There are some things in the Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG that just don’t happen very often. Take the manner in which duels are won for instance. I’d surmise that about 98% of all duels are won by one player dropping the other one down to 0 life points. That isn’t the only way to win a duel, however. What about running your opponent’s deck out of cards? Back when Cyber Jar was around, that win condition was actually commonly used, but nowadays, not so much. Think about Exodia. A long time ago, duels would be won by Exodia all the time thanks to the incredible search methods we had at our disposal. Now these wins are rare, which makes them that much more exciting when they do happen.

Rare occurrences in this game aren’t strictly limited to things that happen mid-duel. Sometimes, an event occurs within the wider scope of the game that everybody has to take note of. When an Exodia win occurs, you probably wouldn’t know about it unless you were in the immediate vicinity of the table where it happened, but when a card or set of cards that does things like no other set before it appears, everyone takes notice. New card types are one such occurrence. I don’t mean “card types” as in “Elemental Hero” or “Dark World,” I mean card types as in Toon, or Spirit, or (most recently) Gemini. Looking back through the history of the game, there have been a grand total of four occasions in which the game’s creators saw fit to bring us a new designation of monsters.

First came the Toon monsters of Magic Ruler. Toons were distinguished by their ability to attack directly as long as the opponent controlled no Toon monster of his or her own, but they all shared a weakness to the destruction of the card Toon World. After that, we didn’t see another new type until Legacy of Darkness, when Spirit monsters were introduced. The Spirit monsters group has the distinct honor of housing two of the most powerful cards of all time, both of which are currently on the Forbidden list. It was initially thought that the effects which disallowed the special summon of Spirit Monsters and returned them to their owner’s hand at the end of turn in which they were played would be a weakness of the type, but in the cases of Tsukuyomi and Yata-Garasu, this wasn’t strictly the case. Yes, the taboo placed on the special summon of these monsters hurt, but the fact that they could only stay around till the end phase made them incredibly strong. There was no way your opponent could ever use Raigeki or Dark Hole on Yata-Garasu, and there was no way for Snatch Steal or Smashing Ground to stop Tsukuyomi from doing her thing.

After Spirit monsters, Magician’s Force brought forth the Union monsters, headlined by the components of Seto Kaiba’s XYZ-Dragon Cannon. Union monsters could equip themselves to certain monsters as spell cards to grant special abilities to the monsters in question. Alternatively, you could change them back into monsters instead, something that turned out to be quite helpful in the case of Y-Dragon Head and Z-Metal Caterpillar. Union monsters have granted a number of interesting effects in the past, my favorite being Metallizing Parasite - Lunatite, which grants spell immunity to any monster you control. That was about three years ago. Flash forward to now, and the release of Tactical Evolution. We now have a new type of monster to play with—the Gemini monsters—which disguise themselves as normal monsters until you spend a normal summon to give them devastating effects. Just how devastating? Take a look!

Monsters: 20

3 Chthonian Emperor Dragon

3 Blazewing Butterfly

3 Gemini Summoner

2 Aquarian Alessa

1 Treeborn Frog

1 Sangan

2 UFO Turtle

2 Mother Grizzly

3 Elemental Hero Neos Alius

Spells: 10

1 Heavy Storm

1 Mystical Space Typhoon

1 Snatch Steal

3 Brain Control

3 Smashing Ground

1 Pot of Avarice

Traps: 10

1 Call of the Haunted

3 Birthright

1 Mirror Force

2 Justi-Break

1 Ultimate Offering

1 Ring of Destruction

1 Torrential Tribute

One of the main advantages that Gemini monsters have over their predecessors is that they benefit from some seriously amazing support cards. Over the Sneak Preview weekend, the most popular of these was Double Summon, a spell card that grants you an additional normal summon. Personally, I’m more of a fan of playing Double Summon in a Six Samurai deck, where it can make up for not drawing a Grandmaster of the Six Samurai early in the game. In my estimation, the absolute best Gemini support card right now is the Gemini Summoner that you received if you played in the Sneak Preview event, and the deck that I’ve built is designed to take full advantage of it. To do that, we need to recognize a few things about the way that Gemini monsters work. When you summon a Gemini monster from the hand for the first time, regardless of how you do it, you still need to make all required tributes. That means that if I wanted to normal summon Chthonian Emperor Dragon from my hand, I’d still have to tribute a monster, regardless of whether I use my regular normal summon for it or a bonus summon from Double Summon, Gemini Summoner, or Ultimate Offering. Just because Gemini Summoner allows you a normal summon of a Gemini monster from your hand during your opponent’s end phase doesn’t mean that you get to skip out on paying the costs necessary to put that monster into play. This is why I’ve made sure to include a large number of level 4 Gemini monsters in the deck.

The major weakness of the Gemini monsters is that it’s difficult to develop your field with them since you’re generally summoning a monster one turn and then giving up your summon on the next in order to switch on its effect. Gemini Summoner allows you to work around this by dropping the monster in your opponent’s End Phase, well after he or she has had the opportunity to use cards that would remove it from the field. In fact, I’d be willing to bet that many players would not want to use a Brain Control or Soul Exchange on a face-up Gemini Summoner, instead opting to try and finish him off with a Cyber Dragon/other monster combination or by waiting for you to summon a Chthonian Emperor Dragon in its more vulnerable normal state before unleashing the thievery. After all, Gemini Summoner is useless to the opponent, and he or she knows that you’re planning on bringing out a 2400 ATK monster that can swing twice a turn. Putting the Dragon in the graveyard is no good, since you can then just revive it and summon it again on your turn. Thus the opponent waits and prepares in such a way that he or she can play around your Dragon. Then you go and drop something like Elemental Hero Neos Alius and completely wreck the opponent’s game plan.

The really neat thing about Neos Alius (other than its name) is that I have no real desire to switch it to its effect monster mode. It’s there because it’s a Gemini monster, which makes it a valid card to drop with Gemini Summoner. Throwing down a 1900 ATK monster during your opponent’s end phase that he or she can’t really benefit from is nice because it forces the opponent to use his or her cards prematurely to get by it. Even if the opponent pumps a Card Trooper up to 1900 ATK, the best he or she can do is force a trade with Neos Alius leaving him in the graveyard to be revived later, and hopefully leaving your Gemini Summoner alone to do his thing again during this next end phase.

Alternatively, the opponent can take action against Neos Alius, at which point you chuckle to yourself: that’s one less Brain Control the opponent can use to steal Chthonian Emperor Dragon when you inevitably bring it out to smash some face. Also in the level 4 or lower Gemini monster category is what’s quickly becoming one of my favorite Gemini monsters, Aquarian Alessa. You may recall me saying that the Water attribute tends to get the cards that discard cards from the opponent’s hand or restrict his or her draws (see Spiritual Water Art - Aoi and Fenrir), and Aquarian Alessa is no exception. Alessa makes your opponent think at least twice about playing a deck filled with small self-replacing monsters, since it causes that self-replacement to come at a steep cost. You want your card from Card Trooper? You can have it, but you’ll be taking 1100 damage and I’ll be taking a card out of your hand first. Aquarian Alessa wrecks the combos that your opponent is trying to prepare, and if you manage to keep her on the field for awhile, you can dish out some serious punishment and leave your opponent in a state where you can easily wipe him or her out in one turn with a well placed double-shot of Chthonian Emperor Dragon.

Even if your monsters end up in the graveyard, you should be able to bounce back thanks to the stability of the recruiter engines and their ability to get out the cards that let you rebound and refill your field (namely Blazewing Butterfly and Gemini Summoner). Gemini monsters present a whole new way to play, and it’s certain that they’re going to be here to stay for quite a while. Until next time, play hard, play fair, and most importantly, have fun!

Jerome McHale

jcmchale@andrew.cmu.edu

NEXT WEEK: Vellian Crowler is Cobra Commander. Look deep into your heart: you know it to be true.