With a “Volcanic” set of new cards stepping into the game, why not examine how some of our older Pyro-type monsters work?

Pyro-type monsters have always been a part of the game, but normally they struck out on their own or were tied to the attribute of Fire. Their type was usually of little importance thematically. The new “Volcanic” monsters in Force of the Breaker change this. In deciding what older Pyro-type monsters to add to the “Volcanics” to create a successful deck, it helps to know how the older Pyro monsters work.

Enemy of the Vic Viper

Solar Flare Dragon, first released in Ancient Sanctuary, has its roots in the old Konami “Gradius” videogames and is something you can expect to encounter at some point in your dueling career. In the Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG, Solar Flare Dragon has two useful abilities that give players good reason to consider it.

“While there is another Pyro-Type monster on your side of the field, this card cannot be attacked. This card inflicts 500 points of damage to your opponent's Life Points during the End Phase of your turn.”

Solar Flare Dragon’s first effect is quite similar to Command Knight and works just as well when played in multiples. Having any other face-up Pyro-type monster on your side of the field gives your Solar Flare Dragon the warm fuzzies because your opponent cannot attack it. With 1500 ATK, it isn’t hard to get one into play, and if you can get multiples out, it’s even better, because they will protect each other in the same way two Command Knight cards can protect each other.

This protection helps Solar Flare Dragon keep using its second effect. During each of your End Phases, every face-up Solar Flare Dragon on your side of the field will ping your opponent for 500 points of damage. It may not sound like much, but the damage is completely free as long as you can keep Solar Flare on the field, and when several Solar Flare Dragon cards are mixing it up, the damage adds up quickly. Call it passive immolation, if you will.

I always enjoyed using this monster in my “Ojama Pain” burn deck. With this card, I could go first and inflict damage to my opponent before he or she did a single thing—before I could even attack. Mixing in some field control effects like Messenger of Peace and Gravity Bind prevented attacks and helped to slow my opponent down, buying time to let me place more copies of Solar Flare Dragon into play. Once I was able to get a second copy on my side of the field, the Dragons themselves would protect me.

Lady Kaboom

Fire Princess was the first Pyro-type monster that gave rise to its own deck.

“Each time you increase your Life Points, inflict 500 points of damage to your opponent's Life Points.”

The card’s effect inflicts its damage every time an effect is resolved that causes you to gain life points. It doesn’t matter when the life point gain occurs or how much you gain. All that matters is how many sources are generating life point gain. Every separate life point bonus will trigger Fire Princess’s effect and inflict damage

This is easy to understand with basic life point gains generated from cards like Poison of the Old Man or Aegis of Gaia, but it can be a bit more confusing when the life point gain is variable. Just keep in mind that cards like The Spell Absorbing Life still only generate life point gain in one lump sum, even if the potential amount gained is based on a number of specific cards on the field. So when there is one effect monster, you will gain 400 life points and inflict 500 points of damage, but if there are three effect monsters, you will gain 1200 life points and still inflict only 500 points of damage.

The only card that offers any surprise twists to this rule is Life Absorbing Machine. The reimbursement of life points you receive from the Machine is given back in separate chunks for each payment you made during your previous turn. Since each payment is handled and reimbursed separately, each life point gain will trigger Fire Princess and she’ll dish out the damage once for each. For example, if you paid 1000 life points for Confiscation and 800 life points for Premature Burial, you will gain 500 life points and 400 life points, and also inflict 1000 points of damage.

It is important to note that Fire Princess’s effect does not use the chain. Her effect is applied in much the same way you apply the effect of placing Spell Counters onto a monster like Silent Magician LV4 or Skilled Dark Magician. If multiple sources cause you to gain life points at separate times in a chain, Fire Princess will inflict her damage every time you gain life points during the chain’s resolution. For example, if you activate Dian Keto the Cure Master and then chain Poison of the Old  Man (choosing to gain life points) and Aegis of Gaia, your Fire Princess will inflict damage after each of these cards resolves.

If you have multiple copies of Fire Princess, they will all apply their effects whenever you gain life points. So if you have three Fire Princess cards face up on your side of the field and you gain life points, you will inflict 1500 points of damage to your opponent. This is when the Fire Princess deck really starts to become a threat.

The Burning Legion

Gaia Soul the Combustible Collective from Rise of Destiny doesn’t plan on holding itself together long.

“You can tribute up to 2 Pyro-Type monsters. If you do this, this card gains ATK equal to the number of Tributed monsters x 1000. During battle between this attacking card and a Defense Position monster whose DEF is lower than the ATK of this card, inflict the difference as Battle Damage to your opponent. Destroy this card at the end of this turn.”

Gaia Soul the Combustible Collective actually has three separate effects, independent of one another. Its first effect is an ignition effect that you can activate during either of your main phases to increase Gaia Soul’s ATK, assuming you don’t mind tributing up to two Pyro-type monsters from your side of the field. Each monster tributed for this effect helps Gaia Soul out, taking it from 2000 ATK to 3000 or 4000 ATK, depending on the number of monsters offered as a tribute. This effect can only be used once per turn, so make sure you get what you want from it.

With this ATK increase in place, Gaia Soul the Combustible Collective can go after your opponent with 3000-4000 ATK and dish out some serious punishment, even if your opponent’s monster is in defense position. Gaia Soul has the “piercing damage” effect we’ve seen before on other monsters like Airknight Parshath and Cyber End Dragon. This is really helpful for Gaia Soul, because its last effect ensures that it’s not long for this world.

Gaia Soul will be destroyed during the end phase, even if you don’t use any of its other effects. You can use Skill Drain to negate this effect during the end phase and thus keep your Gaia Soul the Combustible Collective around, but in all honesty, there are much better monsters to use with Skill Drain. Gaia Soul is really all about one quick strike that finishes the duel. Longevity just doesn’t suit it.

Until next time, send all comment and questions to Curtis@Metagame.com