The Elemental Energy Sneak Preview Weekend has come and gone, and many duelists walked away from these events with all sorts of cool swag. I hope that those of you who attended these events had a great time, and I hope you got some awesome rare cards! As for those of you who didn’t attend your local Sneak Preview event, you’ve fallen out of favor with the Dark World hierarchy. For shame!
Seriously, regardless of whether or not you attended a local Sneak Preview event last weekend, you’re probably excited about Elemental Energy. This set has cards for everyone, whether you’re a casual or a competitive duelist. However, while duelists were jumping for joy over this new set, many players forgot that the Warrior’s Triumph Structure deck was released in stores during October. In case you haven’t seen this Structure deck yet, Warrior’s Triumph gives new duelists a chance to obtain relatively expensive cards in common form, such as D. D. Warrior Lady and Royal Decree.
This new Structure deck also contains three brand-new cards. Gilford the Legend is a great concept for new duelists to play around with. Warrior Lady of the Wasteland may serve a strong purpose in maintaining field presence. Finally, the new spell card of this Structure deck is radiating with potential. Divine Sword – Phoenix Blade brings forth a new method of card advantage and resource management, which means that it’s definitely worth considering in this new Advanced format. After all, Sinister Serpent was just too good to remain off of the Forbidden list, and Pot of Greed . . . well, it should be obvious as to why we can’t use that spell anymore. Divine Sword – Phoenix Blade is easily a useful equip spell, but its recursion ability makes this card a powerful choice for Control and Combo decks alike.
The Basic Breakdown
As an equip spell, Divine Sword – Phoenix Blade appears to be mediocre at first glance. The 300 ATK bonus probably isn’t going to help out all that often, but there are some situations in which it truly shines. For example, Don Zaloog lacks the necessary ATK to punch through monsters such as Breaker the Magical Warrior and Blade Knight. However, this new Phoenix Blade can increase its ATK up to 1700, allowing you to easily punch through these monsters. This also gives you the ability to trigger Don Zaloog’s hand destruction effect, which can quickly devastate your opponent. Don’s extra 300 ATK also means that your opponent can’t simply remove Don Zaloog from the field with Mystic Tomato, and D. D. Assailant will only break even with your slightly improved tomb robber. The 300 ATK bonus of Divine Sword – Phoenix Blade is also effective with D. D. Survivor and Zombyra the Dark, since this equip card elevates their ATK values to a level that makes Cyber Dragon seem like a pretty bland special summon.
However, what makes Divine Sword – Phoenix Blade so powerful is that you can return it to your hand during your main phase by removing two Warrior-type monsters in your graveyard from play. This gives you access to a powerful hand management utility that can be used for a variety of discard effects, as long as you have the Warriors to support this spell. In this environment, where many duelists are overjoyed to swing directly with copies of Don Zaloog and Spirit Reaper, Divine Sword – Phoenix Blade can lessen the blow of these powerful effects. If the opponent causes you to discard this equip spell card through their monster effects, you can return it to your hand later in the game, which effectively negates the loss of one card from your hand. If the opponent forces you to discard a Warrior-type monster, then you’ll have a variety of ways in which to use Divine Sword – Phoenix Blade while the fallen Warrior is in the graveyard. If you decide that recursion such as Call of the Haunted isn’t worth wasting on the discarded Warrior, then you can remove it later in the duel in order to return Divine Sword – Phoenix Blade to your hand.
What makes Divine Sword – Phoenix Blade even more powerful is its ability to act as bait, drawing out spell and trap removal from your opponent. One of the most common first-turn plays you might see from two competitive duelists at a Shonen Jump Championship is the setting of one card in the monster zone and one card in the spell or trap zone. The monsters usually set on turn one generally have search effects, such as Mystic Tomato and Sangan, or removal effects, such as D. D. Warrior Lady. The trap card that accompanies this play is usually a type of removal, such as Sakuretsu Armor.
This means that your opponent may be more than willing to open with some form of spell or trap removal, such as Breaker the Magical Warrior or, if he or she went first and chose not to set removal, a Dust Tornado. A face-down Divine Sword – Phoenix Blade is just as threatening as a face-down Sakuretsu Armor, as your opponent doesn’t know exactly what you have laying in wait for their attacks. If your opponent wastes removal on a bluffed Divine Sword – Phoenix Blade, then you’ll earn more security for your actual trap cards. Your opponent also may have lost card advantage, as it’s safe to assume that Divine Sword – Phoenix Blade will find its way back into your hand during a duel.
Combos and Strategies
I cannot stress how much Armed Samurai – Ben Kei loves . The Ben Kei combo deck, which abuses its win condition of attacking somewhere around 500 times* with the small but deadly Armed Samurai – Ben Kei, would love to have this equip spell in its deck. Not only does Divine Sword – Phoenix Blade add another attack to your win-condition monster, but this equip spell also won’t detract from your overall hand size. Divine Sword – Phoenix Blade allows you to focus less on drawing multiple equip spells and more on stabilizing your board, so that your battle phase with a triple- or quadruple-equipped Armed Samurai – Ben Kei will not be interrupted.
Since we’re on the topic of older deck types that love card advantage, a more Warrior-oriented Strike Ninja duelist would love to add extra cards to his or her hand during a turn. Divine Sword – Phoenix Blade gives you extra cards with Card Destruction, and it can also supply the deck with a basic ATK pump for warriors such as Don Zaloog and Zombyra the Dark. More importantly, however, is that Divine Sword – Phoenix Blade removes Warriors in your graveyard from play. This allows a Strike Ninja deck to maximize the power of Return from the Different Dimension, which is the deck’s major win condition. There’s nothing more gratifying than adding cards to your hand and summoning five monsters to attack with all in one turn.
One of the most powerful combos that’s available with Divine Sword – Phoenix Blade is its ability to be used together with D. D. M. – Different Dimension Master. The ability of your level 5 Spellcaster can drain your hand quickly, although its effect is definitely worth it. Divine Sword – Phoenix Blade makes sure that the ability of D. D. M. – Different Dimension Master has hardly any cost at all! It also allows you to remove Warriors, such as D. D. Assailant, from your graveyard, in case your opponent’s destroyed them outside of battle. Divine Sword – Phoenix Blade effectively provides both the cost and the targets for D. D. M. – Different Dimension Master, as their abilities are so well-designed for each other!
If you’re looking for something fresh, unique, and for a lack of a better word, “janky,” then try putting Divine Sword – Phoenix Blade into a pure “remove from play” deck. I’m not talking about simply running all of the D. D. Warriors with this equip spell. I’m talking about a deck that makes sure you almost never have a card in your graveyard! Recycle and Divine Sword – Phoenix Blade will make sure you keep your graveyard count to zero and your removed from play count high, which will allow you to use a variety of ridiculously powerful spells from the Invasion of Chaos set. These two spell cards allow you to activate cards such as Chaos Greed and Dimension Distortion, which have difficult requirements to fulfill but incredibly powerful effects. Divine Sword – Phoenix Blade also allows you to put cards into the removed from play pile quickly, which will allow you to activate Chaos End within a few turns into the duel. Playing multiple copies of “Pot of Greed” and “Dark Hole” can be a ton of fun, and these older spell cards effectively allow you to do just that.
Final Thoughts
For those of you who haven’t seen what’s in the Warrior’s Triumph Structure deck, be sure to pick one up at your local game store. There are some great cards in this Structure deck, but don’t overlook this new equip spell card. Divine Sword – Phoenix Blade has the potential to be a powerful combo spell card or a useful form of hand management. There are some great uses available for this new equip spell, so try experimenting with this card if you love to play around with Warriors. I’m sure that I only scratched the surface of what Divine Sword – Phoenix Blade can do, so it’s up to you to find ways to maximize the potential of this exciting new card.
If anyone tries out a deck that’s based on the removed from play pile, like the one mentioned in today’s column, feel free to let me know how it fares for you by sending me an email at Mrosenberg at Metagame dot com!
*Okay, so it’s only around three to five attacks. But it feels like you’re being smacked around 500 times.