Over the course of 2007, we received a ton of long-awaited Japanese cards that many duelists thought we’d never see. The trend started late in 2006, as we finally got to play with the Gadget monsters thanks to Machine’s Re-Volt. From there we got Elemental Hero - Stratos, Elemental Hero - Ocean, Shield Crush, Foolish Burial, Marshmallon, Necroface, and more. With Phantom Darkness leading off the year and bringing even more long-awaited cards, it looks like that trend is going to continue until we get everything we’ve wanted.
One of the biggest cards duelists have called for over the years was finally delivered in Phantom Darkness, but some players were left scratching their heads. What’s so good about Metal Reflect Slime? Trap cards that convert into monsters are nothing new to the Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG—Metal Reflect Slime is preceded on our shores by Stronghold the Moving Fortress and Embodiment of Apophis. So what makes Metal Reflect Slime so special? Take a peek at the card in case you haven’t seen it yet, and I’ll be happy to tell you:
Metal Reflect Slime
Continuous Trap
After activation, Special Summon this card in Defense Position; it is treated as an Effect Monster Card (Aqua-Type/Water/Level 10/ATK 0/DEF 3000). This card cannot attack. (This card is still treated as a Trap Card.)
The first big difference between Metal Reflect Slime and every card like it is that it’s just flat-out bigger. With 3000 DEF, it can block virtually anything, including Dark Armed Dragon or Dark Magician of Chaos, a claim the average defending monster simply can’t make. For a Burn deck or similar strategy that already relies on Big Shield Gardna, Metal Reflect Slime could be a superior choice. It has higher DEF, it doesn’t share Gardna’s vulnerability to cards like Mystic Swordsman LV2 or The Six Samurai - Irou, and it won’t take up a spell or trap zone once it’s activated. More importantly, your opponent won’t be able to plan for it: the Slime won’t hit the field until the battle phase, and that makes your actions tough to predict. Odds are good that you’ll be shutting down at least one battle phase, and usually many more.
That big 3000 DEF also makes Metal Reflect Slime a nice combo with Staunch Defender, or the all-new trap card Call of the Earthbound. Redirecting an attack into the Slime’s chromed hide will save the attack’s intended target from destruction, while dishing out some damage to the opponent. If you’re already playing Call of the Earthbound to combo with cards like Don Zaloog, then Metal Reflect Slime could be an interesting complement to your central strategy.
The proverbial cherry on top of all this is the chainability of Metal Reflect Slime. If your opponent goes after an important monster with Fissure or Smashing Ground you can draw that card to the Slime by chaining it—it’s the perfect combination of rock-bottom ATK and super-high DEF. It can create some interesting (and deadly) scenarios with Unity, and once it does go down, it can be recycled with Mask of Darkness.
Other Cool Stuff
But Metal Reflect Slime is more than just an emergency shield for your face and vital organs. As an effect monster, it can feed the damage you deal with Ceasefire. As a Water monster it can block shots and then be tributed for Spiritual Water Art - Aoi when your opponent targets the Slime for destruction.
The one trick everybody wanted to use this card for was Metamorphosis. As a level 10 monster, Metal Reflect Slime can be tributed in the Traditional format to bring out Cyber End Dragon. The Dragon’s lack of a "you must properly Fusion summon this monster" created all those problems with Cyber-Stein back in 2006, and similar wackiness would’ve ensued here if Metamorphosis was legal for Advanced format play. It isn’t, but that doesn’t mean you can’t take advantage of Metal Reflect Slime having a whopping ten level stars.
The best trick nowadays lies in The Calculator, a Phantom Darkness common that a lot of you probably already have if you went to your local Sneak Preview. It’s a Light monster that has 300 ATK for every level star on monsters you control. Since Metal Reflect Slime is level 10, and The Calculator itself is level 2, it’ll come into play alongside the Slime with a devastating 3600 ATK. That’s pretty brutal, and if you toss another monster in the mix, you break the 5000 ATK mark pretty easily.
That very combo is currently seeing some play overseas in Yubel decks. Since Yubel is a level 11 monster, The Calculator will have a whopping 6900 ATK if you combine it with Metal Reflect Slime, which is also a great wall for a combo deck like this one. A video of this combo hit a few online clip sites weeks ago, and since then, the combo has generated some significant buzz.
Moving from the complicated to the simple, Metal Reflect Slime is also instant tribute bait for a tribute summon. While you’ll be giving up a real card to make your tribute, the Slime is a great last resort when you’ve been wiped off the field and don’t have any other way to get that Raiza to the table. We saw players like Theeresak Poonsombat doing similar things with Fiend’s Sanctuary at
Shonen Jump Championship Orlando. While the Sanctuary doesn’t have to be set for a turn, it doesn’t have the defensive power that Reflect Slime offers.
Beyond Monarchs, it’s an awesome card in any deck built around a two-tribute monster, like Light and Darkness Dragon, Dark Horus, or Darklord Zerato. We’ve seen for months that in a matchup like that, your opponent will always try to keep you off the field in order to prevent you from tributing. Metal Reflect Slime helps to combat that tactic, and can be a great replacement for Spell Striker if you’d prefer something a little more useful in battle. As much as I’ve come to love Striker, it’s not going to be shutting down your opponent’s battle phase anytime soon—Metal Reflect Slime is a little slower, but it has a far higher utility and serves a much wider range of purposes.
I Admit It . . .
. . . I’m in the camp of folks who have been waiting very patiently, for a very long time, to get this card. Metal Reflect Slime is cool because on one hand it’s really simple—a big blocker that your opponent won’t see coming, capable of brick-walling darn near anything. On the other hand, it’s also a potent combo card that sets up some killer synergies, destroys the opponent’s tempo, and pops out of nowhere to create big plays where they otherwise wouldn’t be possible. It’s the type of card that gives you those "light bulb" moments all the time, where you’ll be playing and all of a sudden figure out a new use that you’d never considered.
To me, that means a ton of fun and a lot of room for creativity. To the dueling world, that means competitive potential, and I won’t be surprised if we see this card in a Shonen Jump Top 16 really soon.
—Jason Grabher-Meyer