No More Drawing

Anyone who remembers Yata-Garasu can tell you that not being able to draw on your turn can be fatal. While our favorite purple bird is taking a vacation from the Advanced format, we do have a monster in our present card pool that is very similar. At 1400 ATK and 1200 DEF, Fenrir may initially seem like your everyday level 4 monster, but two things make it noteworthy. First, you don’t normal summon it—you special summon it from your hand by removing two Water monsters from your graveyard. If you do this and it was to be destroyed later, you can still bring Fenrir back via Call of the Haunted or Premature Burial. Its next effect, however, is what makes it interesting. If you can destroy your opponent’s monster by attacking with Fenrir, then your opponent skips his or her next draw phase. As we all know, losing your ability to draw deprives you of regaining cards and can start a loss of tempo that inevitably leads you into defeat.

Some of my favorite Water monsters that can be used as graveyard food in order to special summon Fenrir include Mobius the Frost Monarch, Abyss Soldier, Mother Grizzly, Hydrogeddon, and Ameba. Using Ameba to set up for Fenrir can definitely lead to some nasty damage as well, if you use a Creature Swap or Mystic Box and give the card to your opponent. You can then special summon your Fenrir, attack and destroy the Ameba (dealing some nice battle and effect damage), and your opponent will not be able to draw on his or her next turn. Rush Recklessly can boost the ATK of Fenrir so it can even crash even into a Cyber Dragon, and while both monsters will be destroyed, your opponent will still be denied his or her next draw phase.

Eating Time

Timeater has a very unusual effect if it destroys an opponent’s monster in battle: your opponent has to skip his or her main phase 1 in his or her next turn. At first glance, it may not seem worth the effort., since you have to tribute one monster to get it into play, and its ATK of 1900 is sub-par for a monster of its level. Cyber Dragon, Chaos Sorcerer, and even Zombyra the Dark can easily send this Machine straight to the scrap heap. But we can minimize these disadvantages by using cards that go well with Timeater. First, we can make it easier to bring Timeater out by using Treeborn Frog. You could also pack in a copy or two of Brain Control to take your opponent’s face-up monsters and use them as tribute fodder. As for its substandard ATK power, we can always boost that with Rush Recklessly, Blast with Chain, or even United We Stand. However, since Timeater is a Machine, it also benefits from the effects of Limiter Removal. Sure, it may be destroyed at the end of your turn, but getting a 3800 ATK monster is sure to make quite the impression on your opponent. The reason for all this ATK-enhancing support is to achieve our goal of destroying monsters and forcing our opponent to skip his or her main phase 1.

What is the impact of this? Well, the opponent gets to draw, does whatever he or she has to do in his or her standby phase, and then goes straight to the battle phase. If he or she even has a monster left in play from previous turns, going straight to battle may not be the most ideal choice. Maybe he or she has a Heavy Storm that he or she wanted to clear a safe path with, but since your opponent couldn’t play it in main phase 1, he or she may have to take a gamble and hope that the face-down cards in your spell or trap zones are just bluffs.

Maybe he or she wanted to use Snatch Steal on one of your monsters to use it as a tribute for Zaborg the Thunder Monarch in order to blow up the Spirit Reaper protecting your life points. In any event, going to battle without properly setting up your strategy (which is what main phase 1 is for) will really cause your opponent to rethink his or her options. Remember, your opponent does still get his or her main phase two, even if he or she goes into the battle phase and does not attack. He or she may still normal summon or set for his turn, and may play any applicable spell or trap cards.

Don’t Make Fun of His Nose

Great Long Nose is another single tribute monster with an ATK of 1900. It’s also a Spirit monster, which means that if summoned or flipped face-up on the field, it’s going back to its owner’s hand at the end of the turn. We can make it easier to summon by using the cards I mentioned earlier.

Some of you may be wondering why you’d go through all that trouble, since Great Long Nose is going back to the hand at the end of the turn. Well, if you can inflict battle damage to your opponent’s life points, then your opponent has to skip his or her next battle phase. For the opponent whose strategy relies on beating you over the head repeatedly with big monsters, this effect can really cause problems. Since the key here is to inflict damage, using cards like Big Bang Shot will give Great Long Nose the ability to do piercing damage. However, that can be detrimental in the long run, since you will lose the equip card as the Spirit goes back to your hand. I strongly recommend using the usual ATK boosting cards I’ve mentioned earlier in order to heighten its ATK so you can destroy monsters and inflict damage to your opponent. If your opponent is really fond of running Spirit Reaper or is using Scapegoat, then you can counter with either Enemy Controller or Windstorm of Etaqua to bypass the protection they offer.

If you are really lucky and have both Great Long Nose and Timeater out on the field (and can trigger their effects), your opponent will be at a massive disadvantage. The rules state that if you don’t have a battle phase, you can’t have a main phase 2. Essentially, the only thing your opponent can do for the turn is draw. We won’t even discuss what happens if you hit him or her with Fenrir as well.

Thanks again for taking the time to read this article. As always, any comments or questions can be sent to me at baldNbeautifuljudge@yahoo.com. I hope all of your duels are good ones, and that your draws are even better.