Classic COTD Reviews – Invasion of Chaos (2004)

Card Name

Pojo Avg

My Rating

Strike Ninja

2.9

2.5

The good

• Searchable by ROTA.
• Attacking directly for 1700 because the opponent doesn’t want to waste a Mirror/Ring/Torrential.
• Good against decks with lower ATK monsters that rely on removal to destroy monsters
• Can fuel Dimension Fusion

The bad

• It’s weak early game (lack of monsters in grave)
• Banishing your DARKs for this is an opportunity cost; you won’t have them for the Envoys.
• Decks with LV4 1800-1900+ will punish this.
• If you have to banish this because a stronger monster is attacking it, then you take direct damage.

Dimension Fusion

3

3

ExMod’s review was accurate.  Most decks (i.e. your typical beatdown or chaos deck) don’t use this.  There aren’t enough banishing cards to pull this off consistently.

But it can be good with Bazoo the Soul Eater, in a deck that focuses on this card as one of its win conditions.

Dark Magician of Chaos

4.25

4.5

It’s obvious you’re not Tribute Summoning this, but with all of the power spells that exist (pre ban list), this card is easy to get in the graveyard and easy to revive.  

And when you do, you can get back Pot, Duo. Or maybe the Raigeki/Heavy you need to win the game.

Its effect punishes Witch/Sangan/Tomato.  At 2800 ATK, it gets over everything, can push for serious damage.

Painful Choice being able to easily dump this in the graveyard makes DMoC insanely strong, but once Painful is banned, I’d lower it’s rating to a 3.75 (in Goat Format)

Black Luster Soldier – Envoy of the Beginning

4.5

5

This card often +1’s, and it never minuses.  It near guarantees you control of the board.

It’s a game-altering card which lets you do 3000-4000+ damage in a single turn.  Which, alongside Ring of Destruction and a few cards with life point costs, life points really matter.

Summoning conditions are easy to meet.  A 3000 ATK monster with a great effect that doesn’t require you to give up any cards from your field or hand is mega good.

The downside is Snatch Steal/Change of Heart, so you may want a MST, Book or some other card to protect it.

Chaos Emperor Dragon –  Envoy of the End

4.5

5

Has lots of potential to be a finisher, whether it’s the 3000 ATK or the burn effect.  (Or maybe sometimes both).

It’s like Fiber Jar in the sense that you can have an even or slightly favorable game state even if you’re severely behind.  

But even if you don’t want to use the effect, you still get a free 3000 ATK Special Summon!

The synergy with Witch/Sangan is there.  Yata-Lock does happen sometimes, but realistically, it’ll just be a slow-burn in the late-game.

Chaosrider Gustaph

2

1.5

A few problems:

First, It’s unplayable early-game.   

Second, you need to keep banishing spells every turn to keep its ATK up.  So realistically, you may need 4-6 spells just to not minus on this card.  (It would be nice if you only had to that once)

Third, you would be banishing powerful spell cards, giving you less options to retrieve with Magician of Faith.

This card still +1 over a 1900 beater, so it’s not totally useless, but use Berserk Gorilla instead.

Dark Mirror Force

2

1.25

Too situational.  Opponent needs to have both a defense monster and an attack monster and must attack with the attack monster.

It’s slow, non-chainable, you have to not only wait until the opponent’s next turn, but also have to wait for their Battle Phase.

The fatal part about this card is that it’s useless against flip effects!!!  The opponent will just flip them up next turn before they enter their Battle Phase.

Manticore of Darkness

3.5

2.75

This looks good on paper.  And yes, there are some fun (albeit inconsistent) combos with Card of Safe Return.  You can keep discarding monsters to keep this on your field and essentially protect it against removal.  

But there are two problems:

Chaos decks probably won’t run 2 of these because it’s a FIRE monster, and the monster types this card supports are typically not LIGHT’s or DARKs either.

Aggro/Beastdown decks won’t run this because it’s a Tribute .  If you’re aggro, you need monsters you can play on turn 1 or 2.  Aggro would rather summon a 2nd LV4 beater than to tribute your LV4 beater for a monster with just slightly higher ATK power.

Guardian Angel Joan

3

1.25

Sorry, reviewers, this card was always bad 🙁

Two-tribute monsters are extremely difficult and costly to summon.   Especially for a card that generates no card advantage.

 And its effect is slow (only happening after a successful attack); it could get destroyed by a trap card before then.  

(It would’ve been awesome if this card were similar to Dark Necrofear; where you could banish 3 Fairy monsters from your graveyard to Special Summon it.  It would be a good card and Fairy decks could be viable.) 

Invader of Darkness

~2.75

1

Reviewers are again very generous.

2-tribute monster = borderline unsummonable. 

DMoC was released in this set, and considering there’s already extremely limited room for LV7-8 monsters in deck lists, I don’t see any argument for using this over DMoC.

This only negates a few cards (MST, Book, Scapegoat) and it does literally nothing against the other 37 cards in the opponent’s deck.

If this were 2450 ATK and 6 stars, it would still be extremely niche, but it wouldn’t be totally unplayable like it is now.

Chaos Necromancer

3

1.5

Way off the mark IMO.

Decent late-game.  But unplayable early and mid game.

This card also has no utility aside from just raw attacking power.  

Keep in mind that attack power has a crucial curve.  You need it at 1800-2100 to get over things.  But after 2400 ATK (Jinzo), you already can destroy the commonly used monsters in battle.

So having 3000 ATK won’t open any new doors for you.  But if it’s early or mid game and this card has only 1200-1500 ATK, it’s useless

Gren Maju Da Eiza

2

1

See all of the above points on Chaos Necromancer.

Plus banishing card is a harder to meet and more niche requirement.

D. D. Designator

3.75

2.5

This card was overrated.

Best case scenario is a 1 for 1.  Worst case, you -2 (losing this card and another card).

So best case is okay, and worst case is catastrophic!

Yes, this card has some synergies.  After you use Forceful or Confiscation.  Use after the opponent searches with Witch/Sangan.  Use if you know the opponent has Sinister Serpent.

But that’s only 5 out of 40 cards.  This card is not safe to use otherwise.

Reload

2.5

2**

This card is a 1 out of 5 for most decks.  Because it’s a -1.  And there’s no guarantee your new hand will be better than your current one.

Also, this card inherently makes your hands worse because this card is taking up a slot in your hand if you draw it. 

My generous rating of 2 is solely because of Empty Jar decks, which usually isn’t meta in retro format, but it can still win some games.

Sasuke Samurai #3

2

2.5

This card is extremely good with Creature Swap.  If you can pull off that combo and draw 7 cards, you have probably a 80-90% chance of winning the duel.

But this is a completely useless card otherwise, and isn’t safe to play in either attack or defense mode due to the risk of the opponent using the effect.

This combo is not consistent.  Even after you use Swap, you’d need a lower ATK monster so you can take damage, and you hope the opponent has no trap cards.

But there is at least a big payoff here unlike all the other extremely situational combos.

Curse of Darkness

3.1

2.5

As reviewers mention, this card can deal a significant amount of damage (as many decks are spell-heavy).

Breaker, MST (chained to it) and Jinzo counter this.

Heavy Storm and Harpies Feather Dust exist too, and they punish burn decks that use continuous spells/traps.

Insect Princess

2.2

1

These reviewers were sharply divided between 3 and 1.  And of course, ExMod was right as he usually was.

Insect decks are neither good nor commonly used, so a card that counters it completely unnecessary.

1900 ATK on a tribute monster is horrible, and it’s effect is unusable 99% of the time.

Using DNA Surgery to make the opponent’s monsters Insects would make this a -2 (the tribute and having to use another card), and it would require you to draw these 2 cards at the same time.  Not reliable.

Stealth Bird

3

2.75

This card would only be used in stall/burn decks.  It wouldn’t be used in beatdown or control obviously.

Stall/burn decks aren’t great due to both Heavy + HFD + other spell/trap removal existing.

But 1000 damage every turn is nice.  This is way easier to get on the field than Lava Golem and you don’t have to give the opponent a 3000 ATK monster.

1700 DEF is not bad.  That’s rocksolid if you have a stall card on the field.  But still can protect you against 50-60% of meta monsters if you don’t.

Bowganian

3

1.25

Stealth Bird makes this card obsolete.

SB deals 1000 damage each turn – not 600.

SB doesn’t die to Breaker, Tribe, DDWL, Tomato/Angel, like this card does.

Inferno

1.5

1.5

Agreed.  1100 ATK means it’s a guaranteed -1 next turn.  And 1100 won’t be able to destroy most monsters in battle.

Sure, it has good defense, but it can’t use it’s effect in defense monster.

Also, there are few to no good FIRE monsters, so running tis necessitates running other bad cards.

Fenrir

2.8

2.5

Is capable of generating card advantage, but will most likely just trade since its low ATK means it gets destroyed next turn.

The requirement of 2 WATER monsters make it a bad draw early game and there are only a few viable WATER monsters.

WATER decks can use 1, but WATER decks that use 3 of these are just asking for dead-draws.

Gigantes

3.25

3

Very good for EARTH aggro decks.  It’s just that Chaos is hard-meta right now, so that hard-caps the rating at a 3.

But after the ban list happens and there’s some free deck slots, I’d bump this up to a 3.5 or 3.75.  This would become a good card in Goat Format.

Silpheed

3

2.5

Special summon. + Good effect.  

Main downside being lack of good WIND monsters.  And having to run subpar monsters to enable this card hurts your deck overall.

I rate this a 2, but I would rate it a 3.5 if there were good WIND monsters.

Chaos Sorcerer

3.5

3.5

Very good card, overshadowed by BLS and CED.  But once CED is banned, his rating goes up to a 4.25

Effect is great.  Special Summoning itself is great..  2300 ATK gets over nearly everything meta.  It’s easy to +1 with this card.  

Lekunga

1.7

1

1700 ATK is uncompetitive, much less 700 ATK on the tokens (which are forced to be in Attack Mode).  

Banishing 2 WATER monsters for 1 700 ATK just isn’t worth it.

Perhaps a tough card to balance.  Maybe the designers felt like having to banish only 1 could result in a flooded field of 4 tokens and pushing for 2800-4500 damage in one turn.  But banishing 2 makes it unplayable.

Maybe mak

Lord Poison

3.25

2.75

Yes, good effect.  But there’s a very limited selection of Plant monsters.  And you need to get those monsters in the graveyard, so this card is unplayable early game.

You could use this to revive Mystic Tomato, which is meta.  There’s that.

This cards rating would go up in a few years as better Plants come out.

Levia-Dragon – Daedalus

3.6

1.75

I’m sorry to be a buzzkill but this was overhyped. 

This requires a specific card to work.  Which isn’t a problem if both of these cards are viable on their own.  But…

– Levia is essentially a two-tribute vanilla monster by itself; almost unsummonable.

– A Legendary Ocean depends on having specific monsters in hand to be good.

Sure you can nuke the field, but you need 3 cards to do it.  This + ALO + a tribute. 

Berserk Gorilla

3.75

3.5

At 2000 ATK, this can be a +1 if it gets over 1900 beaters.

In Aggro/Beast beatdown decks, you can main 2-3; siding the 3rd if you main 2.

In a Chaos deck, you can main 0-1, side 0-1 (against Aggro/beatdown decks to help gain control of the board).

If you’re against aggro, you probably don’t care about the mid-game; you just need something on turn 1-2 that can help you control the board, and Gorilla can do that.

Enraged Battle Ox

3.5

3

1700 ATK can get over the majority of meta monsters, but it still can -1 against 1800+ ATK beaters and it doesn’t get over defense walls (like GK Spy, which was underused back then thankfully, but you may see it if you play retro formats today)

Aggro decks with some beasts/wingedbeasts/beast-warriors can main 1-2, maybe side deck another 1-2 depending on their matchups.

Punishes Spirit Reaper and flip effects.  Punishes Scapegoat which some people run 1 of, but it’s not hard meta until a year later.  

Situational but good.

Mad Dog of Darkness

3.25

3

Same as Archfiend Soldier, but has synergy with Enraged Battle Ox and (maybe) Manticore of Darkness.

It’s your standard beater.  It’s a DARK for Chaos; it gets over most meta monsters.  It’s playable and it’s fine.  But generally monsters with utility effects are in favor now.

In early 2003, this card would’ve been great.  In 2004, this card is just okay.

Drillago

3.25

1.5

As a reviewer mentioned, for its effect to be usable, the opponent must have a higher ATK monster which means this card will always be a -1.

The damage may be a late-game finisher sometimes, but otherwise you’re left with just a 1600 ATK that will die to many LV4 beaters.  And this card doesn’t contribute to hand or field advantage at all.

Aggro and control won’t use this because it doesn’t contribute to field or hand advantage.

Burn won’t use this because it can’t attack through stall cards i.e  Gravity/Messenger.

You could maybe splash 1 in a Machine deck and sometimes get a big play with Limiter Removal.  But in most games, this card would be a dead draw.

Freed the Brave Wanderer

3

3

At 1700 ATK, it may get rid of a higher ATK monster.  It’ll die to a 1800-1900 next turn, but at least the effect prevents it from being a -1.

There are plenty of viable LIGHT monsters as material, but as a reviewer mentioned, you need those LIGHTs for Chaos monsters and its an opportunity cost.

This card would’ve been better if it were released a set or 2 earlier (before Chaos) maybe. 

Thunder Crash

1

1

oof

Blasting the Ruins

1.5

1

This card is singlehandedly responsible for this famous meme!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rutj-j–GU0

Anti-Aircraft Flower

1.25

1

Stats are horrendous.   It’s a -1 since it easily dies in battle.

It can’t tribute itself.  Cannon Soldier will realistically deal more damage in every situation.

Balloon Lizard

1.8

1.75

Effect is very slow.  It realistically will only do 400 damage in most cases.  

It’s defense is decent.  But it doesn’t have a niche.  Des Koala is better for burn.  GK Spy is better as a defense wall.

Destruction Ring

1.25

1

It’s a -2.  

Ojama Trio, Secret Barrel and Just Desserts deal similar or more damage without the tribute.