Voltanis the Adjudicator is one of the set’s ultra rares, and like many monsters from Enemy of Justice, it’s a Light attribute Fairy-type monster. At level 8, it’s got 2800 ATK and 1400 DEF: average for a monster that requires two tributes.

The cool part? You don’t necessarily have to tribute two monsters to bring it to the field! Check out its effect. After 1 of your Counter Traps has resolved, you can Tribute all the monsters on your side of the field and Special Summon this card. If Special Summoned this way, you can destroy a number of your opponent's cards up to the number of Fairy-Type monsters you Tributed.

Voltanis can fill a number of different roles, depending on what kind of deck you’re running. If you’re playing a Fairy strategy, it will provide you with the ability to convert your extra Fairies into versatile pieces of removal that can destroy not just spell and trap cards, but also monsters. The amount of control that Voltanis can generate practically renders it a win condition with the proper support. It can create huge swings in field presence and momentum, even when the duel has become a setting war. Then, it can follow up by swinging for big damage.

To most duelists, Voltanis is still going to be a nearly free 2800 beatstick of a monster. A 2800 ATK monster that you can summon on your opponent’s turn, for one tribute, is pretty game-breaking.

What To Use It With

Let’s look at some of the cards that you can use to trigger Voltanis’s special summon, and examine how each one plays out.

Spell Negation

Cards like Cursed Seal of the Forbidden Spell and Spell Shield Type-8 are a kick in the teeth when they negate an important spell, and both are gaining popularity after Top 8 showings at Shonen Jump Baltimore. The ability to special summon a huge monster on top of negating an opponent’s Graceful Charity or Confiscation is brutal.

When you’re negating something like Nobleman of Crossout or Smashing Ground, Voltanis is perhaps less optimal: you’re going to lose whatever monster you were protecting to Voltanis’s mandatory tribute, and you might even have to discard a card in the process to activate your counter trap. That’s a bit of a heavy trade . . .

 . . . but luckily, there’s Magic Drain! This card doesn’t provide “hard” negation like Cursed Seal or Spell Shield—the opponent can buy his or her way out of the negation by discarding an additional spell. Normally that’s a damaging drawback, but if the opponent discards a second card to force through a piece of monster removal, then everything works in your favor. You can drop Voltanis with impunity, knowing that the monster you lost would have been tributed anyway. If you’re going to use Voltanis, then Magic Drain is your spell negation of choice.

Seven Tools of the Bandit

Just got nailed by Sakuretsu Armor? Mirror Force getting you down? Just flip Seven Tools and summon Voltanis. You lose the monster (or monsters) that you were going to lose anyway, but you get to trade your Seven Tools and 1000 life points for a 2800 ATK beater, which will probably then attack directly.

Solemn Judgment

Negate anything you want and then summon a massive pain-pixie? Yes, please. A single direct shot from Voltanis will easily even out the life point cost that Solemn Judgment demands, while giving you a threatening presence on the field at the same time.

Negate Attack

That’s right: there’s actually a reason to run Negate Attack now! Originally outshined by Waboku, and recently outclassed by Sakuretsu Armor and Widespread Ruin, Negate Attack is really useful with Voltanis. As one of the few counter traps that doesn’t require any sort of discard or life point cost, it’s got a very high utility (odds are good that at some point, something’s going to try and attack you). It’s easily activated when you control a single vulnerable monster (like a flipped Magician of Faith left in attack position), and it’s useful in virtually any matchup.

“Surprise! Your attack doesn’t work,” is one thing. “Surprise! Your attack doesn’t work and now the meanest Fairy on the block is cutting off your offense and threatening to pummel the tar out of you,” is another. More and more players are building aggressive decks nowadays. That, combined with Negate Attack’s recent reprinting as an easy-to-pull normal rare in the Jaden Duelist Pack set, makes this a prime card for any strategy using the Adjudicator.

Other well-recognized counter traps like Horn of Heaven and Divine Wrath will also work well with this card, but again, be careful of those discard costs. The big advantage to Voltanis is the ability to drop a 2800 ATK thug for just two cards, often balanced by the addition of countering of one of your opponent’s cards. If you decide to use this monster, be sure to maximize its potential strengths.

Fairy Snacks

There are plenty of monsters that you won’t mind feeding to Voltanis. As we touched on earlier, any flip effect monster that has already nabbed you a card makes the perfect fodder. In fact, quite frequently, one of these monsters will flip into attack position and present a liability. Voltanis can replace Magical Merchant’s 200 ATK with its own 2800 ATK, which can really stun an opponent committing to a big attack. In fact, you can even bait a big offensive out of an opponent with an attack position Spirit Reaper, and then swap Reaper for Voltanis once your opponent has committed.

My favorite monster to tribute for Voltanis’s effect? Skelengel. Not only will it nab you a card from your deck with its flip effect before getting tributed, but it’s a Fairy, meaning that it allows Voltanis to destroy a card on the opponent’s side of the field. Trading one Skelengel for a huge special summon, plus a free draw and the free destruction of a card, is a brutal bargain. Skelengel fits into virtually any deck you can imagine, so the combo has serious potential. In a dedicated Fairy deck, you’ll get a third bonus too: a graveyard-bound Skelengel can feed Mudora’s stats.

Don’t forget that token monsters can be tributed for Voltanis’s effect, as well. Sheep or Block tokens from Scapegoat and Blockman can provide fodder, and you can even use DNA Surgery to make them into Fairies. Sure, that’s a lot of cards to put together at the right time, but it’s still an interesting possibility. On a similar note, you could use The Agent of Creation - Venus to fill your field with copies of Mystical Shine Ball. When combined with the special summoning of Voltanis, it allows you to blow away up to three extra cards on the opponent’s side of the field at a cost of 500 life points each. Since we’re all probably in agreement that 1000 life points is more than a fair price for Delinquent Duo, 500 life points per card seems pretty sweet.

Even More Synergy!

Like all level 8 monsters, Voltanis the Adjudicator has excellent synergy with Metamorphosis, turning into Cyber Twin Dragon or Gatling Dragon whenever you want. Again, since Voltanis probably didn’t cost you two monsters to summon, it’s a bargain.

One of the most awesome ways to use Voltanis (whether or not you’re playing a deck primarily composed of Fairies) is in conjunction with the Majestic Mechs. Julia showed you one of them yesterday—Majestic Mech – Goryu—but Enemy of Justice has several monsters that only stay on the field for a single turn. Tributing one of them for Voltanis’s effect is basically free, since it wasn’t going to survive anyway, and the fact that all the Majestic Mechs are Fairies allows Voltanis to use them as ammo for its destruction ability.

Counter traps are gaining popularity once again, and the timing is impeccable. Cards like Voltanis the Adjudicator are going to return counter traps to a state of viability, and Enemy of Justice’s support kicks in at a time when duelists have started looking at them again. Stay with us for the next week and a half, because we’ve still got a ton of new cards to show you!