May 2007

Venom Theme - Cameron

 Yes it's me again. Gettin' sick of me yet? No? Well you should be, lol. Got a little too much time on my hands at the moment, so I figured I'd ge the jump on people and talk about the Venom Theme from the upcoming Tactical Evolution set. They're not bad, but they won't be competetive. Nonetheless anyone who has always wanted to play Reptiles but didn't wanna play Aliens will have their wish in 3 months. Here are the main cards (as long as my sources are accurate):

Venominion, King of Venomous Serpents
Dark/Reptile - Effect
Level 8 - 0/0
Text: This card cannot be Special Summoned by Monster Card Effects except by its own effect. This card is unaffected by the effect of "Venom Swamp". This card gains 500 ATK for each Reptile-Type monster in your Graveyard. When this card is destroyed and sent to the Graveyard by battle, this card can be Special Summoned by removing 1 Reptile-Type monster in your Graveyard from play (except this card).

This is not really their main card, but it's part of a condition to summon their main card. Here it is:

Venominaga, Diety of Venomous Serpents
Dark/Reptile - Effect
Level 10 - 0/0
Text: This card cannot be Normal Summoned or Set. This card cannot be Special Summoned except by "Descent of the Snake God" or by its own effect. This card is unaffected by the effect of "Venom Swamp". While this card is face-up on the field, it cannot be targetted and is unaffected by the effects of Monster, Magic and Trap Cards except this card's own effect. This card gains 500 ATK for each Reptile-Type monster in your Graveyard. When this card is destroyed and sent to the Graveyard by battle, this card can be Special Summoned by removing 1 Reptile-Type monster in your Graveyard from play (except this card). When this card inflicts Battle Damage to your opponent, place 1 "Hyper Venom Counter" on this card. When there are 3 "Hyper Venom Counters" on this card, this card's controller wins the duel.

Whoa! I haven't seen that much text on a card since Thousand-Eyes Restrict and Relinquished! Pretty nice, but I could only see it even being looked at if you won the Match instead of just the duel. What's Descent of the Snake God you ask, here it is:

Descent of the Snake God
Normal Trap Card
Text: This card can only be activated when a face-up "Venominion, King of the Venomous Serpents" on your side of the field is destroyed. Special Summon 1 "Venominaga, Diety of Venomous Serpents" from your hand or Deck.

Easy summoning requirement eh? You can bet once you get out a Level 8 with around 3000 ATK or so it'll be destroyed one way or another. Activate this and get a stronger one with protection from effects and a built-in win condition.

Now for the support monsters:

Venom Cobra
Earth/Reptile - Normal
Level 4 - 100/2000

Venom Snake
Earth/Reptile - Effect
Level 3 - 1200/600
Text: Once per turn, you can put 1 "Venom Counter" on a face-up monster on your opponent's side of the field. If you activate this effect, this card cannot attack during this turn.

The Alien Grey of Venom monsters, it bites a monster to infect it then sits and waits for the venom to take effect. And it will, trust me it will.

Venom Serpent
Earth/Reptile - Effect
Level 4 - 1000/800
Text: Once per turn, you can put 1 "Venom Counter" on a face-up monster on your opponent's side of the field.

A little smaller, but can attack even if its effect is used. Also, these monsters don't differ much because they just need to do roughly the same thing but have different names to allow you to run many Reptiles to fuel the Venom Gods.

Venom Boa
Earth/Reptile - Effect
Level 5 - 1600/1200
Text: Once per turn, you can put 2 "Venom Counters" on a face-up monster on your opponent's side of the field. If you activate this effect, this card cannot attack during this turn.

A little small for a Level 5, but it'll be Special Summoned or dumped into the Graveyard by the support cards anyway.

Razor Lizard
Earth/Reptile - Effect
Level 3 - 1500/300
When this card attacks a face-up monster while there is another Reptile-Type monster on your side of the field (except Razor Lizard), destroy the monster with this card's effect without applying damage calculation.

Not really a Venom monster, but another Reptile and not an Alien. On to the support Magic and Trap Cards:

Venom Swamp
Field Magic Card
Text: During each player's End Phase, put 1 "Venom Counter" on each face-up monster on the field except "Venom" monsters. Decrease the ATK of all monsters with "Venom Counters" on them by 500 points. If the ATK of a monster becomes 0 by this effect, the monster is destroyed.

Their field card, this is what gives those Venom Counters a purpose.

Snake Rain
Normal Magic Card
Text: Discard 1 card from your hand. Select 4 Reptile-Type monsters from your Deck and send them to your Graveyard.

Painful Choice, but tailored to this theme and is a -2. I think it's great, the only think that makes a theme competetive is giving it the effect of a banned card and making it only useful if you play that theme.

Venom Shot
Normal Magic Card
Text: This card can only be activated when you control a face-up "Venominion, King of Venomous Serpents", "Venominaga, Diety of Venomous Serpents" or "Venom" monster. Send 1 Reptile-Type monster from your Deck to your Graveyard to put 2 "Venom Counters" on a face-up monster on your opponent's side of the field.

Perfect, this is to the Venom Theme like Corruption Cell "A" is to Aliens.

Snake Whistle
Normal Trap Card
Text: This card can be activated when a Reptile-Type monster on your side of the field is destroyed. Special Summon 1 Level 4 or lower Reptile-Type monster from your Deck.

A Hero Signal for Reptiles, good support.

Damage = Reptor
Continuous Trap Card
Text: When you receive Battle Damage from a battle with a Reptile monster, you can Special Summon 1 Reptile-Type monster with equal or lower ATK than the value of the damage received from your Deck. This effect can only be used once per turn.

I think this is kinda cool. As long as your Venom monster is killed with a monster of at least 100 ATK higher than it, you can bring out Venom Cobra for a nice defender.

Decree of the Snake God
Counter Trap Card
Text: This card can only be activated by showing 1 "Venom" monster in your hand to your opponent. Negate the activation and effect of an opponent's Magic Card and destroy it.

Nice, I hope this will make a few people consider this theme.

Poison Fang of Counterattack
Normal Trap Card
Text: This card can only be activated when a face-up "Venom" monster you control is attacked. Negate the attack and end the Battle Phase. Then, put 1 "Venom Counter" on the attacking monster.

Beautiful! Negate Attack and another Venom Counter generator.

Venom Splash
Normal Trap Card
Text: This card can only be activated by selecting a monster with at least 1 "Venom Counter" on it. Remove all "Venom Counters" from that monster and inflict 700 damage to your opponent for each "Venom Counter" removed.

If you don't have Venom Swamp on the field, this card puts those Venom Counters to good use. Decent burn, just 3 counters is 1/4 of the opponent's Life Points with 1 card.

I think this'd be a great them, if nothing else just for fun. Here's what I think a decent build (pure ofcourse) would look like:

40 Cards

Monsters: 18
Razor Lizard x3
Venom Boa x3
Venom Cobra x3
Venominaga, Diety of Venomous Serpents
Venominion, King of Venomous Serpents x2
Venom Serpent x3
Venom Snake x3

Magic Cards: 10
Descent of the Snake God
Snake Rain x3
Venom Shot x3
Venom Swamp x3

Trap Cards: 12
Damage = Reptor x2
Decree of the Snake God x3
Poison Fang of Counterattack x3
Snake Whistle x3
Venom Splash

I'm not sure how well it would do, that's too many cards to proxy and find out. However I can bet it'd have a tough time against Jinzo or Decree-users, seeing as how it has so many Trap-form support cards. However I think it'll be kinda cool to try out, it's a pretty focused theme. It wants to do 3 things throughout the whole duel:

1. Maintain a constant flow of venomous snakes (coming from Damage = Reptor and Snake Whistle) to block attacks and produce Venom Counters.

2. Continuousely dump snakes into the Graveyard (this will come both from the monsters destroyed in battle as well as Venom Shot and Snake Rain) to set up for Venominion and Venominaga.

3. Put Venom Counters on opposing monsters (this comes from the constant flow of Venom Counter-producing snakes mentioned above, Venom Shot, Venom Swamp and Poison Fang of Counterattack) to weaken opposing monsters with Venom Swamp to gain an edge in battle similar to that of the Alien Monsters.

Well that does it for me, what do you think?

Send your questions, comments, etc. to cjrwaud@cogeco.ca. Please no hate mail, I'm really a nice guy once you get to know me.