Sky Striker Ace – Kagari – Yu-Gi-Oh! Throwback Thursday

Crunch$G

Throwback Thursday has another alternate art, and a card that was Limited before Engage was put to 0 copies per Deck, Sky Striker Ace – Kagari.

Kagari is a Link-1 FIRE Machine with 1500 ATK and an arrow pointing to the upper left. Good ATK on Link-1, FIRE is nice and Machine is good, but that arrow can be a bummer. The summoning requirement is any non-FIRE Sky Striker Ace monster, which you got literally any of the other Link-1s, Raye, Roze, or Zeke as your options. Upon being Special Summoned, Kagari lets you get a Sky Striker Spell in your grave to add it to your hand. This was always great when Engage was still legal, but that’s not an option anymore. It works with Hornet Drones still for a Link-2, Multirole to make sure you don’t lose your biggest recovery option, Widow Anchor for your negation, and Afterburners and/or Jamming Waves for removal. Sky Strikers still have options, even if they don’t have the massive consistency piece that is Engage. It gains 100 ATK for each Spell in your graveyard, which should get this to a decent number since Sky Strikers can still go through Spells fairly quickly. The final effect is mostly a restriction as you can only Special Summon a Kagari once per turn by any means, mostly to not put a hard once per turn restriction on the first effect or to not have to go into Kagari just to get to another Link of the same Attribute as one you controlled then back to Kagari for the recovery. Mostly, I don’t think this restriction matters that much and is basically just a hard once per turn on the first effect. Kagari is still a key piece to Sky Strikers, even if Shizuku is becoming more important as the archetype’s main searcher now. Kagari was a key recovery piece of Sky Strikers and still is, so it’s nice to have 3 to not rub salt in the wound of an Engage ban.

Advanced Rating: 4.25/5

Art: 4.5/5 for both arts, I like the original showing the card off better and the new art is a cool battle pose against Zeke in terms of lore.

Solember
YouTube

   This is a boring card in a boring archetype. It is hard to review this card without rating the entire Sky Striker archetype entirely, because its effect is underwhelming.

   To begin, I will say that the one Special Summon per turn is better than a HOPT due to how easy it is to Link Summon the Sky Striker Ace monsters. This doesn’t just stop their effects; it stops 15+ Special Summons in a row, which can create some devastating combos for the savvy deck builder.

   As for modern play, the Sky Strikers are sitting pretty with the recent return of Pot of Avarice giving them some sustainability and extra draw power. I’ve always been a fan of running these cards with Clashing Souls and/or Black Garden for some unexpected control with Iron Dragon Tiamaton. There are other lockdowns that take advantage of all the Special Summons that can be pulled off, and finishing on Kagari for the attack boost and GY recovery is a good choice some times to avoid getting attacked over by a Main Deck monster, but Shizuka is a good call, too.

   Aside from that, it doesn’t stand out too much from the other Aces.

   The new art is really well done, and I appreciate Konami for deviating from it’s recent “waifu” phase with female characters. It’s a great design altogether and showcases the monster as a force to be reckoned with.

Versatility – 4

Rogue Plays – 1

Art – 5

Balance – 5

Uniqueness – 2

My dislike for this card is more towards the archetype in general. Regardless of that, this card is still a 5/5 based on the “no reason not to play it in the deck” criteria I use. Sky Strikers were designed to need every monster to work best, and this card isn’t really bad at all.