Classic COTD Reviews – Dark Crisis (2003)

Card Name

Pojo Avg

My Rating

Cost Down

~2.5

1

Even 2.5 avg was way off the mark.  This card isn’t just bad; it’s negative value

It’s a -2 since you have to give up this card and another card to summon a monster that’s already in your hand

It also requires you to use more tribute monsters which can lead to bricked opening hands if you don’t have a way of summoning them (or if you draw this card without any tributes).

Cards like this show that costs are difficult in Yugioh without a mana system.  This card might’ve been a little too good if it didn’t have a discard but it’s horrendous and unplayable with the discard.

TLDR: Just use Soul Exchange.  Not only do you not minus from it, but you also clear an opponent’s monster.

Shinato, King of a Higher Plane

2.3

1

This card is bad in so many ways, and even giving it a 2 is massively overrating it.

First, the standard issue with Ritual monsters: You need 2 specific cards in hand (ritual spell + ritual monster).  And you need tribute fodder for them.  

Second, it’s a LV8 ritual so you either need to have a LV8 monster in hand (which none are competitively viable), or you’d have to give up 2 monsters which makes Ritual Summoning this card a -3!!

Third, This card’s effect only works in the Battle Phase after a successful attack, so if the opponent uses a trap (i.e. Ring, Mirror Force, Torrential, Sakuretsu, Bottomless, etc), you get nothing from this card.

Fourth, while life gain would be a nice bonus effect this card has no effect that contributes to card advantage.

ATK power has diminishing returns past a certain point.  3300 ATK won’t get you over anything that a 2500 ATK monster wouldn’t.

And while life point gain would be a nice bonus effect; it doesn’t contribute to card advantage at all. 

Blindly Loyal Goblin

2.5

1.25

Effect only works against 2 meta cards (Snatch Steal, Change of Heart).  But it loses to all other removal and loses in battle against Bazoo or any 1900 beater.

So this card has no way of plussing in card advantage, but has a few ways to minus.

Final Countdown

~2

1

There are many issues with this card.

1 – Most duels are decided by turn 20.  20 turns is a lot to ask.

Not only that but 20 is only the bare minimum. What if it takes you 5-10 turns to draw this card, then you’d have to wait 25-30 turns.  What if you never draw it at all?

2 – You have to give up 2000 life points and a card for no immediate benefit.  That hurts your tempo.

3 – If you use 3 copies of this card in a deck, and you draw into 2 of them early, that’s a redundant card.

If there were a guarantee you could draw this early on, and there was a way to repurpose the other copies of this card, it might be viable, but a card like this that encourages non-interactive decks should be bad.

Vampire Lord

4.25

3.75

It gets over most monsters in battle, especially since players are using a lot of utility monsters with lower ATK.  At this point in time, there’s not as much Bazoo and Goblin AF.

I’m rating this card slightly lower than Pojo reviewers, because its counter (D.D. Warrior Lady) is at 3 and very searchable (Witch, Sangan and 2x RoTA).

It’s battle damage effect actually benefits the opponent by thinning their deck and allowing them to ditch cards that aren’t useful for the particular matchup or situation.  But this is a minor downside and has no effect on the score.

D. D. Warrior Lady

4

4.25

Versatile. Searchable from Sangan and ROTA.  Counters Witch/Sangan/Sinister/Recruits.

Aggro decks like this because it can clear any monsters that prevent your other monsters from dominating the board.  Clear out a Jinzo or Vampire Lord.  Or clear a defense wall like Spirit Reaper or a recruiter..

Control decks like that this card rarely (if ever) minuses.  It can get rid of big beaters when against aggro.

It’s ATK and defense are very respectable given its effect, so you’ll rarely be forced to use its effect against monsters you don’t want to.

This was a 3-of at the time and you’d want to run all 3.

Infernalqueen Archfiend

3.4

1.25

Reviewers were way off with this one.

This is horrendous.  Low stats.   Its effect requires you to wait both your turn and the opponent’s turn.

And you may need to summon it in Attack Position for it to be face-up to get its effect next turn.

Spell Vanishing

1.5

1

Its a -2 and virtually nothing that any Spell could do is worse than giving up 3 cards.

Butterfly Dagger – Elma

3.5

3.75*

The lack of a once per turn clause has made this a bannable card.  It has combo loops with Gearfried the Iron Knight to essentially be able to infinitely generate spell counters for Royal Magic Library and such.

But I believe this card has to be destroyed by a card effect (And not just sent to the graveyard if the monster its equipped to is destroyed).  

So it’s really only used in said combo decks.  

Outside of that specific combo I would give this card a 1 out of 5 because, aside from Gearfried, it would have to be destroyed by spell/trap removal.  And I don’t see why the opponent would use their spell/trap removal card on a card that only boosts ATK by 300, and would come back if destroyed.  In most realistic scenarios, it’ll just be a 300 ATK equip that does nothing.

Great Maju Garzett

5

1.5

Yikes, this may be the biggest rating disparity yet.

This card has no utility effect other than boosting its ATK.

This card has 0 ATK and no effect if revived (zero synergy with Premature, Call, Reborn).

Tributing floaters (like Witch, Sangan or already-activated flip effects) – which is what people typically use for tributes – would make this card’s ATK too low.

So you’re forced to tribute a higher ATK monster (which likely isn’t a floater).  And if it’s destroyed by removal, it’s a -1.

Shadowknight Archfiend

~2.5

2.5

One of the more “splashable” Archfiends.  It can plus against LV4 beaters.

But if it attacks into stall monsters (Reaper, GK Spy) or recruiters like Tomato, this card will just bleed your life points dry.

Checkmate

1.4

1

Unplayable and there are so many problems with this card’s design:

• It requires 2 specific monsters
• It’s a -2 (you give up this card + a monster)
• It only deals damage, which is great if the opponent’s life points is low, but does nothing if you need card advantage.
• This card is redundant since using monster removal is just an easier way to set up a direct attack
• There is no guarantee that this direct attack goes through.  If the opponent uses a trap card on your Terrorking, this card essentially become a -1.

Falling Down

3

2.5

One of the better Archfiend cards.

Similar strengths/weaknesses as Snatch Steal, but it can easily -1 if the opponent uses removal on an Archfiend monster, making it more imperative that you find some way to use the monster this turn.

I.e. Use Tsukuyomi to keep the monster?  Tribute it (i guess this deck theme would use Summoned Skull or Skull Archfiend of Lightning?)

Terrorking Archfiend

3

2.5

Its stats and effect are great.  There’s no denying that.  It can run almost every meta monster except GK Spy (which wasn’t used back then) and Jinzo.

But it requires another monster in play to be summoned.  

Not great if this is the only monster in your opening hand, or if you’re behind with an empty board and just need a monster to summon.

Sure you can revive this card and it can be an option if there’s a set monster you suspect is a flip effect.  But you can also revive lots of other cards (tribute monsters, Witch/Sangan, etc.)

Skull Archfiend of Lightning

2.5

3

It’s effect is luck-based and it doesn’t work against mass removal but it still affects several cards, and you have potential to +1.

It’s ATK is high enough to have a decent baseline of value as a 1-tribute.

500 LP cost isn’t unreasonable, and it’ll probably be dead in a turn or 2 anyway.

Dark Scorpion – Meanae the Thorn

2.6

3

Searchable by Witch, Sangan, and Tomato.  It can +1 and search itself. Defense points are decent.  

Would be a more viable niche card in some formats that are slower.

Too bad it can’t search out Don Zaloog though…

Dark Scorpion – Gorg the Strong

2

1.25

Low attack.  Costs a tribute.  The effect requires a successful attack so its slow and not even guarenteed to work, and when you’re tributing a monster, that’s too big of a risk.

There’s also 1 other problem.  If the opponent has monsters stronger than it or defense position monsters, it cant inflict battle damage.  But if the opponent has 

Dark Scorpion – Chick the Yellow

1.3

1.5

This card is very situational.  Low ATK.  Needs a successful attack (a direct attack, since it’s not likely to kill any monster in battle, that’s in ATK position).

There are some situations where returning a card to

Mustering of the Dark Scorpions

2.9

1.25

This card requires a specific monster.  That monster is searchable, yes.  But this card is still always a -1 because it Special Summons from your hand; not your deck or graveyard.

Dark Scorpion Combination

2.7

1

Worst card in the entire set.  I’m amazed at how bad it is and why it scored over a 1.  

You need 5 specific card on your field (when even getting 1-2 specific cards on the field can be tough to do).

Then you have to wait a turn to activate this since it’s a trap card.  And it reduces the ATK of your monsters on top it, whereas just using removal to destroy the opponent’s monsters would let you attack for full damage.

—

How I would rework this card…
Quickplay Spell with the effect of “Don Zaloog and Dark Scorpion monsters can attack directly but their ATK is reduced to 500”.

Dark Master – Zorc / Contract with the Dark Master

4

2

This card has the problems of Ritual cards as mentioned earlier, but at least this one can (sometimes) pay for itself by destroying the opponent’s cards.

This card was used in a tournament topping deck in Goat Format.  But on release, the power level of cards was higher (no ban list yet) and Manju wasnt released yet.

Legendary Flame Lord / Incandescent Ordeal

3

1

So you need 6 cards.  Specific monster + specific ritual spell + A LV7+ higher monster.  Then you need 3 spell cards all of which you need to activate on your turn. 

Or you can wait until your next turn, and just have your opponent destroy it by an effect by then.

Skill Drain

3.3

3

There are lots of great meta effect monsters to negate, but this also means you forgo using them if you make a deck to accommodate this card.

There is also a lot of spell/trap removal out there.  But once Harpie’s Feather Duster gets banned and MST limited to 1, I’ll bump the rating to a 3.5

Reflect Bounder

3

3

This is a weird card.  This is more of a stall card (or at least a card to bait out removal) than a burn card.

It’s effect is more of a deterrent than a direct damage effect.  The opponent will only attack this card if it’s worth it to do so, and they will usually just use removal on it.

This card is very passive.  Sure, the opponent isn’t likely to destroy this in battle, but at 1700 ATK, it won’t take down beaters in battle either.

Different Dimension Dragon

2.4

1

It’s protected from a few spell/trap cards but still dies to a lot of them, and it’s stats are so weak, it can be destroyed in battle.

In some situations it can stay alive for a few turns, but there are two fundamental problems.

First, it doesn’t contribute to any win condition.  It doesn’t actually do anything (like generating card advantage, destroying a card, enabling you to deal damage, etc.)

Second, it has no way of being a +1 but it can -1.

Interdimensional Matter Transporter

1.9

2.5

Protecting your monster from removal helps your field advantage.

But this card has a hidden lifepoint cost, as in you’re vulnerable to a direct attack if your monster leaves the field.

 And in that case, you could use the card My Body as a Shield instead (which may not protect against Snatch/Change, but it’s a quickplay spell and it can protect multiple monsters.

Kaiser Glider

2.5

2

I think we can all agree that returning an opponent’s monster  to the hand is very useful for gaining control of the field.

The problem?  It’s really slow.  The opponent could destroy it before they summon a monster (or even when their field is empty) to play around the effect.

Despair from the Dark

3.2

2

Counters Delinquent Duo and possibly Don Zaloog (but that’s random if you have other cards in hand).  Other than that its essentially a vanilla two-tribute monster that you need to discard and revive to be playable.

It’s revivable with Book of Life, so it might be passable for some niche Zombie deck, so I’ll give it a 2 instead of a 1.

Fear from the Dark

2.5

1.25

I wholeheartedly endorse f00b’s review..  It’s essentially a vanilla monster once it hits the field except it has bad stats too.

Precious Cards from Beyond

1.4

1.25

Agreed.  Even though the effect looks good on paper, there are major issues

This card is useless without the two-tribute monsters.

Having the two-tribute monsters without this card is awful.

And also it takes 2-3 normal summons to get 2 tributes on the field and be able to use a Normal Summon on a tribute.

Ojama Trio 

2.5

3

Reviews on this card were all over the place. 

 For a regular beatdown or control deck, this card is a 1 out of 5.  Avoid.  But this card might be the best way to run a burn deck, making Just Desserts and Secret Barrel significantly stronger.

As I’ve said, back in the early state of the game when there were less decks, there was more side deck room to side against burn so this doesn’t go above a 3.

Sakuretsu Armor

n/a

3.25

Yes, this card isn’t chainable and its power level is far beneath cards like Raigeki, Mirror Force, Dark Hole, Ring of Destruction, etc.

But it’s still decent.  You can block a Reaper/Zaloog attack.  You can stop a DDWL from banishing your monster.  It’s a decent card to side deck against aggro decks with big beaters.

Regarding matchups, this card is useless against Jinzo, goes -1 against Vampire Lord and won’t do anything against defense walls or flip effect monsters.

You could use this card to clear 1 monster so that you can save your Mirror Force for a bigger threat.

In 2003, for a competitive, I would main 0-1 and side 0-1

This card was a common at the time.  If you were on a budget at the time, this card was great.  The average kid on the playground would’ve benefitted immensely from cutting a few weird cards from their deck, and using a few of these instead.

Tsukuyomi

n/a

3

This card did not see much play until Thousand-Eyes Restrict became meta (as this card can flip down the opponent’s TER to counter it, or flip down yours to let you attack and/or absorb another enemy monster).  

The ruling that let you flip the monster back face-up (in 2005?) made this see play.  Yes, I get that this ruling made it significantly better, but I’d still argue it was underrated back then.

Re-setting Magician of Faith can be huge and game-altering sometimes.  It can still +1 against some enemy beaters (Bazoo, Gemini, Kycoo, Breaker, Tribe).

Though granted, it doesn’t get 3x DD Warrior Lady, Mystic Tomato and Don Zaloog, so I can’t put it’s score too high.