Hunting Instinct is a Trap.  Unfortunately, the game has a lot of Trap Hate: Royal Decree, Jinzo, and then all the Spell/Trap removal.  Still, this one is interesting because it lets you turn something most decks do a fair amount of into a shortcut to get high level Dinosaurs into play.  If your opponent Special Summons a monster, then you can activate this to Special Summon a Dinosaur from your hand.  Obviously, there are some plain downsides to this: the Trap could be nuked before you can activate it, and if you don’t have a Level 5+ Dinosaur, you’re not basically just shifting potential advantage (a Monster in the hand) into actual advantage (a Monster in play) over the cost of one card of actual advantage (a Trap in play).  If you do have a Level 5 or 6 Dinosaur in hand, you “break even” in a very real sense: the opponent has added a Monster to the field, and so have you.  What’s nice is you got a Monster that normally requires Tribute into play free of Tribute.  Vulnerable as they are, Traps are still easier to get into play and use than Monsters, so it’s a small gain, but its there.  Now, if it’s a Level 7 or 8 Dinosaur, it’s actually pretty substantial: they bring out Cyber Dragon, while you bring out Ultimate Tyranno.  Guess who wins if they go head to head?  This also means that the “discounted” Ultimate Tyranno is a much lower potential “loss” than if you’d have brought it out via Tribute Summon (Monster removal happens): I know I’d rather lose a Monster that merely costs patience and a Trap over one that required me sacrificing two Monsters.

 

Now, even with rampant Cyber Dragon, Premature Burial, and Call of the Haunted use, one might worry they won’t have an ample opportunity to use this card.  Fortunately, Dinosaur’s have Gilasaurus.  If the opponent has a Monster in their Graveyard, they are allowed to Special Summon it (and few people wouldn’t do just that).  Well, now you can use Hunting Instinct to get out an even bigger Dinosaur to eat whatever they Special Summoned (or set up for Tail Swipe, setting up for about 4000 damage from attacking).

 

Of course one has to be careful: the card is useless if the opponent can’t or won’t Special Summon, or if your hand lacking a Summoning candidate.  Still, fear of this card might be enough to keep the opponent from establishing much in the way of field presence.  Now, we all know that with cards like Mirror Force and Torrential Tribute, over-committing Monsters to the field can lead to a big advantage swing for your opponent.  Well, when your opponent can even lightly swarm the field with big beat sticks, it’s dangerous to under-commit as well.  Let’s say you’re facing Dark World.  If your opponent doesn’t have a Dark World Lightning handy to nuke this card, then any Special Summon they get could backfire, since most Dinosaurs a player would strive to Special Summon with this would dwarf even the biggest Dark World Monsters.  The timing may also mess things up for Dark World, allowing you to “dodge” the effects of the larger Dark World Monsters like Goldd.

 

I wouldn’t run more than two of this in a Dinosaur deck, and probably just one, but I can see it being quite useful at one.

 

Ratings (Dinosaur deck only)

 

Traditional: 1/5

 

Advanced: 3.25/5