Today’s Tactical Evolution preview card puts together two attributes you wouldn’t normally find together in a deck: Fire and Water.

Here’s the effect text:

Frost and Flame Dragon      Dragon/Effect WATER - Level 6       2300 ATK / 2000 DEF

This card cannot be Normal Summoned or Set. This card cannot be Special Summoned except by removing from play 1 Fire and 2 Water monsters from your Graveyard. Once per turn, you can discard 1 card to destroy 1 monster on the field.

This is one of my favorites from the Tactical Evolution booster. Who doesn’t love easy monster removal? Good thing for those who oppose the Dragon that it’s only once per turn. Without that restriction, this card would go from powerful to completely unimaginable.

The summoning requirement for Frost and Flame Dragon is relatively simple. The emphasis on the Water attribute in the summoning requirement allows for a lot of flexibility in terms of deck design, too. Water has some great monsters that can work really well with Frost and Flame Dragon. Here are a few of the monsters I like to use:

• Hydrogeddon
• Mobius the Frost Monarch
• Treeborn Frog
• Mother Grizzly
• Abyss Soldier
• Jowls of Dark Demise

For Fire, the following monsters immediately jump to mind:

• Cyber Phoenix
• Thestalos the Firestorm Monarch
• Tenkabito Shien
• UFO Turtle

You can make a deck combining the two attributes. What comes to mind is the Monarch route, playing three each of Thestalos and Mobius rounded out with two copies of Frost and Flame Dragon.

Cyber Phoenix will cover you against Brain Control, Snatch Steal, and Soul Exchange if you keep yourself to Machines. UFO Turtle is your standard recruiter and Tenkabito Shien is the Fire version of Elemental Hero Wildheart. Hydrogeddon is always a good choice. There are more than enough monsters in the main deck to activate its effect. Mother Grizzly gives you an easy method of filling your graveyard and maintaining field presence, and she’s another quick way to search for Treeborn Frog too.

Putting it all together

How do you combine this to create a deck you can play with at your next tournament?  I have a few ideas . . .

A monster spread could look like this:

Total: 22 cards

3 Hydrogeddon

3 Mobius the Frost Monarch

2 Mother Grizzly

1 Treeborn Frog

3 Cyber Phoenix

3 Thestalos the Firestorm Monarch

2 UFO Turtle

2 Frost and Flame Dragon

3 Cyber Dragon

This spread has a more aggressive feel to it. Hydrogeddon and Cyber Phoenix are good offensive plays. Hydrogeddon takes advantage of the small size of Destiny Hero - Malicious and Destiny Hero - Fear Monger in your typical T-Hero deck.

Cyber Phoenix is an opening play that can hold off any Brain Control-into-Monarch shenanigans while applying some offensive pressure. If it’s destroyed by an attack, you get to draw a card at the very least.

Mobius and Thestalos are an interesting combination in this deck. Mobius applies more offensive pressure by eliminating the opponent’s spells and traps, really capitalizing on Frost and Flame Dragon’s offensive ability. You can special summon Frost and Flame, use its effect to blow away a monster, and then tribute it for Mobius for a direct swing. Or you can tribute for Mobius—clearing threats to Frost and Flame Dragon—and then bring it down for two big attacks. Thestalos seeks to pre-negate by hitting your opponent’s in-hand cards. This is the kind of flavor I like in a deck.

Frost and Flame Dragon is an awesome card, in my opinion. You can drop this monster to clear out a big monster that’s giving you trouble, or drop it just to go for the win. The cost of one Fire monster and two Water monsters won’t be difficult to deal with for this deck. One successful Hydrogeddon effect and a destroyed Cyber Phoenix will bring this guy out for you. As long as it remains on the field, it’s a major threat. I like to refer to Frost and Flame Dragon as “Snipe Hunter without the dice roll.”

Let’s add some spells to this deck:

Total: 11 cards

3 Brain Control

2 Enemy Controller

1 Snatch Steal

1 Confiscation

1 Premature Burial

1 Heavy Storm

1 Mystical Space Typhoon

1 Pot of Avarice

This spell set stays true to the theme of the deck. Brain Control and Enemy Controller enhance the aggressive monster line-up above. Enemy Controller has several uses, both on its own and as part of a combo. While working well with Hydrogeddon, Enemy Controller can help you win games that you otherwise wouldn’t win through traditional means. I’m not one to devalue the battle tricks you can accomplish with this card. It fits in well in a format with high ATK/low DEF monsters.

Confiscation is there as an auto-include for me. Pre-emptive cards like this will protect your current game position or give you an early peek into your opponent’s main strategy. The addition of Pot of Avarice is debatable, but I personally think you’ll have more than enough monsters you can use as fuel for its effect.

Let’s move to the traps:

Total: 7 cards

3 Trap Dustshoot

1 Ring of Destruction

1 Torrential Tribute

1 Call of the Haunted

1 Mirror Force

This is a fairly common line-up. Trap Dustshoot is the best way to solve Monarch problems before they actually become problems. Dustshoot can clear the way for your Hydrogeddon and Cyber Phoenix cards to get an early lead on your opponent. Brain Control plus a Monarch in hand covers you against anything else your opponent will throw at you.

Opinions . . .

Frost and Flame Dragon is a way to unite two generally incompatible attributes even though it may not be the centerpiece of a deck. On its own, it’s a beefy 2300 ATK/2000 DEF for three monsters from the graveyard. The fact that it’s a special summon is icing on the cake for me. That ATK power is a nice counter-balance to the monsters Metamorphosis can bring out for the T-Hero deck, as well as the mandatory Cyber Dragon cards we’ve all gotten used to seeing in so many strategies.

Frost and Flame Dragon is definitely useful and very playable. Cards like these are in short supply. I’m impressed by this definite improvement from the former Light and Dark “Chaos”-type monsters. Fusing attributes into a single deck makes for some interesting combinations of effects, threats, and monsters. This type of “fusion” changed the face of deckbuilding many formats ago, and the decklist above is not the only possibility available to you either. You can mix and match any way you like.

The card I’ll review next week, Desert Twister, is the next of these “Elemental Chaos” monsters to bring some more flavor to the game. In my opinion, it’s got a little bit more going for it on the deck variety side than Frost and Flame, with a few more topnotch support options. The Earth attribute features a massive assortment of monsters, after all.