The new Shonen Jump Anniversary Pack was a pretty big surprise—who expected that the creator of dueling himself, Kazuki Takahashi, would celebrate the 10th anniversary of his game by revisiting his favorite monsters? But an even bigger surprise was the bonus card included in the set—an all-new Tuner that totally broke with player expectations. A new card in a pack full of alternate art reprints? Weird stuff.
It was a strange choice, but certainly not one that anybody is going to turn down. Shiba-Warrior Taro has a one-of-a-kind effect, and in my mind it’s definitely a tournament-level card. If you haven’t seen it yet, here’s what it does:
Shiba-Warrior Taro
Earth / Level 2
Beast-Warrior / Tuner
800 ATK / 600 DEF
This card cannot be destroyed by battle. When a card on the field is destroyed by battle or by a card effect, return this face-up card to its owner's hand.
While the Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG already has plenty of level-2 Tuners (I believe no less than ten), Shiba’s effect and attribute make it unique. That’s a good thing, because while 2 is arguably the optimal level for a Tuner right now there’s a lot of competition. With monsters like Krebons and Plaguespreader Zombie sharing that level-2 slot, it might not be easy to see how this little pup can hold its own. In reality, there are several reasons why certain strategies will want to run Shiba over more established level-2 Tuners, and today that’s what I want to explore.
Let’s start with the obvious!
Shiba Is An Earth Monster
I think everybody’s first reaction when they see Shiba is to think, "Hey, it’s an Earth monster! This would go great in Ratbox!" And if that was your reaction, congrats: you are correct. Shiba is a powerful addition to the old-school control deck built around Giant Rat: a strategy that many were expecting to have an impact on tournaments after the release of The Duelist Genesis, but that fell flat in the face of Teleport Dark Armed Dragon’s speed.
The Beast-Warrior type isn’t all that valuable to Shiba, since most of the type’s support cards are designed for big attackers: a 1400 ATK Shiba isn’t worth activating Wild Nature's Release, and it won’t exactly kick out a lot of piercing damage paired with Enraged Battle Ox. But the fact that Shiba can be searched out with Giant Rat makes that Earth attribute really matter. While Shiba has synergy with cards like Spiritual Earth Art - Kurogane, and using a Tuner monster you traded for a Synchro is a convenient way to make a press with Gigantes, the star of any Ratbox deck is the Rat itself, especially in this current format.
The Reason Is Defense
We’ve seen a lot of top competitors shifting from the format’s aggressive norm to high-defense strategies designed to take advantage of newer and faster paces of play. Calvin Tsang took Threatening Roar to the finals at the recent Shonen Jump Championship Detroit, while his opponent (and the tournament’s winner) Steven Harris relied on Necro Gardna with Armageddon Knight, denying a single big press and then punishing his opponent with Black Rose Dragon immediately after.
We saw a different strategy take Joseph Roberson to Day 2 in Atlanta, as he piloted a Zombie deck with three Pyramid Turtle cards to the Top 16. Recruiters are a powerful strategy right now—there’s not much in the standard TeleDAD deck that can get through them, save Phoenix Wing Wind Blast, and it’s easy to play twice the number of cards needed to shut down that possibility. If a TeleDAD deck can’t get through a string of recruiters with Wind Blast, its big, explosive turn will amount to nothing.
That’s what Ratbox really needs to do to survive and prosper in the current format, but before Shiba hit the scene it just couldn’t. While Pyramid Turtle can search Spirit Reaper and throw it in defense position to stave off at least one battle phase, the best Giant Rat could do was summon several Rats to the field, ending on the summon of Injection Fairy Lily to deter attacks. It was a costly plan: summoning Lily too early could result in a loss to Emergency Teleport in the battle phase, and the play would only rarely leave the Ratbox player in a position to follow up next turn. Pay for Lily too many times and she becomes a big liability, leading many duelists to shy away from her completely.
The control deck just didn’t have the right monsters to control anything. Not so good.
It’s interesting to note that having Spirit Reaper on the field didn’t give the Zombie deck an aggressive lead-in to their next turn either. It was just very good defense, and would often force the opponent to waste one of his or her limited Synchro summons on Red Dragon Archfiend to get it off the field.
That’s what’s so cool about Shiba: it packs the strong defensive potential of a Spirit Reaper-type card, but sets up big moves on its controller’s next turn as well. Sure, you can’t watch your first Rat go down and then summon Shiba from your deck in defense mode, like Turtle allows you to do with Reaper. Giant Rat only summons monsters in attack mode. But two Rats strung together and special summoning Shiba can still block a lot of damage, while playing multiple copies of Shiba means a chance to just set one without involving a recruiter chain. With three copies of Shiba and three copies of Rat, you’ve got six powerful monsters that can each absorb at least one shot from an attacker. All six either lead into Shiba or are Shiba in the first place, leading into a turn where pulling off a Synchro summon is suddenly quite easy.
But What About Jutte Fighter?
Good question: previously, this deck used to rely on Jutte Fighter as its go-to-guy in the level-2 Tuner department. Jutte Fighter was searchable via Reinforcement of the Army, and its effect would sometimes let smaller monsters bring down a bigger one. The problem in my eyes is that Jutte Fighter was the exact opposite of what this deck needed: the Fighter does nothing for the deck’s defense or control, and its ability to expose larger monsters to attack encouraged aggression instead.
Shiba-Warrior Taro’s defensive ability is a much better fit for what this deck actually wants to accomplish, and Shiba’s one deceptively resilient pooch. Remember that, while Spirit Reaper’s weakness to targeted effects results in it actually being destroyed, Shiba just goes back to your hand. That might not seem impressive, since in many cases your opponent won’t be incurring a loss of card presence, but what’s interesting about that is how Shiba-Warrior Taro forces your opponent to prioritize his or her plays. If the opponent can’t get past Shiba, then that player can’t beat you—making it harder to go for game. Cards that might be reserved for other, better plays suddenly need to be wasted just to get Shiba off the field, while summon opportunities that would normally be reserved to try and make magic numbers suddenly need to be spent on field clearing instead.
Once those cards are re-prioritized and Shiba is sent back to your hand, all you have to do is survive the turn and set it again: your opponent’s back to square one. It’s like an extension of the old "I really don’t want to spin that Marshmallon" scenario that plagued duelists during the era of Raiza the Storm Monarch. There’s a number of plays your opponent wants to make, and Shiba’s appearance makes those plays difficult.
For what may not be an impressive card at first glance, this thing can be a cerebral powerhouse. It’s especially good against TeleDAD, because unless you blindly play into Stardust Dragon’s or Thought Ruler Archfiend’s effect, the deck has very few ways to deal with it.
But You Can Even Put It Into TeleDAD, Too
So far I’ve said a lot about playing Shiba-Warrior Taro against TeleDAD, but it’s actually a tempting tech pick for the TeleDAD mirror match. As an opening play, Shiba is pretty huge: odds are good that your opponent is going to summon Elemental Hero Stratos, swing into Shiba, and then set a spell or trap to try and bluff you out. At that point any level 4 (ideally your own Stratos) leaves you free to Synchro summon Goyo Guardian, and if you have Solemn Judgment or spell and trap removal at your disposal it’ll be an easy matter to take your opponent’s Stratos and score yet another free card.
This play is superior to summoning Krebons on turn 1 for a few reasons: it doesn’t cost you life points to block the inevitable Stratos attack, and a set monster isn’t giving away as much information as the desperate face-up summon would. You also won’t lose out to Brain Control and take game-ending damage as the result of a flurry of Synchros. But the big deal is simple redundancy: with three Krebons and one or two Shiba-Warrior Taro in your deck, you’ll have a far better chance of making this play in the first place, and doing so won’t leave you with the bitter aftertaste of knowing you now have a dead Emergency Teleport in your deck.
While Shiba-Warrior Taro isn’t a Dark monster and finding space can be difficult, a side-decking plan involving Shiba and a few copies of Threatening Roar can leave any opponent who’s not running Psychic Commander out of luck. There’s a viable side deck strategy here, and it makes Shiba more than just a one-trick pony (or puppy, as the case may be).
There’s a lot more to Shiba-Warrior Taro than you might think, and if you’re already picking up an Anniversary Pack or two for the sweet new art anyway, you might as well give this card a try! It’s unique, and any un-costed card that does something no other card can do is always worth a serious look.
—Jason Grabher-Meyer