Sneak preview time is once again upon us. In less than two weeks, the next Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG booster set, Cyberdark Impact, will be seen for the first time outside of Asia, and Metagame.com will once again provide you with previews of what this set holds.
Cyberdark Impact contributes some new cards that will appear later this season on Yu-Gi-Oh! GX. However, the set also has a nifty little sub-theme. Players may know that responding to the effect of a card initiates a chain. For example, you can chain to the effect of Mobius the Frost Monarch with Ring of Destruction, targeting Mobius. Ring of Destruction is chain link 2. Now, your opponent has an opportunity to respond to your Ring of Destruction with a card of his or her own, such as the second effect of Enemy Controller, which would tribute Mobius the Frost Monarch to take control of your face-up Cyber Dragon. That would make the Enemy Controller chain link 3. Then you have an opportunity to respond to that card, and if you choose not to, your opponent then has a chance to respond to his or her own card. If the opponent doesn’t, then the chain resolves, starting with the effects of the last activated card.
This may be something players are very familiar with. It comes up all the time in premier events such as regional tournaments. However, Cyberdark Impact is the first set in which cards actually have effects based on the chain-link system and at what chain link they are activated. Today’s cards, Blast Asmodian and Chain Strike, are two examples of the theme.
Blast AsmodianFIRE attribute
Fiend type
Level: 3
ATK: 1000
DEF: 300
If any Spell or Trap Cards are Chained to an effect, inflict 500 damage to your opponent.
Common
Chain StrikeQuick-Play spell card
You can only activate this card as Chain Link 2 or higher. Inflict damage equal to 400 x the Chain Link number of this card to your opponent. You cannot activate this card if multiple card with the same name are in the current chain.
Common
Blast Asmodian is the first card to truly emphasize the theme of chaining cards in order to gain a benefit (and it certainly isn’t the last in the set). Remember that basic chain description I mentioned above? That chain helps contribute to effects such as these. Blast Asmodian specifically wants to involve itself in a variety of smaller chains, since it will burn the opponent for 500 points of damage for every chain that takes place, so long as it involves a spell or trap.
The damage only takes place once for each entire chain. This means that in the example involving Mobius, Ring of Destruction, and Enemy Controller, Blast Asmodian will only deal out 500 points of damage. This means that Blast Asmodian loves simple and small chains; that also means that it loves chainable cards. A lot!
Blast Asmodian does a great job of giving your burn cards some extra power. Being able to chain to . . . well, just about anything with Poison of the Old Man, Ojama Trio, or Just Desserts can be very annoying when every one of those cards has the potential to inflict an extra 500 damage. At the very least, you are going to get some extra damage out of Blast Asmodian by chaining a burn card such as Poison of the Old Man in response to Smashing Ground. At its best, Blast Asmodian will deal damage in the thousands by chaining to the most mundane of effects. Did your opponent just flip summon that Dekoichi the Battlechanted Locomotive? You can respond with Ring of Destruction on that Machine monster, creating a new chain afterwards with Blast Asmodian’s effect, and taking care of the opponent’s plan to use the Dekoichi as tribute fodder. You also have the option of responding to your own monster effects, such as your own Dekoichi the Battlechanted Locomotive. This gives you a chance to inflict extra damage with Blast Asmodian before your opponent gets a strong opportunity to deal with it.
The real strength in Blast Asmodian doesn’t come from these small bursts of damage though. The synergy that this monster has with Stumbling is absolutely insane! While cards such as Level Limit - Area B are great for stalling the game, Stumbling can do just as well and can also cause a chain if the spell triggers to the summoning of a monster such as Breaker the Magical Warrior, which has an effect that goes off the moment it summons. Now if your opponent wants to trigger a flip-effect, he or she is will have to take extra damage! Plays such as flip summoning Dekoichi the Battlechanted Locomotive and then tribute summoning it for a Monarch will cause the opponent to take 1000 points of damage from Blast Asmodian. While this doesn’t look like much at first, the damage can add up fast. The fact that Blast Asmodian doesn’t initially seem threatening means that it will probably evade destruction from cards such as Smashing Ground. Not that Blast Asmodian actually needs protection from Smashing Ground, since just about any other monster on your field will be destroyed instead (due to its higher DEF). Who’d have thought that having 300 DEF could be a benefit?
I did mention, though, that Blast Asmodian’s effect starts a new chain after the previous chain that triggered its effect resolves. This means that Blast Asmodian can be the damage-engine to his own effect! If you can trigger Blast Asmodian’s ability once, then, when his effect actually creates the new chain, respond to it with another spell speed 2 effect: a burn card like Chain Strike or a cycling card such as Jar of Greed. This will trigger Blast Asmodian again. Once that trigger for Blast Asmodian creates a chain, repeat the process with another burn or cycling card, and continue to do so until you are out of cards that can be played! The result gives every spell speed 2 chainable card available at the time an extra 500 damage against your opponent, and this can add up fast!
Chain Strike, however, is the polar opposite in chain support compared to Blast Asmodian. While Blast Asmodian wants to see plenty of smaller chains, Chain Strike wants to see one massive chain take place before it is played. After all, its damage output is based entirely on the chain link in which it is activated. This means that activating it in response to the effect of anything will make it chain link 2, where it will deal 800 damage to the opponent. That is the same effect as Poison of the Old Man, and it can’t do any worse than that. However, if you are able to create an elaborate chain of effects, such as responding to an opponent’s spell card with Just Desserts, responding with Ojama Trio to that, responding with Jar of Greed to that, and responding with Chain Strike to that, then your damage output will be far larger. In that case, if the chain took place in response to a card such as Heavy Storm, Chain Strike would be chain link 5, netting you a whopping 2000 damage from a single card!
Damage like that is matched only by Ceasefire as a chainable effect, and requires either a set number of turns (Wave-Motion Cannon) or a specific point in which it can be activated (Magic Cylinder) to be that potent otherwise. Chain Strike is effectively one of the best burn cards in ages, so you can definitely expect it to see tournament play. Its damage can range from good to absolutely incredible, and any aggressive burn deck would love to take advantage of that.
Chain Strike is also an effective weapon during the Sneak Preview weekend. It’s a chain-enabler, and allows you to set up longer chains to trigger the effects or conditions for certain cards that you will see in this set. Its damage can also help you win a game before your opponent drops some bomb like Ancient Gear Golem, so that will definitely be a reason to consider playing it.
Speaking of the Sneak Preview event, be sure to check out one of the many conveniently placed banners here on Metagame.com for more details on a Sneak Preview event close to you. These events are always a blast, and you can pick up tons of free swag just for entering one of the sealed flights!