“She is the living embodiment of nature. She knows its will, its miracles, its spirit—and its power.”

– Excerpt from the writings of Kozaky

Elemental Mistress Doriado brings the power of nature to your deck. Doriado’s spiritual purity enables it to commune with the elements and attain unity with them. The Mistress is wise about the strength of the earth, the soaring heights of the great winds, the immeasurable and ancient depths of the waters, and the volatility of fire. Elemental Mistress Doriado is one with them all.

The card is also bound to be a handful for judges. A monster with five attributes? How are you supposed to handle that? Which attribute is the important one? Fear not, readers, as I guide you down the path of clarity.

“The attribute of this card is also treated as Wind, Water, Fire, and Earth.”

Elemental Mistress Doriado is a Light monster that’s also treated like it has four other attributes. Five attributes—that’s quite a lot for one monster. It’s an easy concept to grasp while Doriado is face up on the field, but what if the card is somewhere else? What happens then?

Elemental Mistress Doriado’s unity with nature extends beyond the field. The Mistress has all five attributes even while the card is in your hand or graveyard. When Doriado is in your graveyard, you can remove it from play to special summon monsters like Gigantes, Silpheed, Fenrir, Inferno, and Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning. You can also remove the Mistress from your graveyard and out of play to help pay the cost of Lekunga. In addition, you can discard Doriado from your hand to pay the cost of Abyss Soldier or Lady Ninja Yae. On top of all that, you can use Earth Chant for Doriado’s ritual summon, and you can return the monster to your hand from your graveyard with Salvage.

Doriado’s powers extend beyond just helping itself. The card can also use its unity with the elements to support other monsters.

In recent sets, monsters such as Element Saurus and Element Dragon were given effects that come to life when monsters with specific attributes are on the field. Normally, Element players have to run multiple monsters of each attribute or hope that their opponents are kind enough to supply the right monsters. Elemental Mistress Doriado does the job by itself. This one monster can give you access to all of the elements, providing the groundwork of support that the Element monsters need.

Example: Rex is Hungry

Alan is glad that he used Pot of Greed earlier this turn, because he drew into Magician of Faith. He sets the Magician and ends the turn feeling confident that he won’t get hit with Nobleman of Crossout.

Jennifer has only one set monster in her way, so she isn’t daunted. She begins her first main phase by activating the ritual spell card Doriado’s Blessing. Alan has no response, so the effect resolves, and Jennifer tributes a copy of Sangan to bring out Elemental Mistress Doriado. This activates Sangan’s effect, letting her search her deck for a monster with 1500 ATK or less. She conducts her search, chooses Element Saurus, and summons it onto the field. Alan can only watch as his plans fall apart.

What happened to Alan in this situation? Things were going well for him until he ran into  Element Saurus, a 2000 ATK monster with the ability to negate the effects of monsters it destroys in battle. Elemental Mistress Doriado made this possible because the card is treated like it has both the Earth and Fire attributes, so it fuels both of Element Saurus’s effects.

Doriado can extend this blessing to the other five Element monsters as well. When Doriado is in play, Element Valkyrie becomes a 2000 ATK monster that your opponent can’t take control of, and Element Dragon becomes a 2000 ATK monster that can attack twice in a row if it destroys an opponent’s monster in battle. The remaining Element monsters can also become threats in their own special ways, all thanks to Doriado.

This is but a small sampling of Doriado’s power. The true nightmare for your opponent is an overlooked trap card from Rise of Destiny, Fuh-Rin-Ka-Zan.

Fuh-Rin-Ka-Zan? The trap that says I need all four elements on the field? That’s too much work, right? Why would I want to use that? Why am I asking so many questions?

Doriado changes everything for this trap. You see, with Doriado face up on the field, even if it’s the only monster in play, you can activate Fuh-Rin-Ka-Zan. The trap lets you pick one of four of the game’s most powerful effects: destroying all monsters on your opponent’s side of the field (Raigeki’s effect), destroying all spell and trap cards on your opponent’s side of the field (the effect of Harpie’s Feather Duster), forcing your opponent to discard two cards from hand at random (much like Delinquent Duo’s effect), or drawing two cards (Pot of Greed’s effect). Best of all, you get access to these powers without any additional cost! Can you imagine it? Your opponent draws a card at the start of his or her turn, and you activate Fuh-Rin-Ka-Zan to make him or her discard two cards. That’s even better than hitting your opponent with Drop Off!

Let’s say that your opponent decides to use Mystical Space Typhoon on your set Fuh-Rin-Ka-Zan. In response, you can activate the trap to destroy every monster on your opponent’s side of the field. Your poor opponent will have no idea what he or she is in for!

When combined with Doriado, Fuh-Rin-Ka-Zan can quickly turn the game in your favor. You can even run three copies of it in your deck to increase your odds of drawing it. At the same time, you can run Lightning Vortex, Heavy Storm, Delinquent Duo, and Pot of Greed for added power.

Field spell cards are another one of Elemental Mistress Doriado’s specialties. Thanks to its ability, Doriado can work with multiple field spells such as Gaia Power, Rising Air Current, and Molten Destruction. The Mistress can even work with A Legendary Ocean, though the field spell won’t lessen the cost of bringing Doriado out. You see, Doriado’s Blessing requires that you tribute a monster or monsters with combined levels of at least 3. While A Legendary Ocean can make Doriado a level 2 monster, you still have to pay the same cost to ritual summon it. 

Doriado’s Defenders

Elemental Mistress Doriado has one serious weakness—its 1200 ATK. The Mistress isn’t likely to stand up well in a fight if you throw it into battle. But since Doriado takes care of your team, you should try to return the favor. Heart of Clear Water is a good place to start. What is Heart of Clear Water, you ask? It’s a good old equip spell from Legacy of Darkness that protects weaker monsters from being destroyed in battle or by targeting effects. If you equip Heart of Clear Water to Doriado, the Mistress will become a real problem for your opponent. The equip spell doesn’t make the monster invincible, however. If a monster with a non-targeting effect like Tribe-Infecting Virus shows up, Doriado will be in trouble. In addition, an equipped Doriado will still be vulnerable to targeting effects that don’t destroy, so cards like Brain Control and Tsukuyomi can have an impact on the Mistress.*

You can also use an equip spell from Soul of the Duelist, Ritual Weapon, to increase Doriado’s ATK by 1500, giving it 2700 ATK. The Mistress won’t be a pushover then.

The ritual summon is another drawback. By tributing a monster or monsters to pay the cost, you are giving up card advantage. But there is a way to get around this: Scapegoat. Everyone knows about the sheep. They’re everywhere, and unlike roaches, you can’t just fumigate the darn things. But you can tribute them to pay for a ritual summon! However, you can’t do it on the same turn that you brought out the sheep tokens. Rules are rules, and Scapegoat doesn’t allow you to do that.

You can help Doriado out even more with standard defensive cards like Windstorm of Etaqua and Mirror Force.** Cards like those work well in most decks, and they can certainly help here. You could even think about using Level Limit - Area B and Gravity Bind, since Elemental Mistress Doriado is only a level 3 monster. If you go that route, Ritual Weapon will start to look even better.

This is only the beginning of what you can do with the Elemental Mistress. As time goes on, other elemental cards will be released, and the Elemental Mistress will unite with them.

* Just doing my part to spread the love for Tsukuyomi, Mike.

Send all comments to Curtis@metagame.com.