Elemental Energy has been unleashed, and with it, the next wave of Elemental Heroes! With an unprecedented level of support, Elemental Energy is truly the Jaden fan’s set of choice. Your Elemental Hero deck will receive a serious upgrade, with two new effect monster cards, three support cards, and four new fusion monster cards to add to your arsenal.

This week’s article is about the new Elemental Hero effect monsters and support cards from Elemental Energy. Is any trap capable of stopping Elemental Hero Wildheart? How can Hero Barrier fail? Why don’t we take a look?

Let’s begin with the most powerful non-fusion Elemental Hero ever created—Elemental Hero Bladedge. The text of Elemental Hero Bladedge says “During battle between this attacking card and a Defense Position monster whose DEF is lower than the ATK of this card, inflict the difference as Battle Damage to your opponent’s Life Points.”

When you examine this text, does it sound familiar? Every player has seen this effect before. This effect is one that we refer to as “piercing,” allowing a monster to inflict battle damage to the opponent’s life points even when the opponent’s monster is in defense position.

The old wording of the piercing effect made some players believe that the effect was a triggered effect and would use the chain, but that’s never been the case. This new wording for the text makes it sound like a continuous effect, which is much more accurate. Elemental Hero Bladedge is quite simple, so let’s move on to the real star of the show, which is Elemental Hero Wildheart.

The text of Elemental Hero Wildheart says “This card is unaffected by the effects of Trap Cards.”

In a previous article, I wrote about what it means for a monster to be unaffected by the effects of spell cards, and I referred to this effect as “spell card immunity.” Elemental Hero Wildheart’s power is similar, but it focuses on immunity from trap cards instead.

Like spell card immunity, trap card immunity is only active while the monster is face-up on the field. Any trap card effects that would affect cards in your hand will affect an Elemental Hero Wildheart that’s in your hand. Likewise, any trap card that affects monsters in your deck, your removed zone, or your graveyard can affect your Elemental Hero Wildheart while it’s in each respective zone.

This effect is a continuous effect and it will remain true as long as your Elemental Hero Wildheart remains face-up on the field. I know this sounds great for Wildheart, but let’s consider what this means for gameplay in general.

When Jaden normal summons or flip summons his Elemental Hero Wildheart, his opponent could try to destroy it with Trap Hole or Bottomless Trap Hole, but he or she would just be wasting time. Wildheart is unaffected by the effects of both trap cards and would remain on the field.

While it may not be possible to destroy Wildheart with a trap after it’s summoned, it’s still possible to negate the summon of Wildheart with a trap card effect. Trap cards like Horn of Heaven and Solemn Judgment that negate the summon of a monster essentially prevent it from ever touching the field. Since Wildheart needs to be face-up on the field for its effect to be active, it has no way to save itself from having its summon negated.

Now that Jaden has Elemental Hero Wildheart in play, it’s time to flex its muscle and attack! But his opponent springs another trap—Gravity Bind! What will Jaden do now?

Knowing the power of Wildheart, he will probably continue with his attack. Gravity Bind will normally stop a level 4 monster like Wildheart from attacking, but since Wildheart is unaffected by the effect of Gravity Bind, it can still attack. Popular cards like Sakuretsu Armor and Widespread Ruin will be useless defenses against Wildheart, as well.

Widespread Ruin opens up a new situation. What happens if Elemental Hero Wildheart is your attack position monster with the highest ATK? Since Widespread Ruin cannot affect Wildheart, will it destroy another monster instead?

Not a chance. If Elemental Hero Wildheart is your attack position monster with the highest ATK, Widespread Ruin will still attempt to destroy it. Even though it will fail, it still tries to complete the effect.

Remember that your other monsters aren’t protected by Elemental Hero Wildheart’s effect. If your opponent uses a trap card effect like that of Torrential Tribute, your other monsters will still be destroyed. If you were to attack with Elemental Hero Wildheart and your opponent responded with Mirror Force, your other attack position monsters would still be destroyed.

Now that we’ve cleared up the newest members of the team, let’s look at those support cards from Elemental Energy.

The text of Feather Shot says “Select 1 face-up "Elemental Hero Avian" on your side of the field to activate this card. This turn, the selected card can attack as many times as the number of monster(s) on your side of the field when this card resolves. In that case, it cannot attack your opponent's Life Points directly, and your other monster(s) cannot attack.”

Feather Shot is quite a bit to take in at one time, so let’s split up its effect.

“Select 1 face-up “Elemental Hero Avian” on your side of the field to activate this card.”

Feather Shot is Avian’s card. Without Avian, you won’t be able to use it. It also means that your opponent is going to know which of your copies of Elemental Hero Avian will be issuing the threat of Feather Shot. If he or she can successfully destroy the selected Avian, he or she will be able to save his or her monsters from the remainder of Feather Shot’s effect.

“This turn, the selected card can attack as many times as the number of monster(s) on your side of the field when this card resolves.”

When the effect of Feather Shot resolves, count the number of monsters you have on your side of the field, including your Elemental Hero Avian. This will tell you how many times the selected Elemental Hero Avian will be able to attack this turn.

“In that case, it cannot attack your opponent's Life Points directly, and your other monster(s) cannot attack.”

This portion of the effect establishes two limitations that will control what you’re able to do with your Feather Shot-enhanced Elemental Hero Avian.

When you resolve Feather Shot, if you have more monsters than your opponent, you will have extra attacks that you won’t be able to use. For example, if I have four monsters when I resolve Feather Shot, but my opponent only has two monsters on her side of the field, I will only get two attacks from my selected Elemental Hero Avian. Without being able to attack directly, the other two attacks won’t be of any use—and my other monsters are unable to attack, so I can’t take advantage of them either.

We’ll conclude this week’s article by looking at a card that Jaden has used on several occasions to protect his Elemental Heroes, and that card is Hero Barrier.

The text of Hero Barrier says “If there is a face-up monster on your side of the field that includes "Elemental Hero" in its card name, negate 1 attack from your opponent's monster.”

Activating this card is simple, and a lot like Negate Attack, You activate it when your opponent declares an attack. The targeted monster’s attack is negated when the effect resolves. However, Hero Barrier has two differences that affect how it functions.

1. Hero Barrier is a normal trap card.
2. Hero Barrier requires that you control an Elemental Hero.

When using Hero Barrier, your opponent is free to respond with other card effects that have spell speed two, like normal trap cards or quick-play spell cards. Most of them won’t cause any trouble, but a trap card like Royal Decree will. If your opponent activates Royal Decree in response to your Hero Barrier, his or her Royal Decree will resolve first. This will allow it to negate your Hero Barrier and will leave your Elemental Hero defenseless.

Your opponent might also respond by using a card effect that removes your Elemental Heroes from the field, like Enemy Controller. Without at least one face-up Elemental Hero on your side of the field when the effect resolves, the effect of Hero Barrier will fail.

But Enemy Controller causes a replay, right? What happens if your opponent uses it to remove one of your Elemental Heroes, but he or she cannot remove them all? Hero Barrier will still resolve, because the entire chain must finish resolving before any replay is applied. This means your Hero Barrier will still negate the attack of your opponent’s attacking monster and it will not be allowed to attack again, unless it has some ability that would allow it to do so—like that of Armed Samurai – Ben Kei.

Hero Barrier may require that you control a face-up Elemental Hero, but it doesn’t matter what monster your opponent is attacking. Feel free to use this one to protect your Elemental Hero support monsters, like Wroughtweiler.

Next week, we’ll examine the new Elemental Hero fusion monsters from Elemental Energy. Until then, please send all comments to Curtis@metagame.com