boost. Giga-Mantis remains the better choice for Dragonfly, but Wig can raise Centipede to 2600 making him the slightly better choice in that case. Looking at things from a pure power perspective Wig is about on par with older Inzektor cards, however he’s let down by his bonus effect. Whereas Giga-Mantis and Zektkalibur can revive or retrieve cards, Wig only gives a power boost. Sometimes this is useful, but usually more cards will be better for you in the long run.
Inzektor Giga-Grioll: Level 5 2000/1300 Dark Insect

You can banish 1 Insect-Type monster in your Graveyard to target 1 face-up “Inzektor” monster you control; equip this card from your Graveyard to that target. This effect of “Inzektor Giga-Grioll” can only be used once per turn. Its original ATK becomes 2000. When the equipped monster attacks a Defense Position monster, inflict piercing Battle Damage to your opponent.

Giga-Grioll is much like the previous two Giga cards in that it provides a stat boost to your Inzektors by locking them into a higher value than they would normally have. Giga-Grioll comes with a lower stat boost, however he can keep on coming back from the Graveyard for more (provided it’s on different turns). Unfortunately this requires you to banish Insects which is counterproductive to the deck, since they are generally better served in the Graveyard. Piercing can be a useful game ender, but Inzektors excel at destroying things with effects anyway.

Inzektor Exa-Stag: Rank 5 800/800 Dark Insect

2 Level 5 Insect-Type monsters
Once per turn: You can detach 1 Xyz Material from this card to target 1 monster your opponent controls or in your opponent’s Graveyard; equip it to this card. This card gains ATK and DEF equal to half of the Equip Card’s ATK and DEF, respectively.

Exa-Stag is similar to Exa-Beetle in that it can absorb the opponent’s monsters to make itself stronger, except this time it can also take them from the field. This means that if there’s something like Stardust Dragon is your way that would cause problems for Hornet, you can instead turn to Stag and just absorb him. Thanks to Gruf it shouldn’t be too hard to summon him either. If there’s space in the Extra Deck I see no reason not to use Exa-Stag.

Final Inzektion: Normal Spell Card

Send 5 face-up “Inzektor” cards you control to the Graveyard; destroy all cards your opponent controls, and during this turn’s Battle Phase, your opponent cannot activate the effects of Effect Monsters from their hand or Graveyard.

Similar to many other cards in the past this is meant to be the trump cards for Inzektors, allowing them to wipe the field and go on a massive assault with no worry of repercussions. I could be wrong but I believe this is the first time we’ve gotten one of these cards for a powerful theme, rather than for a fun them, like low level normal monsters, frogs or Ojamas. It also happens to be one of the strongest of its kind. One nice thing about this is that it counts Inzektor cards, and not just Inzektor monsters, which makes it far easier to get the required number onto the Field at once.

Unfortunately I doubt it’ll find a place in many Inzektor decks for a variety of reasons. Firstly a lot of the time it will simply be dead weight. By the time you could use it for a game-winning play you’d probably already be winning anyway. Finally you may find it difficult to actually follow up with a game winning play, because you’ll have just taken a chunk out of your attack force.

Inzektor Bow – Zektarrow: Equip Spell Card

Equip only to an “Inzektor” monster. It gains 500 ATK. Your opponent cannot activate the effects of Spell, Trap, or Effect Monster in response to the equipped monster’s effects.

The newest Equip card for Inzektors appears to be some sort of rapid-fire bow and arrow, and like the other Inzektor equips gives both an attack boost and a bonus effect. Zektarrow gives the smallest boost at only 500, but that’s not the point of this card. What you’re meant to be doing is using this card to protect your Inzektors, but I’m not sure how useful it will be in this matter.

Generally Inzektor monsters will activate their effect in two instances, when trying to equip another Inzektor, and when an equip is sent to the Graveyard. In the former case the opponent can usually save their card (such as Effect Veiler) until after the Inzektor is equipped, and achieve the same end result as if they chained in the first place. It is more useful in the latter case, because the same tricks can’t be pulled to get around it, barring using the cards preemptively.

Zekt Conversion: Normal Trap Card

When a face-up “Inzektor” monster you control is targeted for an attack: Target the attacking monster; equip the attacked monster to that target. While the “Inzektor” monster is equipped to that target, gain control of it.

This is an interesting Trap card, basically turning your Inzektor monsters into a Snatch Steal. Whilst you might be tempted to use your Inzektor’s effect, you have to be wary that you’ll lose the monster in the process. This card would probably prove most interesting in the Inzektor mirror match, where you can start turning their own effects back on themselves. Of course this then runs into the problem of not having your field already hit badly in advance. Most of the time this would probably only work when both Inzektor players are in a relatively bad position.

In normal games it would probably be most useful for trying to get rid of monsters the Inzektors can’t otherwise normally handle. The problem with this is the fact that the opponent could just attack your Inzektor will something weaker that you don’t want to steal, thus shutting your play down.
Inzektor Gauntlet: Normal Trap Card

Target 1 face-up “Inzektor” monster you control; equip this card to that target. It gains 1000 DEF and cannot be destroyed by your opponent’s card effects.

Inzektor Gauntlet is a defensive Inzektor card. A lot of the time the defense boost will be meaningless, since the Inzektor will be in attack mode and unable to benefit from it. What’s far more important is protection from destruction by opponent’s card effects. This can help keep them safe from cards like Mirror Force, Torrential Tribute and both Bottomless and normal Trap Hole. Unfortunately since it won’t protect them from battle, the opponent can just still summon something bigger and run them over.

Of all the new Inzektor cards we’ll see the most out of Gruf, and I expect we’ll at least see some use of Exa-Stag. Some of the other cards might see a bit of play as people try them out, but I doubt they’ll see the same impact as Gruf.

Next time I’ll be taking a look at one of the new themes we’re getting in GAOV, the Phantom Butterfly Assassin.

Yu-Gi-Oh! Galactic Overlord Preview Part 2: Lightray

As part 2 of my GAOV preview I’m going to be looking at the new Lightray Monsters, who are Light versions of famous monsters from the past. All the way back in Phantom Darkness we saw Dark versions of cards like Armed Dragon Level 7 and Sacred Phoenix of Nephthys, and now Lights have finally got their own turn.

From what has been shown of Lightrays so far they’re more of a bonus for Light decks than a theme unto themselves. One new TCG exclusive has been revealed in the form of Lightray Grepher, who has now had both a Dark and Light version of himself. Since his effect has not yet been revealed I’ll be saving covering him for later.

Lightray Sorcerer: Level 6 2300/2000 Light Spellcaster

Cannot be Normal Summoned or Set. Must be Special Summoned (from your hand) when you have 3 or more banished LIGHT monsters, and cannot be Special Summoned by other ways. Once per turn: You can shuffle 1 of your banished LIGHT monsters into your Deck to target 1 face-up monster on the field; banish that target. This card cannot attack the turn you activate this effect.

Lightray Sorcerer is of course the Light version of Chaos Sorcerer, and as such functions in a very similar way. Much like Sorcerer he can banish a face up monster whilst losing his ability to attack, but comes with different summoning conditions and a different requirement for his banishing effect.

Rather than banishing cards to summon him he relies on already having 3 Light monsters banished. This means you will need to find ways to banish your own cards before summoning him. Cards like Dimensional Alchemist, D.D. Warrior Lady or Master Hyperion could help achieve this. Since you only require Light monsters you don’t need to find ways to accomodate Dark monsters into a deck that might not otherwise have any use for them, like you would do with Chaos Sorcerer. Equally Lightray Sorcerer can benefit from the Light support in the deck, which Chaos Sorcerer is unable to access.

Unlike the Chaos version his banishing effect is not free, instead requiring a banished Light monster to be shuffled back into the deck. However since you are required to have 3 banished already should get a good 3 turns out of this effect at minimum. It’s unlikely you’ll need to use his effect more times than this anyway. Shuffling the cards back into your deck also means you get another chance to draw them and play them again.

 
Lightray Daedalus: Level 7 2600/1500 Light Sea Serpent

Cannot be Normal Summoned or Set. Must be Special Summoned (from your hand) by having 4 or more LIGHT monsters in your Graveyard, and cannot be Special Summoned by other ways. Once per turn: You can target 1 Field Spell Card and 2 other cards on the field; destroy them.

Lightray Daedalus is the Light version of Levia-Dragon – Daedalus, and like his old counterpart is linked to a Field Card, except this time it can be any generic one. It’s been years since the original Daedalus saw play and I’m rather doubtful this new version will make much change to that.

Most light based decks don’t make use of Field cards, so it’ll be rather hard to fit him into existing Light decks, equally decks that do use Field cards won’t have enough Light monsters to make effective use of him. The best use for this card will be sidedecked in Light based decks, since you don’t need the Field card to be on your side of the field. This means that should you encounter a deck like Gravekeepers of Dark World you could try siding him in as a way of blowing away 3 of the opponents cards for free. Quite how often this would happen remains to be seen.

 
Lightray Gearfried: Level 8 2800/2200 Light Warrior

Cannot be Normal Summoned or Set. Must be Special Summoned (from your hand) by having 5 or more LIGHT monsters with different names in your Graveyard, and cannot be Special Summoned by other ways. Once per turn, when a Spell/Trap Card is activated while you only control Warrior-Type monsters: You can banish 1 Warrior-Type monster from your Graveyard; negate the activation of that card and destroy it.

Here we have the Lightray version of Phoenix Gearfried, an old Structure Deck card, which never really saw any play. The Gearfried series of cards should however be familiar to anyone who watched the original series. Lightray Gearfried is the most restrictive of all the Lightrays, requiring not only a large number of different named Light monsters, but also to be playing warriors as well.

Some Light Warriors, such as D.D. Warrior Lady or Elemental Hero Neos Alius, do see play, but you couldn’t build a deck around this. Your best bet would probably be to try him in Lightsworn, where Jain, Ehren and Garoth can all fit both purposes. The other issue is that you either need to only have Warriors on the field, this can restrict you from summoning anything alongside Gearfried.

If you do successfully meet all these requirements he is basically a slightly larger Shi-En, who we all know is a good card, however the effort compared to Shi-En doesn’t seem worth it to me. It’d be an interesting late game surprise in Lightsworn, but even then I’m not sure it’ll see much play.

 
Lightray Diabolos: Level 7 2800/100 Light Dragon

Cannot be Normal Summoned or Set. Must first be Special Summoned (from your hand) by having 5 or more LIGHT monsters with different names in your Graveyard. Once per turn: You can banish 1 LIGHT monster from your Graveyard to target 1 Set card your opponent controls; reveal that target, and return it to either the top or bottom of the Deck.

Lightray Diabolos is the Light version of Diabolos, King of the Abyss the cover card of the Curse of Darkness Structure, which we never saw in the TCG. Much like Phoenix Gearfried he didn’t see any play, but unlike him he has no link to the Yu-Gi-Oh! mythos so I’m not sure why he’s been turned into a Lightray.

Like Gearfried he requires 5 differently named Light monsters in the Graveyard, but he comes with a much more useable effect, since he doesn’t also come coupled with a type restriction. His effect basically makes him a resuable Raiza, which can probably be used up to at least 5 times. Whether you choose to bounce the card to the bottom or top of the deck is an interesting choice. If you send it to the top it can lock the opponent’s draw for a turn, however they will still have access to it later once they get rid of Diabolos. If it goes to the bottom they’ll lose the card, but will still be allowed to draw new cards.

Diabolos can force the opponent to set multiple face down cards that they wouldn’t normally want to, leaving them more open to cards like Heavy Storm. Alternatively it can completely lock their plays down, forcing them to leave themselves open for a turn.

Of all the Lightrays I think Diabolos is the deadliest, since it can put a lot of pressure on the opponent, but its not the easiest monster in the game to summon. Like Gearfried he’s probably best suited to Lightsworn decks.

Overall I think these new Lightray monsters are an interesting take on some old monsters, but they won’t have anywhere near of an impact on the game that the Dark cards did.

Part 3 will be looking at the new Inzektor cards which will open up some new plays to the deck.