Every time preview weeks roll around here at Metagame.com, I always hope to get cards with lots of potential. Everyone knew that Dark Armed Dragon and Allure of Darkness were going to have a big impact on the metagame. So while those are always fun to check out before the Sneak Preview Weekend, there’s no real sense of satisfaction when those cards live up to their potential. The coolest cards to preview are always ones that do something new, because those are the cards that are discovered later on and make significant impacts on the global metagame. Snipe Hunter and D.D. Crow weren’t immediately loved by all, but now multiple copies of D.D. Crow are commonly found main-decked and Snipe Hunter’s growth in popularity led to it eventually landing a spot on the Limited list.
Today’s preview is another example of a card that’s not going to make a huge immediate impact but will surely find its way into the game at some point down the road. The reason is that DUCKER Mobile Cannon does something no other card does. Check it out:
DUCKER Mobile Cannon
Light / Level 3
500/500
Flip Effect: Select a Level Four monster in your graveyard and add it to your hand.
Free and relatively fast access to any level 4 monster in your graveyard: up until now, the only way to add such a monster to your hand was with The Warrior Returning Alive or Dark Eruption, but both required specific conditions that made them unplayable in many decks. If you weren’t playing Warriors or a specific lineup of Darks, you were out of luck. Monster Reincarnation offered more versatility, but it wasn’t really worth discarding what was usually another level 4 monster anyway. DUCKER is different—it gives you a way to simply pick any level 4 up from your graveyard.
Right now there are a few practical ways to use DUCKER in a competitive deck. Multiple uses of Elemental Hero Stratos would be pretty cool and mean more fodder for those copies of Destiny Draw and Allure of Darkness. Since Stratos is rarely removed from play by your own effects, DUCKER can also give you a means to summon him on the same turn you’ve brought back a field of monsters with Return from the Different Dimension. Imagine flipping DUCKER to get Stratos back, playing Return from the Different Dimension, and throwing Stratos down to destroy a bunch of spell and trap cards.
Zombie players will find that DUCKER Mobile Cannon becomes quite a good little toolbox as they enter the later stages of the game. Zombie Master, Pyramid Turtle, Goblin Zombie, and Giant Rat are all level 4 monsters. Being able to return any of these monsters to your hand can solve lots of problems in many stages of the game. DUCKER can simply sit face down and wait to revive the perfect monster at the most opportune moment. If you draw it in the early game or the perfect opportunity just never comes along, you could discard it to Zombie Master if necessary.
Once upon a time, I would have flipped my lid for a card like DUCKER Mobile Cannon. During the days of Tsukuyomi and the flip-effect monsters, it would have been absolutely amazing. Tsukuyomi itself was an otherwise unrecoverable four-star monster that could have been revived by DUCKER, then used to flip the Cannon face down for another use. Dekoichi the Battlechanted Locomotive and Cyber Phoenix are two other popular targets that are always quite playable.
Often the power level of flip-effect cards like DUCKER is held in check by the fact that their numbers are few. Taking care of one flipped Dekoichi is easy, and giving up a card in order to do so isn’t the end of the game. Having to rid the field of numerous protected Dekoichi cards is a difficult task though, and if you’re sacrificing cards every time you do so, you’re going to be in trouble. DUCKER Mobile Cannon can make this happen, effectively doubling the amount of Dekoichi cards you play in your deck.
DUCKER Mobile Cannon also gives players a two-card search combo for any level 4 monster you play. Bountiful Artemis and Bazoo the Soul-Eater are amazing cards that can make a well-built deck centered on them competitive. However their downfall lies in the fact that they have no searchability—raw draw power is usually the only viable way to get to them. But since DUCKER Mobile Cannon can get both cards back to your hand from the graveyard, a card like Foolish Burial essentially turns DUCKER into the necessary search card.
Beatdown decks will love DUCKER Mobile Cannon as well. DUCKER gives them a way to get back key matchup-specific cards like Kycoo the Ghost Destroyer and Hydrogeddon as well as more standard monsters like Blue Thunder T-45 and Banisher of the Radiance. If the current Shonen Jump Championship prize card Doomcaliber Knight is mass-produced, DUCKER would be a pretty cool way to keep an opponent locked down by allowing you to summon the Knight more times than your opponent can deal with it.
DUCKER Mobile Cannon is going to be one of those cards that everyone loves way down the line: a late bloomer like Trap Dustshoot or D.D. Crow that will see play when it’s decisive enough to tip the scales in competitive play. It would be a good idea to get your playset early. Look for it this weekend at the Light of Destruction Sneak Previews.
—Matt Peddle