by Jason Grabher-Meyer

The last time you saw Phoenix Wing Wind Blast here in The Binder, it was almost exactly two-and-a-half years ago, as Mike Rosenberg, fresh off his Top 8 appearance at Shonen Jump Championship Los Angeles, lauded the hot new card that took him to such a great finish. The “spin” mechanic of returning an opponent’s card to the top of his or her deck from the field was a new concept, and Raiza the Storm Monarch was years away. As Thousand-Eyes Restrict and Scapegoat became more and more dominant, Wind Blast just got better and better, profiting from the pace of one of the Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG’s slowest eras.

And then stuff sped up. Over the period of three formats, things got faster and faster, and with speed reaching its apex during the Cyber-Stein era, cards like Phoenix Wing Wind Blast fell out of competitive play. Discard costs were expensive in an environment that encouraged duelists to think short-term, and since Wind Blast wasn’t part of a game-winning OTK, it was swept aside to gather dust. That dust remained and accumulated until two weeks ago, when Jonathan Labounty won Shonen Jump Washington with a deck that packed three copies of the forgotten trap.

That brings us to the present. The pace of play has slowed down, there are many competitive cards that like to be discarded, and I can’t shut up about Wind Blast. Let’s start at the obvious jumping-off point by examining . . .  

. . . What Made Wind Blast So Good for Jon Labounty

The moment I arrived on-site at Shonen Jump Washington, the first people to speak to me were Jeff Jones and Chris Flores. Both are members of the fledgling Team Yu-Gi-Oh! ETC, and both were eager to show me the deck that they and their teammates were running. It was the same deck that would carry their teammate to victory less than 48 hours later, and it was clearly competitive. Wind Blast was so good in it and such a great fit for that weekend’s metagame that I actually considered throwing it into the Tech Update in Round 8. The only thing that kept me from doing so was the fact that very, very few people were actually using it, so I couldn’t honestly represent it as a “metagame trend.” (To be honest, I was pretty sure at least one member of the team was going to make Day 2 anyway.)

In order to play any discard-costed effect proficiently, you need to have cards that you don’t mind discarding a certain percentage of the time. If you can turn those discards into an advantage for you, that’s even better, and that’s the first and most obvious goal Labounty’s deck accomplished. Destiny Hero - Disk Commander, Destiny Hero - Malicious, and Treeborn Frog are all cards that you would usually prefer to discard instead of actually playing. Doing so gives you three advantages. First, you won’t expose those monsters to Nobleman of Crossout or be forced to play them in face-up attack position. You won’t need to waste a normal summon on them, and because you don’t have to wait a turn for that card to be destroyed, your strategy comes together a lot faster. Pitching Disk Commander and then immediately activating Premature Burial is far deadlier than setting Commander and waiting for your opponent’s monster to wander into him. Wind Blast brought speed and reliability to this strategy, along with the obvious dose of disruption.

In fact, considering that the average opponent would frequently refuse to attack into a Perfect Circle’s defense-mode monster, Wind Blast often enabled plays that wouldn’t have been possible otherwise. Discarding Treeborn Frog in the standby phase (or Malicious at any time) would create instant tribute fodder to which the opponent would have no answer. Labounty could drop monsters and load his graveyard with an attacker for Premature Burial or Call of the Haunted, or just drop a fifth monster to bring Pot of Avarice online—a factor that probably contributed to his decision to run two copies of the newly Semi-Limited spell.

One big play that may not have been so obvious from reading the tournament coverage is the stacked resolution of Raiza and Wind Blast on the same turn. Flat out, seeing one card that isn’t going to help you stuck back on top of your deck is hideous. At this point I’m sure we’ve all faced that exact situation a few times, and you’re familiar with how bad it feels to know that your next draw just isn’t going to help you. But seeing a card that is useful buried beneath that useless one is even worse. Using his six spin effects, Labounty can create this situation with frightening consistency, spinning away a face-down spell or trap only to then spin an opposing tribute monster to create a dead draw.

Moving from the general and abstract to some more specific examples, Wind Blast was a defensive threat that, unlike Sakuretsu Armor or Widespread Ruin, could be removed from the field at virtually any time in order to free up Treeborn Frog on the following turn. Since Wind Blast’s targeting is so diverse, Labounty could set it, let it hang as a threat while Treeborn sat in the graveyard, then activate it in the end phase to free up his spell and trap zone. Wind Blast was chainable, so it acted as the perfect disruptive counter to the very popular Dust Tornado, and it could respond to Creature Swap in order to interrupt and practically negate that card’s effect.

For those two latter reasons and one more, it’s an especially brutal card against Zombies, countering the deck’s Dust Tornado and Creature Swap cards while also forcing the Zombie player to draw copies of his or her tribute monsters. Labounty had everything he needed in Wind Blast: versatile disruption, added speed for a classic archetype, an enabler for otherwise-impossible plays, and a deadly weapon against the one deck that put a whopping five players into Day 2: Zombies.

Which makes it ironic that Wind Blast is so good for that strategy, too.

What Makes It So Good Everywhere Else

Alright, so if you’re a competitive player who reads Shonen Jump coverage all the time, you may have known everything I’ve said so far. You probably didn’t need me to tell you that Wind Blast is good in the deck that won a Shonen Jump. The real surprise to me is how good Wind Blast is in other competitive strategies.

In Zombie builds like the one now made famous by Superfriends, Phoenix Wing Wind Blast easily takes the place of Dust Tornado or card-for-card monster removal. It fills the role of both, and short of letting the Zombie player set Call of the Haunted, it lets you pull off virtually all of the same plays Tornado allowed.

I honestly prefer it over monster removal simply because Zombies are so good at keeping a Monarch player off the field. I’d rather force my opponent to draw a Monarch again instead of destroying it, because I’ll almost always be able to create a situation where that Monarch is a dead draw. Zombies have the aggression to wipe the opponent’s field through attacks, while Book of Life removes Treeborn Frog from the graveyard, so the result is a rough situation for Monarch players. The fact that the chained Wind Blast itself will often be the target of the opposing Monarch’s effect is gravy.

Like I said though, any strategy that wants to play discard-costed effects needs to have stuff that they don’t mind giving up. Zombies don’t have anything to toss that’s as good as Destiny Hero - Malicious, but they do have a fair number of dead draws that become live plays in the graveyard. I’ve found that ditching a Ryu Kokki or Il Blud for Wind Blast can be a very good play in lieu of an available Zombie Master, and it’s especially good in the early game. It allows for unexpected plays with Book of Life, which catches a lot of players off guard.

Even if you do have Zombie Master to potentially discard Kokki or Blud to, doing so requires you to have another Zombie in the graveyard already if you want to actually bring something out (since tribute monsters aren’t legal special summons for the Master). That means you may not be able to make that play early on, and even if you can, the Zombie you want to special summon with the Master might be one in your hand instead of the graveyard. In that case the average Zombie deck just pitches its Pyramid Turtle or Spirit Reaper to bring it to the field, and that still leaves Kokki and Blud useless (along with any copies of Book of Life you’re holding). Again, Wind Blast brings the same reliability, speed, and disruption to Zombies as it does to Perfect Circle. In a pinch, you can always huck dead copies of Lightning Vortex, Creature Swap, or Card of Safe Return as well.

The uses don’t really stop there. Gadgets have an incredibly easy time paying Wind Blast’s discard cost, and it’s a more flexible option for the deck’s trap lineup than Sakuretsu Armor or Bottomless Trap Hole. In Big City, it’s an easy pick over something like Hammer Shot, because it’s, again, more versatile. If your opponent starts setting monsters, your face-up monster removal can be useless, and the same can be said for your reactive removal once Swords of Revealing Light or Gravity Bind hits the field. Wind Blast actually acts as a bridge between your numerous forms of monster removal, letting you discard something that isn’t useful at the moment to get anything short of Jinzo out of the way.

Wind Blast could be used in a number of decks that have yet to see tournament success, too. A strategy running Volcanic Shell and Card Trader could use it as another discard outlet for Shell. Once Card Trader hits the field and the draw engine kicks in, Wind Blast adds utility to all the extra cards you’re drawing and speeds up your win. In a Gemini build based around Chthonian Emperor Dragon you can toss the Dragon itself, clearing the opponent’s back row and setting yourself up for a big play with Blazewing Butterfly. Wind Blast clears your opponent’s defenses, Blazewing goes down, Chthonian comes up, and your opponent eats two attacks.

Rounding Things Up

Phoenix Wing Wind Blast can add versatility and speed to several different strategies, while giving them a potent disruptive effect. It keeps Monarch players off the field, turns Il Blud into a bitter topdeck, and can even chain to Zombie Master’s effect to stop its special summon. Heck, you can chain it to Demise’s effect and force an OTK player to draw Demise again next turn. 

The possibilities are endless, the versatility is impressive, and the impact is huge. I’m not putting Wind Blast into every deck I build, but it’s worth considering for many strategies. I’m writing this before Shonen Jump Chicago takes place. I’ll be surprised if this card doesn’t see more use over the weekend.

Try it for yourself. I think you’ll be glad you did.

—Jason Grabher-Meyer

Got a favorite card that you think deserves the spotlight? Let me know by sending an e-mail to JDGMetagame@gmail.com!