Slackers! You’re all . . . a bunch . . . of filthy . . . SLACKERS!

Crellian Vowler here, back this time for an extended tenure on Metagame.com. Some of you may remember me from my guest commentating spot at last year’s National Championships, or my special lecture on Mausoleum of the Emperor. The rest of you . . . well, I suppose you may need to study your dueling history a bit better, hmm? It’s not as if an illustrious individual such as I needs an introduction—back to your browbeating!

Let’s go ahead and hold an impromptu experiment. By a show of hands, who here in the class built a Normal Monster deck after the release of Justi-Break? Come on now, hold those arms up high if you did . . . and hang your heads low if you did not. Let’s take a quick count.

I see. Yes, I thought that would be the result. Well, for the few of you with your arms proudly thrust into the air, you deserve to keep reading. As for the rest of you wretched little scrubs, I’m afraid I’ll have to demand that you close this window immediately! You may return when you have completed a five-page paper on how sorry you are for your inestimable laziness. Don’t worry, I’ll wait.

. . .

. . .

. . .

. . . I don’t hear the scratching of ignorant pencils! Bah! I guess we should proceed anyway—on with the lecture!

Normal monsters are really quite fortunate in that they have some of the best ATK and DEF values available. Beyond that, they also have some of the best support cards ever printed! Justi-Break wipes out anything that would oppose your vanilla horde. Non-Spellcasting Area slows down monster removal in an era where such spells are often game-breaking, and Dark Factory of Mass Production provides instant card advantage. Surely even those of you who will return to your dorm room after today’s class and resume your insipid goat-hugging can relate to free cards!

Apparently, all those advantages just weren’t good enough. If it were up to me I’d have let you pass the entire theme by, but someone up there believes you deserve a second chance. Strike of Neos brings you even more reasons to play Normal Monster strategies, and if you can’t see their worth this time around, perhaps you need an eye exam more than a dueling lesson. Let’s take a look at the first preview card for today, the mighty Gene-Warped Warwolf!

Gene-Warped Warwolf         Beast-Warrior EARTH Level 4          2000ATK / 100 DEF  

Majestic, is it not? Once upon a time, the highest ATK a level 4 monster possessed was 1800. Mechanicalchaser upped the ante with its 1850 ATK, and then along came Gemini Elf with 1900, a sum that was astounding at the time. Such huge attackers commanded a spot in any duelist’s deck! As time wore on, however, more Normal monsters were released with 1900 ATK, and even some effect monsters had comparable strength. Duelists became more sophisticated, and as high ATK became less special, effects became stronger and stronger. 1900 ATK simply didn’t cut it in the mind of the average duelist—not when they could have a powerful effect instead.

Now all that is about to change! The mighty Gene-Warped Warwolf ups the stakes yet again, rewarding determined duelists with a whopping 2000 ATK! A direct shot from this little beastie can eliminate a quarter of your opponent’s life points in a single blow, and the average deck has nothing short of Cyber Dragon or costly tribute monsters that can match it in battle.

Let’s investigate a bit further. All monsters are susceptible to removal effects like Sakuretsu Armor or Lightning Vortex, but Gene-Warped Warwolf is trickier than most. Its low DEF makes it very difficult to eliminate with Smashing Ground, and even something small and worthless like Magician of Faith or Skelengel will be able to run interference for it. Its Earth attribute makes it a wonderful addition to a swarm deck using Gigantes and The Rock Spirit, and its status as a Beast-Warrior means that it can deal piercing damage if it fights alongside Enraged Battle Ox.

Where it truly shines, however, is in a deck based around Normal monsters, and though many of you are so undeserving, I’ll be generous and reveal yet another card from Strike of Neos that helps make the Warwolf even better! Behold the newest weapon in the Normal arsenal: Birthright!

Birthright       Continuous Trap                         

Special summon one Normal Monster from your Graveyard in Attack Position. When Birthright is removed from the field, destroy the attached monster. When the attached monster is removed from the field, destroy Birthright.

This card is comparable to two traps that we’ve seen before, but for our purposes it is superior to both. Previously, Normal monsters had access to Soul Resurrection, a special summon card similar to this one. Unfortunately, Soul Resurrection special summons the Normal monster you choose to bring back in defense position, which is good news for Labyrinth Wall but rather rough for everything else.

Of course, Call of the Haunted can bring back a monster whether it’s Normal or not, and do it in attack position. In terms of versatility of targets, it is superior to Birthright. However, not only is it limited to one copy per deck, but it shares a weakness with Soul Resurrection that Birthright doesn’t have. While Resurrection and Call will stay on the field if the monster they were attached to is tributed or removed from play instead of being destroyed, Birthright will go to the graveyard no matter what. If you bring back a Normal monster and tribute it for something else, you won’t be stuck with a dead card in your back row. That’s good news for Treeborn Frog, a monster that can make a strong addition to a Normal deck since it can ignore the restrictive component of Justi-Break. If it’s destroyed by that powerful trap, it’s just going to come back anyway, and using Birthright ensures that nothing will block its return.

For a Normal monster deck, Birthright is a second, third, and fourth copy of Call of the Haunted that is in fact better than its much-vaunted predecessor! Coupled with the new Gene-Warped Warwolf, it keeps your field primed and ready with 2000 ATK monsters that can be normal summoned, and that get even better thanks to further Normal monster support. Oh, the potential!

In fact, while the Warwolf may seem good now, it will look even better next week, when I show you one of the most revolutionary cards ever released. For now though, you are dismissed.