Okay, I’m back with my final card preview, once again doing my humble best to tempt you with the delights of the new set. I can’t complain about getting this card, either. I thought of all kinds of things I’d like to do with it and I’m sure I’ve barely scratched the surface. Let’s see what you make of it!

Today, I’m going to show you Neo-Spacian Air Hummingbird. It’s another dinky monster— level 3, with 800 ATK and 600 DEF. (Are they giving me little monsters on purpose? Is this some kind of editorial short joke?) It is a Wind attribute Winged Beast, which makes sense because it is a bird, and like the Grand Mole I talked about last time, it has an effect that makes up for the small size.

Once per turn during your main phase, while the card is face up, you can gain 500 life points for each card in your opponent’s hand. This is an ignition effect that you can trigger once per turn during your main phase—either 1 or 2, whichever works out to your best advantage! Remember, with an ignition effect, you won’t automatically gain the life: you have to activate the effect. Don’t leave your main phase without activating it and then try and go back and do it later!

So, the first thing that leaps to my mind about this card is how effectively it could be used to prod more conservative players. You know the kind of player I mean—they hunker down behind a four- or-five card hand like it’s a combination bomb shelter and life ring. Air Hummingbird can turn into a real pain for these players—they’re going to have to let go of a few and commit those cards to the field to take the little bird down. They’ll usually have to attack, since Hummingbird's low stats allow it to dodge Smashing Ground pretty easily. Air Hummingbird will often become a lightning rod for attacks, and you can use that to your advantage by forcing the opponent into overly aggressive moves (which can be difficult for card-hoarders to handle).

Air Hummingbird also has some real appeal to those who enjoy laying down the damage on players really focused on card and hand advantage. Let’s face it, if you build yourself up to 15,000 life points or so, you can afford to take a gamble here and there—much more so than your opponent can afford to continue to keep flipping a Dekoichi. And hey, if you can get a little “something, something” out of your opponent’s Graceful Charity or Pot of Avarice, that’s all right.

Air Hummingbird is relatively easy to get when you need it, since you can special summon it with Flying Kamakiri #1, or search it out with Sangan in a pinch. Don’t leave it out there all on its own—you can increase the impact it has on the game by combining it with some other cards to create new and different sources of frustration for your opponent. Let’s just see what we can come up with . . .

I’d enjoy using this card with other life-point gaining cards, like Fire Princess (we had a Fire Princess deck on the mall tour that was a lot of fun) or The Agent of Force - Mars or The Agent of Judgment - Saturn. I’ll bet you’ve forgotten what those guys even do! A well-built life point gain deck is one of the most irritating deck types to face out there, and if it isn’t defeated quickly it can be incredibly hard to take down. If an opponent doesn’t have a fast way to finish it off (either through a massive hit of damage or an alternative win condition), the game can go on for ages. If you like the idea of gaining a lot of extra life points, try mixing Air Hummingbird in with cards like Guardian Sphinx or Giant Trunade—as you bounce the cards back to your opponent’s hand, you’re not only giving yourself more life points, you’re also depriving him or her of on-field options to thwart your nefarious plans.

You might as well spend those life points on something—Mausoleum of the Emperor, Ultimate Offering, and other cards that encourage risk for a big payoff can always do with a life point boost.* How about Chain Energy? Talk about a rock and a hard place . . . your opponent either has to hold all those cards in his or her hand and make you a present of 500 life points apiece for them, or use them and give up 500 of his or her own. The payment won’t hurt you as much, since you’ve got a source of renewal. Meanwhile, that Hummingbird is also creating one pesky distraction! Your opponent needs to get rid of it, but if your field is also filling up with Fire Princess cards or large attackers, then he or she has all kinds of decisions to make.

The card isn’t really type-dependent, so you can splash it into just about anything. If you’d like to use it with a more dedicated Wind build to back it up, though, there are a few cards that will really go nicely with it—I like Lady Ninja Yae, Swift Birdman Joe, and Simorgh, Bird of Divinity. You get all the benefits of life point gain and general vexation from putting the opponent’s on-field cards back in his or her hand with the first two, and Simorgh won’t hurt you too much while you burn away whatever the opponent has left. Pick through your Lord of the Storm structure and see what’s in there!

Air Hummingbird could potentially be a real headache at the Sneak Preview, where decks use a lot of smaller monsters that normally don’t get to see play—Hummingbirds might cause more games to end by decking than we normally see. “My opponent has 25,000 life points because I kept drawing cards I couldn’t use . . . my biggest attacker has 1500 ATK . . . there are five cards left in my deck . . . blahhhhh!” Hopefully it won’t happen to you. The card is a super rare, so it won’t be in every deck, but look out for it!

Anyway, I really like this card. It appeals to my outlook on the game, which is pretty much “I Like to Keep My Life Points and Take Them Away from My Opponent,” because despite everything people say, nearly all wins in the Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG come down to having life points when your opponent has none. I’m quite curious to see how much of an impact Air Hummingbird has on current play styles. Players who’ve gotten a bit trapped in the “getting lots of cards and hanging onto them” mindset are in for a refreshing challenge when confronted with a deck that punishes them severely for doing so. If players will actually use this card, it might stir things up a bit, which would be nice for everyone. I don’t know about you, but I like going to Shonen Jump Championships with only a general idea of what I might see there. So come on! Dig in to the new set, look through your binders, say goodbye to the old format, and show me something cool!