Yu-Gi-Oh! Card Review: Card Trooper

Hey guys. I'd like to review a card that has been in our TCG for a long time. Not as long as the beginning of the game, but long enough to be limited to 1 for around 3 years.

Today's card is Card Trooper!

This little machine type has 400 ATK and 400 DEF points. People might look at those stats and say "Wow, that sucks. Bin that S***". But its effect takes care of that.

Once per turn, you can send the top three cards of your deck to the graveyard to give this card 500 ATK for every card sent, until this turn's end phase. And when its destroyed, Draw a card.

Bam. Its a beautiful effect. It has something for every player whether you play competitively or not. Sending three cards turns this card into a 1900 beater that can get over most things. But the beautiful part is the milling. You just milled three cards, which is what decks like lightsworn and to be honest, most metagame decks out there love to do. And unlike lightsworn monster, you dont have to mill if you dont want to.

Second is the draw effect. No matter how this card gets destroyed, you will draw a card. And its not an optional effect either, so the timing cannot be missed. In my book thats a +1, and a beautiful one at that.

Also, this card works well with many other cards, here a few to name a list:
- Wulf, Lightsworn beast: Mill it with Card Trooper's effect and deal up to 4000 direct damage.
- Debris dragon: Special summon it with Debris Dragon, and since the milling in the first effect is a cost, you can use it! But you wont gain any attack points, Not that anyone is complaining.
- Judgment dragon: Another lightsworn, but destroy all the cards on the field with his effect and Draw a card with card trooper.
- Hell, any card that destroys things: I'm talking about Torrential Tribute, Dark hole, Lightning Vortex, Limiter removal etc.


But why is this card at 1? Well. The card is amazing as it is, but its not enough to bring it to one on its own. The reason why this card is limited is because when this card was released, people began to see it's potential with Machine duplication and Limiter removal (Two cards that were fine before Card Trooper came along). So Konami did the right thing and limit this card.

And they're right: Would you really want to be up against 3 of these pumped up to 3800 atk each?

The downside to this card is that it's a machine. And with Cyber dragon in many decks and Chimeratech fortress dragon in their extra deck to boot, they will take your trooper with their cyber dragon and -1 you. As well as around 2000 of your life points.

Consistency: Why they're winning and you're not.

Hello Yugi fans. Today, in my spare time, i have decided that i should do an article on consistency, and why some cards in our metagame favour it and are ran because of it.

What is consistency exactly? Well, For something to be consistent, it needs to happen often and reliably. In Yu-Gi-Oh!, it is important to build your deck so that you have an "out" (a way to deal with anything your opponent throws at you) at any point in the game. this allows you to breakdown your opponents strategy and subject them to yours.

But if you play competitively (go to locals and attend regionals and other tournaments) or you want to, just remember one thing:

Most of the cards in the anime are inconsistent and should be kept in the anime at all times and not in your deck.

Now. How do you make your deck more consistent? Before even considoring that question, you need to know your win condition (what your deck needs to do to bring your opponent's life to 0). Then, you can build your deck to get to that condition Consistently.

Lets take an examples. Gravekeeper's used to be a control deck. they had a one-for-one removal with Gravekeeper's descendant and could shut down the graveyard with Necrovalley, which made cards like Monster reborn and XX-Saber Faultroll useless. But this deck was just not good enough. It was outcompeted by faster decks that could set up their win condition quicker. However, in Starstrike blast, Konami threw Gravekeeper's players a Consistency bone called Gravekeeper's Recruiter. It could search for almost any gravekeeper's monster when sent to the graveyard from the field. Players suddenly realised that you could search out Gravekeeper's commandant, which could search out Necrovalley. This in turn lets you run Royal tribute and deplete your opponents hand of monsters, while you can bring yours back with Gravekeeper's stele. So you see, with a little help from our friend Consistency, the deck now has a powerful Win condition which can be met quickly and often. This is why in YCS Atlanta in November, Gravekeeper's decks placed in the top 3 spots.

But in a more general sense, consistency can be aquired through certain cards. As long as you know your win condition, you can run 3 of any card that can help you get that condition.

Right now, i am running Scraps. Its a very fun deck, and it has a plethora of intricate combos and +1s at your disposal. The main win condition of this deck is to summon scrap dragon and blow your opponents cards away with its effect. While thats all well and good, Scrap dragon is a synchro monster and cannot go into your main deck. That means that i needed to build my 40 card deck that is dedicated to bringing out a scrap dragon as consistently and as often as possible. To do that, i have to run 3 Scrap beast and 3 scrap chimera as well as 3 Scrap goblin, so there is always a Scrap chimera to use. The only problem with the deck is that it relies on its normal summon often to get the ball rolling. All it takes is a Solemn warning on my Scrap Chimera to put me at a severe disadvantage. But i have cards like Scrapstorm (The Scrap's draw card) and Scrapyard to set up my win condition.

As for certain cards. The main cards that can help consistency are Draw cards. these serve little purpose in your deck but to make your hand more consistent. Allure of darkness lets you draw two and then remove a dark from your hand. At first glance, you may think that removing one of your precious monsters is a terrible idea, but your hand is stronger now and your deck has been thinned by two cards. and you can always remove a monster that does not quite fit the bill in the current gamestate. For example, lets say my opponent has a stardust dragon on the field. and in my hand, i have a smashing ground and a Blackwing - Bora the spear. I know that i cannot destroy stardust dragon with smashing ground because of its effect, and Bora does not have enough attack power to get over it. In my draw phase i draw Allure of darkness, i use its effect and draw two. Lets say i just drew Blackwing - sirocco the dawn and Blackwing - Kalut the moon shadow. If i remove Sirocco for Allures effect, i just turned that Allure of darkness into a monster that can help me get past that stardust. By using that draw card, you managed to get out of that situation and deal some damage, and your deck has been thinned.

But as far as draw cards go, the best one by far is Pot of Duality. I dont need to explain its effect, but it is by far the easiest way to increase consistency in your deck no matter what. Even though you lose special summoning for the turn, you have now got a much better hand next turn, which means that win condition your deck is aiming for is now so much closer.

I hope that this small article helped some people. Many people have been criticising that Pot of duality is too expensive. While that is true, the card turns inconsistent but powerful decks into Consistent ones.

I might do a few more card reviews soon when i get the time. Maybe when the next set comes out, because those Aesirs look awesome.

Yu-Gi-Oh Card Review: Blue-Eyes White Dragon

Now for a little bit of nostalgia, Konami have decided to release the legendary collection. Comprising of 6 cards that everyone will recognise, as well as six packs: one of each of the first 6 sets (In the UK, we got 2 packs of the first 3 sets instead), it gives duelists another chance at pulling some old favourites that were until now, difficult to get hold of.

The Legendary Collection comes with the 3 god cards (In the new card format) as well as an alternate art Dark Magician, Red-Eyes Black Dragon and today's card, the all powerful Blue-Eyes White Dragon!

My Favourite Blue-Eyes artwork!

This card was first used by Seto Kaiba in the very first episode (excluding season 0 of yu-gi-oh) and he likes it so much, he has 3 of them in his deck! He could fuse them together to create the Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon, with an impressive 4500 attack points.

It has 3000 attack points and 2500 defence points, which is 500 more attack and defence points than Yugi's ace card, the Dark Magician, respectively. Kaiba relied on Blue Eyes's powerful strength to take any monster down.

Alone, this card could not survive the evolving metagame we have today. It's not a card you can splash into a deck for some extra power and expect to get it out. Monster effects and mass destruction cards play more of a part in todays yu-gi-oh than ever, and Blue-Eyes white dragon wouldnt last a turn on the field if left unprotected.

But there are many support cards that make Blue-Eyes playable, and i will list a few of the best ones.

First up are the ways of getting him out onto the field without wasting tonnes of resources. Cards like Ancient Rules and Kaibaman can help summon him as easy as the first turn! But thats not all, you can also use Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon to special summon him from your hand or graveyard once a turn!

You will need to search him from your deck too. You can use cards like The White Stone Of Legend to add a Blue-Eyes to your hand whenever it is sent to the graveyard (Future Fusion can help with this!) or Summoner's Art, to add a level 5 or higher normal monster straight from your deck to your hand. You can go one step further and use Paladin of White Dragon to special summon him straight from your deck!

Lastly, you want to be able to special summon it from the graveyard (It has no special summoning restrictions and it can swing for 3000 attack. You dont see that very often anymore, just look at Judgment Dragon!). Monster reborn, Call of the Haunted and to a lesser extent, birthright and silent doom can bring him back over and over again.

But now that he is on the field, what can you do to keep him there? If by some chance that your opponent wants to take your precious dragon down in battle, you can drop an Honest since Blue-Eyes is a light attribute.
Alternatively, you can use Justi-Break to destroy all effect monsters on you and your opponents side of the field (sorry Sangan and Dandylion... oh, whats this?).

So as you can see, Blue-Eyes may not be able to hang around for long, but there are effective and near-costless ways to keep bringing it back and ploughing through your opponents resources, and if you happen to have your Blue-Eyes removed from play, you can always run 2 or 3!