Superheavy Samurai Monk Big Benkei – #CYAC-EN007
Pendulum Effect
If you control a “Superheavy Samurai” monster: You can add 1 “Superheavy Samurai Soul” monster from your Deck to your hand. You can only use this effect of “Superheavy Samurai Monk Big Benkei” once per turn.
Monster Effect
If you have no Spells/Traps in your GY: You can send 1 “Superheavy Samurai Big Benkei” from your hand or Deck to the GY, and if you do, Special Summon this card from your hand. If this card is used as Synchro Material and added to your Extra Deck face-up: You can place this card in your Pendulum Zone. You can only use each effect of “Superheavy Samurai Monk Big Benkei” once per turn.
Date Reviewed: June 28, 2023
Rating: 3.17
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,
Superheavy Samurai Monk Big Benkei is the other part of the pair of monsters we’ve reviewed the last two days: they complement each other.
Level 8 with absurd defense, Monk Big Benkei is another Pendulum Monster for Superheavy Samurai that, as previously mentioned, works great with Prodigy Wakaushi. As a Pendulum Spell, Monk Big Benkei is a RoTA each turn as long as you have another Superheavy Samurai monster, not too shabby for the closest thing to a Spell/Trap this archetype will allow you to play.
As a monster, Monk Big Benkei is a better version of its predecessor. In addition to it being a Pendulum Monster to help with spamming the field with your Superheavy Samurai monsters, Monk Big Benkei can Special Summon itself if you can send a Big Benkei from the hand or Deck to the grave. This does force you to play the previous form, which only has a benefit of being able to attack in defense mode and apply its 3500DEF as its ATK. If you use Monk Big Benkei as a Synchro Material for a Synchro Summon (and it’s added to the Extra Deck face-up) Monk Big Benkei will rip itself from the Extra Deck and place itself in the Pendulum Zone if you have an open zone. Potential to complete your scales is good and if using Monk Big Benkei as a monster first you get a chance to have a Foolish Burial, Pendulum Summon, and RoTA all in one turn off one card.
The addition of Pendulum Monsters to the Superheavy Samurai archetype isn’t new, but better ones were needed to advance the strategy. Monster effects are everything when you literally are not able to run Spell/Trap cards. Monk Big Benkei alongside Prodigy Wakaushi are the best Pendulum Monsters for the archetype to run. With Monk Big Benkei you won’t likely run Big Benkei anymore, but even without the ability to Special Summon itself it still is a great RoTA each turn for you and can keep coming back as a Pendulum Spell when it is a monster.
Advanced-3/5 Art-3/5
Until Next Time
KingofLullaby
Crunch$G
From one Pendulum Scale to another, we got a retrain of the archetype’s original boss monster with Superheavy Samurai Monk Big Benkei.
Monk Big Benkei as a Pendulum Scale is a Scale 1, which is great on the lower end of the spectrum, with a Pendulum Effect if you control a Superheavy Samurai monster, letting you add a Superheavy Samurai Soul monster from your Deck to your hand. Main targets are Soulbreaker Armor for FTKs, Soulpiercer for searching, Soulpeacemaker for a Lonefire Blossom, Soulgaia Booster for an extender or turning a monster into a Tuner, and Soulhorns for a double attacker as well as an extender with a lower Level. Hard once per turn on the search, as most modern search cards are.
Monk Big Benkei as a monster is a Level 8 EARTH Machine Pendulum with 1000 ATK and 3500 DEF. A great DEF stat and combo of EARTH and Machine again. The first effect can be used if you got no Spells or Traps in your graveyard, letting you send Superheavy Samurai Big Benkei (the original one) from youur hand or Deck to the graveyard to Special Summon this card from your hand. It’s a fine effect if you want to run the original Big Benkei, you could just always search this so you can consistently summon it before you ended up drawing the original Big Benkei. The second effect is the same go to the Pendulum Scale if used as Synchro Material and goes to the Extra Deck face-up, which it can be a little harder to make use of a Level 8 as Synchro Material, but far from impossible with low Level Tuners. Hard once per turn on each effect of course. You mainly play this as the card you put into the other Pendulum Scale to summon Wakaushi, since the search for a Superheavy Samurai Soul might be the most relevant effect on this. Drawing it is a massive downside if you only run 1 and decide not to run original Big Benkei to Special Summon it, so it just becomes your standard Pendulum Scale. It’s fine, not amazing, but you run it in Superheavy Samurai.
Advanced Rating: 3/5
Art: 3.5/5 Maybe I’m just not seeing it, but I expected this to look closer to the original Big Benkei. Maybe the colors are just throwing me off.
Mighty
Vee
Superheavy Samurai Big Benkei gets a much-needed upgrade as Superheavy Samurai Monk Big Benkei, a level 8 EARTH Machine Pendulum monster, identical to the original Benkei other than being a Pendulum monster. With a Pendulum scale of 1, Big Benkei can perform a Pendulum Summon with levels 2-7 with Superheavy Samurai Prodigy Wakaushi, which thankfully encompasses most of Superheavy Samurai’s Main Deck monsters. Like the original, Benkei has a pitiful 1000 attack for a level 8 monster, but an extraordinarily high 3500 defense, tying into Superheavy Samurai’s gimmick of defense position attacking.
Benkei’s Pendulum effect is its primary effect, a hard once per turn that allows you to search any Superheavy Samurai Soul monster as long as you control a Superheavy Samurai monster. The bread and butter Wakaushi combos will always field Wakaushi, so being able to trigger this effect is no problem at all. There are many excellent targets; Superheavy Samurai Soulpiercer is the main one, a non-once per turn searcher for the archetype, but you can also search Superheavy Samurai Soulgaia Booster for an instant level 4 body. Superheavy Smaurai Soulbreaker Armor can be used in the FTK build as well. In other words, this effect is free real estate.
Benkei’s monster effects usually won’t come up as Benkei is often stuck in the Pendulum Zone, but they’re not bad themselves. Both hard once per turn, Benkei’s first effect lets you Special Summon it from your hand by sending the original Big Benkei from your hand or deck to the Graveyard as long as you have no Spells or Traps in your Graveyard. If you need a level 8 body for some reason, this effect is great (it makes summoning their new boss trivial), though I’m iffy on being forced to run the original Benkei. Benkei’s other effect is shared with Wakaushi, letting you place it into a Pendulum Zone if it’s sent to the Extra Deck as a Synchro Material. Like with Wakaushi, this effect is fantastic since it preps a Pendulum Summon for follow up, though it won’t come up often since you don’t really summon Benkei in Superheavy Samurai combos. Benkei might be a garnet, but it’s still an essential combo piece for Superheavy Samurai, and if you’re willing to run the original Big Benkei, it can even still be a combo piece. Run 1 or 2 depending on your level of confidence with garnets.
Advanced: 3.5/5
Art: 3/5 Gyomei Himeji- I mean Benkei looks a little snazzier in purple.
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