Monday

Nikitama opens the week. We haven't looked at a Spirit Monster in a long time, because most of them are garbage, and the one everyone wants is Banned. This little guy has all the properties of a Spirit, namely those things like returning to the Hand at the end of a Turn after having been Summoned, and not being able to be Special Summoned. Spirit aside, Light and Fairy are good, the Level 4 is fine, and 800 attack isn't great but the 1800 defense isn't terrible. It does give you a +1, as when Normal Summoned or flipped face-up, you can Normal Summon another Spirit Monster. He nets you a card via Draw when sent to the Graveyard, so being a Spirit hurts unless it's destroyed face-down. Although you have to control another Spirit to activate and resolve that. It's not terrible, even though Spirits are, but it's not very good either.

Ratings:

Traditional: 1.25/5
Advanced: 2.25/5
Art: 3.5/5

We are going to start off this week with a fun card called Nikitama. What is so fun about it is that it actually makes Spirit decks playable. To understand what I am talking about, all we have to do is take a look at the card database at the 24 spirit monsters in the game. We start off with Asura Priest. It is a light monster that can attack all of your opponent’s monsters and when combined with Honest can really do so damage. If you summon Nikitama (note: Effect Veiler will not stop your extra summon), you can then summon Asura Priest and use them to Xyz summon a rank 4 monster or one of those really good light rank 4 monsters. You can also summon Aratama to search for Nikitama or any of the monsters we are going to be talking about to set up any of the plays in this article.

The next two cards on the list are the level 6 monsters Dark Dust Spirit (destroys all face up monsters) and Fenghuang (destroys all of your opponent’s spells and traps). Summon Nikitama and tribute it for one of the above monsters to wipe out spells/traps or monsters then draw a card. Sounds good to me. We could even use a two tribute monster like Hino-Kagu-Tsuchi with Nikitama and Call of the Haunted or Treeborn Frog to draw a card and cause your opponent to discard their hand. Or to summon Yamata Dragon to draw 5 cards.

The next good spirit monster on the list is Izanami which works great with Nikitama. Summon Izanami and use its effect to discard Aratama to add a spirit monster to your hand from the grave and then draw a card. Nice! Next up is Kinka-byo. Summon Nikitama and then summon Kinka-byo and use its effect to retrieve Effect Veiler from your grave. Then Synchro summon into a level 5 monster with Nikitama and Veiler to draw a card.

Other good spirit monsters are Tsukuyomi and Yaksha. With Tsukuyami you can flip their monster face down and then Xyz into a big monster and run over their big monster. With Yaksha you can return a spell or trap of your opponent’s then Xyz into a big monster to have a better outcome for your attack.

Spirit monsters work great with Creature Swap and Enemy Controllers. Summon Nikitama and normal summon another spirit monster. Then use one of the above cards to take your opponent’s monster by tributing Nikitama or exchanging it and running it over to gain field advantage and to draw a card. Spirit decks may not be able to handle the power and explosiveness of top tier decks, but it can be a lot of fun. Nikitama is very important in a spirit deck as it is one of the few cards that give you draw power and swarming ability.

Traditional: 1/5
Advanced: 2/5

Nikitama
LIGHT/Fairy/Spirit/Level 4/800/800
Cannot be Special Summoned. During the End Phase of the turn this card is Normal Summoned or flipped face-up: Return it to the hand. During the turn this card was Normal Summoned or flipped face-up, you can Normal Summon 1 Spirit monster in addition to your Normal Summon/Set. (You can only gain this effect once per turn.) When this card is sent to the Graveyard: Draw 1 card. You must control a Spirit monster to activate and to resolve this effect.

A new Spirit monster! I have a soft spot for spirits but they have never been that playable with the whole return back to your hand problem, so what can Nikitama add to the Spirit table? Statwise it is a LIGHT/Fairy which is good, however its stats are awful, 800 ATK and DEF for a level 4 means this monster must have a great effect.

Luckily it does have a very useful effect for Spirits, when this card is normal summoned or flipped up you get the chance to Normal Summon another Spirit monster from your hand. This is very good, allowing you to spped up your Spirit deck, since you can’t special summon Spirits. Also if you control a Spirit when this card goes to the graveyard, you draw 1 card. Luckily it doesn’t matter how it gets to the graveyard, but the need for another Spirit monster to be present does hurt.

Overall a big boost for Spirit decks, let down by terrible stats, but the draw effect also helps.

Traditional: 2/5
Advanced: 3/5

Starting the week off with a bang coming at you direct is a review for Nikitama, one of the better brand new support cards for the fairy and spirit typing. Nikitama has a lackluster attack of 800 but a girthy defense of 1800, which neither will usually matter because of its effect. When you normal summon this card you can normal summon one additional spirit monster. Your best bet is to normal summon an Aratama, which will give you a search and add for another spirit monster from your deck to your hand. From there, you can XYZ summon a rank 4 monster for domination or you can use transmodify to go into a plethora of beastly plays.

There are a few different competitive spirit decks that incorporate this card, but one of the better ones is the Herald of Perfection build. If you manage an early game Herald of Perfection summon, it can be nearly impossible for your opponent to overcome. 

In addition to the extra normal summon you will receive, when this card is sent to the graveyard, you get to draw one card. This is a great effect that will grant you an additional resource. Nikitama is a strong spirit monster and is worth running in fairy and spirit decks.

Ratings:

Traditional: 2.5/5 
Advanced: 4/5 
Mechanic Design: 4.5/5 (Really good dual effects that add solid support for a typing that could use it at this point in time
Art: 3.5/5 (Not too much to see here, but a pretty cool looking green spirit)

Nikitama

It's nice to see support for Spirit monsters. This one meets the mark, but barely.

Being able to summon another Spirit monster is nice, but is meaningless when this one has weak ATK and no on-field attack. Summoning this card and a Spirit monster might as well be the same as just summoning the Spirit monster you had wanted to summon in the first place.

Perhaps this card would've been more well-rounded if it it's ATK, like it's DEF, were 1800. But as it stands, it will do little for you in attack position (where you would need to place it if you want to summon it). It has no on-field effect unfortunately.

On the plus side, it can make summoning XYZ's really easy, if you do find one you really like to use. Also, this card doesn't specify which way it has to be sent to the graveyard. If this is discarded, detached as XYZ material or sent from the deck to the graveyard, it's a +1.

Not an ideal support card for Spirits, but still can be quite helpful.

Traditional – 1/5
Advanced – 3/5

Ah, Shinto and its many deities. Today I shall be reviewing one. No, not a Bujin, but the original Shinto-inspired theme: the sub-type of Spirit. Crazy, is it not? Hello and welcome to Terrorking's review of Nikitama (funny name is extremely funny). Now that the pleasantries are out of the way, it's time I present you with what you came here for. Without further ado, let's us begin.

Nikitama is one of those "during the turn you summon this, you can do another normal summon" cards. What you would generally do with this is enable an Xyz summon right off the bat (it's LIGHT, so that gives you a slew of options with it), but Spirit monsters have their own little one-tribute partial field wipers in Fenghuang and Dark Dust Spirit, so you could always go that route. Of note is this card sets a condition on the field on its summon, so if your opponent activates Effect Veiler/Breakthrough Skill/Fiendish Chain on it, you can still do your extra Normal Summon. He also has another neat little effect that you may not use much, but it will always be there should you need it: a Card Trooper-esque draw effect.

Countering Nikitama: same ways you counter Geargiarmor, which is not at all.

Traditional: 1/5
Advanced: 2.5/5