Yubel – #RYMP-EN070
This card cannot be destroyed by battle. You take no Battle Damage from battles involving this card. Before damage calculation, when this face-up Attack Position card is attacked by an opponent’s monster: Inflict damage to your opponent equal to that monster’s ATK. During your End Phase: Tribute 1 other monster or destroy this card. When this card is destroyed, except by its own effect: Its owner can Special Summon 1 “Yubel – Terror Incarnate” from their hand, Deck, or Graveyard.
Date Reviewed: March 14th, 2024
Rating: 2.88
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is awful. 3 is average. 5 is excellent.
Reviews Below:
Crunch$G
Throwback Thursday for this week is the obvious choice, which is base Yubel. (Don’t worry, the other two will be saved for later dates, just reviewing all 3 Yubel forms would be a lot).
Take the stats from Spirit of Yubel and apply them here, since of course this is the original version. It cannot be destroyed in battle and you take no damage from battles involving this card, which of coruse the latter part is bypassed with Nightmare Pain, but overall both effects are still good. Before damage calculation where this Attack Position monster is attacked by an opponent’s monster, you inflict damage equal to the opponent’s monster’s ATK, which should add up with Nightmare Pain if you got that on the field, otherwise without that I can ensure you the opponent won’t attack this. During the End Phase, you must tribute another monster or destroy this card, which thankfully the retrained Samsara Lotus really helps with, along with some of the other monsters you could run and keep on the field as tribute fodder for this. Finally, upon being destroyed, except by its own effect, you can summon a Yubel – Terror Incarnate from your hand, Deck, or graveyard. It is a “when” effect, meaning sadly it misses timing on occasions, but the Yubel Deck itself does ensure you aren’t missing said timing for this effect. I still remember reviving this off of Limit Reverse just to swap this to Defense Position so it would be destroyed and you could get Terror Incarnate, but thankfully you don’t have to do that anymore. Of course, this is still going to be a key part to the Yubel Deck. Since you have no issues getting to it from wherever it might be, you only need 1. Thankfully now we can attack with this and deal damage just like the anime now.
Advanced Rating: 3.25/5
Art: 4/5 Classic
Mighty
Vee
What other card for Throwback Thursday this week, than Yubel itself? A level 10 DARK Fiend monster, Yubel can be searched by many, many cards both in and out of its own deck, though generally you’ll be summoning it with Spirit of Yubel. With 0 attack and 0 defense, Yubel pioneered damage reflection as a strategy, which oddly enough took until Mikanko to see meta success. Yubel is the primary antagonist of season 3 of Yugioh GX, famously using themselves as a card in duels. As a card, there are a lot of reasons Yubel hasn’t seen success in the TCG until now, even though Fire King hybrids amusingly were able to become meta in Duel Links.
Like most of the Yubel family, Yubel can’t be destroyed by battle and you don’t take any battle damage with Yubel; additionally, if your opponent attacks Yubel, you’ll burn your opponent for that monster’s attack. Before the new support, you would have to evolve into Yubel – The Ultimate Nightmare or hope your opponent was stupid to actually deal any damage, but now Nightmare Pain not only forces your opponent to attack, it also lets you proactively attack with Yubel and still deal burn damage. Yubel’s second effect forces you to tribute another monster during your End Phase, or else Yubel destroys itself. Much like in the anime, the easiest way to keep Yubel alive is with Samsara D Lotus, as it’ll revive itself every End Phase to be tribute fodder. You don’t want Yubel to destroy itself, since it cleverly doesn’t trigger its third effect, which lets you summon Yubel – Terror Incarnate from your hand, deck, or Graveyard if Yubel is destroyed except by its own effect. In Duel Links, you could infamously destroy Yubel with Fire King Island (a strategy that, while possible, was outdated from the get-go in Advanced) and immediately bring out Terror Incarnate, a perpetual nuisance given that game’s lack of removal. Evolving into Terror Incarnate and later Ultimate Nightmare isn’t that bad, but you still prefer to keep the original around because you need it for Eternal Favorite’s effect. You’ll have to play at least 1 copy, and while it is the least useful Yubel form, it’s the most important one!
+Easier to summon than ever
+Emergency 2 card combos can summon Terror Incarnate
-Evolving into Ultimate Nightmare takes too long for not enough payoff
-Doesn’t reflect damage when attacking without Nightmare Pain
-Brick!
Advanced: 2.5/5
Art: 4/5 It’s a little plain, but aged pretty well for the time period.
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