Back in the end of December, a series of Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG promotional cards were released through McDonald’s restaurants. Among them were several Yu-Gi-Oh! GX related cards that we’ve seen Jaden use on the show against Zane Truesdale and Aster Phoenix. This week we take a look at Jaden’s promotional cards and examine their effects.

Calling all Kuribohs

Our first card is most certainly my favorite of the set. It may not be the most powerful card in existence, but it really doesn’t matter. It’s a flute for summoning Kuribohs, for crying out loud! How awesome is that?

“Add 1 ‘Kuriboh’ or 1 ‘Winged Kuriboh’ from your Deck to your hand, OR Special Summon 1 ‘Kuriboh’ or 1 ‘Winged Kuriboh’ from your Deck to your side of the field.”

The Flute of Summoning Kuriboh is a quick-play spell card with no timing restrictions or strings attached. You are free to use it just about whenever you want to either summon a Kuriboh or place one into your hand.

If you choose to place a furry friend into your hand, you will simply search your deck for one copy of either Kuriboh or Winged Kuriboh, reveal the selected card to your opponent, place it in your hand, and then shuffle your Deck. If you decided to activate the special summon effect, you will instead place the selected Kuriboh or Winged Kuriboh onto your side of the field in the battle position of your choice. From here, super happy Kuriboh fun time can begin.

Each choice has its merits. Placing a Kuriboh into your hand gives you a little furry buddy to discard when your life points are in serious danger. Before Cyber-Stein was Forbidden, it was a neat little counter to Stein as well, and remains so in the Traditional format. I can’t think of anything more annoying to Stein than spontaneous Kuriboh generation.

Choosing to special summon Winged Kuriboh onto your side of the field gives you two different options. You can allow it to take a fall and protect your life points through its effect, or you can instead take advantage of the Transcendent Wings spell card. With The Flute of Summoning Kuriboh you can more easily piece together the Winged Kuriboh and Transcendent Wings combination during your opponent’s battle phase, making it more difficult for your opponent to ruin the plan. The two will combine together to get Winged Kuriboh LV10 into play and place it in prime position to use its effect. Your opponent is already in his or her battle phase and likely incapable of avoiding the Winged Kuriboh LV10’s effect.

Fusion!

The McDonald’s set also gave us two Elemental Hero Fusions that Jaden used on the show several times, but which were never released in a standard expansion set. Elemental Hero Mudballman, the Fusion of Elemental Hero Clayman and Elemental Hero Bubbleman, has no active effects to use in the duel. It instead uses its size to function as a defender, much like it did on the show. Elemental Hero Electrum, however, focuses on size and the use of active effects. It’s the Fusion of Elemental Hero Avian, Burstinatrix, Elemental Hero Clayman, and Bubbleman. Its effect says:

“This monster cannot be Special Summoned Except by Fusion Summon. The Attribute of this card is also treated as WIND, WATER, FIRE and EARTH. When this card is Fusion Summoned, returned all removed from play cards to their owners’ Deck(s), then shuffle those Deck(s). Increase the ATK of this card by 300 points for each monster on your opponent's side of the field that shares an Attribute with this card.”

When you successfully Fusion summon Elemental Hero Electrum, its first act is to return all removed from play cards back to their respective owner’s deck. If you used the spell card Miracle Fusion to bring Electrum into play (a far easier method than using Polymerization), it will actually return every monster you removed from play for the Fusion back to your deck. These monsters were removed from play when you resolved Miracle Fusion, so they will be in your removed from play area when Electrum’s effect comes calling. It will even return any cards that were removed from play face down by cards like Different Dimension Capsule, so don’t think they will be safe.

While face up on the field, Elemental Hero Electrum actually has five attributes. In addition to its Light attribute, it also has the four elemental attributes. We’ve seen this same effect with Elemental Mistress Doriado from The Lost Millennium, which allows Electrum to take advantage of some of the same support elementals Doriado used. Electrum can allow you to activate Fuh-Rin-Ka-Zan all on his own, giving you access to the effects of four cards Forbidden from Advanced format tournaments. You can also use him to fuel the effects of the Element monsters, like Element Saurus. Unlike Doriado, however, Electrum is strong enough to fend for himself in battle.

Elemental Hero Electrum’s ATK is increased by 300 points for every monster your opponent has on his or her side of the field that shares an attribute with Electrum. Only Dark attribute monsters fail to increase Electrum’s ATK, and considering how popular they are, you can be certain to encounter quite a few. Still, starting out at 2900 ATK isn’t too shabby for a monster you can easily summon with just Miracle Fusion, making him the strongest of all the Elemental Hero Fusions without ATK modifiers.
 

Next week we will look into a few other cards from the McDonald’s promotion, including the fearsome White-Horned Dragon. He proved to be quite a popular pull among duelists. Until then, send all comments and questions to Curtis@Metagame.com