Hello
readers!! I hope you're having a wonderful day and feeling great. Today, I am
thrilled to share with you a new deck idea centered around an old card that has
recently received a retrain. It's always satisfying to see Konami breathe new
life into forgotten cards and make them relevant again. I truly hope they
continue this trend, bringing more old cards back into the spotlight. Let’s
review this particular monster!
Manticore of Smashing
(Beast-Warrior/Fire/Lvl 6/ Atk 2300/Def 1000)
"During your Main Phase: You can add 1 "Fissure" or 1 "Smashing Ground" from your Deck to your hand. If this card is in your GY: You can banish 1 "Fissure" or 1 "Smashing Ground" from your hand or GY; Special Summon this card. You can only use each effect of "Manticore of Smashing" once per turn."
The
Manticore of Smashing is a retrained version of the Manticore of Darkness.
While the old monster could only revive itself by sacrificing a Beast-Warrior,
Beast, or Winged Beast from the field or hand, the Manticore of Smashing can
revive itself by banishing a spell card from the graveyard or hand.
Additionally, it can search for either "Fissure" or "Smashing
Ground" once per turn from the deck. By banishing the searched card, it
can revive itself again, creating a strong effect. However, it's important to
note that the effect can only be activated once per turn, preventing an
infinite loop.
Despite
its strong effect, the Manticore of Smashing is not a particularly relevant or
favored card among players. It has a relatively low attack power of 2300 for a
level 6 monster, and its attribute being Fire makes it less versatile compared
to Dark Attribute monsters that are easier to send to the graveyard.
Additionally, the cards it searches, "Fissure" and "Smashing
Ground," are single-target destruction cards. With the introduction of
cards like Raigeki, Dark Hole, and Lightning Storm that offer mass destruction
effects, the relevancy of these single-target destruction cards has diminished.
Furthermore, summoning the Manticore of Smashing can be challenging as it is
not an easy monster to bring out onto the field.
The
first approach to play this monster involves manually searching and discarding
it from the deck. By utilizing spell cards like Foolish Burial and effects that
special summon monsters from the graveyard, we can summon the Manticore of
Smashing to the field. The second method involves discarding it alongside
Smashing Ground or Fissure, which can be achieved through cards that mill your
deck, such as Lightsworn, Tearlaments, or Burning Abyss.
For
this post,I opted to go with the first approach, manually send the Manticore of
Smashing and reviving it from the graveyard. To accomplish this, I incorporated
the Branded/Despia archetype, which allows us to dump the Manticore of Smashing
to the graveyard via Branded Fusion. This synergy enables us to gain control of
our opponent's field with the Branded Fusion Monster while utilizing the
Manticore of Smashing's effect to search for Smashing Ground or Fissure and
revive itself.
Now,
let's take a closer look at the decklist: