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Doomkaiser Dragon
Card# CSOC-EN043
Doomkaiser Dragon's effect isn't just for Zombie World duelists: remember that its effect can swipe copies of Plaguespreader Zombie, too!
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| Single Cards in the Metagame: The Monsters |
| Jason Grabher-Meyer |
| July 29, 2004 |
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In part one of this two-part series, we looked at the spell cards that made an unexpected impact at the 2004 Yu-Gi-Oh! World Championship. This time, let’s examine the three monster cards that made an equally surprising impact.
 The three monster cards that came out of proverbial left field were Apprentice Magician, Airknight Parshath, and Magician of Faith. Though Airknight Parshath and Magician of Faith had seen testing and viability, especially at the Canadian National Championships, both cards were surprisingly great in the Worlds metagame. Apprentice Magician was a big surprise and fit the metagame like a glove.
Apprentice Magician has a wealth of good qualities going for it. To start, it’s a Dark-attribute monster, so if it’s sent to the graveyard (which is highly likely, given its low stats) it fills half the special summoning requirement for Chaos Emperor Dragon - Envoy of the End or Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning. Its effect can pull a lot of really good monsters from deck, including Magical Scientist, Magician of Faith, Vindictive Old Magician, and other Apprentice Magicians, which are all great cards in situations that call for them. Unlike Mystic Tomato, Shining Angel, and others of their ilk, Apprentice Magician does not have to go to the graveyard to get its effect. That means two things. First, if your opponent takes it and rams it into one of your monsters he or she will get the effect. Which is bad. But secondly, if your opponent attacks Apprentice Magician with D. D. Warrior Lady or D. D. Crazy Beast, you’ll still get to pull a level 2 or lower Spellcaster from your deck and special summon it. Considering how prominent D. D. Warrior Lady has been lately, especially in this tournament, that can be a huge asset.
Apprentice Magician does two major things for Chaos decks. As mentioned above, it gives the deck another Dark monster, but since it can grab Magician of Faith with its effect, it can also lead to easily filling the Light monster requirement for Chaos Emperor Dragon or Black Luster Soldier. This was a combo that took Worlds by storm; it was the deciding factor in many games for the players who were running Apprentice Magician. In addition, Apprentice expands the Chaos deck’s repertoire of monsters that are frustratingly good at maintaining board presence. It’s often said that the true power of a Turbo Chaos deck lies in its use of D. D. Warrior Lady, Mystic Tomato, and Shining Angel, not for speed, but for the sake of deterring the opponent from attacking and making him or her waste turns bashing through monster after self-replacing monster. Apprentice Magician functions as yet another card that can’t easily be done away with through battle—kill it, and another one takes its place (or something different, and likely more painful to see, hits the table). Apprentice Magician will probably explode in some areas where it isn’t already being used: it’s just too synergistic with the basic Chaos concepts to be ignored.
 Next up, Airknight Parshath. With Scapegoat gaining popularity in North America and already being a ridiculously popular and powerful card in Japan, Airknight Parshath was attractive to several competitors. Ryan Pugh, fourth place finisher representing the UK, was quoted as saying that he played the card strictly because he “knew the Japanese players would be running a lot of Scapegoat.” It’s a powerful anti-Chaos card in any format, tearing through defense position Shining Angels, Mystic Tomatoes, and Apprentice Magicians. Normally, attacking any of those cards would only result in seeing them replaced, thinning the opponent’s deck and giving him or her options as to what to replace the destroyed monster with, but with Airknight Parshath, damage is dealt, and, most importantly, card advantage is gained. With competitors using their veteran skills to match tempo to their opponents’ moves, most games saw players with equal hand counts at most parts of each duel: Airknight Parshath was a great way to overcome the skill, control, and restraint that allowed the duelists to stick to each other so closely in terms of hand presence. As such, Parshath was game-breaking in many situations, since often just one more card in hand was enough to tip the scales. Parshath was even more powerful than usual, as more players than normal played Scapegoat, Apprentice Magician, and Magician of Faith.
 Magician of Faith, which was under-played at U.S. Nationals but made a strong showing at Canadian Nationals, made an even stronger showing at the World Championship. Taking the place of popular face-down plays like Cyber Jar and Fiber Jar, Magician of Faith didn’t have Harpie’s Feather Duster and Raigeki to draw on, but it still saved and won many games. Since it’s searchable via Apprentice Magician, it’s often an easy play to make, and since it’s a Light monster, it often makes for a great candidate to remove from play to special summon a Dragon or Soldier. Magician of Faith really lent some oomph to Chaos Beatdown, providing another Light monster to use other than the Turbo-oriented Shining Angel. With D. D. Warrior Lady and Reflect Bounder comprising the rest of the deck’s Light arsenal, Magician of Faith was an integral part to many builds of that strategy. The favorite targets? A bit different from the norm, given that the environment was changed, but the old theory stayed the same: if it gave card advantage, duelists wanted to use it more than once. Heavy Storm, Dark Hole, Pot of Greed, and Graceful Charity were the most popular things to Magician-recursion on, while high-utility cards with guaranteed usefulness took a strong second—Scapegoat, Mystical Space Typhoon, and Smashing Ground were almost equally-popular picks.
Watch for these three cards, especially Apprentice Magician, to pick up speed in your area in the future. Apprentice Magician gives even more resiliency and options to a Chaos deck, Airknight Parshath can make a strong replacement for Jinzo as its popularity continues to decline, and Magician of Faith fits into many decks despite once being viewed as a “slow” card. These three monsters will definitely leave a mark on the environment now that their strength has been proven at an international level.
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