Underrated Side board cards?
Today I will talk to you about some cards that deserve to be talked about in order to conclude an answer for the above asked question. The cards spoken about in this article are mainly good old fashioned cards that seem to have lost their light of life, and share the same fate in the end; hardly ever to be played. So let’s head out shall we.
Let me rewind the clock a little allowing us to take a look at YCS Kansas again. A lot of cool stuff went down at YCS Kansas, including some big surprises in the Top 32. Courtney Waller shocked the entire Yu-Gi-Oh! universe by taking home the win with an insightful Chaos strategy, outplaying popular cards like Maxx “C” and successfully slowing his games to a pace that favored him. But that certainly wasn’t all that was interesting regarding this event. The biggest thing of interest at YCS Kansas was the establishment of Dino Rabbit as a competitive archetype, smashing its way to the forefront of competition and taking three seats in the Top 8. It didn't win, but it's confirmed as a serious contender despite the many naysayers headed into Kansas, and the general concern about consistency issues sprouting from the use of normal monsters. All the arguments about “you draw normal monsters sometimes and lose,” might never have really been justified by real math, but they're now smashed on the purely empirical level as well. We know the deck works, and that it operates consistently enough that even on its first showing, it made up almost half the Top 8.
This brought me to a different observation, of which the conclusion lead me to believe that either I am more pro than the people that entered YCS Kansas or that I still don’t fully understand how to utilize my side deck in the most effective way. The doubt in my reasoning is the reason why I took the following cards under the microscope and thereby judging if the former or the latter of my above statement is in effect. So let’s take a close look at the cards I’m talking about.
This card cannot be destroyed by battle. Destroy this card when it is targeted by the effect of a Spell, Trap, or Effect Monster. If this card successfully attacks directly, your opponent randomly discards 1 card.
Frazier Smith did a great job a couple weeks ago explaining what makes this card so good, so there's really no need for me to spend a ton of time on it. But for now, understand that Reaper is one of the best cards to play against Dino Rabbit; an awesome stall option in almost every other matchup; and more than anything, it has an incredible ability to change your opponent's priorities and the overall tone of the Duel. Reaper is a defensive and aggressive powerhouse, brick walling attacks and threatening to tear apart your opponent's hand depending on its battle position. Spirit Reaper also raises the value of Smashing Ground in terms of gameplay, helping justify a card that's been big in theory since the beginning of the format, but hasn't really panned out to see as much play as some think it should. It's a Level 3, too, which makes for some nifty combos with Tour Guide From the Underworld, as well as a vicious answer to your opponent's Sangan when you have Mind Control. This is one of those cards that you definitely want to think about fitting into your sidedeck, no matter what you're running.
So why hasn’t it seen more plays. Could it be because a lot of the mainstream decks have numerous common answers to a Spirit Reaper in their main builds?, the answer is yes, they do. Which unfortunately leads me to believe Reaper isn’t a valid choice to side in versus any of those decks. However I still believe you can highly benefit from Spirit Reaper in game 2 and or 3 of the match, when you face-off versus a Dino Rabbit deck, which is the most annoying match-up in this format in my opinion at least.
So what other card could be perfectly sided versus a Dino Rabbit deck apart from the obvious ones like Bottomless Trap Hole. I say this because everyone at YCS Kansas believed that the BTH’s would prevail versus the Dino Rabbit decks at that moment, which sadly wasn’t the case. This lead me to believe that people could have seen it coming and should have been better prepared, by siding this for example;
Activate only when your opponent Special Summons a monster(s) from their Deck. Destroy that monster(s) and draw 1 card.
It just doesn't get much simpler than Oaths. When your opponent brings out their Dinosaurs with Rabbit, you flip this thing to destroy them both, and then you draw a card to replace the Mirror. It's a straight +1 in terms of card presence, and it wrecks the deck's key play. But yet again it saw no play whatsoever. Which made me think hard and sometimes loud on the fact that it didn’t. Am I seeing things differently than most others, I doubt it. Key thing is, people highly believed their mained Warning’s and side board Bottomless Trap Hole’s were enough to take the win versus Dino Rabbits. So why do people still not run this, seeing they should know by now BTH alone isn’t enough to stop Dino Rabbits in their tracks. I think people do not use it as a sideboard card because they know it isn’t too generic. Seeing it only stops; Tour Guide plays, Rabbit plays, GB plays ( which aren’t that common anymore ) and perhaps Karakuri. With all scenario’s apart from the Rabbit you have a one for one trade or even a minus one in the case of Reborn Tengu or Tour guide ( into Sangan ). This leads me to believe people rather resort to using different stuff then the good and old Mirror of Oaths.
Still there is one card that is out there for the taking, that I haven’t seen in a lot of action at YCS Kansas or anywhere else for that matter. The card I’m speaking of is;
When a monster effect or Trap Card is activated that negates the Normal or Special Summon of a monster(s): Negate the activation and destroy it.
It has two big advantages over Mirror of Oaths: the first is that while the Mirror preempts Laggia's Summon, Smashing Horn can be drawn after Laggia hits the field and still be useful in stopping the threat. It's similar to how Bottomless Trap Hole preempts a Summon but can't stop monster that's already on the field, while Dimensional Prison can remove a monster that's already on the field when you draw it. In return of course, you need to be able to make a Summon that the Laggia player will find worthy of negation in the first place; but if you have a deck that can generate those kinds of threats reliably, it's a good bet. In addition, while Mirror of Oaths does virtually nothing but stop Rescue Rabbit, Smashing Horn can also be played against Solemn Warning, Solemn Judgment, Steelswarm Roach, and Thunder King Rai-Oh. Dino Rabbit Duelists will almost always be playing the three Solemn traps, and many also run Thunder King and Roach. It's a versatile card in the matchup, and it can even be applied to other decks in a pinch.
The logic I keep hearing on why not run Smashing Horn is that you could just run 7-Tools of the Bandit instead and hit a lot more cards. Trap wise it only stops Solemn Warning and Solemn Judgment. 7- Tools of the Bandit would stop all those plus Dust Tornado, D- Prison, BTH, Torrential Tribute, and many other game wrecking cards. I don't think people are willing to devote 6+ cards in their extra deck just for Rescue Rabbit decks yet. However Horn does hit Thunder King and a lot of other cards as well, so I’m not 100% sure as to why this card hasn’t seen as much play as I have hoped.
To figure this out I am asking you guys to comment down below and leave your thoughts out there for us all, to discuss the questions and arguments raised by us all. So, are these card underrated sideboard cards or aren’t they?
Kind regards,
The_Dutch_Prince