If you were reading our sneak peaks at Tactical Evolution last week, you may have come across Jason’s fantastic description of the new Zombie Master. It’s one of only a few support cards that the Zombies get in this set, but it’s definitely a gem.
I’m not going to spend the entire article repeating all of the good things that Jason said in his preview of the card. It’s much better if you simply read it here. After that, come back and check out my little segment on the new Zombie. While Jason described the effect of Zombie Master in all its glory, I’m here today writing about the card because I want to make something else clear.
I think Zombies just became tournament viable again.
Who cares if Cyber Dragon is the ultimate trump to the previously awesome Vampire Lord? While that may still be the case, it isn’t nearly as destructive as it once was in terms of Zombies’ viability for tournament play. After all, that was one of the Zombie deck’s biggest plays: letting Pyramid Turtle be destroyed via battle and then special summoning the hard-to-destroy Vampire Lord. In past days, it became so terrible for the Zombies that special summoning Ryu Kokki became more important simply because Vampire Lord was too easy to destroy via battle.
The release of Zombie Master single-handedly changes this. It’s not because it somehow makes Vampire Lord better either. The biggest reason Zombie Master changes Zombies is because it completely changes the archetype’s game plan. Originally, Zombies were all about summoning bigger tribute monsters via special summoning and hitting the opponent multiple times with Spirit Reaper. They could slow the game down and wear the opponent out of all options, but once Spirit Reaper was rightfully Limited and Cyber Dragon nullified the strength of Vampire Lord, that strategy disappeared. Zombie Master is the poster boy for the Zombie’s new strategy: pure swarm.
It’s a fitting strategy if you think about it, since the common theme you’ll see in zombie movies is the swarm of living dead overrunning the streets with festering creatures from beyond the grave. Zombies have actually been capable of this for a while, but lacked the level 4 or lower monsters to help achieve the strategy. Monsters like Regenerating Mummy could technically be aggressive, but they lacked effects that allowed a true swarm. Unfortunately, that deprived Book of Life of enough worthwhile monsters to bring back to the field.
Zombie Master is a new level 4 monster that can dish out some damage while also having a relevant effect. And it’s a very relevant effect. Being able to pitch any monster card from your hand to special summon a level 4 or lower Zombie monster from your graveyard can be extremely useful in swarming. Pitching a Zombie Master from your hand to a Zombie Master on the field gives you the chance to bring three monsters out in one turn by bringing back the Zombie Master you just sent to the graveyard, since the second Zombie you brought into play has the same effect. Combined with a Brain Control or the soon-to-be-legal Shield Crush, Zombie Master lets you end games very quickly.
Maybe you’re concerned about investing too many cards in building up your field. After all, you aren’t losing card presence with Zombie Master, but you aren’t gaining any either. Having your field destroyed in one turn by something like Mirror Force or Torrential Tribute leaves you out of options. Thankfully, there are cards that can help mitigate the damage this can cause. Volcanic Shell isn’t meant purely for the Volcanic theme, as it’s a solid method of keeping your hand fueled for discard-oriented effects. Snipe Hunter was already a good combo with the Shell, and Zombie Master ranks up there in terms of cards that love to use it as well.
However, Zombie Master is also a monster that immediately had me thinking about using Card of Safe Return in clever ways once again. The last time I really wanted to play with Card of Safe Return was when the Dark World monsters first came out. Having Card of Safe Return out when you played Card Destruction was a dream come true. However, I am much more impressed with the synergy that Zombie Master shares with this old continuous spell.
One of the concerns with Zombie Master is that you will still be losing cards from your hand in order to use its effect. This can leave you out of steam if your horde of Zombies ends up on the wrong side of a field-clearing effect. Card of Safe Return seems like the perfect way to keep some options at your disposal even if you go nuts with Zombie Master. In fact, with the load of recursion cards available to Zombies, Card of Safe Return could theoretically let you dig extremely deep into your deck.
Imagine having two copies of Zombie Master in your graveyard and a Card of Safe Return on your field. You play Book of Life to get one of those Zombie Master cards back, and you draw a card. Then you discard a monster to bring back the other Zombie Master, which nets you another card. You then have a new Zombie Master in play which can bring back any Zombie monster from any graveyard, which lets you draw yet another card. If you only had three cards in hand at the start of your main phase, then you would still have three cards in hand by the time you enter your battle phase . . . along with a nearly full monster zone!
As you can see, Zombie Master and Card of Safe Return can get a little ridiculous. Even if your opponent destroys all of your monsters with a well-timed Mirror Force or Torrential Tribute, it just gives you another opportunity to swarm the field from your graveyard once again. If your opponent doesn’t do anything, then you are nearly filling out your monster zone and drawing an extra two or three cards a turn. If your opponent actually does have Mirror Force, then you’ll draw nearly twenty percent of your deck’s starting size in one turn! I’m not even going to mention what would happen if you had an opening hand with two copies of Card of Safe Return and a method to recur something on turn 1 or turn 2. I’d imagine you can figure out what happens on your own there.
There isn’t even any reason to worry about having a lackluster opening hand of all recursion, since there are plenty of ways to get Zombies into the graveyard quickly to start up your recursion engines. Card Destruction is a given since it also lets you filter into Card of Safe Return or those needed recursion cards, but Card Trooper excels at this job too. Starting the duel with a Card Trooper activation gives you a solid shot at getting some Zombies into your graveyard quickly for future recursion. You’re in even better shape if that Trooper puts a Zombie Master into your graveyard, and you’ll get a solid 1900 ATK beater along with the deck-thinning effect!
Zombie Master is more than just a neat tool to be used by the Zombie archetype. This card is the source of the Zombies’ new strategy, allowing the archetype to be a frighteningly fast aggro deck. Scarier than that is the potential this card has with Card of Safe Return, turning an aggressive recursion engine into the foundation for a brutal combo deck. If Zombies make waves at any Regional events in the future, you can expect those decks to contain three copies of Zombie Master. It’s one of the best support cards that Zombies could have asked for.