Pay 1000 LP. Negate the effect of all face-up
monsters on the field.
Type - Trap
Card Number - DR1-EN211
Card Ratings
Traditional: 3.35
Advanced:
3.25
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale 1 being the worst.
3 ... average. 5 is the highest rating.
Date Reviewed - 05.06.05
ExMinion OfDarkness
Skill Drain
Wow...it's been a while since I looked at this
thing.
I tried a deck utilizing this card in the past
-- the deck flopped miserably. However, that's
not to say that the card doesn't hav eother
uses.
I can't remember the last time I saw an Advanced
Format deck use a monster that didn't have an
effect. Negating these effects may be
well-worth the 1,000 Life Point cost this card
requires. There are a couple good situations in
which this card gets its best value:
*Using extremely high attack monsters that have
negative effects -- Goblin Attack Force, Zombyra
the Dark, Jirai Gumo, Fusilier Dragon, the
Dual-Mode Beast
*An opponent is running a deck with an effect
monster you simply can't deal with and you
side-deck these in
*Your deck runs several monsters that "get
around" Skill Drain -- Exiled Force, Sangan,
Cannon Soldier (if tributing himself) allow you
to play Skill Drain and still get some monster
effects.
I haven't seen this card in competitive play for
a good while -- I do know a couple people who
have played it, but they never did very well
with it. Maybe there will be some broken deck
that T8's at a Shonen Jump Championship that
uses it, then everyone will copy that? Who
knows.
But for now...
Traditional: 2.5/5 (CED getting his effect
negated (in chain) and BLS not having that
double-shot makes them a lot easier to deal
with.)
Advanced: 3/5 (Not so great yet, but watch out
in the future!)
Coin Flip
Skill Drain is fairly huge. Just to give you a
relative idea of exactly how much this changes the
game, let's look at a few numbers.
Generally, Monsters make of half a deck and noone
runs normal monsters. So Skill Drain stops half a
deck. Of the 1625 cards in the game, *630* are
effect monsters. There. Done.
By itself, it is effectively a Divine Wrath –
chaining it to, say, a Call of the Haunted on Jinzo
will certainly hurt your opponent, and it always
helps to summon a Fusiler, let them summon out a
Kycoo and then not only block the attack but also
kill an opponent's monster and even out the LP.
The problem is that you can't use it effectively
without setting yourself up for something bad. In
Cybernetic Revolution (the set after Lost
Millennium) we get a 4 star monster with 2500 ATK
that kills himself if Kozaky isn't on the field. He
has some other drawbacks, but that is an excellent
monster to play in a Skill Drain deck if you just
look at it like that. 2500 is huge. Same thing with
Goblin Attack Force (and Toon GAF), Giant Orc, and
Fusilier Dragon the Dual Mode Beast, all of whom are
capable of taking on guys like Vlord and Airknight
Parshath immediately after being drawn. G Kozaky
(aforementioned 2500 4 star) and Fusilier Dragon can
actually kill Jinzo, assuming Skill Drain is out and
has negated Jinzo and their effects. Stops a bunch
of stuff flat in its tracks.
The only trouble is that if you don't draw Skill
Drain or Final Attack Orders (to use with GAF, Toon
GAF, Giant Orc and stuff) then the deck is stopped.
Just plain stopped. The monsters become useless
because Skill Drain decks are all focusing around
stopping your opponent's card effects while
counteracting your own monsters' negative effects.
If you can't do either… GG
So there you have it. Skill Drain is possibly the
greatest anti-metagame deck right now, but it is
also one of the more situational tourney-level
decks.
Generally, I don't rate cards outside of their own
specific deck. This is not an exception. The card
can't be plugged into a Chaos deck – it's counter
productive to the theme of the deck. I just offer
food for thought on the decktype.
Hopefully I can actually get CotD's in. I couldn't
finish Toon GAF or Toon Gemini Elf, so I decided to
just get this one in on time.
Tranorix
Skill Drain
Ah, Skill Drain, one of the most misinterpreted
cards ever. Here’s a little recapitulation of what
Skill Drain can and can’t do:
You CANNOT negate the effect of a monster that
activates in the Graveyard with Skill Drain.
Sinister Serpent, Mystic Tomato, Sangan and Vampire
Lord are all unaffected (well, V-Lord won’t get his
deck discard ability, but you know that’s not what I
meant).
You CANNOT negate costs with Skill Drain. That means
if a monster, as a cost, sends itself to the
Graveyard, Skill Drain can’t negate it at all.
Exiled Force gets around Skill Drain (Yes! It’s
true!). Cannon Soldier (if he launches himself) gets
around Skill Drain.
So:
Skill Drain’s really a nice card, in the right deck.
Sure, it’s a Continuous Trap, but there’s protection
for those; and sure, there’s a 1000 LP cost to
activate it, but that can be overlooked. A Skill
Drain Deck will make use of cards like Goblin Attack
Force and Giant Orc, taking advantage of their great
stats for Level 4 monsters while negating their
drawbacks (switching to DEF).
It also works exceptionally well with Fusilier. You
can summon Fusilier without tributing, and if Skill
Drain is on the field, his ATK will be at 2800. Now
THAT is rentsy.
Skill Drain is also quite likely to impede your
opponent’s deck a bit; negating the effects of some
of his precious monsters is bound to slow him down.
Of course, make sure that when you’re going up
against Skill Drain, you know your rulings – a lot
of people don’t, and as a result they get somewhat
screwed over by people who claim Skill Drain does a
lot more than it actually can.
Our final card this week is Skill Drain, the bane of
all Effect Monsters.
At the cost of 1000 Life Points, Skill Drain negates
the effects of all face-up monsters. Basically,
Skill Drain negates the effects of ALL monsters,
save a select few. Effects that activate in the
Graveyard (such as Exiled Force, Sangan, Mystic
Tomato), maintenance cost effect (such as
Archfiends, Armor Exe), and effects that give
monsters summoning restrictions (such BLS’s need for
LIGHTs and DARKs, Dark Necorfear’s need for Fiends)
are all unaffected by Skill Drain. It also doesn’t
stop anyone from activating Ignition effects (like
Cannon Soldier) but it will prevent the effect from
doing anything.
Now how can one possibly take advantage of all these
negated effects? Why be making a Beatdown Deck that
utilizes the strongest of the Level 4 or lower
monsters that also have some king of negative
effect. Toons can attack the turn they’re summoned,
Giant Orc doesn’t switch to Defense Position after
it attacks, Berserk Gorilla doesn’t die when in
Defense Position and doesn’t need to attack every
turn, Spirits don’t return to the hand during the
turn they’re summoned, and Zombyra the Dark doesn’t
lose 200 ATK points when it kills a monster and can
attack the opponent directly. And wouldn’t you know
it; all of these monster have 2000+ ATK!
In addition to the cards you can abuse with Skill
Drain, you also succeed is disrupting the opponent’s
game plan. Without Effect Monsters the game reverts
back to the days of LOB, where the only effects you
could use were those of Spells and Traps. No longer
must you fear Jinzo or face-down monsters, for they
are meaningless. Instead, all you need to fear is
S/T destruction, for that will bring your new world
order of regular monsters crashing down. All in all,
Skill Drain is a neat and powerful card that makes
it own Deck very powerful.
Advanced: 4/5. It affects both side of the field, so
be sure the negation won’t harm you too much.
Traditional: 3.5/5. There’s lot’s of S/T
destruction, so protect your effect drainer.
Overall (Toon Deck): 3.75/5.
Art: 4/5. It’s Name That Monster Time! I see Dark
Ruler Ha Des, and he’s losing his demonic powers!
Pay 1000 lifepints. Negate the effect of all face-up
effect monsters on the field.
Quite an older card we have for Friday and I'm glad
we do. This is one of my favorite trap cards. I keep
two of these in my side-deck currently and they can
actually be helpful.
Uses:
Negates such popular monsters as:
Vampire Lord
Sacred Phoenix
Don Zaloog
DD Warrior Lady
DD Assailant
Dark Paladin (for those of you bold enough to run
him) Yata Garasu (Traditional) Spirit Reaper Breaker
the Magical Warrior Dark Ruler Ha Des (as shown in
the picture) Tribe Infecting Virus Black Luster
Soldier--Envoy of the Beginning Chaos Emperor
Dragon--Envoy of the End (Traditional) Dark Magician
of Chaos Kycoo the Ghost Destroyer Any Monarch
the list goes on and on and on...
and on and on...
and on...
Just to name a few and I HOPE you got the point. The
card IS powerful, but sadly isn't played all that
often. 1000 lifepoints isn't a horrible price at
all. Being able to negate the effects of practically
EVERY monster is just WHOA.
This card could also successfully shut down such
decktypes say like Fire Princess?
However, there are quite a few negatives about this
card. A semi-successful deck could be built around
this card running three of them. This card negates
many a card, but equally as many cards own Skill
Drain.
Jinzo
Royal Decree
Breaker
Heavy Storm
Harpie's Feather Duster (Traditional)
and Mystical Space Typhoon
The aforementioned cards all tear Skill Drain apart.
Conclusion: A good card but won't be used by many.
Those who realize it's good probably don't have deck
space for it, including myself.
Ratings:
Traditional: 3.85/5 Not quite worth a 4, but it
stops CED here.
Advanced: 3.85/5 Same as Traditional, even without
CED, but chuck on .3 for
every Phoenix, BLS, or Vampire Lord you run into.
Art: 3.5/5 The cards this week seemed to have had
cool art.
May the Force be with you, and stay classy, Planet
Earth :)
Only 13 days until Star Wars Episode III
Coin Flip
Skill Drain is one of a few cards in the game that
can seriously stop so many others. Let's take a look
at what this card does.
The activation cost is minimal, but you don't want
to have to pay it late in the game. It could mean
the difference between that Ring of Destruction
killing you or not. The actual effect of the card is
insane. It provides much of its own protection. We
see, of the many cards that kick this one in the
arse, these cards played often:
Royal Decree
Sacred Phoenix of Nepthys
Breaker the Magical Warrior
Jinzo
Dust Tornado
Heavy Storm
Mystical Space Typhoon
This stops 3 of 7, and the rest are restricted to
one or 200 dollar cards (which is, effectively,
restricting them to one per deck).
On top of stopping 3 of the 7 big cards that hurt
this one, it effectively makes useless more than
half the monsters in the average deck. D.D.
Assailant sees immense play. This card laughs at it
and its Warrior Lady counterpart. Magician of Faith?
Meet the friend to this card: Final Attack Orders.
Cyber Jar? Morphing Jar? Jinzo? Airknight Parshath?
Dark Magician of Chaos? Hah. Meet Fusilier Dragon, a
no-tribute 2800 in this deck. Got a problem with
Tribe? Chain this after they discard. Someone will
be laughing! Don't like their Gravekeeper deck? Shut
it down with unparalleled ease (well, assuming you
don't use Royal Oppression instead). They attack
your 1400 Fusilier or 1700 Zombyra with a Berserk
Gorilla? Hey! Use Skill Drain in response to the
attack and let them ram into a monster much stronger
than theirs is!
The monsters that it usually plays with the most –
GAF (and Toon GAF, now), Giant Orc, Fusilier Dragon,
and Zombyra the Dark – go horribly well with both
Final Attack Orders and Deck Devastation Virus.
Great combo potential, I should think. Control your
opponent's hand. If they were just going to use
Lightning Vortex or Smashing Ground on your only
monster, just use DDV and hit them for a heck of a
lot more than what they first took.
Remembering that I only offer ideas on cards that
only belong in their own deck, and not ratings, I
wish you a happy weekend.
