Have you made up your mind to go to the Sneak Preview yet? We’ve looked at some exciting card selections over the last few weeks, and I’m going to wind it up with a look at a card that I personally can’t wait to try out—Destiny Hero - Diamond Dude!

I confess that I would want to play this card regardless of what it does. It could be a 300 ATK/100 DEF normal monster and I still would have put one in my deck, because Destiny Hero - Diamond Dude is just that much fun to say. It’s better than Sonic Duck. But it’s also really enticing from a play perspective! It’s a Warrior monster with the Dark attribute, and it has 1400 ATK and 1600 DEF. (Okay, so that’s a little bit small, but keep reading.) When this monster is face-up on the field, you can look at the top card of your deck once per turn. If the top card is a normal spell card, you can send it to your graveyard, then in the main phase of your next turn, you can activate it. If it’s another kind of card, you place it on the bottom of your deck.

“Hmm,” you might be thinking. “Why would I want to do that? I could just draw that card on my next turn and use it anyway.” Read on for some of the many, many answers to that question.

First, you don’t pay any costs, nor do you have to meet any activation requirements for the normal spell cards you send to the graveyard. You heard me: you don’t pay costs and you don’t have to meet activation requirements. Plus, you’ll also gain an extra option on your next turn. You’ve seen the spell card you would have drawn to the graveyard (and you can use it if you like), plus you’ll draw another card at the beginning of your next turn. Not bad!

In addition, Diamond Dude is easy to search for when you want it. Mystic Tomato, Sangan, and Reinforcement of the Army will all seek Diamond Dude with ease. And it’s a Destiny Hero, so if Enemy of Justice has any cards that search that type out, you’ll be able to use them as well. You can even use Inferno Reckless Summon if you’re really eager to get it out in multiples. If you do, you can use its effect once per turn for every copy of Diamond Dude you can control.

Now, what can Diamond Dude do for you? There are a lot of great cards to abuse (yes, I said abuse) with its effect. I’ll break them down into groups to make it easier for you to hatch your evil schemes.

Oldies But Goodies

The first group consists of cards with activation requirements that might otherwise keep them from seeing play. It includes:

Ojama Delta Hurricane!!

Des Croaking

Mega Ton Magical Cannon

Dark Magic Attack

Burst Stream of Destruction

Bonding - H2O

Chaos Greed

You might not even remember what some of these cards do. The top three all have the same effect—they destroy everything on your opponent’s side of the field. Nice! Normally the activation requirements for these cards are really hard to meet; Hurricane!! requires that you control all three Ojamas, Des Croaking needs three copies of Des Frog, and Mega Ton Magical Cannon demands the mighty sacrifice of ten (count ‘em, ten) spell counters.

But not any more. Now we have Diamond Dude.

Catch just one of these three cards with the Dude’s effect, and you’ll destroy everything your opponent can’t somehow get back into his or her hand by your next turn. Burst Stream of Destruction and Dark Magic Attack bring back a delicious taste I know that I’ve been missing, and that’s Harpie’s Feather Duster. Mmm! If you just want to blow up everything on your opponent’s field, Diamond Dude will let you activate Ojama Delta Hurricane!! and Des Croaking with nary a weird little guy in a Speedo or an adorable Frog in sight. Sure, your opponent will have one turn to see it coming, but still, it’s going to be nasty.

I’ve got three copies of Water Dragon and I’m going to see what I can do with them, now that I can bring them out for free merely by sending Bonding - H2O to the graveyard. If you look through your collection, you’ll probably find some similar spells, ignored because the activation requirements seemed like too big of a drawback. Haul them out!

Chaos Greed is also very impressive when you don’t need monsters removed from play to use it. You get a free draw of two cards, and you’re not expending a card from your hand to use it! That kind of effect is important, because if you draw into a card like Des Croaking, it can just lie there for a while. The solution? Draw more cards!

Free Field Advantage!

If Des Croaking, Mega Ton Magical Cannon, Ojama Delta Hurricane!!, and Burst Stream of Destruction weren’t enough, there’s a lot more field control spells that are compatible with Destiny Hero – Diamond Dude.

Back to Square One

Lightning Vortex

Smashing Ground

Fissure

Nobleman of Crossout

Tribute to The Doomed

Dark Core

All of these cards do different things, with varying levels of utility when they’re drawn normally. Sure, Mega Ton Magical Cannon will be great if Diamond Dude flips it, but it won’t be very useful if you draw it. Cards like Smashing Ground and Fissure, however, are more balanced. You’ll want to mix high and low-utility targets for Diamond Dude’s effect when building your deck.

Some spells of particular note are Back to Square One and Dark Core, each of which deals with monsters in relatively unique ways. Back to Square One can force your opponent to draw another monster again, and if you can set up a mass destruction down the line, it can really sting: you’re clearing out his card resources before he can really use them. Dark Core can remove troublesome monsters like Sangan from the game entirely, ensuring that your opponent doesn’t pull something potentially damaging (perhaps a Mystic Tomato) that could polish off your Diamond Dude with Sangan’s effect.

Free Cards!

In addition to Chaos Greed, there are a lot of other spells that will open up your range of in-hand options. “Free” in this case means “not from the hand.” Normally, you’d draw the card, add it to your hand, and then lose it by activating its effect. But by sending it from the deck to the graveyard, you’re not losing a draw. You will draw a card on your next turn, and still be able to use the spell you discarded. Here are some good examples of cards in this category:

Graceful Charity

Upstart Goblin

Primal Seed

Reinforcement of the Army

The Warrior Returning Alive

Monster Reincarnation

Spell Reproduction

Reinforcement of the Army and The Warrior Returning Alive should definitely catch your interest, since they’ll both help get out your Diamond Dude cards. Reinforcement will let you dig for copies, while Returning Alive will let you replace fallen Dude cards that have been defeated in battle or destroyed by your opponent’s card effects. For a really hardcore Diamond Dude deck, the more Dude cards the better. One is good, but two or three become ridiculous pretty quickly, and your opponent will soon become very tired of seeing them constantly hit the field.

Other Good, Free, Obvious Stuff

Confiscation

Heavy Storm

See? Look how well Diamond Dude can work with cards you’re probably already running! Not all of your spells have to be hand-selected for Diamond Dude synergy. Free is as cheap as it gets, folks.

How about some combos? You’re probably already running some of these cards, but look what they can do when you add in a little Diamond dazzle:

I kept three copies of Magical Explosion, thinking, “I’ll come up with a use for these sometime.” Diamond Dude can fill your graveyard with spells, whether you choose to use their effects or not. (Incidentally, you’re not obligated to use the effect of the spell cards you send to the graveyard, if you don’t want to.) Plus, it’s chainable. Your opponent thinks he’s destroying your Sakuretsu Armor, and instead, he’s going to get a great big bowlful of burn.

I think just about everyone is running Magical Merchant nowadays, and if you are, it can let you run relatively few copies of the target spells, like Des Croaking, Hurricane!!, or Chaos Greed, and still get to them reliably. Once the spells are in your hand, you can send them to the graveyard in all sorts of ways, then return them to the top of your deck with A Feather of the Phoenix. Admittedly, Phoenix is a card reserved more for “specialty” use in particular decks, but for Diamond Dude decks, it’s integral. Once you hit one of the big combo spells, you can reuse that spell once for every Feather you have. Your graveyard becomes a sort of reverse toolbox, and if you can hold the opponent under the threat of one Des Croaking per turn for multiple turns, he or she will be really unhappy. He or she can keep playing cards knowing that they’re going to be lost anyway, or he or she can lie back and take a beating. Either way, you win.

Say what you like about Convulsion of Nature, it will let you see what your next card is going to be and what your opponent’s next card is going to be. . . which will drive any opponent crazy. Maybe you want to keep that monster or trap instead of putting it on the bottom of your deck. You can also toss in Conscription if you really want to infuriate someone. “Ooh, whatcha got there . . . D. D. Warrior Lady? Yoink!”

I head judged a Regional tournament in Atlanta some time ago, and one of the winning decks featured Big Eye. Remember Big Eye? I remember Big Eye . . . Anyway, both it and Pigeonholing Book of Spell will let you stack your upcoming spells any way you like, and tip you off to just the right time to summon Diamond Dude.

Are you convinced yet? Are you going to go and get yourself three copies of this guy and playtest, playtest, playtest? Hmm, looks like a few of you remain unconvinced. How about this: if you use the effect card you sent to the graveyard with Diamond Dude, your opponent can’t activate a card effect to negate it, like Magic Jammer. You can’t chain to the activation of the spell card’s effect, because technically the card isn’t being activated. Spell Canceller or Imperial Order can’t negate the spell card’s effect because it’s not on the field.

And in case you were wondering, Diamond Dude does not have to be face-up on the field (or on the field at all) once you get to your main phase and want to activate the spell card’s effect. Also, if you use Diamond Dude’s effect, flip it face down (say with Book of Moon), and then flip it face up again, you can re-use its effect.