Welcome to Wednesday of SpaceTime Showdown Week.  Today we look at what is, probably, the best card in the new deck.

Supply Squad

Initially, this card surprised me.  Especially as I was looking at my Fire Kings.  I was able to trigger this card's effect on my opponents turn and mine!  But then again, for other decks, it might not be so good.  Let's look at Evilswarms for example.  They're going to want to focus their effort on going into Rank-4's, protecting their strong monsters and setting floodgate traps.  Supply Squad might give them some draw power, but it would make them lose focus and lacks a place in decks like that where space is tight.

Rules of thumb:

1. If your deck likes its monsters to be destroyed to trigger effect (i.e. Gustos and Zombies), use this card.

2. If you summon valuable monsters that matter and aren't counting on them to be destroyed (i.e. Six Samurai and Mecha Phantom Beasts), don't use this card.

3. Decks typically run 3 or 0 of this card.

Assessments

Power – 4/5 ; The power factor on this card will ultimately be a balance of the spotty versatility versus the easy accessibility and the monstrous card advantage versus the relatively slow speed.

Versatility – 3/5 ; This is where this card will take a little hit.  Much of the time you would want this card, but its also a weak dead draw mid to late game if you need something defensive or aggressive.

Accessibility – 4/5 ; This card is costless and can be activated with ease.

Card Advantage – 5/5 ; If kept alive for more than 1 turn, its a +1.  It's a 1-for-1 at the very least usually, but you can even net 2 or 3 cards off of it too.  The advantage you get when you combine two or three of these cards is ridiculous.  If the opponent gets rid of it, it often will be after you plussed from it.

Speed – 3/5 ; At best, you wait until the middle of your turn.  At worst, you wait until your opponent's turn.  This card is a draw machine but it takes some time for the gusher to come on.  This is why having 3 on the field at once can sometimes be harmful.  While you are waiting for a chance to activate your effect to +3, your opponent could be making a deadly setup you have no cards to prevent.

Ratings

Traditional – 2/5 ; The speed factor, as mentioned above, is what hurts this card.  Traditional Format is lightning-fast.

Advanced – 4/5 ; Strong draw power, especially in the form of Spell Cards, has been absent for a while.  And now its back.

Mechanic Design – 2/5 ; Its a card that many decks can make use of.  It smartly learned from Card of Safe Return to make a "once per turn" limit.  However, you can still spam three of them.

Artwork – 3/5 ; The drama created by the fire blasts is a nice addition, though the typical portrayal of goblins has lost its humor by now.

Verdict

Excellent draw option for a number of decks.  Get this card.

Supply Squad is a unique draw power-centric card that boosts the speed of decks which thrive off of destruction.  The best decks to utilize this card currently are Fire Kings and Scraps. Both of these archetypes get beneficial effects when their cards are destroyed, so getting to draw an additional card from the deck just speeds up the entire engine over all. 

Another new archetype which gains effects when being destroyed are the Yang Zing monsters, which debut in Duelist Alliance. However, there has been a mixed reception on whether to include Supply Squad in the deck because drawing into the Yang Zing monsters is something you want to avoid as their effects include special summoning from the deck when they are destroyed and sent to the graveyard. Supply Squad can actually make this archetype less consistent unfortunately.

Supply Squad is a powerful card and effect but works best if you are able to set it up early game. You need to be able to resolve the effect at least once just to break even in card resource advantage, and you need multiple destruction in order to actually + in card advantage. This could be a problem if you draw into the card later game, after several of your monsters have already been destroyed without it being active on the field. Also, top decking this card later on is not going to benefit you if you are already losing the battle. 

For this reason, Supply Squad is not nearly as useful, fast, or consistent as it may seem to appear on the surface when first reading the effect. Certain decks will find use for it, while most decks will need to avoid it entirely. 

Ratings:

Traditional-1/5
Advanced-3/5
Mechanic Design-4/5 (Solid effect that encourages thoughtful planning in order gain advantage from the activation. Combos nicely with certain decks)
Art-3.5/5

Supply Squad.

This cards effect is all in all pretty basic and easy to understand, once per turn when a monster of yours is destroyed you draw 1 card.
The great thing about this effect is that the destroyed monster doesn’t have to go to the graveyard and it can even be a token, and given that the monster can be destroyed by battle or any card effect means that it’s conditions are going to be pretty easy to fulfil.
Being that Supply Squad’s effect is mandatory, the first time a monster of yours is destroyed (per turn) you are going to be drawing a card. Also this card could allow you to draw a card during your opponents turn also, something that I find a good redeeming factor for this card.
 
Although this card does at first glance seem as though it is going to easily and quickly generate large advantage the real truth is that this card essentially offsets the loss of you losing a monster, and combined with it’s once per turn effect basically means that decks that can generate huge fields quickly will (IMO) have very little real use for this card.
 
Personally I feel that it will help to boost lower tier decks, and this is something that really isn’t going to be all that bad of a result on the game.
 
This card certainly received some hype when news of it’s release was first discussed, however overall the impact this will have on the game will be minimal… That is unless the game becomes far slower than it is currently, and that isn’t something that I’m expecting to see any time soon.
 
Traditional: 1. Format is too fast, and advantage needs to be gained immediately, not over several turns.
 
Advanced: 3. Considering that tier decks really don’t have anything to truly gain from this card means that it will not see so much play… Although I do expect some initial “Hype” playing of this card.

Hello Pojo Fans,

Supply Squad is a fun card that can help generate slight advantage for its user. Draw a card once per turn if a monster you control is destroyed in any fashion. Simple effect, mandatory, and can generate a slight advantage if you break even off field destruction cards like Dark Hole and Torrential Tribute. Protect this card and you could be drawing each turn. Cards like Scrap Dragon and Fire ore Ice Hand will +1 with this card. This card does balance out any loss of a monster you could sustain via your opponents turn, and though you could end up drawing each turn for multiple turns, it may not be worth a slot in the deck. If you could draw multiple times in one turn from this card it would be a better card.

Traditional-1/5
Advanced-2/5
Art-2/5

Until Next Time
KingofLullaby

Supply Squad is one of the most, if not the most, talked about cards coming out of Super Starter: Space-Time Showdown. More seasoned players may recognize it as being comparable to the long-Forbidden Card of Safe Return, with some differences; this one triggers upon a card’s destruction and is restricted to once per turn, meaning it’s much less broken.

The card built up a considerable amount of hype when it was announced, with several quickly calling for its limitation. And on paper, it does seem incredible; a free draw upon your monster’s destruction (and it doesn’t matter how it happened or where the monster goes) turns your first lost monster into a +0, and in Decks that have effects that trigger off of destruction (such as Fire Kings), it turns into an advantage. Those extra cards can build up over time. 

So, what holds Supply Squad back? Well, honestly it just doesn’t fit well into a lot of Decks currently; the two Decks that come to mind when thinking of where to include it are the aforementioned Fire King and Scrap, as their strategies revolve around destroying your own monsters. However, neither of these Decks are seen often at high levels of play. Some Decks, such as HAT, T.G., and the upcoming Yang Zing can net advantage when their floaters are destroyed, but they don’t really rely on that destruction, and sometimes the extra draw power doesn’t really benefit them. At first glance the card may seem helpful in Mermail, as they rely on having hand advantage and destroy Linde through Abyss-sphere, but most of the time you’ll be summoning Pike or Turge off of her, and Supply Squad being a mandatory effect causes them to miss timing, thus making the card pretty useless in that Deck too. 

Despite this, Supply Squad does have a lot of untapped potential. This is a card that may end being very powerful, but just needs to find its niche, kind of like what happened with Dragon Shrine. 

Traditional: 1/5 (you really don’t need the draw power here)

Advanced: 3/5