Swagbucks and Interplanetarypurplythorny Dragon Card Review

Hello Readers. Time for another card review. A certain German retailer managed to acquire a week early sneak peek kit of order of chaos and opened it, revealing us most of the exclusives that needed to be revealed. Some are okay, and there's a couple yet to be shown. Support for Wind-ups, Inzectors and Evols are given in the form of exclusives, so there's a lot going on in this set to be excited about.

However before i review the card, I would like to take the time to talk about a website called SwagBucks. You may or may not have heard of it but I link to it on my video descriptions and have placed it on the right of my blog posts in the 'Useful Links' section.

Essentially it's a point system where you use their search engine and complete other things on their website to get Swag Bucks. These bucks can be exchanged in their store for loads of cool stuff. It took me a while to get enough points, but I managed to get enough to get an amazon gift card. The reason why I'm telling you this is because all bucks i get will go directly towards buying Yu-Gi-Oh! products online to open on my Channel.

Click the link below to refer me and start getting free stuff. For every point you collect, your referral (Me) gets a point too. This means more points for me, meaning more cards, meaning more content for you to watch! All while you're collecting points yourself!

Click here and start getting free stuff!

Now onto the card review!

Today's card is Interplanetarypurplythorny Dragon.

What a name. That has got to be the craziest name ever imagined. Not even Super Nimble Mega-Hamster can compare to it. While the name is silly, it packs a nice simple effect too.

If a monster you control is destroyed by battle or card effect and sent to the graveyard: you can special summon this card from your hand     

That's it. It's not long, it's not situational and it's fun. At 2200 attack it can come onto the field and stop further attacks or start taking control of the field right there. It forces your opponent to think twice before attacking a face down with a weak monster. It also has the attack to get over some of the best beat sticks in the game: Thunder King Rai-Oh and Cyber Dragon.

And let's not ignore the fact that it can be summoned when a monster is destroyed by a card effect too. It's a great way to recover from a torrential or a dark hole or anything else your opponent likes to use to destroy your stuff.  It works great in scraps since you destroy a lot of your cards, meaning you don't need to rely on your opponent to summon this card.

Well apart from that there's not much else great to say. It really does it's job very well. There's no card quite like it. Now lets discuss the bad things, in the form of nice bullet points:

• Since it special summons from the hand, you cannot summon more than one at a time. Just like Tragoedia and the Meklords. However i believe you can special summon multiple copies during the main phase, like T.G. Warwolf and Dopplewarrior. However i need confirmation on that so I might be wrong.
• You cannot summon it when your opponent's monster is destroyed on their side. That would be so awesome if you could attack over their monster and summon this and attack directly for 2200.
• It relies on you taking a -1 before summoning this. If you have total field control and you would rather negate their dark holes or Effect Veiler their Black Rose Dragon's nuke effect, then it's just going to sit in your hand. However, the card's summoning condition is an IF and not a WHEN, meaning it can be chain link 2 or higher. If you don't understand that, that means that if you get your Sangan destroyed, it does not miss the timing, and you summon this card, then search (Sangan's effect is mandatory). I hope that makes sense to you.

Well. How popular is this card going to be? Only time will tell. It's a completely hit or miss card at this point in time.

I would just like to thank Konami for making this card a Common though. Such a useful card was sure to be at least an Ultra rare, but they finally gave the playerbase something that doesn't make them look greedy.

TheTCGLover Out!

Yu-Gi-Oh Card Review: Photon Trident

Now that Order of Chaos is here in only a few weeks, It's time to review some of the cards that are debuting for us TCG folk. I have reviewed many Core set cards, but we have known about them for a long time so they have been debated to death by this point.

Today's card for review is Photon Trident

 Photons have been getting a nice boost in the TCG exclusive department with Photon Sabre Tiger and Photon booster in Photon Shockwave. This card is another attempt to put them the tier list (It's too far for them to be tier 1 though. They lack the sackyness).

Quick play spell
Target 1 "Photon" monster you control. Until the end phase, it gains 700 attack and when that monster attacks a defense position monster: Inflict piercing damage. When that target inflicts damage to your opponent, destroy 1 spell or trap card on the field.

This card has a lot of different stuff on it, so I shall break it down and discuss each part. Firstly, its a quickplay that boosts a monsters attack, so it can be used when your opponent attacks you and the boost allows your monster to win that battle. Photon sabre tiger goes up to 1900 if it's alone on the field and 2700 if it's with another tiger. The photon monsters in order of chaos shoot up to around 2700 which is enough to get over most problems, or go toe-to-toe with stuff like Hyperion.

Next up, it does piercing damage. That kind of damage is severely underrated. Whether you've backed your opponent into a corner or they're hiding behind Dandylion tokens, there are situations where piercing damage can put some real pressure.

The last clause brings the whole card together. If you do damage with the monster, pop a backrow on the field. So the card itself allows you to get over monsters or trample through their defense, and you get to hit a card for your trouble. Simply beautiful.

Do note that the spell and trap destruction is mandatory meaning that you may have to resort to hitting your own. For example: You have summoned Photon Cerberus and set Photon Trident and another spell/trap card. Your opponent summons a monster and attacks your Cerberus. You flip Trident and your monster runs over theirs. Now that you have done damage, you must hit your own back row card since your opponent will most likely set their defenses on main phase 2. That is the main drawback to this card, aside from the fact that you can only use it on Photon monsters.

But in all honesty, it is definitely worth testing out once Order of Chaos is released. It's a really impressive card that can really net you and advantage.

In terms of price, it's hard to tell by the picture if the card will be a rare or a secret. I can see Konami making this one of the less desirable secrets of the set (The most being Tour Bus from the Underworld). So if its a rare, it's going to be a dollar. If it's a secret, it will be around 5 or 6  dollars.

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.