Masked Dragon – #TU06-EN003
When this card is destroyed by battle and sent to the Graveyard: You can Special Summon 1 Dragon-Type monster with 1500 or less ATK from your Deck.
Date Reviewed: June 6th, 2024
Rating: 2.43
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,
Masked Dragon is one of those true Throwback Thursday choices, going all the way back to 2004…some of you weren’t even born yet, and a lot of you were in grade school.
Back when recruiter monsters were still a dependable thing, Masked Dragon was one to hunt down just Dragon-Type monsters, unlike a specific Attribute. When destroyed by battle and sent to the grave, Masked got you a Dragon-Type that was 1500ATK or less, much like how Mystic Tomato gets you a 1500ATK or less DARK. Twin-Headed Behemoth and Exploder Dragon were popular tech cards that were searched via Masked Dragon, while you could cheat out Different Dimension Dragon with it, and it did add some help in getting Armed Dragon LV3 to the field. As time went on, Hardened Armed Dragon and Totem Dragon benefited from Masked Dragon, as well as the released of the Dragunity archetype.
Much like all the recruiter monsters of that sort, Masked Dragon has found itself phased out of gameplay, as it needs to be destroyed by battle and players don’t Creature Swap and kill like they used to. Despite that, Masked Dragon found itself having some decent play in those days as it specialized in a Type and not an Attribute. Dragon players didn’t have to run Giant Rat to get Exploder or Flying Kamakiri #1 for Twin-Headed. While I don’t think it will be played anymore, it is still an option for Dragonmaid, Dragunity, and Tenpai it could be used as another way to get an attack through, even if it were to be destroyed and you take damage, it would notch another attack to spur Bident Dragon’s Special Summon from the grave and get you another Tenpai Dragon from the Deck. Who knows? Game may be too fast for these kind of recruiters anymore, but with Tenpai built for the Battle Phase, maybe?
Advanced- 3/5 Art- 3/5
Until Next Time,
KingofLullaby
Crunch$G
Funny enough, Trident Dragion was last reviewed on this site a year ago when I wanted a Throwback Thursday to go with us reviewing Dis Pater, so instead we got a classic FIRE Dragon to review in Masked Dragon.
Masked Dragon is a Level 3 FIRE Dragon with 1400 ATK and 1100 DEF. Okay stats for a Level 3, plus at least it’s a FIRE Dragon. Lone effect triggers upon being destroyed in battle and being sent to the graveyard, letting you summon any Dragon with 1500 or less ATK from the Deck. It’s the standard battle floater of year’s past, though we only got a few of these dedicated to Types, with the only other one I can think of being Pyramid Turtle. The ability to summon a wide range of Dragons from the Deck sounds nice, but you can’t expect a monster to be destroyed in battle in 2024 unless you run it into something yourself. Back in the day, it was nice to use this to summon 2 more Masked Dragons and then another Dragon to protect yourself from damage in really old Dragon Decks, but that’s really the only place it has now, in past format Dragon Decks. Now, you really could just be playing better cards, but I’m sure Dragons are fun in Edison format with this.
Advanced Rating: 2/5
Art: 4.5/5 Nostalgia is always going to rule over anything.
Mighty
Vee
You thought this week’s Throwback Thursday would be Trident Dragion? Ha! Instead it’s the humble Masked Dragon, a level 3 FIRE Dragon monster all the way from 2004. As a FIRE Dragon, it fits in Tenpai like a glove, though as you might expect from being level 3, its stat spread of 1400 attack and 1100 defense aren’t great.
Masked Dragon has a single non-once per turn effect that trigger when it’s destroyed by battle and sent to the Graveyard, letting you Special Summon any Dragon monster with 1500 or less attack from your deck. In ancient times, battle floaters were much better than they are today, since the lack of searchers and the slower pace of the game made them more reliable, even if you were forced to just set them and wait for your opponent to beat them over. Like the others, a common tactic would be to have Masked Dragon summon more copies of itself to act as meat shields before finally bringing out a combo piece. While this was before my time, one example would (depressingly) be Armed Dragon Lv3, which could immediately evolve into Armed Dragon Lv5 since it managed to survive the turn. With Tenpai, Masked Dragon has received new life– while it unfortunately can’t search Tenpai Dragon Paidra, it can grab Tenpai Dragon Chundra and access Paidra that way. Masked Dragon just has to crash itself into the opponent, which sadly means it has anti-synergy with Tenpai Dragon Fadra’s ability to protect your FIRE Dragons from battle. Masked Dragon is a decent tech in Paidra, but having to get itself destroyed by battle can be very unreliable compared to starting with actual Tenpai names. If you need consistency, it will be outclassed by future support in Phantom Nightmare, so you won’t be seeing it in competitive builds any time soon.
Advanced: 2.25/5
Art: 2.75/5 I know it’s supposed to be a mask, but it’s still pretty creepy…
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