Giant Trunade

I don’t know why Giant Trunade is still banned. The game today is so monster-heavy that most top decks struggle to find room for traps. And more and more new cards these days get tagged with the once-per-turn line that assures you can’t plus off bounced spells. I’m sure that there are probably still loops that allow people to go off if Trunade exists, but I’m doubtful of its ability to do so effectively in the current format. The game is just so fast. Watching Junishishi decks go off in a single turn using just monsters is an exercise in torture if you’re the opponent. And what good is trying to bounce cards if ABC can just chain and banish the intended target or Cyber Infinity can negate it entirely?

I understand that certain cards would benefit greatly from Trunade’s return. Tenki, Kozmotown, Call of the Haunted, etc. I get it. But aren’t we past the point of caring about a little plus that’s essentially generated from a minus? Hasn’t this game become a beast of plusses now? Where a single turn can generate multiple benefits given the right situation? What do I care if my opponent runs Trunade in order to get Kozmotown off twice in a turn or wants to reuse Call or Fiendish Chains? I’ve got Union Hangar and Transmodify in my hand. You’re about to see a full hand and field. GG, son.

Giant Trunade could easily come back, but probably won’t.

Advanced: 3.5/5

Future Potential: 1/5

More Classic Week for you.  Right now it's Giant Trunade.  I pulled this in a pack when I was 11.  It seemed like a really good card because it was able to move a lot of cards to a different location all at once.  We were kids.  We were too broke to afford Mystical Space Typhoon, much less a playset.  On top of that, lots of non-meta Continuous Spell/Traps like DNA Surgery/Insect Barrier combo locked us down, so Trunade was an easy out. 

History: This card was released in the third booster set, Magic Ruler.  Originally, it was seen as a weaker version of Heavy Storm.  Whereas Storm destroyed the opponent's cards, Trunade only returned them to the hand.  This meant that the opponent was free to set their cards back down and it would be a -1 for you since you spent a card whilst your opponent didn't lose cards nor yourself gained any cards.  It was seen as a card to clear the opponent's field for a big assault, but since control decks were largely superior to aggro decks, until at least the late 2000's, this was a useful niche card at best.

Why It Was Banned: Since it was only seen in OTK decks like Cyber-Stein and such, it was seen as a card that promoted degenerate play.  The main issue was that its ability to recycle your own cards became more essential as time went on.  There was a time when Monster Reborn was banned yet Premature Burial was legal.  Trunade was a great way to recycle that, but with that as the only combo, that didn't warrant a ban.  When archetypes got powerful Equips, Continuous Spell and such (especially ones that summoned/revived, but only destroyed the corresponding monster if the card itself is destroyed - and not returned), it got hit.  Power creep has benefited this card because it only gains more combos as the card pool increases.

Currently: I see it as a good card in Traditional for the fact you can re-use Premature Burial (bring back Disk Commander, or anything, in itself).  It's a faster format so setting up this combo can be somewhat easier.  But if the nerf of Dark Magician of Chaos is allowed, then this card does have less usefulness in that combo.  An OTK friendly format can enjoy this too, but many builds only run Imperial Order as their lone Trap.  In Advanced, it's definitely not coming back, especially with Pendulums.  Being able to add the Pendulums back to your hand to re-activate their effects can result in easy plussing, lots of combos, as well as letting you play different Pendulums in the same turn.  It's too good.

Advanced: 5/5 (hypothetically)

Traditional: 4/5

Hello Pojo Fans,
 
Classic week here and Giant Trunade is next.
 
After Harpies Feather and Heavy, there was the trunade. Send all spell/trap back to the players hand at no cost: awesome. Avoid effects off destruction and clear the field of spell/traps so you don't have any worries about backrows. You can clear out your stuff as well and reset your backrows to prepare for your opponents, as well as switch up s/t cards if your opponent had a way of knowing previously what you'd set.
 
Advanced- 4/5 if not banned
Art- 3/5
 
Until Next Time,

Giant Trunade is a Normal Spell that returns all Spells and Traps on the field to the Hand. For Free! A lot of cards on the ban list have that same feature. Just draw the card and stop worrying about almost anything. Monsters acting as trap cards will return to the hand. Pendulum Scales will return to the hand. Cards can be chained to Giant Trunade, but most of the time, they won't be. Giant Trunade is among the first non targeting removal and would still be awesome  to have back, but it's never coming back. If it does, every deck will run one. And then Denko will come back. And maybe Jinzo and Royal Decree. But until then, enjoy the nostalgia. 
 
Score: Banned/5
Art: 5/5 Unnecessarily and awesomely creepy
 
-WarlockBlitz

The second classic card we’re reviewing this week is Giant Trunade, first used by Joey Wheeler in the anime against Mako Tsunami.
 
Giant Trunade is simple, yet effective; it returns all Spell and Trap Cards on the field to the hand. At first glance this just seems like a weaker version of Heavy Storm, since it doesn’t actually destroy the cards. And in that sense it is. But in a lot of other ways its much stronger.
 
The fact that Giant Trunade doesn’t destroy means it can’t be used to gain a massive push in card advantage, making it worse than Heavy Storm on that front. But the fact that it doesn’t destroy also makes it much better at the other thing Heavy Storm could do: help make a game-winning push. Because the cards are not destroyed, it is a lot harder to intercept Giant Trunade, since cards like Starlight Road, The Huge Revolution is over, etc., have no effect on it. If Giant Trunade was activated, unless you had the likes of Dark Bribe or Solemn Judgment (the former of which wasn’t even that popular, you weren’t stopping it.
 
The other thing Giant Trunade does, since it bounces cards instead of destroying them, is allow you to remove your own floodgates from the field in order to stop locking yourself down, make a play, and then reset the floodgates to flip during the opponent’s turn. In the last format where Giant Trunade was legal, Royal Oppression was a major card in the format. It wasn’t uncommon at all for a Deck (usually Six Samurai) to create a huge board, flip up Royal Oppression on the opponent’s turn, bounce everything back with Giant Trunade on their turn, and, if the opponent survived, reset Royal Oppression.
 
One other thing Giant Trunade doesn’t do that Heavy Storm does is curb backrow. It’s been quite a while since we’ve had this because Heavy Storm has also been banned since late 2013, but back in the day, the mere existence of Heavy Storm created a mindgame in which it was dangerous to set too much backrow at once for fear of it all getting blown out by Heavy Storm. The magic number of set cards was 2 because that also kept you safe from MST. It’s debatable whether or not this would be effective today since Twin Twisters means 2 isn’t a safe number either, and the faster pace of the game means a blowout of S/T cards is deadly a lot more often than it used to be. But the point is that this was a huge game changer back then, and the format I mentioned above (which happened to have Heavy Storm banned) was one of the two that saw a huge shift in heavy backrow being played because Giant Trunade didn’t actually threaten their removal.
 
So would this card break the game wide open if it came back? No, I don’t really think so. The game is so fast paced right now that backrow is a little tough to come by anyways. At the same time, however, the backrow that does exist is extremely powerful (i.e. Solemn Strike and floodgates), so some may see it as a welcome addition. This doesn’t change the fact that Giant Trunade is a very unhealthy card that only serves to promote OTKs and other game-winning pushes. So while it wouldn’t ruin the game upon its return, it certainly wouldn’t do any good.
 
Rating: 4/5