My editors must like me. After getting word that my first preview was Dark Armed Dragon, I thought that I was really going to be let down with my second assignment. I mean, I’ve had some nice ones, but coming off of quite possibly the coolest card in the set does something to your morale. In my case, I feared the dreaded writer’s block.

Then I got word that the card I would be previewing was a world debut. For those of you who don’t know (and to give those of you who do a better idea of how cool this is), nearly every card printed so far has first been released in Japan by Konami, the makers of the game we all know and love so well. The card I am looking at right now was not released in Japan, meaning that there is a possibility when you go to a Sneak Preview that you are the first person in the world to open it from a pack. There is something awesome about knowing that: something special about it.

The card I was given may look familiar to anyone who has seen its lighter side. The attribute? Dark. The type? Fairy. Level? 5. And for those of you who haven’t already guessed, it is still 1900 ATK and 1400 DEF. Yu-Gi-Oh! fans worldwide, say hello to . . . Darknight Parshath!

Darknight Parshath
Dark – Level 5
Fairy – Effect
1900 ATK / 1400 DEF
When Darknight Parshath destroys an opponent’s monster, you can remove from play a Dark monster from your Graveyard to draw a card. This card gains 100 attack for each Dark monster in your graveyard.

When I first read that text, I was a little taken aback. The effect almost seems underwhelming at first, considering that you want Dark monsters in your graveyard for other effects. Then I actually thought about what I was saying and realized that this was just another really cool thing. Combining the effects of Airknight Parshath and Shadow Ghoul is fairly cool, and this is kind of a twisted version of both. Removing monsters from play is a huge part of the Dark theme made manifest in Phantom Darkness, and drawing cards for it can’t be viewed as a bad thing. Evolving the effect makes it work more cohesively with the rest of the set. Certainly that will work well with, say, Escape from the Dark Dimension, a card that is good enough to be on par with Dark Armed Dragon. Want to put fuel in for this? Use Armageddon Knight, also previewed this week. Heck, use Escape from the Dark Dimension to summon Armageddon Knight and then tribute Armageddon Knight for Darknight Parshath! That play works out rather well.

The optional aspect of the Darknight also works well. It means that you can remove monsters from play at your leisure to meet a certain goal (say three Dark monsters in your graveyard so you can summon Dark Armed Dragon), but you don’t have to use the effect. It also messes with your opponent, but I’ll get to that in a moment.

I kind of skipped over the second effect, so let’s backtrack a bit and move forward to the next sentence on the card. One of the downsides to Airknight Parshath, even back in ye olde days of three years ago, was that he was a shrimp. It may be a bit blunt, but really, his major downside was that he could be run over by (or traded with) various level 4 monsters, and couldn’t beat something like Gravekeeper’s Spy without major assistance.

In case you hadn’t figured it out, there are a lot of cards—and I mean a lot—that focus on the accessibility of Dark monsters in the graveyard. The aforementioned Armageddon Knight and the Sneak Preview promo Dark Grepher are two good examples. With three monsters in the graveyard, you can’t lose to a Cyber Dragon. With a mere six, you run over Monarchs. Ten in the grave? Well, I’m pretty sure some people still play Light and Darkness Dragon. And when you destroy something, you get to make Darknight lose 100 ATK to draw another card, which you can use with Dark Grepher to boost its ATK again. Really, the more one looks at this, the more cohesive it seems when combined with the rest of the Dark theme.

There are a couple of other cool things here, especially when compared to the original Airknight Parshath. Parshath was particularly nasty when someone used Snatch Steal or Brain Control since it usually meant that the opponent would draw a card, but Darknight Parshath does something unique: it makes cards like Brain Control less valuable. That 2500 ATK beatstick that draws a card doesn’t look so hot when it’s 1900 ATK and doesn’t draw a card, or when it interferes with conventional Pot of Avarice-based strategies. It’s not much, but a card that will work well for you and then not work well for your opponent is a good friend indeed.

There are also a few mind games you can play. It’s generally accepted that Dark Armed Dragon is so good it can very well win you the game by itself. Let’s say you run over a monster and destroy it, but then you don’t choose to draw a card because you have three monsters in the graveyard. Your opponent will not want to commit cards to the field if you’re just going to wipe them away with Dark Armed Dragon, or will commit more and be crippled by Heavy Storm. Anything that makes your opponent worry about Dark Armed Dragon will probably muddy the clear waters of his or her judgment. It’s not much, but good players can and will expand on it. I haven’t talked about how good this could be in any other deck, but it could work well with, say, Dark Magician-themed strategies too.