Red-Eyes Metal Claws Dragon – #ALIN-EN025
You can activate “Metalmorph” Traps the turn they were Set. You can only use each of the following effects of “Red-Eyes Metal Claws Dragon” once per turn. You can send 1 face-down card you control to the GY; Special Summon this card from your hand. If this card is Normal or Special Summoned, and you have “Max Metalmorph” in your field or GY: You can add 1 “Metalmorph” Trap from your Deck or GY to your hand.
Date Reviewed: June 18th, 2025
Rating: 3.68
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is awful. 3 is average. 5 is excellent.
Reviews Below:
King of
Lullaby
Hello Pojo Fans,
Red-Eyes support will always be a thing much like Blue-Eyes and Dark Magician. Red-Eyes Metal Claws Dragon or REMCD is the newest bit of support for Red-Eyes.
Revolving around the Metalmorph traps that were remade to be better, REMCD makes it so those traps can be immediately activated the turn they were set, awesome. Making a trap faster is why we have traps that can activate from the hand, and while REMCD doesn’t do that, it does make those archetype traps now better because they can be immediately activated.
Special Summon ability via sending a face-down card to the grave from your side of the field allows for easy summoning of your Level 7 Dragon, in addition to the standard Red-Eyes support like Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon or Red-Eyes Baby Dragon. This effect is also an easy way to get Red-Eyes Wyvern into the grave and activate its effect in the End Phase.
If you happen to summon this while you have Max Metalmorph on the field or in the grave, you get a Metalmorph search from the Deck. It is a Metalmorph Trap search, so no Red-Eyes support through its own effects. Rare Metalmorph, Max Metalmorph, Time Engine, Metalmorph, and Flame Coating Metalmorph are all available search targets. As a Dragon, REMCD can’t be used alongside most of these, but it can be used as fodder for Max Metalmorph to get to your Red-Eyes that can be summoned.
Red-Eyes Metal Claws Dragon was needed for the Metalmorph archetype. To get to To get to Red-Eyes Black Fullmetal Dragon before, you needed to depend on Bystials, and you still can, but now there’s a dedicated Dragon that can get itself to the field easily, get you back a Metalmorph Trap if you’ve already used Max Metalmorph, and, allows for those Metalmorph traps to be played immediately. To put it simply: Red-Eyes Metal Claws Dragon becomes Red-Eyes Fullmetal Dragon immediately if unchecked.
Advanced- 3.5/5 Art- 3.5/5
Until Next Time,
KingofLullaby
Crunch$G
Midweek gives us a new Red-Eyes card designed to support the Max Metalmorph strategy: Red-Eyes Metal Claws Dragon.
Metal Claws Dragon is a Level 7 DARK Dragon with 2400 ATK and 2000 DEF, so literally the stats of Red-Eyes Black Dragon. First effect lets you activate Metalmorph Traps the turn they were set, so you can turbo to your Red-Eyes Black Fullmetal Dragon and have your omni-negate out as fast as possible. Remaining effects are each a HOPT, first letting you summon this from the hand by sending a face-down card you control to the graveyard. Simple summoning condition you can meet by setting a Spell/Trap you want to send to the graveyard or potentially a Black Metal Dragon you set face-down. Upon Normal or Special Summon while Max Metalmorph is in your graveyard, which this can facilitate, you can add a Metalmorph Trap from your Deck or graveyard to your hand, which can basically negate the cost of summoning this monster to begin with. Metal Claws is good for the Metalmorph engine, easy summoning condition and letting you use your Metalmorphs immediately, plus it can recover a Max Metalmorph you might have used to summon this or get to Flame Coating Metalmorph if that’s the way you choose to go. Numbers played depend on how dedicated to the Metalmorph strategy you are, but it’s a staple in anything using the Metalmorph cards.
Advanced Rating: 3.75/5
Art: 4.25/5 Nice nails.
Mighty
Vee
Konami must not have been particularly pleased when I complained about Metalmorph being too slow because they’ve given us today’s card, Red-Eyes Metal Claws Dragon, a level 7 DARK Dragon monster just like the original Red-Eyes Black Dragon. Despite its name, it’s more closely associated with Max Metalmorph than Red-Eyes proper, but that won’t stop you from searching it with Black Metal Dragon or Red Stone of Legend if you wanted to. Still, the main way you’ll likely be searching it is Incoming Machine! or Metalflame Swordsman, especially in Metalmorph-focused builds. Metal Claws will take the stats of the original Red-Eyes, sharing its rather mediocre 2400 attack and 2000 defense. Normally I’d say it’s unsurprising, but it feels like they missed an opportunity to give it 3000 attack as a reference to Dragon Nails. Then again, Konami probably doesn’t want to give level 7 monsters 3000 attack unless absolutely necessary.
Remember when I said one of Red-Eyes Black Fullmetal Dragon’s weaknesses was that it was slow to come out? Well, they fixed it here, as Metal Claws will let you activate Metalmorph Traps the same turn they’re Set. This will let you summon Fullmetal in as little as 2 summons, long before the ubiquitous Nibiru cutoff and letting you actually field a solid body in a timely manner. More important than Nibiru protection, this actually makes Metalmorph decks actually competent at going second, which is all they could ask for. And we haven’t even gotten to Metal Claws’s activated effects! Both of them are hard once per turn, with the first letting you Special Summon it by sending any face-down card you control to the Graveyard. This can be anything from a spare Infinite Impermanence to Max Metalmorph itself, but you really want to send Max Metalmorph proper since that brings us to its final effect, which triggers on Normal or Special Summon if Max Metalmorph is in your Graveyard to either search a Metalmorph Trap or recycle one from your Graveyard. There’s not a huge difference between recycling the one in your Graveyard or just grabbing a new one, but occasionally you might want to grab Flame Coating Metalmorph or even the original Metalmorph for niche scenarios. Either way, it’ll immediately help set up the summon of Fullmetal. Again, this is huge for securing offensive pressure going second– it doesn’t matter how consistent a deck is if your main plays can only happen after 1 turn! Of course, going first you might not always want to immediately go into Fullmetal, since that’ll leave you much more vulnerable to boardbreakers like Forbidden Droplet and Gordian Slicer. But, I do think you gain enough value going second to make it worth its while. Hybrid builds probably don’t want to see Metal Claws too often since Black Metal Dragon will enable combo lines on its own, though pure builds can probably run it at 3 to leverage the fact they have so many Max Metalmorph searchers, which leads to a bunch of 2 card combo lines.
+Powerful extender that can enable Red-Eyes Black Fullmetal Dragon on turn 1
+Opens up even more combo lines in Red-Eyes and Dragon Link hybrids
-Can be a brick in bad hands
-Summoning Fullmetal immediately may not always be useful
Advanced: 3.75/5
Art: 3.25/5 Red-Eyes kinda looks weird here, but I’m glad Metal Claws is finally being acknowledged.
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