Aside from being one of the best sets the Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG has seen in ages, Strike of Neos also sparked a groundbreaking release. A new card, never before seen in Asia, was going to be the Sneak Preview promo. While the honor of a first-time North American debut can technically go to Beast of Talwar as well, what made this promo special was that it was also designed outside of Asia by the Samurai-loving folks at Upper Deck Entertainment. Grandmaster of the Six Samurai—the true leader of the team and the reason for the recent success of the Six Samurai theme—made his debut as a promo for the Strike of Neos Sneak Preview and was later revealed to be a secret rare within the set.

The Grandmaster’s first major effect is one of the most difficult for an opponent to handle. If he is destroyed as a result of an opponent’s card effect, then you can add one Six Samurai monster from your graveyard to your hand. What really makes this effect annoying is that your Grandmaster will be in the graveyard when it triggers . . . making him a legal target for his own effect! This makes cards like Sakuretsu Armor much less useful against the Grandmaster, since most opponents will try to avoid losing card presence in order to keep your attackers at bay, and you can easily drop the Grandmaster onto the field next turn.

Because of this effect, Grandmaster of the Six Samurai can be a great monster to use in combination with Brain Control and Snatch Steal, since you can tribute off whatever you take control of for your Samurai. Your opponent will need to summon a Monarch (like Thestalos the Firestorm Monarch) and hope to take care of him with an attack, waste a Cyber Dragon on your Samurai, or use removal on him, only to have him go back to your hand. And even that doesn’t account for any face-down tricks in your spell or trap zone, such as your own Sakuretsu Armor or a Shrink.

In addition, the Grandmaster’s “when destroyed” effect will trigger even if the card is destroyed and removed from play. Macro Cosmos won’t stop your Grandmaster from triggering if taken out by a Sakuretsu Armor or other card effect, as long as you have a legal Six Samurai target in your graveyard. This means that unless your opponent activated a Dimensional Fissure or Macro Cosmos early, your Grandmaster will provide his beneficial recursion effect to you.

Grandmaster of the Six Samurai can also be special summoned if you control any monster with “Six Samurai” in its name. This is a very subtle effect, and far more powerful than it first appears. The obvious bonus is that it allows you to add another 2100 ATK monster to the field for a fast turn if you summon a beefy Six Samurai monster like Zanji. More importantly, each of the Six Samurai monsters has a powerful effect, which is only active while you control another Six Samurai monster. In other words, the Six Samurai monsters need friends to make their effects work. This makes Grandmaster the most important monster in the Six Samurai theme.

There may be some concerns about how much power the Six Samurai theme loses if it does not have access to Grandmaster of the Six Samurai. How important is the Grandmaster to this deck theme? Why is it that Upper Deck Entertainment added quite possibly one of the best theme-support cards to the Six Samurai’s strategy? Let us consider how much slower all of the Six Samurai become without this level 5 Warrior enabling the theme.

The Six Samurai - Zanji and The Six Samurai - Irou are both pretty powerful monsters on their own. 1800 ATK and 1700 ATK are nothing to scoff at these days. However, they also have effects that can impact the field tremendously. Zanji can sacrifice himself to attack and destroy a larger monster, while Irou acts as a more powerful Mystic Swordsman LV2. However, without Grandmaster of the Six Samurai, their effects would not be active the turn they are summoned unless you have a special summoning enabler such as Premature Burial or Return of the Six Samurai. Return of the Six Samurai could work well in conjunction with Zanji if he is in your graveyard and you summon a new Six Samurai monster, but the trap only provides your field with a temporary boost in tempo. After that, your newly summoned monster is destroyed, so unless you can make strong use of that new monster (like with Zanji or Irou), then you’ll probably be wasting your turn on the trap.

Neither of these monster’s effects are that strong unless you can enable them the turn they are summoned, meaning that you must usually use recursion to make these effects active immediately. After all, a monster that was normal summoned the turn before will rarely survive until your next turn, unless it is either incredibly large or you aided the normal summon with a special summoned Cyber Dragon. Protection in the form of Sakuretsu Armor or something similar is also viable, but can be countered. Monsters rarely stay on the field for more than a turn unless you spend a turn summoning multiple monsters (as you can with Grandmaster) to set the opponent back a few turns in field development.

The Six Samurai - Yaichi is also rendered practically useless without access to Grandmaster of the Six Samurai. The little Warrior’s effect is quite powerful when he’s active, but he has the same weaknesses as Zanji and Irou. It’s hard to keep a level 4 or lower monster on the field for a full turn, which means that you can’t usually trigger The Six Samurai - Yaichi without some heavy recursion support. Yaichi also doesn’t have impressive ATK and DEF scores, so he will typically be trampled by much larger monsters during your opponent’s battle phase, setting you back a card (and essentially a full turn if he’s your only summoned monster during the turn he came into play).

None of the Six Samurai monsters lack playable effects, and each can dramatically alter a duel if used at the right moment or in the right matchup. For example, The Six Samurai - Kamon is quite possibly the most destructive monster printed in a long while, able to single-handedly turn poor matchups into good ones by wiping out continuous annoyances like Gravity Bind. However, if Grandmaster of the Six Samurai was not available, these effects would have likely gone underused and under-supported. Grandmasterlends himself to the aggressive strategy of this theme not only by being an easy special summon, but also by instantly enabling the Six Samurai effects once he hits the field with a Samurai buddy.

In fact, Grandmaster has propelled the Six Samurai theme into not one, but two Day 2 appearances at a Shonen Jump Championship. Jonathan Moore finished in the Top 16 of SJC Houston with Six Samurai, while Jeff Baumgartner made a second SJC Top 8 finish just a few short weeks after nabbing a Crush Card Virus for his Top 3 finish at SJC St. Louis. Jeff’s take on the Six Samurai was refreshing and powerful, as he utilized the power of Card Trooper with The Warrior Returning Alive in hopes of getting that needed Grandmaster into his hand as early as possible.

Grandmaster of the Six Samurai has not only enabled many of the Six Samurais’ effects, he has also enabled the theme to do quite well at two separate Shonen Jump Championships. This Warrior is sure to continue making impressive finishes at SJCs and Regional events in the future. If you haven’t already traded or bought your play set of Grandmaster cards, then you may want to do so quickly. They’re not going to get any easier to find!