Yu-Gi-Oh Card Review: Flashing Carat Dragon - Stardust

Hello readers. I hope you enjoyed my LC03 opening. I was thinking about what to post for the last couple of days, but then suddenly this surfaced...

What you are looking at is the manga equivalent of Stardust Dragon, called Flashing Carat Dragon - Stardust. While it looks identical, not just the dragon itself but it's level, attribute, attack, defense and type, it  boasts a different effect. 

1 Tuner + 1 or more non-Tuner monsters

Once per turn, during either player's turn: You can target 1 card on the field; that target cannot be destroyed this turn. While this card is face-up on the field, it's name is treated as "Stardust Dragon"

So how has this change in effect kept it worth reviewing? 

Well Stardust's ability to negate a card once a turn and come back in the end phase meant it was not a sitting duck after it had used it's effect. It could zip in and out of the playing field and stopped stuff like Zenmaines as well as another destruction card earlier in the turn. It's always proven itself to be a powerful tool that can seal games when timed correctly. 

But this card is different, it's not so much about quantity, it's about quality. You sometimes don't want your Stardust Dragon to be in the graveyard. You want it on the field to keep your life points safe. But Carat allows for it to select any card (Including itself) and stop it being destroyed. It means that if a card like, let's say, Dark Hole, activates: Stardust has to leave the field while Carat can just protect itself and any advance made that turn is useless since it can't be destroyed by battle either. In that scenario, Stardust is better when you have a field of 5 monsters, but if you actually managed that and didn't win last turn, then you pretty much deserve to lose your field.

Because of the way the game has become, it's not about amassing an army to beat your opponent to death. We have 2 Torrential Tribute, Mirror Force and Bottomless Trap Hole. All of these cards are played at their max numbers and overextending your field is just not going to happen. However being able to make a single 2500 beater that can't be destroyed will keep putting in work turn after turn.

And we haven't even started on the second effect. Because it's treated as Stardust Dragon, you can use Formula Synchron to make Shooting Star Dragon as well. You can also summon Stardust Xiaolong from your graveyard when it's summoned. It's not a huge deal, but it's better than nothing.

Seriously, I can't wait for this card to come out. While synchros are no where near played as much as they used to, many decks can make it and this card is absolutely brutal. If you've played against Constellar Omega on the Dueling Network recently, you'll understand how frustrating monsters like that can be.

Until next time, The TCG Lover out!

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?