It’s preview time again! To make up for losing cards at the beginning of October, we’ll soon be gaining a brand new set to add to the pool as we prepare for the Sneak Preview tournaments on November 5 and 6. Elemental Energy contains some very promising cards, and you’ll be reading about several of them in the weeks to come.

Let’s get to it! Today, I’m going to talk about card number EN-019, or, as I will refer to it for the duration of this article, “Spellflinging Bishonen.” Otherwise, I feel like I’m ordering car parts, or doing something else equally unexciting.

Anyway, it’s a Spellcaster/Effect monster, with the Dark attribute, 1600 ATK, and 1200 DEF. So far, so average. What about its effect? Spellflinging Bishonen will inflict 400 damage to your opponent’s life points each time you activate one normal spell card.

That’s normal spells only—quick-play, field, continuous, or equip spells won’t trigger the effect, so bear that in mind when you’re thinking about it for your deck. However, its effect is cumulative. If you have multiple copies of the monster on the field, then the damage will be compounded. If you’re planning to build a deck that uses this card, try to have more than one on the field.

Can you imagine this card in the previous Advanced format? With Pot of Greed and Graceful Charity and three copies of Magician of Faith and all the rest of it? “I’ll play Pot of Greed and Graceful Charity. Hey, I’ve got two Book of Moon now, so I’ll play Delinquent Duo. Now I’ll reuse these copies of Magician of Faith a few times and do it again. Oh, and you lost 2000 life points in addition to your entire hand. Your turn.” We may have lost some of the more vexing spells in the game, but this card can still be nasty when it’s played in a deck that’s designed to exploit it. It’s synergistic, rather than something to casually toss into any deck. Here are some entertaining ideas I’ve come up with—you should definitely experiment to find more, because I’ve only hit the obvious ones.

Approximately how many normal spell cards does the average deck run? Even taking into account the loss of several staples, most players build in anywhere from ten to seventeen normal spell cards. (Remember, I’m only talking about normal spells, not quick-play spells or others.) Most decks are now loading up on cards like Smashing Ground, Brain Control, Soul Exchange and Giant Trunade and keeping old standbys like Premature Burial, Swords of Revealing Light and Heavy Storm. However, there are a lot of gaps that need filling.

You’ll obviously want to play with plenty of normal spell cards if you’re going to get the most use out of Spellflinging Bishonen, so fill in some of those spaces with cards like Toon Table of Contents and Gather Your Mind. Self-replacing spell cards like these can pump up your hand with duplicates of themselves for more firepower, while simultaneously thinning your deck so you can quickly get to the other cards you want. Gather Your Mind will only pay out 400 points of damage per turn, but Toon Table of Contents has more utility. You can probably use all three copies on one turn to thin your deck and deal some damage, but you’ve also got the option of fetching something useful to the field, like Toon Goblin Attack Force (a good Cyber Dragon killer), or Toon Gemini Elf (1900 ATK and discard a card from your opponent’s hand, and it’s a Spellcaster). You could also stick with burn and use Toon Cannon Soldier, which is an especially good choice if you’re running multiple copies of Brain Control. Activate Brain Control, do 400 damage, take something good and attack with it if possible, then fling it back at its loving owner for an additional 500 damage. Aw, you’re such a jerk . . .

You know, as long as you’re activating all those spell cards, you might as well get even more use out of them. How about running Spellflinging Bishonen with monsters like Skilled Dark Magician or Blast Magician? Build up a hoard of spell counters while you’re burning your opponent, and then use those counters for another effect, like special summoning Dark Magician or destroying your opponent’s monsters. Once you get Dark Magician out, you could go ahead and hand it Diffusion Wave-Motion for another 400-point ping and a good chance at clearing your opponent’s deck.

Spellcasters will get a real boost once their Structure deck comes out, but in the meantime, Spellflinging Bishonen can help form an intriguing core for Spellcaster-themed decks. You could open with a Lockdown/Burn strategy, along with Ebon Magician Curran and Messenger of Peace, and then switch to a more aggressive finish using Skilled Dark Magician and Magician’s Circle to bring out bigger monsters for an action-packed finish to the game.

It’s worth mentioning that Spellflinging Bishonen can make for some great late-game tech in a Spellcaster deck. Magician’s Circle can bring it out, and let you nail your opponent for the last bit of life points, if you’ve got enough spells. Magician of Faith and Dark Magician of Chaos can help recycle your spells, and if you like a bit of Chaos seasoning to go with your Spellcasters, Spellflinging Bishonen is a Dark monster, so it will work well with Chaos Sorcerer.

Once you get Spellflinging Bishonen into play, you’ll want to protect it. If you’ve got multiple copies out, then cards like Messenger of Peace will help, along with monster removal spells like Smashing Ground and attack-negating traps like Sakuretsu Armor and Magic Cylinder. Swords of Revealing Light will help hold off attacks as well, and if you’re focusing most of your deck on Spellcasters, Yami is worth considering. That will boost the Bishonen’s ATK value up to a respectable 1900. The more normal spell cards you can incorporate into this, the better—you’ll get double the use out of them, since they’ll also burn off 400 of your opponent’s life points.