El Shaddoll Construct

Shout out to Time Warp Comics & Games (in Cedar Grove, NJ).  Back when I had a collection, I would go there to locals every week.  It was practically my second home.  Thanks, Jim and Dave, for your hard work in maintaining it.  Also, a shout out to Collector's Haven (Thank you for everything, Scott) and Planet Retro as well, which both unfortunately didn't survive.

At #9, today's card is El Shaddoll Construct.  This card was reviewed 3 months ago, and I pretty much have the same opinion of it.  I'll reiterate the points I made 3 months ago:

•    High ATK ; good for OTKing and tough to get over.

•    Helps fuel graveyard for BLS and other LIGHT-based combos

•    Instantly kills monster in battle

•    On-summon dumping effect, which is fast

•    Dump any Shaddoll your want

•    Better than Winda, usually, because you can dump 2 Shaddolls either way.

•    Add a Spell when destroyed, ensuring card advantage

•    Overall versatile and dependable

I had this at #5 in my top 10 list, perhaps a bit high, but I wanted to represent Shaddolls.  Shaddolls, initially feared as insanely overpowered, eventually came down to earth and people discovered their weaknesses.  But, compared to most other competitive decks today, Shaddolls probably involve the most strategy and skill.  Satellarknights and Qliphorts are really linear and predictable with powerful A-B-C combos.  The great thing about Shaddolls is that you can run them any way you want to: Control, OTK, Artifacts, Dark Armed Dragon, Bujin-Shaddolls, Shaddoll-Abyss and plenty of other hybrids.  In a given turn, there's 5 different plays you can make rather than simply just 1 or 2 ostensibly correct ones.

The beauty of Shaddolls is that they don't really rest on one card.  The Fusion spells are great and the main 5 Shaddoll monsters (Beast/Dragon/Squamata/Hedgehog/Falco) are well-rounded and all-around the same in quality.  Construct, I guess, is the mascot of the deck because it's their boss monster, it's an Ultra Rare and all around great.

4.25/5

El Shaddoll Construct

While the Shaddoll Fusions are the standout monsters of the Deck, my money was actually on Shaddoll Fusion since that’s the card that really makes Shaddoll’s as good as they are…

Shaddoll Construct while seemingly not as good as Winda (it’s not in many instances) was actually a card that I found most problematic since not only does it have a healthy attack but it automatically destroys any Special Summoned monster that it battles, meaning that almost always this won’t be able to be destroyed by battle. Monsters with extremely high attack are normally monsters that are Special Summoned.

Probably the most useful effect was that when Special Summoned you could send a “Shaddoll” card from your Deck to your Graveyard, this was always useful especially when Super Polymerization was at higher numbers as Shaddoll Fusion could be sent to the Graveyard and be thus recoverable when Construct leaves the field and is sent to the Graveyard.

As it could also be used to send monsters, gaining a Summoning, Destruction or Searching effect from them upon Summon could essentially make the Summon of Construct a plus.

As Construct required a Light monster to be used to Summon it, Raiden, Hand of the Lightsworn, Effect Veiler, Thunder Dragon and Outstanding Dog Marron are/ were all likely candidates to be involved in the Summon of Shaddoll Construct.

And if Super Polymerization was involved, using an opponents Light monster was also an option.

Sadly for Shaddoll’s, Super Polymerization is now Limited.

And since Shaddoll’s use Light monsters, it is common for Black Luster Soldier – Envoy of the Beginning to be added into the Deck.

Rating: 4. High attack as well as it’s on Summon ability and ability to destroy any Special Summoned monster by battle (effectively) make this a force to be reckoned with.

Hell Pojo Fans,

El Shaddoll Construct was the second fusion to aid the Shaddolls in their assent to Tier 1. Unlike Winda you won't be able to use Instant Fusion to bring Construct out, but needing only a “Shaddoll” and a LIGHT is easy enough. Use Shaddoll Fusion in combination with a LIGHT of your own, or use Shaddoll Core to sub-in for the LIGHT. Use Super Poly and use one of your opponents LIGHT monsters. Construct once Special Summoned gives you the opportunity to send a “Shaddoll” to the grave, giving you another resource or eliminating something your opponent has. Standard add of a “Shaddoll” spell/trap if Construct is sent to the grave. Being able to destroy any Special Summoned monster at the start of the damage step is tremendous. While there are plenty of monsters that inherit effect to protect themselves from destruction, there are more that don't possess those advantages and are thus ripe for this cards domination.

Construct will run over any Burning Abyss monster out there, as well as several staple Special Summon monsters like BLS and Chaos Sorcerer. Against monsters that weren't Special Summoned or have protection effects its 2800ATK will be able to hold its own. Strong DEF and its LIGHT attribute make this card even better. Though there are other “Shaddoll” fusion monsters, Winda and Construct are the two main ones and are run in 3's for a good reason.

Advanced-4/5
Art-4.5/5

Until Next Time
KingofLullaby

Moving on to the second card of the week, and #9 of our top 10 list is one of the driving forces behind the Shaddoll invasion, in El-Shaddoll Construct. In contrast to Winda's control aspect, this is the offensive force behind the deck so to speak, and is generally seen as the more powerful of the two.

Its fusion requirements are typical of any Shaddoll Fusion, in that they are 1 "Shaddoll" monster +1 (Attribute) Monster, in this case the attribute is light. So far, the main two methods for fusing into this gal are Shaddoll Fusion and El-Shaddoll Fusion, but others, such as Polymerization(and Super Polymerization against Light decks) work as well. In terms of Light Monsters to use with this, there are so many valid choices, but among them are: Light Dragon Wyverburster, any Lightsworn, Artifacts, Effect Veiler, Black Luster Soldier, Eclipse Wyvern, Denko Sekka(another driving force behind Shaddolls' recent successes) Rainbow Kuriboh, and Outstanding Dog Marron. Being a light itself, it is compatible with Honest and the likes, but they are generally not recommended. Also summonable through Sephylon the Ultimate Timelord, and can be a game-winner through this.

Its effect is nothing short of amazing. First of all, when it is Fusion Summoned, you can send one Shaddoll card from your deck to the grave. The targets are obvious, but less obvious targets include both Shaddoll Fusions, and Shaddoll Core, due to the fact that you do not have to send a monster. Secondly, when this card battles a Special Summoned monster, it destroys it a la Catastor. Considering how prominent Special Summoned monsters are, this card is hard to match in battle. Finally, when it hits grave, you can add a Shaddoll spell/trap from grave to hand, something all El-Shaddolls share. Interactions with El-Shaddoll Fusion and Shaddoll Fusion are obvious, but do take note that you can get its effect when synchroing as well, as well as the fact that you can add back a Core.

The one issue is its inability to kill Non-Special Summoned monsters over 2800(i.e. Qliphort Disk and Towers) Aside from this, the problems this card has are few and far between, but having no protection towards removal is one of them. If it did have removal protection, however, it would be too perfect, and it is just fine the way it is.

Advanced 4.0/5
Traditional Meh/5

#9 on our Top 10 Cards of 2014 is El Shaddoll Construct.

Position on my list: N/A (I excluded non-generic cards due to the vast amount of good generic ones this year)

We reviewed this card shortly after the release of Duelist Alliance, and as an avid Shaddoll player I have said quite a lot about this card already. Simply put, this is Shaddoll’s best Fusion monster by far. There are a lot of powerful LIGHT monsters that support the Shaddoll strategy, making this card easy to bring out, and its massive stats along with the ability to take out any Special Summoned monster means that there isn’t a lot that can kill it in battle (except, unfortunately, a good amount of the Qliphort monsters).

There really isn’t a lot I can say about Construct that I didn’t already say a couple months back; the card has always been really solid and keeps Shaddoll a contender even with the growing power of Burning Abyss and Qliphort, and the oncoming assault of Nekroz. If you’re looking for a more in depth review I would go check out the first time we reviewed the card back in September.

Advanced: 4/5