This card is insane. It is so awesomely cool, that no matter what I write here today, you simply won’t believe me until you see it in action.

Thanks. I needed to get that out of the way.

In my preview last week, I said that the new monster Zombie Master was exactly what Zombies needed to be competitive. Well, today’s card is a bit different. If Zombie Master makes the Zombie archetype into a tournament-viable force, than Il Blud is what makes it a dominant one. 

Il Blud           Zombie/Gemini         DARK   - Level 6        2100 ATK / 800 ATK

This card is treated as a Normal Monster while face-up on the field or in the Graveyard. While this card is face-up on the field, you can Normal Summon it to have it be treated as an Effect Monster with this effect:

—Once per turn, you can Special Summon 1 Zombie-Type monster from your hand or from either player’s Graveyard. When this card is removed from the field, destroy all Zombie-Type monsters Special Summoned by this effect.

The trick to making your Gemini monsters truly awesome is to turn on their effects as quickly as possible. If you normal summon them one turn, then summon them again on the following turn, you have to keep them on the field during your opponent’s turn in between. That can be pretty difficult . . . but if you can special summon the Gemini monster instead, then use a single normal summon to give it its effect, you save a lot of time and trouble. The easier a Gemini monster is to special summon, the easier it is to use in this deadly fashion.

That makes Il Blud amazing. Check out that low DEF. Pretty sweet, huh? Sure, 800 DEF may not even hold off Sangan, but it will allow Il Blud to be special summoned by Pyramid Turtle. You can let your opponent attack Pyramid Turtle and then bring out Il Blud to be normal summoned again next turn, or you can ram Pyramid Turtle, bring Il Blud to the field, and then normal summon him in main phase 2.

But of course, that’s not the only easy way to special summon this killer monstrosity. Book of Life will also let you bring him to the field, and unlike Pyramid Turtle, the Book acts independently of your opponent’s actions. You can special summon Il Blud from your graveyard, normal summon it on the spot, and immediately use its effect.

What I love about Il Blud is how he instantly balances out your lost normal summon. With other Gemini monsters, you trade your normal summon (which you could otherwise turn into a monster) for a cool ability. But with Il Blud, you give up your normal summon, get a great effect, and then immediately bring another monster to the field. Normal summoning Il Blud into his effect form is, for all interpretive purposes, free. That is an exceptionally dangerous fact that you just can’t appreciate until you see it in action.

The other great thing about Il Blud? His friends! While Zombie Master was restricted to Zombies of a certain level, Il Blud lets you normal summon any of them, which opens up some incredible options. If you have a clean shot at your opponent, you can bring out Spirit Reaper to devastate the opponent’s hand (and set up more tributes). Ryu Kokki can swing for big damage, or you can even bring out another Il Blud from your graveyard. Don’t have any of those in your graveyard? Just pull the same Pyramid Turtle you used to special summon Il Blud in the first place.

In fact, Pyramid Turtle is often the best option for Il Blud’s effect. The reason lies in Il Blud’s drawback: if he goes down, so do all the other Zombies he brought to your side. But if you special summon Pyramid Turtle and crash it into one of your opponent’s monsters, the monster the Turtle brings to the field will not be tied to Il Blud. That ensures the security of your field, provides more toolboxing, and sets you up with another Pyramid Turtle in your graveyard to take advantage of later. Perhaps with Il Blud, or perhaps with . . .

. . . Zombie Master. I’ve already gone over how amazing this card is, but it’s even better with Il Blud. In testing, I went from two copies of Ryu Kokki, one Il Blud, and three copies of Zombie Master to one Ryu Kokki, two copies of Il Blud, and two copies of Zombie Master. By the time I tuned my deck to its peak, I was running one copy of Kokki, three copies of Zombie Master, and three copies of Il Blud. The reason was that with that configuration, I was consistently overwhelming my opponent on turn 3 or 4. The ability to use Il Blud to special summon Zombie Master, then use Zombie Master to special summon Pyramid Turtle, and crash the Turtle for another big monster is nuts. With a single Book of Life or Pyramid Turtle (and a discard for Zombie Master), you can go from an empty field to having more than 6000 ATK on the table. You can set up plays like this both on your turn and on your opponent’s, and you can do it at almost any time. If your opponent fires back with card-for-card monster removal, he or she will lose ground to Il Blud’s free special summon, and if he or she doesn’t, well, there had better be a  Mirror Force waiting for him or her close by. Since Book of Life can basically drop three-quarters of the opponent’s life points, you don’t actually mind having a card like Torrential Tribute played against you.

Anything that can load your graveyard for special summoning hijinks is gold. This includes Zombie Master: although it may not be able to special summon Ryu Kokki, it can get Kokki into the graveyard for Il Blud later, turning a dead card into a live monster and creating big plays a turn or two down the road. The same can be said for discarding Il Blud itself. Morphing Jar, Card Trooper, Magical Merchant, and even Snipe Hunter or Lightning Vortex can make Il Blud even deadlier than it would be on its own. I don’t know about you, but my favorite combos are the ones that involve cards I’m already using.

The sheer speed and resiliency of this monster defies description. If you plan on playing Zombies after Tactical Evolution, you might not believe me when I tell you how good Il Blud is in threes. No worries: I didn’t believe it at first either. But you’ll test one, and you’ll like it. You’ll test two, and you’ll like it even more. And pretty soon, you’ll be doing whatever you need to do to get your third copy, and everyone in your area will be fighting to keep it from you because they’re tired of losing.

I’d talk about how you can tribute Il Blud for Metamorphosis and special summon Ryu Senshi to defend your newly built horde, but that just seems like overkill. Throw down enough speed and you honestly won’t need Ryu Senshi nine times out of ten. I’d also laud the virtue of using Instant Fusion to set up Il Blud to special summon Reaper on the Nightmare, but that takes an entire turn as you wait for the Reaper to perish in the end phase. And while Il Blud definitely appreciates Instant Fusion’s tribute bait, he really prefers just beating face instead of waiting around for some tricky hand disruption. I’m sure that’s viable, and I’m sure people are going to play with it and win, but the point is that there are lots of ways to claim victory with this card, and you’re free to pick your favorites from the smorgasbord of pain Il Blud offers.

Tomorrow, Tactical Evolution Sneak Previews kick off worldwide, and dueling is never going to be the same. Get ready to have some fun and crack some awesome cards!