Shield Worm:

     Cards that force your opponent to send cards from their deck to the graveyard are a double-edged sword.  Decking your opponent out is awesome.  Helping them set up their graveyard plays via Plaguespreader, Vayu, Wulf, Mezuki, REDMD, DAD, Judgment Dragon, CotH, Beckoning Light, etc. is not.  So that said, this card can work itself into those strategies but I fear it might not be enough.  The only other card it is really going to work with in a mill deck is needle worm and other copies of itself.  It does have a good chance at staying on the field for a while with 2000 def, but I just don't see netting more than 2 or 3 cards from your opponents deck in an ideal situation.  For that, you would almost be better off running Hiro's Shadow Scout, at least he's a guaranteed 3 cards every time.  The art is awesome though, I think it looks like something from Lovecraft... doesn't help it get a higher score though.

Traditional:  1.5
Advanced:  2.0

Shield Worm has to have some nasty combo I am missing, because I can find pieces for it; I just can figure out exactly how to combine them into a reliable, cohesive deck. 

It is a Level 4 Earth/Insect.  The Level seems a tad high but being an Earth/Insect is common and a good thing for this card, but I am getting ahead of myself.  The card has a small 800 ATK (I’d have liked a bit more, but it needed to stay below 1500) and a strong 2000 DEF.  You’ll have a hard time attacking with this card because when it is Summoned (Normal, Flip, and Special) it shifts itself to Defense Position.  Given that stats, that’s a good thing.  Why would you want to Summon it though?  Why not just set and allow your opponent to crash into it? 

Of course: there’s another effect.  When this card is Summoned, you also send 1 card from the top of your opponent’s Deck to the Graveyard for each face-up Insect-Type monster you control.  There are two things that hurt deck depletion strategies in this game: most decks want at least a few cards in their Graveyard (if not a lot) and most are too slow to matter.  This has the potential to take out a fat five cards, but only if you already had four Insect monsters face-up. 

So first glance this card got me excited.  A second read through made me realize it’d take a lot to get a big mill out of this card. 

Then a third take got the wheels in my head turning, trying to figure out some worthwhile combos. 

The obvious combo for a small “when Summoned” effect wielding monster is Inferno Reckless Summon.  With an otherwise empty field, your first Shield Worm is only going to cost your opponent one card, but the next two brought out via the effect would each mill three.  That’s only seven cards total.  Not bad, but why not just focus on Needle Worm: that flip effect discards five cards on its own.  Well, if we manage to have two Insect monsters face-up and on your side of the field when the first Shield Worm hits, then it gets interesting: 13 cards discarded in one shot! 

Cards to help in this endeavor are probably going to be Multiplication of Ants, Insect Imitation, Spiritual Earth Art – Kurogane, and Spider Egg. Basically, you want multiple ways to get Insect Tokens (to fuel the effect) and Special Summon Shield Worm to set up for Inferno Reckless Summon.  Additionally, since any form of Summon would work, while you can’t use Book of Taiyou to get it off multiple times in a turn, you can use Book of Moon and Book of Eclipse to Set this card and manually Flip Summon it for both effects.  After the initial combo, when you’ve got all three Shield Worm in play, as long as you still have two more Insect monsters with them, you’ll get a good return.  If you used Book of Eclipse on your opponent’s turn, hopefully they also drew a handful of cards in their End Phase when they couldn’t use them… 

And you see where it starts to fall apart.  With time and resources I can’t dedicate, this might be a really fun deck out deck.  Less likely that it would be tournament caliber, since depletion requires a virtual OTK to work in a tournament setting.  Still, I have to score this one on a positive note because I think there is something here waiting to be discovered.  Now the question is… will I feel worse if the rest of the crew scores it worse or if they figure out what I couldn’t? 

Ratings (Dedicated deck rating) 

Traditional: 1/5
Advanced: 3.5/5

Well, today we have Shield Worm. Shield Worm is an interesting little bug. He has high defense and gets changed to defense immediately, which is nice. In addition, he's one of the non-"Worm" worm monsters, in that he's not supported by worm support but is one of the "classic" worms: the insects focused on milling out your opponent. Basically, you're usually going to be milling 1, 2 or maybe 3 cards with his effect. Although not much, it adds up with cards like Needle Worm for a total of 7 cards. This card also comboes well with Spider Egg for a free 4 cards off their deck. All in all, it's a good mill card, but one that's always going to remain overshadowed by the likes of Empty Jar when it comes to killing your opponent.

Traditional: 1/5
Advanced: 2.5/5

Tuesday- Shield Worm
 
I'm not sure where they're going with the discard from top of deck theme. It's unrealistic to ever expect your opponent to deck out so this effect would actually help a majority of deck themes by sending key cards to the graveyard like Dandylion, Vayu, and Pot of Avarice targets.
 
Garbage of the worst kind.
 
T: 1/5
A: 1/5