It’s no secret—heading into the upcoming American and Canadian National Championships a few weeks from today, the two big decks to beat are Dark Armed Dragon and Gladiator Beasts. Both strategies depend on monster effects to outmaneuver the opposition, a trait shared by virtually every deck that wins in this format. Lightsworn, Monarchs, even Gadgets: there are few decks that can claim victory without access to their monster’s abilities.

Naturally this means some players are looking at Skill Drain. While Skill Drain Burn is the number-one strategy in the minds of many duelists evaluating effect suppression, other options are out there. I myself have been working on an aggressive Elemental Hero deck using the Elemental Hero Stratos + Elemental Hero Neos Alius engine, combo’d with Hero Blast and Skill Drain: it was an idea someone sent to me a couple of months ago on a message board, and it’s working out quite nicely. But to approach the strategy of effect suppression only from the perspective of Skill Drain would be folly. Thanks to Light of Destruction there is now a second, very different option.

Angel O7 is sort of like Skill Drain with legs—it shares that happy description with the tournament mainstay Destiny Hero - Plasma. But there are drastic differences between these two monsters, and they go far beyond battle stats and summoning requirements. To understand the full potential of Angel O7, we need to look at what makes it different from Skill Drain and Plasma.

And Those Differences Are Pretty Huge

Plasma and Skill Drain are very much alike: both negate the effects of face-up monsters on the field (though Plasma won’t negate yours). This boils down to two points that are obvious, but that deserve mention for the sake of our comparison: 1) each card only stops effect monsters that are on the field, and 2) each negates both activated and continuous effects.

Angel O7 is different. Its ability doesn’t actually negate anything: it suppresses activations instead, which means that while it won’t stop continuous effects, your opponent can’t use tricks to get a monster out of the Angel’s range and then sneak an effect past it. So while Angel O7 will be stymied by a defense-mode Spirit Reaper, your opponent won’t be able to summon Exiled Force and tribute it to destroy your Angel.

The Angel’s reach itself is a matter of great importance: it isn’t restricted to face-up monsters like the similar cards we’re discussing. That means monsters that activate their effects in the graveyard, which have always gotten around Skill Drain and Plasma, just won’t work. So while the traditional negation cards won’t stop Sangan’s search, Card Trooper’s draw effect, Treeborn Frog’s special summon, or the "recruiting" effect of a monster like Mystic Tomato or Giant Rat, Angel O7 will stop them all. It’ll even shut down effects that activate in the hand, like D.D. Crow and Honest.

In the meantime, Angel O7 suppresses a huge number of effects that are important to matchups you’d expect to see at any Championship. Gladiator Beasts lose everything: their end-of-the-battle-phase "tag out" effect and Test Tiger’s ability can’t be activated. Gladiator Beast Gyzarus’s effect won’t work either, and while Gladiator Beast Heraklinos is big enough to take down Angel O7, it won’t be able to negate your spell and trap cards. Good luck getting to Heraklinos anyway: without Gladiator Beast Secutor’s effect, Gladiator Beast Darius’s recursion, or Gyzarus’ double tag, it’s virtually impossible.

Dark Armed Dragon fares slightly better simply because it has a few more beatsticks, but it suffers similar problems of infrastructure. Armageddon Knight and Dark Grepher won’t be able to use their graveyard-filling abilities while Angel O7 is on the field. Destiny Hero - Malicious can’t be activated, and Destiny Hero - Disk Commander becomes a vanilla Level 1 with 300 ATK. Defensive builds lose Gravekeeper’s Spy, and you can’t even pitch D.D. Crow to fill your graveyard. All that disruption creates a situation where your opponent is cut off from his or her graveyard management, making it extremely difficult to summon the handful of monsters that serve as outs to the Angel.

The Lightsworn run into the same problems: Angel O7 suppresses their abilities that send cards to the graveyard, so while Judgment Dragon could swing over the Angel, it’s going to have a very hard time actually getting to the field. Honest can’t help the Lightsworn’s smaller monsters battle the Angel, because Honest can’t be activated. While a more balanced build that runs monster removal may have an easy time against this powerhouse of a tribute monster, those builds seem to be few and far between as most players choose to rely on Celestia, Lightsworn Angel—another monster that does nothing in the face of Angel O7.

Monarchs may do better against Angel O7 simply by virtue of their spells. With Brain Control and two to three copies of Soul Exchange, the deck at least has some answer to Angel O7 beyond Crush Card Virus, Torrential Tribute, or a teched Bottomless Trap Hole. But that’s still not saying a lot, considering that Monarchs themselves will be unable to use their effects when Angel O7 is on the table. With Treeborn Frog locked in the graveyard, and flip effects like Dekoichi the Battlechanted Locomotive and Gravekeeper’s Spy kept from activating, the deck loses most of its Monarch support. The entire strategy’s dead barring a nicely-timed Soul Exchange.

Being a Light Fairy-type, Angel O7 gains some serious benefits, and nowhere is this more evident than when you tribute summon it. Sure, you could tribute off two monsters for the Angel, and that might be ideal if you happen to have Treeborn Frog and another equally disposable monster. But thanks to Angel O7’s attribute and type, you have some excellent options that don’t usually apply, and you’ll definitely want to use them.

wields 1700 ATK points, quite beefy nowadays, and can be used to pay the complete tribute cost for any Light Fairy. That naturally includes the Angel. Kaiser Sea Horse doesn’t have Gellenduo’s defensive effect, but it does have 1700 ATK and a respectable 1650 DEF. It too counts as both tributes for the Angel. Each of these monsters has high enough ATK to let you quickly capitalize on the control Angel O7 can generate, and defensive capabilities that can help you stabilize against anything other than Gladiator Beasts.

2500 ATK is nothing to sneeze at either—while Plasma could negate the effects of a Monarch or Celestia, its paltry 1900 ATK means it gets run over anyways unless it sucked up something really big. Even if it did, it’s still vulnerable to spell and trap removal followed by an attack from any of those monsters. Angel O7 has no such weakness, and can stand up to Monarchs as well as Jinzo, Cyber Dragon, Ryu Kokki, and Wulf, Lightsworn Beast. There are very few monsters that can actually take it down in battle, and, as I sort of hinted at earlier, the ones that can are all really difficult to get to the field without their supporting cast of monsters.

Angel O7’s own support lineup grows quite easily from the small framework we’ve begun to create. With Gellenduo and Angel O7 both being Fairies, one could incorporate Sky Scourge Invicil to shut down spells. It’s a great side option in the Monarch matchup, because it’ll stop Brain Control and Soul Exchange from getting the Angel off the field. You could side in Marshmallon for more tribute bait too, if you opted not to main it for fear of Gladiators.

With all that tribute bait, why not play Jinzo to hold off offending traps? That way you won’t have to worry about Bottomless Trap Hole, Torrential Tribute, or Phoenix Wing Wind Blast ruining your hard work. It’s an idea that’s easily worthy of main deck inclusion, and the Angel won’t interfere with Jinzo’s negation because it’s a continuous effect.

Instead, I think Angel O7 is best run in a dedicated, Light-heavy beatdown build augmented with Jinzo. Playing Gellenduo and Kaiser Sea Horse sets the pace for a very aggressive game plan, while complementary monsters with activated effects can synergize really well. Freed may not be able to use his ability when Angel O7 is out, but he’s an incredible backup plan when something big does squeak through and takes down your Angel. Herald of Creation is similar, sharing the Light attribute and letting you get back a fallen Angel. Both continue the trend of considerable ATK power, with 1700 and 1800 ATK respectively.

Such a deck would also have swarm capabilities thanks to Light of Destruction’s Guardian of Order, and the newly-reprinted Soul of Purity and Light (which you can find in the new Champion Pack: Game Six). Soul of Purity and Light is tribute bait as well, giving you a quick special summon for the Angel, as well as another compatible Fairy for your sided Invicils.

There’s definitely a deck here, and I believe that if someone can perfect it before American or Canadian Nationals, they’re going to do exceedingly well. Will such a build materialize? Who knows! But it has a huge amount of potential, and good matchups with anything that comes to mind. Some time, sooner or later, somebody’s going to figure this out. I’ve already got my playset, because Angel O7’s price is going to skyrocket when that happens. You might want to do the same.

—Jason Grabher-Meyer