There are some exciting cards in Tactical Evolution, but honestly, I don’t think many can compare to Crystal Seer. Heck, I don’t think very many cards can compare to it period.

The release of this elegant and powerful new Spellcaster has puzzled me. How do I approach it in terms of writing about it? I could take a look at Apprentice Magician again, and analyze how he’s going to get a huge boost in play due to Crystal Seer. However, I’ve already written about Apprentice Magician twice (depending on which format he was played in). That little Spellcaster has also seen more exciting days when Breaker the Magical Warrior wasn’t Forbidden from tournament play, though his uses can certainly be seen now in any deck that needs time.

Another option for dealing with Crystal Seer would be looking at the old Monarch control deck that ran the Apprentice engine. This would be a solid way of highlighting the coming uses of Crystal Seer, but the discussion of a deck type isn’t exactly what my column’s all about. There are other fine writers here at Metagame.com who deal with tournament deck discussion.

I guess a bold and brash statement regarding the Spellcaster would be the best way to start a discussion about it: Crystal Seer is one of the best flip effects to be printed (and not Forbidden), and is bound to see limitless tournament play as long as it’s legal.

That wasn’t as bold or as brash as I expected, probably because this won’t be that far from the truth. Crystal Seer is one of the best flip effects in the game, comparable in power even to Magician of Faith. She isn’t meant to be analyzed by her stats or her level. Her stats are abysmal, to a point that even Treeborn Frog can kamikaze into the little Spellcaster if both were, for some reason, in attack position. But stats and level aside, Crystal Seer has the three most important traits to become one of the best card manipulation engines for a slower deck: the Spellcaster monster type, a level of 2 or less, and a really awesome flip effect.

Crystal Seer’s level allows you to special summon her face down in defense position via Apprentice Magician, a monster that saw a lot of play until Magician of Faith became Forbidden. While he still picked up play on occasion (he’s a solid way of maintaining field presence and tribute fodder while protecting his user’s life points), Apprentice Magician wasn’t as good as before, when he could choose between Magician of Faith and Old Vindictive Magician as his search targets. With Crystal Seer, Apprentice Magician can now choose between a monster removal flip effect or a card-cycling flip effect, giving the engine much more versatility.

What does this mean to the Apprentice engine in terms of seeing it in decks? It means that Monarch control can once again incorporate the Apprentice engine with little drawback, since it provides the versatility to both deal with problematic monsters via Old Vindictive Magician and find its key Monarchs with Crystal Seer. After all, Crystal Seer’s effect lets you pick the best of the top two cards of your deck to add to your hand. Unlike Dekoichi the Battlechanted Locomotive, which only nets you one card, Crystal Seer digs an extra card deep in order to find you what you need most.

What this means is that Dekoichi the Battlechanted Locomotive may very well be leaving traditional Monarch decks, if it hasn’t already. After all, why run a basic flip effect like that when you can run a different monster that lets you see an extra card? Sure, Crystal Seer doesn’t have that 1400 ATK, but she gives you easier access to the Apprentice engine, which is better overall at keeping at least one monster on your field for the turn you want to drop a Monarch onto the opponent.

This doesn’t just apply for Monarchs, however. There are other decks that could use the little boost in consistency that Crystal Seer’s card selection provides. The Crystal Beasts are a prime example of this, since—while the theme possesses a game plan that can be extremely difficult to break once it gets a spell and trap zone full of Crystal Beasts—it sometimes lacks consistency. Crystal Seer, along with Apprentice Magician, can help filter through enough of the Crystal Beast deck to get its field spell out and a Crystal Beast into the spell and trap zone.

I could go on and on about how using Crystal Seer as an addition to the Apprentice engine helps a variety of control decks and other slower strategies (this is all aside from the Crystal Seer’s bonuses, which include being a Water monster). This lets you use Spiritual Water Art - Aoi and Salvage with Crystal Seer. The Spiritual Water Art gives you a way of utilizing Crystal Seer once she has been flipped, while Salvage is pure extra cards, allowing you to cycle through more cards once you run low on options. The Water attribute works nicely with Treeborn Frog, which is already a convenient and useful tool to the Monarch control decks.

But what about under-explored deck strategies? A Morphing Jar #2-oriented deck-out strategy would love to add Crystal Seer to its arsenal. While the deck no longer has the ability to recur spell cards via Magician of Faith, this stall and outlast game plan could always use more consistency. Crystal Seer doesn’t just allow the deck to find its key Morphing Jar #2 and copies of Desert Sunlight, but it also works very nicely with Morphing Jar #2 itself. The Morphing Jar #2 can reset Crystal Seer by shuffling her back into your deck, allowing you to special summon her face down for a flip summon once again!

There really isn’t a lot more that needs to be said about Crystal Seer. It’s a very, very good card, with one of the best flip effects this game has received in ages. Triggering Crystal Seer’s flip effect lets you cycle through not one, but two cards from the top of your deck: extremely powerful for any slower deck that needs time to set up a winning turn, such as Monarch control or Crystal Beasts. In fact, this monster is so good at what she does that you will likely be seeing her (along with Apprentice Magician) for quite some time. Play her if you need the consistency, and get used to having her pop up at your local tournaments. She’s here to stay!