Who Cares About Your Opponent's Monsters...

...When you can just attack directly?

Lonely Tylenol here, back from a brief hiatus (with a new computer!) to talk to you about an old standby: Wetlands.


All Aqua-Type/WATER/Level 2 or lower monsters gain 1200 ATK.

As a general rule, ATK-boosting field spells (or Continuous Spells in general, such as Equip Spells) have gotten a lot of flak for being inconsistent because they are unable to generate immediate advantage, and are also difficult to maintain due to the large amount of field destruction prevalent in most meta decks, and for the longest time Wetlands was no exception. Originally designed as support for the fledgling Frog archetype, when it first came out in Light of Destruction, Wetlands' only use was to make Unifrog a 1600-ATK direct attacker; of the other Frog-themed cards, only Treeborn Frog (whose effect was blocked), Substitoad (which is a toad, not a Frog) and Frog the Jam (which is also not a frog, according to the OCG spelling) benefited from Wetlands' effect, and none were capable of becoming competent attackers.

Wetlands would come to see some play in Frog beat decks later, however, with the creation of Dupe Frog and Flip Flop Frog in Crimson Crisis, One for One in Raging Battle, Aegis of the Ocean Dragon Lord in Ancient Prophecy, and Swap Frog in Stardust Overdrive giving Frogs a steady stream of helpful support for the deck type. It wasn't until Ronintoadin's release in The Shining Darkness that Wetlands fell to the wayside for Frog users, and only because of the rise of newer Frog users who were focused only on the FTK and Synchro Spam elements that Ronintoadin enabled, as well as the Frog Monarch players bolstered by Treeborn Frog's Semi-Limit.

The Frog engine is dead with the banning of Substitoad, as well as many popular tactics that Frog players would desire to employ; however, Wetlands still lives on in the local circuits, thanks to the ever-expanding array of level 2 or lower WATER/Aqua monsters with useful stats and effects that help to complete the deck.

Of course, the ATK gain is substantive on its own, and Wetlands being a Field Spell Card makes it Terraforming-searchable, but it's the monsters that make it worth the while. There are three types of monsters that make a Wetlands deck possible at all in today's meta - the Beaters, the Direct Attackers, and the Lockdown monsters - and I intend to give you an overview of each.

THE BEATERS



The first (and most obvious) use of Wetlands' ATK gain ability would be the Beaters. The implications of this are simple: With Wetlands, these formerly wimpy monsters become formidable beatsticks with the 1200 ATK gain. What's more, almost all of these monsters can do without their effects, meaning you can combine the ATK gain of Wetlands with, say, Skill Drain to turn the field into a battle of beatsticks - one that you will most surely win! All of these monsters benefit from Solidarity when Solidarity is around, making the ATK gain that these monsters gets from the two combined essentially 2000.

These five monsters (and Cannonball Spear Shellfish) will have the the following ATK:
(In order: Natural ATK / With Solidarity / With Wetlands / With Wetlands + Solidarity / With Wetlands + Solidarity + Star Boy)
Cryomancer of the Ice Barrier: 1300 / 2100 / 2500 / 3300 / 3800
Dewdark of the Ice Barrier: 1200 / 2000 / 2400 / 3200 / 3700
Submarine Frog: 1200 / 2000 / 2400 / 3200 / 3700
Swap Frog: 1000 / 1800 / 2200 / 3000 / 3500
Cannonball Spear Shellfish: 1000 / 1800 / 2200 / 3000 / 3500
Star Boy*: 550 / 1350 / 1750 / 2550 / 3050

*Since Star Boy always benefits from his own effect unless Skill Drain is active or his effect is negated, you can assume for the sake of argument that his base ATK is 1050 and apply it accordingly. Just don't apply it twice for the last number!

The best thing about these monsters is that, not unlike other low-level, low-ATK monsters, these monsters all have beneficial effects! Swap Frog has an inherent Special Summon mechanism, which instantly feeds Solidarity, and a dump, which you can use with Salvage to both tutor a level 2 or lower Aqua-Type monster and recover lost advantage from the Special Summon. Under Wetlands, Submarine Frog is a 2400-ATK monster with a Trample effect, which you can use to punish Quickdraw and other Set-heavy decks. Aside from being a 2500 beatstick, Cryomancer of the Ice Barrier has a Gravity Bind-like effect that goes into effect when combined with another Ice Barrier monster (including other copies of itself), allowing you to effectively stop anything stronger than Cryomancer of the Ice Barrier from being able to attack. Dewdark of the Ice Barrier, its companion, is a 2400-ATK direct attacker under Wetlands. Lastly, Star Boy is a 2250-ATK monster under Wetlands that boosts the ATK of its companions, making Cryomancer a 3000-ATK beatstick with Wetlands and Star Boy combined! Cannonball Spear Shellfish is essentially a 2200-ATK vanilla (since its effect requires Umi, a Field Spell Card other than Wetlands), and is thus not worth mentioning.

THE DIRECT ATTACKERS


The Direct Attack monsters are, simply put, monsters that have a direct attacking ability. Those who have been playing since the game's inception are used to monsters like Leghul, who have direct attacking abilities but negligible ATK, and are thus not really worth mentioning in the grand scheme of things. Direct attackers have come a long way since then, including monsters that have higher base ATK but a condition for being able to attack directly, and monsters that benefit from ATK-gaining spells like Solidarity and... Well, Wetlands!

Currently, there are three level 2 or lower WATER/Aqua monsters with direct attacking abilities. This means that you can run up to nine Direct Attackers, allowing you to run a combination of direct attackers and tech to make a deck capable of running Solidarity.

These three monsters will have the the following ATK:
(In order: Natural ATK / With Solidarity / With Wetlands / With Wetlands + Solidarity / With Wetlands + Solidarity + Star Boy)
Dewdark of the Ice Barrier: 1200 / 2000 / 2400 / 3200 / 3700
Unifrog: 400 / 1200 / 1600 / 2400 / 2900
Ooguchi: 350 / 1150 / 1550 / 2350 / 2850

This may not seem like a particularly advantage-generating strategy, but summoning Dewdark of the Ice Barrier, then activating Wetlands will allow you to win in four turns - not including other Summons!

LOCKDOWN MONSTERS




The Lockdown monsters of Wetlands beat are few in number, but are in fact quite effective. Their focus is on controlling your opponent's space and locking down their capabilities. But first, their ATK values.

These five monsters will have the the following ATK:
(In order: Natural ATK / With Solidarity / With Wetlands / With Wetlands + Solidarity / With Wetlands + Solidarity + Star Boy)
Cryomancer of the Ice Barrier: 1300 / 2100 / 2500 / 3300 / 3800
Penguin Soldier: 750 / 1550 / 1950 / 2750 / 3250
Flip Flop Frog: 500 / 1300 / 1700 / 2500 / 3000
Dupe Frog: 100 / 900 / 1300 / 2100 / 2600
Testudo Erat Numen: 100 / 900 / 1300 / 2100 / 2600

These monsters' effects have little in common, but they all work toward a common goal: Stunning your opponent. Flip Flop Frog and Penguin Soldier have effects that activate when they are flipped face-up (either by an attack or by Flip Summon) that return monsters on the field to their owners' hand. This allows you to manipulate your opponent's field by bouncing monsters (thus returning Synchro and Fusion monsters to the extra deck completely). Testudo Erat Numen will stop the Special Summoning of anything with 1900 or more ATK completely, allowing you to stop anything that could kill it while it is in Defense Position before it even hits the field. You can also combine this effect with the ATK gained from Wetlands and Solidarity (giving it 2100 ATK with both), allowing you to kill everything your opponent is still allowed to Special Summon! Cryomancer of the Ice Barrier and Dupe Frog both lock down your opponent's attacking abilities in different ways: Cryomancer of the Ice Barrier, when combined with another, creates a Gravity Bind-like effect that prevents monsters level 4 and higher from attacking. A single Dupe Frog prevents your opponent from attacking any other monsters you control, forcing your opponent to first remove the Dupe Frog before attacking anything else you control. Two Dupe Frogs create a complete battle lock by bouncing attacks off each other, making it impossible for your opponent to select an attack target. This means that your opponent will almost definitely be unable to attack... Unless they're playing Wetlands Beat!

There are also a number of other cards that are capable of supporting a Wetlands-style deck, including a few specifically designed to support WATER monsters that are low level and low ATK. A few such cards:

There are a handful of cards that act as an engine for the Wetlands deck. Salvage is a key advantage-generating card in WATER decks that are capable of supporting it. Salvage allows you to return two WATER monsters with 1500 or less ATK from your Graveyard to the hand at the cost of one card. This can help to mitigate the -1 of a Swap Frog Special Summon, as well as to enable one by adding Swap Frog and an eligible discard target to your hand, or to act as a pseudo-tutor by adding to your hand a card you dumped from the deck with Swap Frog's second effect. If nothing else, you can use the card to ensure you two Normal Summons in future turns, pay the cost for Moray of Greed, or to help pay the discard cost for other effects (such as One for One). Moray of Greed is another simple card with a simple effect: Return two WATER monsters from your hand to the deck to draw three cards. This isn't an advantage-generating card like Salvage is, but it does allow you to mitigate dead, monster-heavy hands by refreshing these cards with more suitable control cards. Medallion of the Ice Barrier adds Ice Barrier monsters such as Blizzed, Cyromancer and Dewdark to your hand, allowing you to add consistency to your draws and get monsters in your hand when you need them, and also to make paying the cost of Moray of Greed easier. Lastly, One for One allows you to Special Summon cards like Testudo erat Numen directly from your Deck - in Defense Position to boot! - to invoke the Special Summon lockdown.


Aegis of the Ocean Dragon Lord will act as your key protection card. Aegis of the Ocean Dragon Lord is a Normal Trap Card, meaning that it is chainable, and its effect lasts from the moment it is activated until the end of the turn. What Aegis does is effectively changes the game state; after Aegis is activated, your opponent cannot destroy level 3 or lower WATER monsters. Since your entire arsenal of monsters is level 2 or lower WATER monsters, they all fall soundly under the protection of Aegis of the Ocean Dragon Lord. Chain it to your opponent's Smashing Ground to redirect the destruction effect and prevent future destruction; to an attack to prevent Battle Phase destruction; or to your opponent's Dark Hole, Judgment Dragon or Black Rose Dragon to turn your opponent's nuke against them!

Attack-preventing cards like Gravity Bind, Level Limit - Area B and Swords of Revealing Light are also possibilities in Wetlands beat. In particular, Gravity Bind and Level Limit - Area B are capable of stopping all of your opponent's attacks for as long as it takes them to get rid of the cards, all the while allowing you to attack under it, since your monsters are all below level 4! Level Limit - Area B in particular allows you to switch formerly strong monsters to Defense Position, where they are weaker and (possibly) vulnerable to battle destruction by your powered-up Frogs and Ice Barriers!


In addition to this, Frogs are able to benefit from stun cards like Skill Drain and Royal Oppression to lock down your opponent's effects. Since your opponent will most definitely be relying on Special Summoning and monster effects to get their more powerful monsters onto the field, whereas you will be relying on a Field Spell Card to power up your existing Normal Summoned monsters, you can use Skill Drain and Royal Oppression to halt your opponent's momentum without severely hindering yours!



Using Wetlands to power up your already-helpful WATER monsters and backing them up with some of the most powerful Spell and Trap support available, Wetlands decks can indeed be incredibly impactful on the right meta!

Christmas Deck Dump, Part 3: Level 1 Control

Merry Christmas, Yu-Gi-Oh players! As a Christmas gift to you all, I am going to be posting a few deck lists for your enjoyment, along with explanations of effects and common synergistic plays the decks can make. We've looked at Falcon Control and Heatvells, each serious decks with big plays, so let's look at a fun deck this time: Level 1 Control!

Monsters: 21
2x Super-Nimble Mega Hamster
3x Ryko, Lightsworn Hunter
2x Key Mouse
2x Quickdraw Synchron
2x Kinka-Byo
1x Grave Squirmer
2x Effect Veiler
1x Treeborn Frog
1x Sangan
1x Card Trooper
3x Battle Fader
1x Gorz the Emissary of Darkness

Spells: 13
3x Creature Swap
1x Charge of the Light Brigade
1x Dark Hole
1x One for One
1x Monster Reborn
3x Book of Moon
2x Pot of Avarice
1x Mind Control

Traps: 6
2x Bottomless Trap Hole
1x Solemn Judgment
1x Call Of The Haunted
1x Mirror Force
1x Torrential Tribute

Extra: 15
1x Chimeratech Fortress Dragon
3x Formula Synchron
2x Armory Arm
1x Naturia Beast
1x Ally of Justice Catastor
1x Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier
1x Drill Warrior
1x Goyo Guardian
1x Black Rose Dragon
1x Stardust Dragon
1x Junk Destroyer
1x Shooting Star Dragon

This deck's focus is on abusing the Formula Synchron engine to build up card advantage, as well as using cards like Kinka-Byo, Grave Squirmer and Creature Swap to steal your opponent's monsters without losing card advantage of your own! The centerpiece of this engine would be the Beasts: Super-Nimble Mega Hamster searches out Ryko and Keymouse, and Keymouse searches out Kinka-Byo. Ryko's destruction effect allows for the milling of cards to bring back with Kinka-Byo, and Kinka-Byo's effect allows you to bring back level 1 Tuners for a one-card Formula Synchron with a draw! If you combine this with Treeborn Frog's Special Summon from the Graveyard, you can Synchro Summon for Formula Synchron using the level 1 Tuner you grab and Treeborn Frog, allowing Kinka-Byo to remain on the field to be added to your hand at the End Phase. This play is a +2 (one to the field and one to the hand) that can be repeated as often as you have Formula Synchron in the deck!

Complimenting this deck is the Creature Swap engine: When you give Kinka-Byo to your opponent, it will be added back to your hand at the End Phase, allowing you to essentially steal a monster for free! The implications of this are simple: If you perform the above play with Kinka-Byo and Treeborn Frog, then Creature Swap your opponent the Kinka-Byo, you can build up to a higher level Synchro using your opponent's monster, then return Kinka-Byo to your own hand in the End Phase! This play, which requires only two cards in your hand (Kinka-Byo and Creature Swap), produces a higher-level Synchro, a second draw, and steals your opponent's monster in a play that actually gains you serious card advantage!

Creature Swap can also be combined with other cards to disrupt your opponent. Grave Squirmer can be Creature Swapped to your opponent for a stronger monster, which you can then use to kill Grave Squirmer. Since Grave Squirmer goes to your Graveyard when it is destroyed, you can use its effect to destroy a second monster your opponent controls! The best part of it is, you still get to keep your opponent's monster!

Additionally, you can use Creature Swap to give your opponent spent Battle Faders in Attack Position. This allows you to turn your Battle Faders, which are already OTK stoppers and level 1 non-Tuners for Formula Synchron, into 0 ATK monsters on your opponent's side of the field, which you can run into for battle damage!

The Quickdraw element of this deck is simple and minute: Quickdraw Synchron allows you to take advantage of the hand advantage this deck generates by discarding for a Special Summon. It also allows you access to Drill Warrior, which allows you to mitigate dead draws and mills by discarding cards you want in the Graveyard (such as Treeborn Frog and Kinka-Byo fodder) for cards you want in your hand (such as Effect Veiler and Kinka-Byo itself).

Gorz the Emissary of Darkness (as well as the Gorz Token) are level 7 non-Tuners for easy access to Stardust Dragon, and a fourth OTK stopper that the deck can run straight from the hand.

Christmas Deck Dump, Part 2: Heatvells

Merry Christmas, Yu-Gi-Oh players! As a Christmas gift to you all, I am going to be posting a few deck lists for your enjoyment, along with explanations of effects and common synergistic plays the decks can make. We've looked at Falcon Control already, so next up is Heatvells!

Monsters:
1x Gorz the Emissary of Darkness
2x Caius the Shadow Monarch
2x Chaos Sorcerer
3x Flamvell Firedog
2x Flamvell Magician
1x Flamvell Archer
1x Flamvell Baby
2x Flamvell Poun
3x Gravekeeper's Spy
1x Gravekeeper's Descendent
1x Super-Nimble Mega Hamster
3x Ryko, Lightsworn Hunter
1x Lyla, Lightsworn Sorceress
1x Sangan

Spells:
2x Heat Wave
1x Cold Wave
1x Charge of the Light Brigade
1x Dark Hole
1x Monster Reborn
2x Mystical Space Typhoon
3x Rekindling
1x Pot of Avarice
2x Book of Moon

Traps:
3x Royal Decree

The primary purpose of this deck is a familiar one: use Flamvell Firedog to Special Summon Tuners from the Deck to perform one-card Synchro Summons, and later use Rekindling to explode from the Graveyard and perform multiple Synchro Summons. To help control the game state, the Gravekeeper engine and the Hamster engine are included, which allow for destruction with Gravekeeper's Descendant and Ryko, Lightsworn Hunter without costing you card advantage.

The distinguishing characteristic of this deck is its tech. Heat Wave is employed in this deck to force your opponent to Set monsters, prohibiting their explosion while simultaneously enabling yours (as Flamvell Firedog's battle destruction is made much simpler by attacking into Defense Position monsters, especially against decks like Blackwings and Lightsworn, which run few monsters with high DEF). Heat Wave also complements the Hamster/Ryko engine and the Spy/Descendant engine, as well as some other cards in your monster roster: Of the 24 monsters in the line-up, 11 either gain specific advantages from being Set, or would be Set anyway in situations where they are not forced by Heat Wave.

Not counting Chaos Sorcerer, there are seven DARKs and four LIGHTs, which should be enough to fulfill Chaos Sorcerer's summoning requirements given the nature of the Lightsworn engine's milling. Additionally, Arcanite Magician can be brought out by using Flamvell Archer with any of the Spellcasters in this deck.

Christmas Deck Dump, Part 1: Falcon Keepers

Merry Christmas, Yu-Gi-Oh players! As a Christmas gift to you all, I am going to be posting a few deck lists for your enjoyment, along with explanations of effects and common synergistic plays the decks can make. First up: Falcon Control!

Monsters:
2x Dark Simorgh
1x Dark Armed Dragon
3x Mist Valley Falcon
3x Mist Valley Soldier
1x Blackwing - Gale the Whirlwind
1x Gravekeeper's Descendant
3x Gravekeeper's Spy
2x Gravekeeper's Guard
1x Summoner Monk
2x Fortune Lady Wind

Spells:
1x Giant Trunade
2x Big Bang Shot
1x Monster Reborn
1x Dark Hole
1x Swords of Revealing Light
1x Mystical Space Typhoon
2x Book of Moon
1x Allure of Darkness

Traps:
1x Call of the Haunted
1x Royal Oppression
1x Torrential Tribute
1x Mirror Force
1x Solemn Judgment
2x Anti-Spell Fragrance
2x Bottomless Trap Hole
2x Icarus Attack

The primary purpose of this deck is to abuse Mist Valley Falcon's effect with a wide number of other cards, which include Royal Oppression, Big Bang Shot, Swords of Revealing Light, Gravekeeper's Guard, Gravekeeper's Spy, Blackwing - Gale the Whirlwind and Fortune Lady Wind. Not counting Dark Simorgh and Dark Armed Dragon, the deck runs eight DARKs and eight WINDs, making it easy to prime both monsters for the deck. Particularly easy is Dark Simorgh, as Summoner Monk + any spell allows you to bring out Mist Valley Soldier for a level 8 Synchro Summon, with both the WIND and DARK fodder needed for Dark Simorgh. The deck also runs nine Winged-Beasts, giving you more than enough targets for Icarus Attack's easy destruction.

The high number of Spellcasters (nine total, counting the six Gravekeepers, Summoner Monk and the two Fortune Lady - Winds) also gives you outs to Arcanite Magician. Blackwing - Gale the Whirlwind plus any of the seven level 4 Spellcasters makes Arcanite Magician, as does Mist Valley Falcon with either of the two Fortune Lady Winds.

The Anti-Spell Fragrances complement Dark Simorgh in its own lockdown: Dark Simorgh and Anti-Spell Fragrance face-up on the field will prohibit your opponent from Setting cards, while making a prerequisite of playing Spell Cards to Set them. This means that your opponent can only play monsters face-up on the field, and cannot play Spells or Traps at all. If this strategy does not suit you, however, you can replace them with Book of Moon, Pot of Duality, or Treasure Map - another card that allows you to take advantage of Mist Valley Falcon (by turning its effect into a "draw two").

Medallion of the Ice Barrier

Happy Holidays, i know everyones in for finals this week or going to some sort of Xmas party, so heres somthing for you all today.

Add 1 "Ice Barrier" monster from your Deck to your hand

 

 

Very Simple effect , but a very good one at that. Adding any "ice barrier" monster to your hand is like a Super buffed out Rota, which puts it in the same class and E-Emergency Call. Combine this card with Magic Triangle of the Ice Barrier and Salvage and you can Make some big plays and summon a  boss monster like General Grunard of the Ice Barrier, and hopefully summon all 3. a cool Decktype would be Hero's and Ice barrier, so you can Spam Absolute zero also.. Look for a decklist in the future. Enjoy!

Different Dimension Ground

Super busy lately >.< so time for another quickie.

This turn, any monster sent to the Graveyard is removed from play instead.

 

 

This is an awesome overlooked card that can devastate almost any deck. it gives macro decks just 1 more out to the deck. it also can destroy today's meta decks by being a chain able trap. Kills anything that involves the graveyard like Formula Monarchs,Debris Hime,DandyWarrior , even kills Scrap decks . Try it out, and see where it gets you. Enjoy!

Lord Canti!

Yay! its the weekend, so quickie up for today before locals.

Once per turn, during your Main Phase, you can select 1 face-up Attack Position monster your opponent controls with the same Attribute as this card, and destroy it. This card cannot attack the turn you activate this effect.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 For those of you that don't get the reference, this is the Card version of Canti from Fooly Cooly(FLCL) probably one of my favorite anime.

lets look at the card, Dark 4* and 1800atk 200 Def, and Machine all decent. Lots of support from the Machine/Dark department and his attack will keep him around for awhile, the best part tho is his effect. Destroying any Monster your opponent controls with the same attribute is Awesome, especially since hes dark.

use him to Destroy blackwings and there synchros, use him with Black Salvo to sync 7*s . kill Colossal fighter. hes all around Anti Dark hate and allure Fodder with a touch of machine for good measure. gotta be one of my favorite newly released card. Enjoy!

Best Buy Falcon!

 Budget Falcon Control! (aka)Best Buy Falcon!

I built this deck for my cousin out of the limited cards he had, and it surprsingly did well.so many combos and plays make this a fun and cheap alternative to the fast lane, Look for a more in depth and Less Budgety Build in the future. and remeber when your 10yrs old, shiny = Pro.Enjoy!

Monsters ~ 18
3~ Mist Valley Falcon
3~ Mist Valley Soldier
3~ Mist Valley Thunderbird
2~ Mist Valley Apex Avian
2~ Breaker the Magical Warrior
2~ Mist Valley Shaman
1~ Penguin Soldier
1~ Tornado Bird
1~ Morphing Jar
Spells~ 9
2~ Smashing Ground
1~ Big Bang Shot
1~ Mystical Space Typhoon
1~ Mind Control
1~ Dark Hole
1~ Monster Reborn
1~ Swords of Revealing Light
1~ Mind Control
Traps~ 13
2~ Fiendish Chain
2~ Spiritual Wind Art - Miyabi
2~ Compulsory Evacuation Device
2~ Dark Bribe
2~ Icarus Attack
1~ Mirror Force
1~ Torrential Tribute
1~ Call of the Haunted

Synchro
2~ Mist Valley Thunder Lord

So Shiny! and SO cheap!

The Elephant in the Room

Welcome again, ladies and gentlemen, to Kauai Kine Duels! Today, we will be talking about an interesting card released as a common in the latest booster pack, Starstrike Blast, that is bound to have an eventual impact on the meta: White Elephant's Gift!

Send 1 face-up non-Effect monster you control to the Graveyard to draw 2 cards.

White Elephant's Gift, along with Heat Wave (discussed in an earlier post on Kauai Kine Duels), adds to the ever-growing support that exists for Normal Monsters, and is the second draw card specifically designed for non-Effect monsters (the first is Common Charity, from Tactical Evolution). The obvious implications of this card are simple: If you want to replenish your hand, and you're running Geminis or Normal Monster Beat, you can send them to the Graveyard for a fresh draw, netting you a +1 to hand and a -1 to the field.

This card does come with a few drawbacks, however. The first is that, according to the card's language, you must "send a Non-Effect monster to the Graveyard"; this excludes Tokens and, to my knowledge, Trap Monsters, meaning you cannot combine this card with Dandylion, Fires of Doomsday, Phantom Skyblaster or Scapegoat to net you easy advantage, and you cannot use this with Embodiment of Apophis to get around the hassles of Normal Summoning a Normal Monster. The second is that, as a Normal Spell Card, this card has no place being chained to anything, and thus won't be replacing Gemini Spark in Hero Beat decks any time soon; if you Normal Summon Elemental Hero Neos Alius and your opponent chains Bottomless, you can chain Gemini Spark for the pop and draw one by Tributing your Gemini, but you cannot chain White Elephant's Gift. In spite of these drawbacks, however, the card, along with others, has enabled a few devastating engines, which we will discuss here.

One engine that White Elephant's gift has done a handy job of enabling is the Cloudian engine, which revolves around the Special Summoning of Cloudian - Smoke Ball:



Smoke Balls are newly born Cloudians. They fear being alone, and would rather swing and sway in the sky with their friends.

D'AWWWWW! Cloudian - Smoke Ball is so adorable! Even its flavor text makes the most hardened criminal want to pick it up and hug it! How could anybody consider this card dangerous in any meta?

Not so fast! Introducing the engine's core components, Cloudian - Turbulence and Fog Control:

Cloudian - Turbulence places a Fog Counter upon itself when it is Normal Summoned, which you can then remove to Special Summon a "Cloudian - Smoke Ball" from your Deck or from either player's Graveyard. You can then activate Fog Control, Tributing your Cloudian - Smoke Ball to put three Fog Counters on Cloudian - Turbulence, which then lets you Special Summon three copies of "Cloudian - Smoke Ball" (two from your Deck, and the third, which you Tributed for Fog Control, from your Graveyard) to the field! Now, for the cost of two cards, you can meet the activation requirement of Lucky Cloud and drop Destiny Hero - Plasma from your hand essentially for free, right?

But hold on! Don't forget the elephant in the room: White Elephant's Gift can be used on any of your copies of Cloudian - Smoke Ball from here. This means that, theoretically, if you were to have three copies of White Elephant's Gift in your hand, you could send all three Smoke Balls to the Graveyard to draw six cards, all for just a two-card setup! Certainly, it can't always be that easy, right? After all, just how likely are you to wind up with three copies of White Elephant's Gift in your hand, anyway?

Enter Fishborg Blaster:

If you control a face-up level 3 or lower WATER monster, you can discard 1 card to Special Summon this card from your Graveyard. If this card is used as a Synchro Material Monster, the other Synchro Material Monsters must all be WATER monsters.

Fishborg Blaster is a Tuner that has proven itself time and time again, from the Frog and Fish Synchros of last format to the Formula Monarchs of this format (which we will be discussing later), and he plays an important role here as well: Remember that, despite the fact that Cloudians are Fairy-Type, they are also mostly WATER monsters, meaning that you can use Cloudian - Smoke Ball to fulfill the Special Summon requirement of Fishborg Blaster, and then tune the two together for Formula Synchron! To do this, you can get Fishborg Blaster in the Graveyard using any number of effects (in keeping with the spirit of draw power, it might be wise to use Hand Destruction or Card Destruction to smooth out the engine, or One for One it directly to the field); from here, you can discard to Special Summon Fishborg Blaster, then Tune it with a Cloudian - Smoke Ball to summon Formula Synchron for the fresh draw (essentially turning any dead cards in your hand into Upstart Goblin without the Life Point gain for your opponent), and repeat. If you are able to draw into a second (or third!) copy of Fog Control, you can activate it on your last remaining Cloudian - Smoke Ball to generate three more Fog Counters on Cloudian - Turbulence, allowing you to Special Summon three more Smoke Balls. Using this method, it is possible to activate two White Elephant's Gifts and Synchro Summon for Formula Synchron three times with only two copies of Fog Control (a third copy would allow you to use a third White Elephant's Gift and leave two unused Smoke Balls on the field), for a total of seven freshly drawn cards off the Smoke Ball aspect of the engine alone! From here, you can then Synchro Summon into Shooting Star Dragon (by building up to a level 6 with the first Formula Synchron; Stardust Dragon with the second; and finally Shooting Star Dragon with the third), activate Pot of Avarice (to further complement your hand advantage), and annihilate your opponent with your advantage-backed behemoth as you please!

The Cloudian engine may be able to drop a powerful boss monster on the opening turn without expending hand advantage, but the next engine is able to generate even greater hand advantage and even win on the first turn!

For the Fairy engine, we must first look at Mystical Shine Ball:

A soul of light covered by mystical shine. When you see its beautiful shape, your dream will come true.

Again, fairly benign; a level 2 Normal monster with mediocre stats. Aside from The Law of the Normal OTK and the occasional Honest shenanigans, nobody would dare run it, right?

Enter The Agent of Creation - Venus:

Pay 500 Life Points, select 1 "Mystical Shine Ball" from your hand or Deck, and Special Summon it to your side of the field.

Look familiar? That's because The Agent of Creation - Venus has an effect very similar to Cloudian - Turbulence; in fact, it would not surprise me if this card was the inspiration for Turbulence's effect.

Again, a card that would seem relatively benign. It is more consistent in that, unlike Turbulence, it does not require any extra cards to set up. Because of this, it has been known to make the most consistent Destiny Hero - Plasma drop ever, outside of Scapegoat (which is another one-card method of Special Summoning Plasma), because all you need to fulfill Plasma's requirements are this card on the field and at least 1000 Life Points (1500 if you wish to keep it on the field). Why is this such a problem then? Once again, we look at White Elephant's Gift for the answer; White Elephant's Gift allows you to capitalize on the free field advantage by translating it directly to hand advantage. Without the outside influence of any other cards, Venus and three copies of White Elephant's Gift thin your deck out by nine: One for each Mystical Shine Ball Special Summoned, and two for each White Elephant's Gift activated. What Venus has that Turbulence doesn't that enables the FTK is a Life Point cost: the deck can easily cycle through Mystical Shine Ball summons as well as Volcanic Shell tutoring, which allows you to accrue enough difference in Life Points between you and your opponent to activate Life Equalizer, followed by Magical Explosion for the FTK!

The way in which the FTK itself works is a bit complicated, so in order to help us understand how this can be done, we will look at a test hand of a Fairy Draw FTK build made up by the user Hino from Pojo. For this hand, I opened up with:

The Agent of Creation - Venus
Thunder Dragon
Broken Bamboo Sword
White Elephant's Gift
Into the Void

I draw; the draw card is Magical Mallet.
Normal Summon The Agent of Creation - Venus.
Activate The Agent of Creation - Venus' effect three times, Special Summoning three "Mystical Shine Ball" cards from my Deck (Life Point difference: 1500).
Activate the effect of Thunder Dragon, discarding it to add two Thunder Dragons from my deck to my hand.
Activate Into the Void, drawing Dark World Dealings.
Activate Dark World Dealings, drawing Volcanic Shell, and discarding Volcanic Shell.
Activate Volcanic Shell's effect, paying 500 Life Points to add Volcanic Shell from my deck to my hand (Life Point difference: 2000).
Activate White Elephant's Gift, sending Mystical Shine Ball to the Graveyard to draw Hand Destruction and Upstart Goblin.
Activate Upstart Goblin, drawing Pot of Avarice (Life Point difference: 3000).
Activate Hand Destruction, discarding Thunder Dragon and Volcanic Shell and drawing Hand Destruction and White Elephant's Gift.
Activate Volcanic Shell's effect, paying 500 Life Points to add Volcanic Shell from your Deck to your hand (Life Point difference: 3500).
Activate Hand Destruction, discarding Volcanic Shell and Thunder Dragon and drawing The Agent of Creation - Venus and Golden Bamboo Sword.
Equip Broken Bamboo Sword to The Agent of Creation - Venus.
Activate Golden Bamboo Sword, drawing Upstart Goblin and Life Equalizer.
Activate White Elephant's Gift, sending Mystical Shine Ball to the Graveyard to draw Dark World Dealings and Card Destruction.
Activate Upstart Goblin, drawing Into the Void (Life Point difference: 4500).
Activate Into the Void, drawing Golden Bamboo Sword.
Activate Golden Bamboo Sword, drawing Broken Bamboo Sword and White Elephant's Gift.
Activate White Elephant's Gift, sending Mystical Shine Ball to the Graveyard to draw Magical Explosion and Magical Mallet.
Activate Pot of Avarice, returning three copies of Mystical Shine Ball and two copies of Volcanic Shell to the Deck to draw Mystical Shine Ball and Pot of Avarice.
Activate the effect of The Agent of Creation - Venus three times, Special Summoning two "Mystical Shine Ball" from your Deck, and the third from your hand (Life Point difference: 6000).
Activate Volcanic Shell's effect, paying 500 Life Points to add Volcanic Shell from my Deck to my hand (Life Point difference: 6500)
Activate Dark World Dealings, drawing Hand Destruction and discarding Volcanic Shell.
Activate Volcanic Shell's effect, paying 500 Life Points to add Volcanic Shell from my Deck to my hand (Life Point difference: 7000)
Activate Hand Destruction, discarding Volcanic Shell and Broken Bamboo Sword and drawing Into the Void and The Agent of Creation - Venus.
Activate Into the Void, drawing Upstart Goblin.
Activate Upstart Goblin, drawing Magical Mallet (Life Point difference: 8000)
Set Life Equalizer and Magical Explosion and end your turn.

At the start of your End Phase, your hand should look like this (at the end of your End Phase, it will be empty, as Into the Void requires you discard your whole hand):
Magical Mallet
Magical Mallet
Magical Mallet
The Agent of Creation - Venus
The Agent of Creation - Venus
Pot of Avarice
Card Destruction

Your deck size should be two (the third copy of Golden Bamboo Sword and Dark World Dealings are all that remain).

Your field should consist of:
The Agent of Creation - Venus
Mystical Shine Ball
Mystical Shine Ball
Mystical Shine Ball
Broken Bamboo Sword

Your Graveyard should contain the remaining 24 cards, 18 of which are Spell Cards. By your opponent's Draw Phase, this number will be 31, with 23 of the cards in your Graveyard being Spell Cards.

On your opponent's Draw Phase, activate Life Equalizer. Since your Life Point difference is 8000 (specifically, your opponent is at 11,000 and you are at 3000), both you and your opponent's Life Points become 3000. Then, activate Magical Explosion, burning your opponent for 4600 damage and the game!

By utilizing the raw card advantage generated from The Agent of Creation - Venus and Cloudian - Turbulence and translating them into hand advantage with White Elephant's Gift, you can unlock a wide arsenal of useful strategies to deliver unto yourself the victory!

Falcontrol!

Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen! Today we will be reviewing a largely underestimated card called Mist Valley Falcon:

This card cannot declare an attack unless you return 1 card you control to its owner's hand.

While Mist Valley Falcon does sport some impressive stats - 2000 ATK for a level 4 allows it to run over almost every entry-level monster your opponent might use, including the powerhouses Flamvell Firedog and Elemental Hero Neos Alius - but, as a whole, Mist Valley Falcon's effect doesn't seem tremendously useful on its own. In fact, at a glance, one might mistake it for a drawback. A card that has to return a card you control to its hand in order to be able to attack? What use could you make of that?

As it turns out, you can make a great number of uses out of it: the combo potential available with Mist Valley's effect has enabled an entire deck which uses its name! Here, we will discuss only a few of the various cards that interact favorably with Mist Valley Falcon:

- Breaker the Magical Warrior: Breaker the Magical Warrior (and, similarly, its counterparts Fortune Lady Wind and Lyla, Lightsworn Sorceress) have effects that allow you to destroy a Spell or Trap card(s) on the field just for Normal Summoning from their hand; however, their effects are either single-use (Breaker the Magical Warrior) or have difficulty maintaining field presence (Lyla, Lightsworn Sorceress and Fortune Lady Wind). Mist Valley Falcon remedies this drawback by returning these monsters to your hand in order to allow you to re-use their effects at your leisure by Normal Summoning them! By doing so, you are thus enabled to activate their effects on a turn-by-turn basis, allowing for a constant stream of destruction.
Which of the three monsters you choose is up to you, but each of them can allow you to benefit from different strategies. Lyla allows you to utilize the mill mechanic to feed Graveyard-reliant Falcon Control decks; Breaker the Magical Warrior's DARK attribute allows you to ditch it for Allure of Darkness if you're done using its effect, or to use it as fodder for Dark Simorgh along with a dead Mist Valley Falcon when it's in your Graveyard! Presently, Fortune Lady Wind is not tremendously synergistic; however, its WIND attribute allows you to capitalize on Mist Valley Divine Wind (which we will discuss later), returning a spent Wind to your hand to reuse its effect later and Special Summon another useful WIND monster from your deck!

 

- Blackwing - Gale the Whirlwind: Blackwing - Gale the Whirlwind also has a unique effect; once per turn, it can halve the ATK of any one monster on the field. This means that, even with its mediocre 1300 ATK, it can run over cards with up to 2500 ATK, including all of the Monarchs, and even Stardust Dragon! Unfortunately, its low stats render it quite vulnerable during your opponent's turn outside of a Blackwing deck (as decks that splash it do not have access to Kalut); however, Mist Valley Falcon allows you to return it to your hand, where it's safe during your opponent's turn, and can be re-used again by Normal Summoning it! What this means is that you can effectively use Gale's effect to halve a problem monster, run over it with Gale, and then return Gale to hand to attack directly (or run over another monster) with Mist Valley Falcon! In addition, Blackwing - Gale the Black Whirlwind is a level 3 DARK Tuner, meaning that it can be combined with Mist Valley Falcon for the level 7 "Mist Valley" Synchro, Mist Valley Thunder Lord; then, both Gale and Falcon can be used as your DARK and WIND fodder for Dark Simorgh! Its Winged-Beast Type also allows you to Tribute it for Icarus Attack in a pinch.



- Snowman Eater: Snowman Eater also has a useful effect for Falcon Control decks. When Snowman Eater is flipped face-up (either by battle or by an effect), destroy one monster on the field! With 1900 DEF, this card makes an invaluable Set, as it will survive against almost every entry-level monster in the game (barring Mist Valley Falcon, ironically, making it bad only for a mirror match), and take care of almost anything that happens to run over it! If it survives being flipped face-up by battle, you can return it to your hand during your own Battle Phase with Mist Valley Soldier's effect, then Set it again for the opportunity to re-use its effect!



- Gravekeepers: While at first glance the Gravekeeper engine doesn't seem particularly useful for Falcon Control, it does come with certain benefits. For example, Gravekeeper's Spy is a Flip Effect monster that Special Summons another Gravekeeper's monster with 1500 or less ATK from the Deck. This does two things: the first is to allow you to pull useful monsters from the deck, such as Gravekeeper's Guard and Gravekeeper's Descendant, the former of which you can use after returning it to your hand with Mist Valley Falcon. The second is to use the Gravekeeper engine as an advantage engine by returning Gravekeeper's Spy to your hand to re-use its Special Summon effect to draw raw power from your deck with repeated Special Summons from the Deck!
Beyond their effects, the Gravekeeper cards allow you to do certain other things as well. Their DARK Attribute allows them to be removed with Allure of Darkness; their Spellcaster Type allows you to make Arcanite Magician with Blackwing - Gale the Whirlwind; and the impressive DEF stats on Spy and Guard allow you to maintain field presence with their effects!

Now that we've looked at a few of the monsters that interact positively with Mist Valley Falcon, let's look at a few of the Spells and Traps!

- Swords of Revealing Light: Since the dawn of the game, this card has proven itself to be a powerful continuous stall card under the right circumstances, so much so that you are still only allowed to run one. Swords of Revealing Light allows you to remove your opponent's Battle Phase from the picture completely, for as long as it's face-up on the field! Unfortunately, it has a built-in self-destruct effect: It cannot survive on the field for more than three turns, even if your opponent fails to destroy it during that time. Fortunately, Mist Valley Falcon allows you to circumvent that nasty little problem by returning Swords of Revealing Light to your hand, effectively "refreshing" the time limit on Swords of Revealing Light!



- Big Bang Shot: Equip Spell Cards have gotten quite a haranguing over the years for being very vulnerable and having mediocre effects that can't overcome the drawbacks. Big Bang Shot is in many cases no exception: It gives the monster you equip it with only 400 ATK and a trample effect, and if it's removed from the field, the monster it's equipped to is removed from play as well. Why, then, would you want to use it in Falcon Control?

Well, you would certainly want to equip it to your opponent's monster, would you not?

In Falcon Control, Big Bang Shot is useful for its drawbacks: When you return it to your hand with Mist Valley Falcon's effect, you remove from play the monster it was equipped to. Since you can equip your own Equip Cards to your opponent's monsters, you can equip Big Bang Shot to your opponent's monster, then return Big Bang Shot to your hand with Falcon's effect, thus removing from play problem monsters in a pinch! Big Bang Shot goes to your hand, allowing you to reuse its effect next turn at your leisure, or equip it to your own monster if you need that extra 400 ATK (or Trample effect) to swing for game. If your opponent only has one monster and you remove it from play by attempting to attack it, a replay is forced, allowing you to attack directly instead!


- Future Visions and Royal Oppression: Future Visions has always been an interesting card. Originally designed as a means of triggering the effect of Fortune Lady Light, the centerpiece of the Fortune Lady engine, Future Visions has occasionally seen play in other decks for its disrupting effect. One such deck is Falcon Control, for its ability to lock down your opponent's Normal Summons. While Falcon Control does use Normal Summons for control, Mist Valley Falcon can circumvent the drawbacks by returning Future Visions to your hand in order to attack, allowing you to Normal Summon as you normally would during your Main Phase 2, and replaying Future Visions before your End Phase to lock down your opponent's Normal Summons during their turn, or forcing them to waste removal on it! If your opponent has a monster that is removed from play, by returning Future Visions to the field with Mist Valley Falcon's effect, you prevent the opponent from returning to the field, keeping it removed from play for good!
If locking down your opponent's Normal Summons is dangerous, then locking down Special Summons must be completely destructive! The newly limited Royal Oppression can be activated on your opponent's turn to negate and destroy any card your opponent uses to Special Summon, and then returned during your Battle Phase with Falcon's effect, allowing you to Special Summon during your Main Phase 2 to re-Set it!




With these cards and more at your disposal, you can use the combo potential of Mist Valley Falcon to disrupt and destroy your opponents one-by-one!