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Pojo's Yu-Gi-Oh Card of the Day

Sangan
Rare

When this card is sent from the field to the Graveyard, move 1 monster with an ATK of 1500 or less from your Deck to your hand. Your Deck is then shuffled.

Type - Fiend/Effect
Card Number - DB2-EN042

Card Ratings
Traditional: 5
Advanced: 5

Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale 1 being the worst.
3 ... average. 5 is the highest rating.


Date Reviewed - 12.29.05

 

ExMinion OfDarkness
Sangan

Another simple card to run out the new year. Nothing that'll make everyone's head hurt thinking about it.

Unless your deck runs absolutely no monsters that are 1500 ATK or less, you run Sangan. +1 hand advantage is good. It's something your opponent doesn't want to waste a Sakuretsu Armor or Smashing Ground on, and although 1,000 damage isn't HUGE, it does add up over the turns. Most cookie-cutter decks run Magician of Faith, Spirit Reaper, D. D. Warrior Lady, Magical Merchant (if running Flip-Flop Control/a Pot of Avarice build), Don Zaloog, possibly Exiled Force, Mystic Swordsman Lv. 2...there are a LOT of things Sangan can get you. It's not the utility knife that Witch was, getting you pretty much ANYTHING short of DDWL/DDA, but it can get you the answer to a lot of situations.

If you run more than two of the above-listed cards and you don't run Sangan, you are a n00b.

5/5 all formats
 

SandTrap
Sangan

I'll let the other reviewers explain why Sangan is godly. There's no need to repeat what I know will be said.

Rating: 5/5
 
dawnyoshi Sangan is the most ridiculously powerful monster-search effect printed if you exclude Witch of the Black Forest. I’m very serious. This card makes strategies viable, but at the same time it also completely wrecks many strategies. The advantage that can be provided from running a Sangan is unquestionably awesome. It’s obvious that whoever draws that card first is going to have the upper-hand in a duel unless their opponent has something along the lines of D. D. Warrior Lady. This card’s a staple. Simple as that. It’s about a 95% staple in traditional, as it doesn’t belong in every FTK, but it’s still damn good.

Advanced: 5/5
Traditional: 4.5/5
 

Coin Flip
In the spirit of Christmas, I'd like to talk about a friendly 3-eyed critter we call Sangan.

(A note to my loyal reader fanbase: Right now I'm going to try some experimental writing. Enjoy, or despise, or whatever.)

A lot of us don't really question the world around us enough. We take stuff for granted a lot, such as the fact that we're going to be alive tomorrow. While that's one of the more drastic things we can pretty much safely take for granted, you could die while being driven home (or, if you can drive, while driving home). Hell, a surprising amount of people die on New Year's Eve accidentally. Someone fires a gun up into the air in celebration and they don't quite realize that bullets fall. With about as much velocity as they're fired up with, actually.
A good friend of mine had one such bullet miss an artery (you need arteries to live, by the way) by under three inches. He's lucky to be alive.

But very few of my readers have come close to death (there's this funny story where I almost got bitten by an extremely venomous snake, but I'll save that for a more boring review*), so I don't expect you to know what I'm talking about, or even to care. Living your life in fear of death, or rejection or of the world being destroyed by a construction company to make room for a hyperspace highway will only make you miserable. In other words, don't let fear conquer your life.
That's the disclaimer.

One of the most life-changing experiences possible is questioning the actions of the people around you. A lot of people fail to see other human beings as actual people. I still have this problem. While I do see them as enjoyable elements to my life with rights and dignity and respect, I often fail to understand all of the forces that are at work with their lives. Taking a Peer Facilitation class has amended this quite a deal and made my life much better. It has also convinced me that there are at least two classes worth taking high school for**, which I would have thought impossible.

In fact, analysis of the world around us is what created psychology and medicine and science and pornography, all of which are multi-billion dollar industries and very good for the human condition***. Analysis of your actions and your decisions and what drives them is what Buddhist monks do all the time. In fact, teachers of martial arts and chess often try to make their students question their own actions. Being inquisitive of the world around you is human, but being inquisitive of yourself is superhuman. Establishing a middle ground between self-questioning and absolute confidence in yourself will make you a powerful individual in business and with friends, something no book or no teacher can ever do.

What I'm trying to convey is this idea: Questioning ideas is good, and self-confidence is good, and combining both in mediation will make you a smarter person, a cooler person, and a more enjoyable person.
You will like your life much more if you learn to question your habits. A minor example; Have you ever noticed that, when asked "What's up?", you will ALWAYS respond with "Fine." or "Nothing much."?
Even if you just had the crappiest day of your life and you know that your report card is coming with three D's, at least one of which you will have to make up in summer school, you will still say "Fine."? I have a number of theories as to why this is, none of which I can recite without making this review FAR too long.

A similar habit in Yu-Gi-Oh! is not playing too many Spell or Trap cards down when you're low on LP and your opponent has already used up Heavy Storm and Magician of Faith. It's good to not overextend a hand of three Sakuretsu Armors, but if you forget why you don't play too many s/t cards, then you'll destroy the purpose of playing conservative to gain card advantage.

The parallel can be made to other things which my average reader won't care about. Marriages break up because people have annoying habits.
So here comes the part where I tie this into Yu-Gi-Oh! AND Christmas at once.

A number of kids reading this have been enjoying gifts from their parents and from Santa Claus for the past few days, but I wonder how many of them are going to wonder why their parents would spend so much time and money buying gifts, and why Santa would waste so much time flying around the globe delivering gifts. I mean, they could just get their own gifts for themselves, right?

The answer to this conundrum comes when you give a gift. It's subtle, but it's there. The joy of receiving something new is matched smile by smile with the joy that the giftgiver gets. It's one thing to be the person smiling, but it's another thing to know that just buying a videogame or a pack of Yu-Gi-Oh! cards for someone can bring them a small degree of happiness. Kids, your parents love you greatly. What you can do is return that love. NOONE expects you to get a job to repay the gifts they give you, but returning that love to them makes up for the $100,000+ they will spend raising you into an awesome person two hundred and seventy-seven thousand times over.

Perhaps I should get to the review of the card… But then again, you should already know this is a good card. There are three reasons I chose this particular card for this vacuous review.

The first is that I saw someone running Sangan with only two other monsters in his deck that could be searched out: Exiled Force and D.
D. Warrior Lady. AND he was running two Reinforcements of the Army.
When you do that, you're forgetting WHY you run Sangan and betraying the purpose of playing the card, failing to question your decision.

The second is that Sangan is the epitome of questioning your current position in Yu-Gi-Oh! Choosing the wrong monster for Sangan loses games. Choosing Magician of Faith instead of D. D. Warrior Lady when you know a Magician of Faith pulled back Premature Burial last turn… And they have Mystic Swordsman LV2 in their graveyard? I've made that mistake. Pulling out D. D. Warrior Lady instead of Mystic Swordsman
LV2 with Sangan when they've got one m/t down and 600 LP and used up all three Sakuretsu Armors but not the Bottomless Trap Hole I know they're running? I've made that mistake recently as well. Know your situation before making any decision in Yu-Gi-Oh!

The third is that Sangan is one of the most Christmas-like cards I can think of. It gives you a gift that you really want at the cost of its own life. But you intend to revive it next turn with Premature Burial anyway, so it's cool****.

With that said, this card is an automatic inclusion in almost every deck because of its sheer power. If your opponent wastes energy or cards trying to kill this one, you gain advantage. I mean, if they spend a card (Smashing Ground) trying to kill your Sangan, you lose a card, but then you get one back, gaining you advantage. In an advantage-oriented format such as this, that's a huge move. On top of card advantage, it gets you card quality… Yeah, I'll play the maximum of 1, thanks.

General: 4.8/5

This review was a test of my writing skills. I wanted to see if I could tie some seemingly unrelated things into Yu-Gi-Oh! and make it an entertaining read for multiple audiences. I'd like feedback on this review in particular. Send it off to Cakepie (at) gmail (dot) com. Well wishes upon you and your loved ones!

* - such as that of Kaibaman or Magical Scientist.

** - The first one was British literature. That class teaches you how to read circumlocution.

*** - At least once a year, I make an obligatory pornography joke. That was it.

**** - It's cool… Even if you just want to tribute it to Mobius the Frost Monarch to two-for-zero your opponent. You monster!
 

Dark Paladin
Sangan, is in short, a staple in pretty much every deck. Like Monday's card, and tomorrow's card, it's good, and you don't need me telling you this. Run it if you need to (which you probably do) or not.

Ratings:

4.75/5 all around

Art: 4/5

You stay classy, Planet Earth :)
 

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