Card of the Week #15: Photon Thrasher
Cannot be Normal Summoned/Set. Must first be Special Summoned (from your hand) while you control no monsters. If you control another monster, this card cannot attack.
Photon Thrasher. A well known and commonly used card in the YGO world, but in many cases people take for granted its abilities as they are seen and used so often. It is essentially a staple for Rank 4 Xyz decks, and actually should not be underrated in Synchro decks; it is an easily summoned Level 4 monster and could be used alongside a Level 4 Tuner, such as Flamvell Magician, to summon a Level 8 Synchro.
The first use of Photon Thrasher is as a temporary beatstick to carry you past an intermediate stage. 2100 ATK in an instantly summonable monster with no downside (bar it only working by itself, and being unable to attack when alongside other monsters), it is incredibly useful in an earlygame stage. This is capitalised on by Skill Drain decks, as he has no positive Effect on the field and is primarily useful as beater. These decks can capitalise further on its easily-summoned nature and summon Crazy Box, a rank 4 Xyz which would function solely as a 3000 ATK beater in a Skill Drain deck.
Its next use, as mentioned earlier, is as Xyz Material for a Rank 4 Xyz. This is very common, and is the main reason people run the card. Aside from simply being a Level 4, it is also noteworthy that it is a Warrior and a LIGHT Attribute. This gives it some worth in many different decks, specifically Xyz based LIGHT decks such as Constellars, or Warrior decks, such as Elemental Heroes. The most common Xyzs it is used for are Blade Armour Ninja and Heroic Champion Excalibur. Both of these can deal serious damage, with Excalibur becoming a 4000 ATK beater for a turn, and Blade Armour Ninja being able to attack twice. Both are extremely good for dealing with mid-high ATK monsters, and can be summoned easily with aid of this card.
Aside from these obvious uses, there is little else. However, the card finds itself in so many different decks that clearly has a large element of versatility. This is because it grants easy access to a majority of Rank 4 Xyzs, and the best place to find versatility is to look at the Extra Deck. In general, the Extra Deck should have cards to deal with a majority of nasty situations, and is the place to turn to in a difficult situation. The current game requires a strong use of the Extra Deck, and Photon Thrasher is one of the cards that is useful in decks using a specific part of that Extra Deck; specifically Rank 4 Xyzs. As mentioned at the start, it can be used alongside cards like Flamvell Magician in order to summon Level 8 Synchros, and Flamvell is even more useful when using cards such as Summoner Monk. Use of these cards can give a Rank 4 Xyz deck access to Level 8 Synchros, and is therefore useful if even more versatility is needed.
Overall, Photon Thrasher is an excellent card and its many uses are simply accepted; they are not seen for what they are, but instead seen for how often they are used. This happens to many popular cards; a lot of them tend to lose the reason they are popular in the first place. This normally happens when people slot cards into a deck because a majority of similar decks use them. When making a deck, the key is to recognise the reasons why you should include different cards, and Photon Thrasher is a good example of it. While it should often be included in Rank 4 decks, it is important not to forget the why, as well as viewing other potential
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