The Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG Sneak Preview events offer us our first opportunity to test out a new set of cards with our friends and rivals. In addition, they give us brand new promotional cards that can only be obtained from the event. These cards are the kind you can use to surprise your opponents, because they aren’t seen on a weekly basis. They offer just the right mixture of surprise and fun that we all hope to capture in our duels.

This week, we examine two of these cards given out in recent Sneak Preview events: Toon Dark Magician Girl and Hidden Soldiers.

Long-time readers may recall my articles on the “Classic Toon” monsters from Spell Ruler and the second-generation Toon monsters from Dark Beginning 2. (You can check them out in the archives) Toon Dark Magician Girl exists on her own level, closely tied to the “Classic Toons,” but separated by two changes in her effect.

“This card cannot be Normal Summoned or Set. This card can only be Special Summoned while ‘Toon World’ is on your side of the field. You can Special Summon this monster from your hand, but Tributes are required for monsters Level 5 or more. When ‘Toon World’ on the field is destroyed, this card is also destroyed. If your opponent doesn't control a Toon Monster, this card can attack your opponent directly. If a face-up Toon Monster is on your opponent’s side of the field, you must select the Toon Monster as an attack target. This card gains 300 ATK for each ‘Dark Magician’ or ‘Magician of Black Chaos’ in either player’s Graveyard.”

Almost every line of Toon Dark Magician Girl’s text is the same as the “Classic Toon” monsters from Spell Ruler. Toon Dark Magician Girl cannot be normal summoned or set, she requires tributes due to her level, and she needs an active Toon World if she has any hopes of getting onto the field. While on the field, she is destroyed if Toon World is destroyed and she can attack your opponent directly as long as they are not in control of any face-up Toon monsters.

You may notice two lines of text are not present here. The “Classic Toon” monsters all suffered from a common affliction: they cannot attack on the same turn they are summoned and you have to pay life points to attack with them. Toon Dark Magician Girl does not have either affliction. Unlike her “Classic Toon” brethren, she may attack on the same turn you summon her and do so without any additional cost. Even the second-generation Toon monsters can’t attack the same turn they are summoned.

Normally, playing Toon monsters requires the acceptance of invested risk because of this time delay. With Toon Dark Magician Girl, you can forget about the risk and move in for some serious direct attack damage. 2000 points is one quarter of your opponent’s life points lost in a single direct shot.

Like her namesake, she also gains an ATK increase from any cards specifically named Dark Magician or Magician of Black Chaos in the graveyard. Given the right deck, this ATK increase can help her to dish out quite a bit of punishment with her direct attacks. Unfortunately she will not function with Sage’s Stone or any other Dark Magician Girl-related cards because her card name is different. Sage’s Stone specifically looks for a card named Dark Magician Girl. Toon Dark Magician Girl is a completely different card with a different name.

Our most recent gift, Hidden Soldiers, works very well with some of the Destiny Heroes in Power of the Duelist and Enemy of Justice.

“Activate only when your opponent Normal Summons or Flip Summons a monster. Special Summon 1 Level 4 or lower DARK monster from your hand.”

Odds are good you will be keeping this one to your opponent’s main phases, because he or she will not usually normal summon or flip summon a monster at any other time. Only Ultimate Offering could allow him or her to work around this, and even then, it only grants the additional ability of normal summoning during your battle phase.

The activation timing for Hidden Soldiers is just like the timing you use to activate Torrential Tribute and Bottomless Trap Hole. This shared timing window allows for some useful combos with the proper set-up. It may not be entirely necessary with Bottomless Trap Hole, but the proper chaining of effects can allow you to use Torrential Tribute and get a monster onto the field.

You begin the chain by responding to your opponent’s normal summon or flip summon by activating Hidden Soldiers. Assuming your opponent doesn’t respond with a counter-trap, you can continue the chain by adding on Torrential Tribute. Since chains resolve last-to-first, your Torrential Tribute will clear off the field and then your Hidden Soldiers will allow you to special summon your Dark monster to an open field.

Level 4 or lower Dark monsters are prevalent in the game, so it shouldn’t be hard to find a few to use with this card. You can choose to summon weaker Dark monsters with useful effects, like Sangan, or stronger Dark monsters like Giant Orc and Rare Metal Dragon. Rare Metal Dragon is especially mean, since its ATK power is enough to take down most of the popular tribute monsters in the game. You can also focus on strong defensive walls like Destiny Hero - Defender to function as a blocker that won’t get stricken down by Nobleman of Crossout.

How do we use Hidden Soldiers when our opponent activates Ultimate Offering in our battle phase? By activating Hidden Soldiers after our opponent successfully normal summons his or her monster, beginning a brand new chain. This suffers from timing restrictions and you can miss your opportunity if Ultimate Offering was not the last effect to resolve on the chain. It isn’t a common occurrence, however. As long as Ultimate Offering’s effect is the first chain link, you’ll usually be fine.

Assuming the proper timing occurred, when Hidden Soldiers resolves you can choose to special summon your level 4 or lower Dark monster in attack or defense position. If you choose attack position, your newly summoned monster will be able to attack during that very same battle phase, as long as the monster doesn’t have an effect preventing it from doing so.

Next week we will continue our discussion with another card given to us at the sneak preview events: Ancient Lamp. Until then, send all comments and questions to Curtis@Metagame.com