This weekend is the Tactical Evolution Sneak Preview. I hope you’re ready to attend it, because the set has some very powerful and entertaining cards!

This week, I’ll be showing you some Normal monster support. Still need a good reason to run those vanilla background monsters? Look no further!

Summoner’s Art       Normal Spell

Add 1 Level 5 or higher Normal Monster from your Deck to your hand.

Symbols of Duty       Equip Spell

Send 1 Normal Monster you control to the Graveyard. Select and Special Summon 1 monster from either Graveyard and equip it with this card. When this card is removed from the field, destroy the equipped monster.

Common Charity      Normal Trap

Draw 2 cards, then remove from play 1 Normal Monster Card from your hand. If you don't have any Normal Monster Cards in your hand to remove, send all cards in your hand to the Graveyard.

The first card of this trio is Summoner’s Art. There isn’t a lot that needs to be said about it. Searching your deck for key pieces of your strategy is always powerful, and Summoner’s Art is a supporting card for many different kinds of decks. First of all, it’s good at finding those big tribute monsters that you can drop onto your opponent. We have just recently seen some bigger tribute monsters released that are Normal as well, and they’re easily searched for with this spell. Big tribute monsters also include theme-oriented cards like Dark Magician or Blue-Eyes White Dragon, making Summoner’s Art great support for those older themes and decks that you may have buried somewhere in your collection. With Dark Magician getting a boost from the Premium Pack card Dark Magic Curtain, interest in at least one of these themes is going to reach an all-time high pretty soon!

The second card in this trio is Symbols of Duty, another interesting piece of support for monsters without any effects. Symbols of Duty is a hybrid of Monster Reborn and Premature Burial, offering the versatility that made Monster Reborn a deck staple before it was Forbidden. While you do have to sink two cards into Symbols of Duty, being able to special summon monsters from your opponent’s graveyard can be a game-breaking effect, especially in a format where those kind of monsters can outright win you the game. Ever tried special summoning an opponent’s Dark Magician of Chaos?

Both Summoner’s Art and Symbols of Duty add a lot to the Normal monster support in this game. Summoner’s Art already has a few practical uses with Ritual monsters due to its synergy with Advanced Ritual Art, allowing you to either use Normal monsters from your deck to fuel the effect of Advanced Ritual Art, or using Summoner’s Art to fuel the backup ritual spell by getting a giant monster! This adds a few extra options to the Demise combo deck, and may be a force in future tournaments. Meanwhile, Symbols of Duty adds a new level of use to Normal monsters. Monster Reborn was powerful, and Symbols of Duty can have the same general effect on a game. The loss of cards isn’t that big of a deal based on the effect you get, and Normal monsters already have access to methods of building up a lot of cards in your hand with tools like Dark Factory of Mass Production, making the two cards you put into Symbols of Duty even less painful.

The third Normal support card of this set, however, is the most impressive. Common Charity is a chainable trap card, allowing you to take advantage of your opponent’s targeted removal such as Snipe Hunter, Mystical Space Typhoon, or Raiza the Storm Monarch by refreshing your hand and making your opponent waste removal on it. This is sort of like the Normal monster’s version of Destiny Draw. While it is slower than Destiny Draw and removes a Normal monster from your hand from play, many players should know by now that drawing cards—even when making card-for-card exchanges—makes your deck more consistent. This is known as deck filtering, and it lets you find the things you need much sooner than you’d normally find them.

This is exactly what Common Charity does for decks fueled by Normal monsters, and is probably one of the biggest reasons to consider playing with Normal monsters in the first place. While you can’t take advantage of Dark Factory of Mass Production with Common Charity, it does give you something to do with those Normal monsters that you find with Summoner’s Art, and speeds up the filtering of your deck—getting you to key cards like Birthright or Justi-Break with deadly reliability.

Common Charity does have a few uses beside Normal monsters, though if you can’t remove anything from your hand from play, you’ll have to put your hand into the graveyard. While this isn’t technically “discarding” your hand (meaning you can’t abuse this with Dark World monsters), it can be a boon to the effects that can only be activated when you have no cards in hand. Because of this, Common Charity might be worth trying out with a Mechanical Hound, or even Magical Explosion. This “drawback’s” full use, however, can be seen in the Traditional format thanks to Exchange of the Spirit. The activation requirement for Exchange of the Spirit can sometimes be tough to pull off, meaning that Common Charity can be very useful in triggering the effect of Exchange of the Spirit. When Common Charity is activated while you are top-decking and have Exchange of the Spirit set, it’s a quick three cards that can be put into your graveyard to fuel that effect.

The Normal support of Summoner’s Art is also very useful with the huge amount of high-level Normal Dragon types in the game. This could potentially make a strategy built around King Dragun or even the old Lord of D. / Flute of Summoning Dragon rush a little more viable. Even more intriguing is the huge incentive to discard Dragons from your hand. Summoner’s Art is another way of thinning your deck and getting those Normal Dragons into your hand for discarding, which can combo quite nicely with the overlooked Super Rejuvenation. Symbols of Duty gives you something to do with those Dragons along with Dark Factory of Mass Production, and Common Charity can help find you all of these cards (including the very important Snipe Hunter) for this discard-based strategy. This Normal support might be a huge boon as a win condition for a deck based around Dragon’s Mirror and Five-Headed Dragon!