Now that San Mateo is over and done with, I think Adam Corn and Jerry Wang have proved that Destiny Hero - Plasma is definitely viable in Upper Deck Entertainment’s metagames, but the card still sees little to no discussion outside of rulings. Frankly, it outperformed my personal expectations in some surprising ways. When it comes to big splashiness, Plasma isn’t as impressive a spotlight hog as Light and Darkness Dragon, but he’s got so much going for him that he really deserves some attention.

He’s Got Legs . . . He Knoooows How to Use Them

I think any discussion of Destiny Hero - Plasma needs to start with the card he mimics: Skill Drain. Like the famed trap card, Plasma’s continuous effect stops virtually any monster ability that resolves or becomes active on the field. So he stops Card Trooper, Destiny Hero - Disk Commander, and Snipe Hunter, though he won’t stop effects that resolve when the effect source is in the graveyard like those of Exiled Force, Mystic Tomato, or Sangan.

This effect makes Plasma what he is in the North American metagame: the biggest, baddest answer out there to Light and Darkness Dragon. Since the Dragon can’t negate continuous effects, it can’t stop Plasma’s negation. Then, since Plasma is negating Light and Darkness Dragon’s activated effect, the Dragon won’t be able to negate any of your other effects either. If you were to attack the Dragon at this point, it would be destroyed and it would still get to resolve its recursion ability, but the simple answer to that is just to suck it up into Plasma’s carapace.

With that trick acting as Plasma’s key selling point, it’s important to note that it’s better than Skill Drain in many ways. Summoning Plasma requires tributes instead of a life point cost, meaning he won’t become a dead card in the late game and he remains a threat in Burn matchups. In addition, while Skill Drain would negate all monsters on the field, Plasma only negates your opponent’s, meaning that Plasma is far easier to splash into a deck than Skill Drain ever could be. He’s a Skill Drain on legs, but better.

And He Really Hates That Dragon

Plasma actually hates on Light and Darkness Dragon in several different ways beyond the obvious “negate and inhale” trick I just mentioned. Since Plasma gains ATK equal to the original ATK of the monster it absorbs, the Dragon’s 2800 ATK will convert to a brutal 1400 point bonus—making Plasma a deadly 3300 ATK beatstick.

On top of that, the sheer removal power of Plasma can be important. The Light and Darkness Dragon player usually needs to keep monsters on the field in order to tribute for his or her key card, and if the opponent can’t do that, then that player may get wiped away pretty quick. While Plasma demands a big investment in the form of his tribute cost, stealing an extra monster from your opponent (especially a tribute-enabler like Treeborn Frog or Destiny Hero - Malicious) can be really valuable.

He Loves the Dragon, He Loves It Not . . .

Granted, for every way in which Plasma wrecks Light and Darkness Dragon there’s a convincing reason to play it alongside the Dragon too, just as Corn and Wang did in San Mateo.

One thing duelists have recognized over the past few weeks is the number of monsters that stop Light and Darkness Dragon cold. Spirit Reaper, Marshmallon, and Gellenduo are incredibly difficult for the average Light and Darkness duelist to play against, since the Dragon can’t eliminate those cards in battle but its controller can’t play removal effects due to his or her own Dragon’s negation. That often creates a situation where the opposing player can sit around and draw cards until he or she has enough options to destroy the Dragon player in a single turn, and that’s a rough beat.

Plasma steps into this situation and levels the playing field, either getting the Dragon off the table via tribute or coming in alongside it to suck up the blocking monster. If Plasma doesn’t do that, he can always negate the effect that’s keeping the blocker around to make it susceptible to battle. Again, since Plasma can’t negate your own monsters, you can negate your opponent’s effects while keeping the Dragon’s negation up and running.

In addition, Plasma can fend off the obnoxious token locks that an experienced duelist will often apply to a Light and Darkness Dragon player. While Scapegoat is a powerful defensive tool for a Light and Darkness deck, it can also be a huge hindrance if your opponent leaves you with all four of your Sheep Tokens—those tokens will keep you from tributing for the Dragon, stalling you and often forcing you to waste Torrential Tribute or Raiza the Storm Monarch. At the same time, Baboon Burn uses Ojama Trio to force this situation in a more aggressive way, sticking you with tokens that will eventually deal a significant amount of damage when destroyed.

Since Plasma is a special summon, not a tribute summon, you can tribute Ojama Tokens or Sheep Tokens to bring him to the field. That breaks your own Sheep lock or your opponent’s Ojama lock, and in the latter case it’ll do so without incurring the 900 damage.

In fact, Cloudian - Sheep Cloud can be used along the same lines. While normally you could only tribute the tokens Sheep Cloud generates for a Cloudian monster, Plasma’s special summon gets around Sheep Cloud’s restriction. Nifty trick.

Speaking Of Nifty Tricks

It has to be mentioned that Destiny Hero - Plasma benefits from the arsenal of Destiny Hero support that many players are already running. Destiny Draw means that Plasma can be tossed for another card should you draw him when you don’t need him. [Elemental Hero Stratos] can search Plasma from your deck, and that makes it easier to run just a single copy. If you don’t draw Plasma naturally when you need him, you can always summon Stratos and search him out. Even if you used your normal summon for the turn on Stratos, you can still special summon Plasma immediately.

Right now Plasma is a popular pick for Japanese decks that draw off the play patterns of Diamond Dude Turbo, too. His combo potential with Trade-In is an asset, and once he’s in the graveyard, such a deck can use him to fuel Divine Sword - Phoenix Blade. Monster Gate and Reasoning can’t special summon Plasma, and he can’t be special summoned from the removed-from-play pile either, but both spells will skip over Plasma on their way to something they can bring out.

Another integral part of that deck which is sure to see play over here is the new Phantom of Chaos card. It’s one of the two promo cards in Gladiator’s Assault Special Edition, and its effect lets it copy the ability of any monster in your graveyard for one turn. If Plasma’s in your graveyard (say through Trade-In or Monster Gate), you can borrow his effect with Phantom of Chaos later. That means you get to inhale a monster for free. At the end of the turn, when Phantom loses Plasma’s effect, the monster it sucked up will be sent to the graveyard. Plus you get to borrow that sweet negation too!

A single copy of Destiny Hero - Plasma works really well in any deck playing the Herald of Creation/Foolish Burial combo too, essentially benefiting from the same infrastructure the core deck is already using to drop multiple big monsters. We saw Jerome McHale use this combo in his Null Space deck just a couple weeks ago.

Beyond that, Plasma also combos with all the stuff that Relinquished used to work with, clearing away his attached monster so he can get another each turn. While that used to mean Tsukuyomi, a card that’s now Forbidden in most tournaments, you can still blow away Plasma’s attached monster with Heavy Storm or Mystical Space Typhoon. Book of Moon can turn Plasma face down so you can immediately flip summon him and inhale something, or you can even feed the attached monster to Anteatereatingant. Cool combos abound!

All in All, A Pretty Sweet Card

Destiny Hero - Plasma is a great answer to Light and Darkness Dragon, and a great tech card in the Baboon Burn or Chain Strike Burn matchups. He’s a better Skill Drain, a huge beatstick, and a nasty monster-removal combo with a lot of cards you might already be playing. While some cards that are big in Japan never really pan out here on UDE soil, Plasma isn’t one of them, and he’s definitely going to get more popular over the coming weeks.

—Jason Grabher-Meyer