Discussion: "Which is the best level 8 synchro monster?" poll

Thanks to everyone that voted on my poll. The Question asked what you thought is the best level 8 synchro monster and here is the results:

Out of 195 votes:

• 104 (53%) voted Stardust Dragon
• 46 (23%) voted Scrap Dragon
• 7 (3%) voted Black-Winged Dragon
• 7 (3%) voted Crimson Blader
• 5 (2%) voted Red Dragon Archfiend
• Chaos Goddess, Life Stream Dragon, Junk Destroyer and Colossal Fighter got 4 votes each (2% each)
• 1 person voted Dark end dragon 
• 9 voted Other (monsters like Black Brutdrago etc)

So to make this discussion less redundant, I'll only talk about the monsters with the highest votes: Stardust Dragon and Scrap Dragon

Stardust dragon. There is no wonder in my mind why it received over half the total votes. Since it's début in The beginning of the Synchro era, it's single handedly changed the way people have played the game. It's ability to negate an opponent's card and return in the end phase means it is a perfect way to protect yourself from your opponent's cards. Every player runs some kind of card that destroys, and that means stardust poses a threat to every person's deck. It stops some of the most powerful cards in the current metagame like Dark Hole, Torrential Tribute and Mirror force. But it's not tied to spells and traps. It can negate monster effects that destroy, like Dark Armed Dragon and Judgment Dragon. Time and time again, Yusei showed how useful stardust dragon can be and it's one of the only anime cards that is playable. About a year and a half later, Starlight Road was released, which gave stardust an easy way to hit the field and save your ass. The only drawback to summoning it this way was that you couldn't bring it back at the end phase, but that's no big deal. Stardust does suffer from a low base attack for it's level, so it's not invincible and can be ran over by most boss monsters in the game. But because of that, it restricts your opponent's options and makes cards in their hand useless until stardust is dealt with.

Scrap dragon arrived into the TCG in August 2010. While belonging to the Scrap Archetype, the card proved to be easy to summon (1 generic tuner + 1 or more generic non tuners!) outside of the archetype. It was also the only level 8 synchro with a good ignition effect: something level 8s had been lacking since then. It's ability to pop a card you control and one your opponent controls means you can take out the most threatening card your opponent has and slap them for up to 2800 damage. You also get the choice to plus off the effect by destroying something like Sangan or Card Trooper on your side and get their effects. It meant that many OTK options were now avaliable in certain decks that could make level 8s easier. While it's second effect was only usable within the archetype, it's worth mentioning. It can special summon another scrap monster for another synchro summon next turn, which means Scrap Dragon can keep coming back if you special summon Scrap Golem.

The other monsters in the poll obviously did not have as much of an effect on the playerbase compared to Stardust and Scrap Dragon. Some of them were pretty bad, like Black Winged Dragon. But now that the Synchro era has ended, we can now reflect on how they have raised the game to a new level. It allows some decks to be competitive and others to be easily countered. There is a Synchro monster for almost any situation imaginable. It's a shame we can only use 15, eh?