In fact, I’m going to make a prediction; I’m writing this before Shonen Jump San Mateo, though you’ll be reading it a day after. I’m willing to bet that if The Six Samurai make multiple Day 2 appearances at that event, it’ll be because of this card. If only one Six Samurai player makes the cut, or none do, it’s because they weren’t running three copies of Spirit and the important combo pieces that go with it.

But let’s start with the basics first.

It's another Samurai worth Running

Yes sir, the more Samurai you run the easier it is for you to turn on their effects and put together the big plays your Six Samurai strategy is based around. What’s worse than having only one Six Samurai but no Grandmaster to match it? How about having a Grandmaster and not being able to draw a Samurai. If you’ve played Samurai in the past you know what that’s like, and you know that it happens. It’s basically the worst feeling you can experience running this deck.

The problem before Gladiator’s Assault was that there were really only three low-level Samurai that were main deck worthy: The Six Samurai - Irou and The Six Samurai - Zanji got in almost on raw stats alone, and both have useful monster destruction effects. The Six Samurai - Yaichi was also superb in virtually all matchups. But where did you go from there? Kamon was played to successful finishes on one or two occasions, but running him was an invested metagame call that could cost you dearly. Running three was also incredibly difficult. Nisashi’s double attack can be useful with the right support, but at the end of the day he was usually just fodder for Mystic Tomato or Giant Rat thanks to Nisashi’s 1400 ATK. Both those cards trade off with Nisashi and then special summon any number of nasty accomplices to punish you even further: losing Nisashi to Tomato and then giving up a card from your hand to Spirit Reaper’s effect? That loses games. It loses them with impressive speed, in fact. I’d honestly prefer it if Nisashi had 1300 ATK. Yariza is unfortunately even more narrow.

And sure, all three of the “lesser Samurai” can be useful. But they just aren’t useful most of the time, and that meant competitive players were doomed to run only nine Samurai to back up their Grandmasters and Shien. The Samurai deck was inconsistent. Spirit of the Six Samurai changes that, because it’s definitely worth running in threes.

Having three more Samurai in the main deck makes it easier to drop Grandmaster and easier to keep a Samurai on the field so you can play a second one a turn later . . . Heck, Spirit’s status as a Level 3 even bolsters Reasoning-based builds of the Samurai theme (which aren’t my cup of tea, but hey, the people playing that deck are probably happy about it regardless). Plus, the fact that Spirit of the Six Samurai’s union monster protection effect wards off the threat of mass removal like Lightning Vortex or Mirror Force just amplifies the impact of its presence. The fact that you can pick and choose which Samurai you protect, in order to tech a specific matchup (say, Kamon against Macro Cosmos, Yaichi against Burn, or Irou against conservative decks) is icing on the cake.

That Draw Effect Is Crazy

I know: I’m really working the mental-health angle, but it’s true; the ability to turn all of your Samurai into Airknight Parshath is insane. In the best-case scenario, stripping the opponent of a single card through battle suddenly creates double the impact on card presence, which can be game-breaking. You’ll punish recruiters, devastate self-replacers like Magician of Faith or Dekoichi the Battlechanted Locomotive, and take over the tempo of the duel.

Now let’s consider the worst case scenarios. Say your opponent has a removal card to blow away your attacking Samurai, who’s currently wielding the Spirit. Alright: you’ll trade the Spirit for the opponent’s removal trap, but he or she will still probably lose a monster and you maintain field presence. Even Phoenix Wing Wind Blast doesn’t really do much if you play Spirit carefully; keep it on Grandmaster and you’ll special summon him again next turn anyway. Even if the Wind Blast does work effectively against you, you still forced your opponent to make a big move, and that’s one of the things that makes Spirit so good — it puts you in the driver’s seat and forces your opponent to take action.

Running the Numbers                         

That 500 ATK bonus counts for a great deal given the particular battle stats of the monsters Spirit works with. Grandmaster of the Six Samurai for instance, goes from Cyber Dragon fodder to a Monarch-mangling madman when his 2100 ATK gets boosted to 2600. Zanji and Irou each get big enough to take down Cyber Dragon or Il Blud, while Kamon and even Nisashi can run over Herald of Creation or Zombie Master. Even Yaichi gets to match those monsters or swing over threats like Banisher of the Radiance.

The reality is that the Samurai are chiefly designed to rely on effects (not raw numbers) to succeed. That becomes a problem when things don’t go as you planned, and in the past it often required a Samurai user to play hard into the early game or simply resign the mid and late game. The ATK buff from Spirit of the Six Samurai changes all that, launching all of the Samurai save Yariza into really dangerous territory.

Aside from destroying monsters, you can destroy your own opponent a lot faster too. That’s a nice little throw-in.

Maintaining Your Swarm

One of the great things about Spirit of the Six Samurai is that it keeps proactive removal off the field. The average opponent who would normally activate Smashing Ground against you or launch Lightning Vortex and then declare an attack, is going to question those moves when confronted by a Spirit-protected Samurai. The cool part about that is the fact that you can detach the Spirit on the following turn when your opponent refuses to pull the trigger, giving you a second Samurai with which to enable effects. Doing so can even help you earn more damage through the use of United We Stand, improving the OTK side of the theme.

Synergy with Double-Edged Sword Technique

The oft-maligned trap card from Gladiator’s Assault is actually why I’m writing this article. In my opinion, Double-Edged Sword Technique turns Spirit of the Six Samurai from a decent card into a viable three-of that wins duels. The reason for my opinion lies in some technical details about Union monsters.

When a Union monster is converted from an equip card to a monster, or vice versa, it resets all effects that were applied to it. It basically becomes a new card. That means that if you special summon a Spirit with Double-Edged Sword Technique and attach it to another Samurai before the end phase, the Technique’s drawback won’t destroy the Spirit. Since the Technique only deals damage if the monster it brought back is destroyed, you also won’t take damage for Spirit. That opens up two exceedingly good plays.

First up, you can use Double-Edged Sword Technique to bring back one Samurai of your choice and a copy of Spirit. Then, you attach Spirit to the Samurai you special summoned. When you reach the end phase, the Sword Technique won’t be able to destroy the Spirit, but it will still try to destroy the other Samurai. When it does, the Spirit will ensure that your Samurai remains on the field.

That’s pretty good, but you can do even better with a little setup. If you’ve got two Samurai on the field and two copies of Spirit in the graveyard, go ahead and use Double-Edged Sword Technique to bring back both Spirits. Stick each Spirit to a Samurai and you’ll get to keep both of them at the end of the turn; you won’t lose any monsters or take any damage. Your opponent is a different story: he or she could reasonably lose two monsters while you draw two cards (more if you happen to be playing Nisashi). That’s probably an instant win in any matchup, and the combo’s really not that hard to pull off.

Giant Rat can help you get copies of Spirit of the Six Samurai onto the table early on, setting you up for this play in the mid-game. Classic Reverse Toolbox cards like Card Trooper and Morphing Jar make it easier too, as does Card Destruction, which might really be worth running to pull this off. You could even use Foolish Burial. Once you have the proper setup you’re basically looking for a one-card combo as you wait to draw into Double-Edged Sword Technique, and it’s really not that hard to put together. I’m not sure if I can express how good Spirit of the Six Samurai and Double-Edged Sword Technique are when you use them as a unit. Even just one Spirit and a single copy of Double-Edged do amazing things to the game’s tempo.

While Enishi, Shien’s Chancellor and Cunning of the Six Samurai have gotten a ton of well-deserved attention, the last piece of the Samurai puzzle may lie in these two commons. If you’re running Samurai right now but haven’t worked this combo into your build, do it. You’re going to find it adds an impressive level of power to your deck, and you’re sure to drop some jaws in your next tournament. Learn to use Spirit of the Six Samurai effectively, and you can compete against virtually anything this format has to offer.

See you next week!

-Jason Grabher-Meyer