With each new set in the Yu-Gi-Oh! Trading Card Game, a little extra support is usually added to one or two deck types. This can be seen in Flaming Eternity, where Beasts received a few new options. The Lost Millennium introduced some more Rock-type support. Cybernetic Revolution added some extra Machine support to the game while also adding fantastic trap cards for the four elemental attributes of Fire, Water, Earth, and Wind. Elemental Energy catered to fans of Fiends with the Dark World sub-theme. As you could probably recognize from Jason’s preview last week, Insects are the type that receives some nice support from Shadow of Infinity. Today, we here at Metagame.com are revealing another Insect bomb. Say hello to . . . Anteatereatingant! And no, that’s not a typo.

Anteatereatingant

Common

Attribute: EARTH

Insect/effect

Level 5

ATK: 2000

DEF: 500

This card cannot be Normal Summoned or Set. This card cannot be Special Summoned except by sending 2 Spell or Trap Cards on your side of the field to the Graveyard. Once per turn destroy 1 Spell or Trap Card on your opponent's side of the field; this card cannot attack if you use this effect.

First of all, that’s an interesting name, isn’t it? Anteater-Eating Ant. That poor aardvark in the corner looks like it’s having a bad day. If I were staring down a colossal mutated horde of ants, I’d be having a bad day, too. Either it would be the end of life as I knew it, or I’d be watching a really bad horror movie.

Anteatereatingant, as you can see, can only be special summoned through its effect of sending two spell or trap cards from your side of the field to the graveyard. Sending those cards to the graveyard is a cost to special summon Anteatereatingant, so you can’t do any tricky combos involving using trap cards to summon your Insect and then activating those cards in response to the summon. After all, they would already be in the graveyard.

Anteatereatingant is a rather unique Insect. Its summoning condition is definitely different from many other special summon-only monsters we have seen, such as the lineup of Silent Swordsman monsters. The wording on this card also indicates that this monster can only be special summoned by sending two spell or trap cards from your field to the graveyard. This means you can’t special summon this monster back to the field, even if it was properly summoned.

With these restrictions, you may be wondering why Anteatereatingant is good. While the cost of summoning this Insect can be a bit painful, it can provide form of spell and trap removal once per turn. Cards that can do this tend to have some sort of drawback, such as Chiron the Mage, which has a discard cost to its effect. Anteatereatingant’s drawback is that you cannot attack with your 2000 ATK Insect if you choose to destroy a spell or trap card. While this slows down your ability to destroy your opponent’s monsters, this effect allows you to remove more annoying threats, such as Sakuretsu Armor or Gravity Bind, which can be much better in the long run.

In the Advanced format, Anteatereatingant can combo with Tsukuyomi and . If you didn’t summon Anteatereatingant or manually change its position during your turn, you can choose to destroy a spell or trap card and then flip it face down with one of the two aforementioned cards. You’re then free to flip summon Anteatereatingant and then choose to either destroy another back row card or attack one of your opponent’s monsters. Some many recognize this as a former combo with Thousand-Eyes Restrict, but Anteatereatingant is a removal engine that can be used to plow through your opponent’s supporting spell and trap cards. This can be exceptionally good against any form of Stall or Control, which usually depend on using trap cards right now as a primary method of earning advantage and controlling the opponent’s actions.

Since Anteatereatingant is a common in Shadow of Infinity, there is a good chance that you’ll be seeing a lot of this Insect at your local Sneak Preview location this weekend. In a Limited format such as Sealed Pack or Booster Draft, cards that can be summoned quickly and relatively efficiently are hard to find. Cards that can also consistently remove spell and trap cards that have the potential to wreck you are also quite hard to obtain. Anteatereatingant has a relatively strong ATK value and it’s pretty easy to summon. If you see one of these in your pool of cards, be sure to play it, as a free 2000 ATK monster will probably help you win a few games. If you are playing in any booster drafts this weekend, do not let this monster be passed too late. You will want this card face down in your card pool rather early, due to its pure speed and its lack of any attribute or monster-type stamped drawback.