Quick note (not an editing error this time lol): Spear Dragon was better than I gave it credit for, mostly because of the piercing damage. I think I'll still leave that section in because it's still a big monster with a drawback, but please note that it's not that bad :)
Being a fan of dragons in early YGO, I've always liked Spear Dragon, Even though it did switch to def position, I did like it for the reason stated. #Dzeeff
I was about to say: the piercing damage is super important because of how prominent Scapegoat was, as well as other players who would also play monsters like Goblin Attack Force.
Fun Fact: Giant Orc is meant to have union support with Second Goblin to switch it back into attack position once it attacks. It was used in a duel in GX, and like usual, reflected the duelist (a giant and a short guy in this case).
I remember comboing Giant Orc with Skill Drain and Hate Buster back in high school in a Fiend Beatdown deck, along with other fun combos like Dark Necrofear and Return from the Different Dimension/Dimension Fusion. Lots of fond memories back then
@@jgaringan Back in the day, this actually was a fairly legit Tier 2 Deck, and in the video games actually could be pretty good since getting big beaters did a lot to get you victories. Giant Germ, Newdoria, Doomcaliber, these cards were all great ways to pile up your Graveyard and either set up Tributes for Ha Des or waste their resources and you summon out Dark Necrofear. Necrofear is even a hilarious out to Stardust
I got second place with that card in a local tournament. I equiped it with Mage Power and my opponent could run over it once it went to defense mode xD Also unlike Goblin Attack Force it was dark attribute which is nice when running BLS.
I wonder if you could make a fun (not good) deck with kozaki by protecting it with moon mirror shield or whatever it's called. The one that gains the attack or defence (which ever is higher) plus 100 when it battles.
Spear dragon saw A LOT of play for a while, mainly because of scape goats. if the person put up 4 goats then each turn spear dragon could run into them and it was basically a direct attack at your opponent.
Not to mention Flip monsters, or spent Goblin Attack Forces. It, Airknight, and Asura Priest were *the* premier ways of countering "Throw many bodies to stall" strategies.
Not to mention that when it came out, graveyard based effects were really starting to take off, so even if it got popped, there was usually a card you could use to benefit from it... and unless they had something with piercing themselves, all they did was remove a monster that was basically a burn spell from the board instead of anything meaningful.
I hated seeing it because my old deck had spirit reaper and all Lv2 were spellcasters and it could demolish them. Yeah basically it was made to turbo high level spellcasters with magical dimensión (it tributes a monster for a spellcaster ss but you need a spellcaster on your side of the field to use it). Basically I had as tributes Möbius, then all spellcasters and Sorcerer of dark magic (it was easy to bring out with the turbo engine).
Spear dragon was honestly fairly powerful back in the day. At worst, it was a one for one trade with most monsters. But its main use was being a support card in aggro strategies. If you got out a powerful monster like a tribute or a chaos monster, spear dragon was a great monster to combo them with, as it not only punished the opponent for trying to stay defensive with set monsters, but because spear dragon went back in defense, it could lure the opponent into putting one of their monsters into attack position for the stronger monster to destroy for decent damage.
@@julianadams3710 I’m not saying he was bad. But as someone who played competitively back when you could run Yata Garasu - most people didn’t use Summoned Skull. Because consistency. Summoned Skull was easily one of the best Tribute (1 or 2) for a LONG time. But I almost never ran into it at a top table.
For all monsters that switch to defense mode after attacking, like Giant Orc, Goblin Attack Force etc..they make VERY good old-school combo with Final Attack Orders. I wonder why no one is mentioning it.
@@OlgaZuccati but of course, except skill drain was hellishly pricy and limited/semi-limited at one point. Final attack on the other hand was lil worthless, serving only this purpose, so for casual gaming this was an ok card.
Believe it or not but indomitable fighter lei lei has 1 thing that goblin attack force doesn’t. He has a union monster named Protective Soul Ailin equipped to him allowing you to switch his battle position once a turn. Was it useful? No. It is however worth noting if only barely.
Lei lei is one of good target for cattle call which you can cheat out easily Gaia Drake the universal force, 3500 ATK fusion monster that cannot be destroyed or targeted by monster effects and banish it with interdimensional matter transporter, dimension hole or world legacy clash to avoid cattle call's downside
Armor Exe is likely based on a golem, creatures made by magi to act as defenders and such. They feed off magic to stay alive so its likely Armor Exe is based on that (it "feeds" off the spellcounters to stay alive) Would be cool to see a retrain of it
I can't believe I forgot about Giant Orc. That card was everywhere, and the Lei Lei card while not used as often was a real budget player favourite for a while.
@@megabladechronicles962 No. I just played beat down. With Skill drains, Ultimate offering, Final attack orders with Axe of despair and other cards. I basically tried to finish games as fast as possible.
@@JDBass36 One card that works well with both cards is gaap the divine soldier. It’s a level 6 fiend monster who forces all monsters to remain in attack mode
@@megabladechronicles962 I remember winning so many matches in locals. With my beat down deck lol. Then after 2005 I stop playing for like 3 years. I went over a friend's house to play YGO with the same beat down deck. I got destroyed when he was sychro spamming in 2008. I had no idea about sychros at that time lol
Same! I remember thinking back then, "I don't need a complicated strategy, if I just hit you 4 times with 2000atk beaters I win the duel." Combine with fissure and nobleman of crossout to clear the way, and Hate Buster and Ring of Destruction to finish the game. Good times.
i can tell you about my local meta at the very early stages of YGO, spear dragon was VERY relevant, both because it destroyed flip creatures which were very strong when you could get back stuff like raigeki, plus it was a technically free direct attack if you hit a goblin attack force. it was a really aggro card until stuff like giant orc and such came out which didn't crash against other 1900 attack monsters but it was really hard to set up a field vs a deck that "controlled" via aggro by just going over everything, and that if your opponent tried to revive one of your monsters then you could trample over it. it fought by exchanging resources 1-by-1 while dealing more damage than what was dealt to you. also, they could cast all the scapegoats they wanted, spear dragon went brrr none were as powerful as pre-errata Nuvia though ;_;
mm I remember Spear Dragon being pretty note worthy around coming out, because (at least to the knowledge of myself and my school friends) it was basically the first normal summon-able piercing damage monster that didn't require tributes since Mad Sword Beast, and had 1900 atk at that, all of which is a big deal especially when you're a scrub playing with other scrubs. It has the big number, it's easy to summon as soon as you draw it, and best of all "You still take the damage!". But no joke that inherent 500 atk over Mad Sword Beast while still having piercing that others like Archfiend Soldier don't meant a lot to us at the time.
if nuvia's summon effect activated on special summon as well, it would be a nice way to get a monster in ur graveyard or trigger an on - destroy effect, but im pretty sure theres other monsters that are better suited for that play and more versatile than it that have been released since then.
Spear Dragon was a massive card back in it's day. 1900 was solid, and being able to pierce was a huge benefit for aggro decks (Especially when combined with cards like United We Stand or Mage Power). While it did switch to defense, it was fairly easy to back it up with cards like Mirror Force, Magic Cylinder, or Book of Moon. Having natural outs to Scapegoat/Spirit Reaper via piercing damage (With Spear Dragon or Air Knight Parshath) could make or break a deck in certain match-ups.
@@ShiningJudgment666 Of course. I just always get a kick out of how dragoon compares to many other cards with restrictions (and probably harder to summon) and it has none itself.
@@Partylikeits-br7bb The whole combo is highly splashable too. You only need 3 main deck spots minimum (not really hard), Predaplant Verte Anaconda and a way to make Link 2 monsters so you can bring out Verte. It's ridiculous. Dragoon is a huge problem that should be banned (once per turn omni-negate, very good protection, twice per turn destroy and burn effect and still able to attack that turn). Limited isn't enough.
I actually had a weird thing for the Kozaky cards, and built a Kozaky deck! It was dumb, terrible, annoying, but it was amusing the wacky things it could do in casual duels where it got lucky, back when a lot of duels where pretty samey and predictable. It's like watching team rocket or something, you know it'll probably lose in the end, but it's entertaining watching it get there.
zero gravity was a cool trap card that kinda counter the draw back of cards the switch battle position after they attack i play that card way past when it was meta cause i had nothing better at the time and it annoyed my opponent like nothing else cause it has save me from being otk
These days there is a card that seems like it was designed perfectly for the Goblin Attack Force cards. It's called "Spikeshield with chain". It's an equip trap that boosts ATK by 500, and if the attacked monster is in defence position, it will add it's ATK on its DEF for that battle only. But this came out way too late to make the archetype viable.
You could also play a Continuous Trap, Labryrinth of Nightmare. It changes the position of everything in the End Phase. But Zero Gravity can also avoid a full-field Mirror Force, or close out the game if your opponent has like, a Spirit Reaper, and you can't out it.
I'm pretty sure that in the next episode we will talk about the union monsters related to these monsters and the sad story of Indomitable Fighter Lei Lei.
Spear Dragon was amazing to get over and deal some good damage when def position was still a very common first turn option for cards like Sangan. You always got good damage. Goblin Attack Force can't hold a candle. I used Giant Org as a child myself and it helped me to get to the finals in my first local. My opponent just couldn't run over it once I equiped Mage Power too it. And when it was sent to the GY, you could use it as means to summon Chaos Sorcorer because unlike Goblin Attack Force, it had the Dark Attribute which had a bunch of support.
Ya know it makes me feel better that even yugi-tubers fall to the age old stereotype of yugioh players not being able to read lmao. I like the video nonetheless 😊
Spear dragon was an absolute boss of a card when it was released. It destroyed GAF. It traded with Gemini elf and breaker. Probably the best card you’ve included between the two episodes so far. Right there with GAF.
Konami: trys to balance monsters that wouldn't have an effect if it wasnt for there attempt to balance it when it was already fine Also Konami: Makes timelords
Final Attack Orders was a good card to pair with Spear Dragon, Goblin Attack Force, and Giant Orc. It is a searchable card also with Cat of ill Omen if I do recall. Also I enjoyed using Spear Dragon, especially in a wind deck in various handheld games.
surprisingly enough Skill Drain was printed before Armor EXE was printed if I recall. So yeah Skill Drain a free 2400 beat stick was an option even if it was overlooked at the time.
Removing a Spell Counter from EXE is a maintance cost, so it can’t be negated. At least that was the ruling at the time. I haven’t checked if that’s still valid.
Giant orc is the way it is for a good reason, the reason it's a strictly worse goblin attack force is because its intended use with second goblin which can move it back to attack position, although that admittedly required setup needing frontline base to special summon second goblin. Where cards like giant orc really shined where in beatdown decks of the time that utilised skill drain and final attack orders in order to mitigate or negate the downsides of many high attack normal summonable monsters like goblin attack force or zombyra the dark. And in those slower formats, searching traps like skill drain with cat of ill omen was viable.
Not saying these decks where great at the time or anything, but they where definitely playable, especially with spear dragon being able to pierce through scapegoat tokens with scapegoat being a universal stall card at the time. Skill drain obviously was also great at stopping opposing flip and other effect monsters. Although honestly traditional beatdown with berserk gorilla and enraged battle ox was just better, mainly with berserk gorilla power creeping so many cards. Being the first normal summonable 2000 attack monster with a very minor drawback.
Cards that were staples in the "beatdown" deck of the time were: Berserk Gorilla, Spear Dragon, Goblin Attack force and sometimes Elite attack force, also Gemini Elf aaaah and breaker the magical warrior! the memories...
I actually had some success with Arsenal Bug back in the day in a deck with Doom Dozer and Anteatereatingant. It wasn't like, perfect, but it was fun to play
Another thing to note about Armor Exe's effect, while a lot of these cards drawback effects can potentially be negated to have a big beater, you cant negate maintanance costs, so while you can negate not being able to attack on summon you still have to pay a counter or lose the card, making it still bad in the kind of decks that would like these type of cards
I recall people playing stuff like Nuvia The Wicked and Thunder Nyan Nyan in Chaos back in the day. I'm not saying it was optimal but they did see some play.
I would say chainsaw insect is a huge draw back. granted strong as a red eyes black dragon 2400 atk beat stick. however giving the player a free card is a big deal if u think about it
This makes me ponder how high of an ATK a normal level 4 monster would have to have before it would be broken. Would a 2500 normal level 4 be OP? 3000?
Yeah I think a level 4 2400 attack or higher would probably push it to be almost broken. It can out a vanity fiend etc.. But it probably still wouldn't see play. Since decks today are more combo oriented.
@@runningoncylinders3829 It has Archfiend support since it's considered an Archfiend card (because of the OCG original naming and Archfiends weren't a TCG thing until Dark Crisis).
@@JDBass36 Would be overpowered but probably not outright broken if it can't be searched. If it was like a DARK Warrior or DARK Dragon, yeah, it would probably be outright broken.
I think the highest level 4 attack monster was 2000. of course now these days I have seen strong token monsters and they are consider to be normal. effect level 4 strongest is chainsaw insect and I use to use this with axes of fools or mage power on it. good times
You forgot some things about Armor Exe. It can't hold spell counters, since those can only be placed on cards which have an effect to place spell counters on themselves. Also, while its summoning sickness can be negated by Skill Drain to allow it to attack on the turn it's summoned, it's maintenance cost cannot be stopped.
I used arsenal bug as a kid, because I had an english copy and thought that the word "become" means "bekommen" in german, which means "get". So I thought I had the ultimate 3000 ATK normal summon and since my elementary school friends weren't better at english I got away with it :)
I suppose you could use amour exe with tin gold fish or maurding captain etc to tribute it for great maju garzett for 4800 atack that was my original use for it back in the day
Giant Orc, Goblin Attack Force, Goblin Elite Attack Force, & Indomitable Fighter Lei Lei with Skill Drain makes a very bad day for your opponent back in the day
Arsenal Bug came out during a time where there were only 3-4 type themed decks you could feasibly run. Forget Insect decks, there were barely any good insect monsters. It was really a shame cause that thing could've been a threat if it were something like a spellcaster or warrior.
Spear Dragon was a meta card in its era. Almost everyone atleast sidedecked it. It is because a strategy called 'goat control' that used scapegoat tokens to stall and eventually get out ter was top meta at the time and this card punished. Also remember that at this time in the game reactive combat traps were common and could save them til they turned atk next turn.
Old school normal bugs weren't too shabby, you had Insect Knight, Neo Bug, Girochin Kuwagata at 1900 1800 and 1700, along with two bug recruiters (one was for wind monsters in general but is a bug itself) so you were likely to have a bug on the field with one of those. Shame that this was pretty much all the bugs could do I guess.
reminds me of Duel Links players in casuals who play decks based around cards like giant orc, and now i don't wanna play online in fear of them having BEAWD after january 12th
I consider like and dark monsters like giant orc and thunder nyan nyan were decent ways to run budget chaos back then as they were big monsters and their own draw backs helped summon chaos sorcerers. Also I'm hoping tardy orc makes the bus to the next video lol.
I played Spear Dragon in tandem with Goblin Attack Force and Giant Orc lol, I liked having big cheap beaters a bit too much plus I could only get 2 copies of Attack Force
Hell yeah! H e put Giant Kozaky in the video! I'm nut sure if he even read my comment but I was expecting that card to be in that video, so I said something of either questioning why he didn't put him in the video or saying he forgot about that card
One interesting that Giant Orc and Indomitable Fight Lei Lei have in common besides being Goblin Attack Force copies is that both of them have a union monster, Second Goblin for Giant Orc and Protective Soul Allin for Lei Lei, that lets you bypass their drawback.
Lei lei is one of good target for cattle call which you can cheat out easily Gaia Drake the universal force, 3500 ATK fusion monster that cannot be destroyed or targeted by monster effects and banish it with interdimensional matter transporter, dimension hole or world legacy clash to avoid cattle call's downside
Its really fun to see those video when i was young a friend of mine played skill drain deck with Giant Kozaki and rolled me i tought that that deck was t1, i guess not XD
Haha, i think the Design of giant Kozaky could be salvaged with an admitteldy big buff, but one that keeps the flavor: GIve it an effect to special summon it if you have "Kozaky" on the field.
When I pulled Armor Exe from a pack I never knew what spell counters were or how they were produced, so I just assumed when you summoned it, it put 3 spell counters on itself 😂
Forget the drawbacks. The Goblin Attack Force type cards deserve special mention for weird wording. It says you can't change the battle position of the card until "the end phase of your next turn." This implies that any of these types of cards CAN change their battle position in the end phase as part of their effect. Back in the day when these cards were still new I even tried to do it in a duel only to be told it doesn't work that way. In that regard the original printing made more sense than the errata'd version, since it said you can't change the position on your next turn.
Lei Lei does have a small advantage over goblin attack force since it has a Union monster to go with it which removes the restricitions, Protective soul Ailin allows you to switch his battle position once per turn.
armor exe actually see some use during dark gaia format, and his stats as rock and light works well with fiend-dark for summoning chaos sorcerer or dark gaia
Nuvia is actually nit too bad in a vacuum... it is dark fiend level 4 so it can be targeted by many effects that can add it to your hand or all kinds of stuff... also level 4 is decent as XZ material and sometimes you can use XZ materials in your graveyard. Also, activating reverse trap on your opponents turn with nuvia out actually works against them for each monster they summon... it is definitely not a great card, but if you were playing one of the older Nintendo DS games or Legacy of the duelist you could probably make a neat little deck around it...
But Spear Dragon was actually perfectly balanced and actually pretty good. The only viable low level Dragon for years, he had great attack and the built in piercing effect was quite unique at that point and fairly useful in the era when people actually set their monsters. Also being able to switch him back to attack on your next turn gave him a huge advantage over Goblin Attack Force and the other similar monsters on your list.
OH SNAP I remember seeing a Nivia video some time ago for DevPro/YGOPro of someone creating illegal game states with that card lol That card is degenerate in all of the wrong ways. If I ever find the video I'll link it to you dzeef it was some funny stuff. The entirety of details I forget off the top of my head but I remember the normal self destruct being the initiator of the gamestate itself.
Inspired by you I decided to build an altergeist magician deck. Sort of also as a way to see if my old roll of a spellcaster engine works. I'm doing one to turbo Dragoon.
Old yugioh drawback : half the atk, cannot atk , destroyed on a condition, change to def after atk, opponent draw a card. Pay life poin upon activation New yugioh drawback: cannot special summon this , can only special summon that, special summon , special summon once, after this can only this , can only active this
Ah reverse trap, brings back memories of when me and my younger brother didn't read the cards and thought that it literally just reverses traps 😅 kids and their house rules
![[BS Concept Deck #95] The Curse Consort Contractor Hera](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/0x6mnBQ_ABI/mqdefault.jpg)
Quick note (not an editing error this time lol): Spear Dragon was better than I gave it credit for, mostly because of the piercing damage. I think I'll still leave that section in because it's still a big monster with a drawback, but please note that it's not that bad :)
Hated facing Spear Dragon. Especially if you used a Scapegoat.
Being a fan of dragons in early YGO, I've always liked Spear Dragon, Even though it did switch to def position, I did like it for the reason stated. #Dzeeff
I was about to say: the piercing damage is super important because of how prominent Scapegoat was, as well as other players who would also play monsters like Goblin Attack Force.
Yea it was common to see stuff like gemini elf, opp uses goblin attack force, lose 400, then you slapped them for 1900 with the dragon.
@@a1joryj It just always hurt to have your Spear Dragon Face down another Spear Dragon, or a reborn Airnight Parshath.
Fun Fact: Giant Orc is meant to have union support with Second Goblin to switch it back into attack position once it attacks. It was used in a duel in GX, and like usual, reflected the duelist (a giant and a short guy in this case).
Indomitable fighter lei lei also has a union monster that does the same thing
I remember comboing Giant Orc with Skill Drain and Hate Buster back in high school in a Fiend Beatdown deck, along with other fun combos like Dark Necrofear and Return from the Different Dimension/Dimension Fusion. Lots of fond memories back then
@@jgaringan Back in the day, this actually was a fairly legit Tier 2 Deck, and in the video games actually could be pretty good since getting big beaters did a lot to get you victories. Giant Germ, Newdoria, Doomcaliber, these cards were all great ways to pile up your Graveyard and either set up Tributes for Ha Des or waste their resources and you summon out Dark Necrofear. Necrofear is even a hilarious out to Stardust
I got second place with that card in a local tournament. I equiped it with Mage Power and my opponent could run over it once it went to defense mode xD
Also unlike Goblin Attack Force it was dark attribute which is nice when running BLS.
I wonder if you could make a fun (not good) deck with kozaki by protecting it with moon mirror shield or whatever it's called. The one that gains the attack or defence (which ever is higher) plus 100 when it battles.
Spear dragon saw A LOT of play for a while, mainly because of scape goats. if the person put up 4 goats then each turn spear dragon could run into them and it was basically a direct attack at your opponent.
YES, I was curious why he was like "it's not bad I guess"
Like DUDE, it was a key piece of some of the earliest anti-meta decks.
Not to mention Flip monsters, or spent Goblin Attack Forces.
It, Airknight, and Asura Priest were *the* premier ways of countering "Throw many bodies to stall" strategies.
@@ThrottleKittyan early piercing effect, eh?
Not to mention that when it came out, graveyard based effects were really starting to take off, so even if it got popped, there was usually a card you could use to benefit from it... and unless they had something with piercing themselves, all they did was remove a monster that was basically a burn spell from the board instead of anything meaningful.
I see we now have actually read nuvia the wicked.
I came back to the video just to see if that's why it was reuploaded lol
👀
@@Dzeeff It was such a bad drawback the disbelief took over
I did not see original what was the misread effect
@@RealDerekDean He misread it that it blows up if anything is normal summoned while it’s on the field.
Spear dragon was a bae in duel monster academy for the GBA
I hated seeing it because my old deck had spirit reaper and all Lv2 were spellcasters and it could demolish them. Yeah basically it was made to turbo high level spellcasters with magical dimensión (it tributes a monster for a spellcaster ss but you need a spellcaster on your side of the field to use it).
Basically I had as tributes Möbius, then all spellcasters and Sorcerer of dark magic (it was easy to bring out with the turbo engine).
Doug’s signature card isn’t Faker or Sangan, it’s 7 Colored Fish
It was Brilliant Fusion and jokingly Chaos MAX.
But yes, it is now 7 Colored Fish.
You could do a lot worse tbh
Shapesnatch
Spear dragon was honestly fairly powerful back in the day. At worst, it was a one for one trade with most monsters. But its main use was being a support card in aggro strategies. If you got out a powerful monster like a tribute or a chaos monster, spear dragon was a great monster to combo them with, as it not only punished the opponent for trying to stay defensive with set monsters, but because spear dragon went back in defense, it could lure the opponent into putting one of their monsters into attack position for the stronger monster to destroy for decent damage.
Too bad Tragedy doesn't work with your own monsters or that would have been a crazy combo back in the day
SPEAR DRAGON WAS OP AF DURING ITS TIME.
You're not TRULY Old School unless you played Spear Dragon at 3.
@MrAsap2000as And Spirit Reaper was everywhere when this card came out.
@@marclenraymagdaraog691 Def not Summoned Skull lol.
@@Pasqwalle Summon Skull was amazing back in caveman yugioh, he was a level 6 with better stats than a lot of two tribute monsters
@@julianadams3710 I’m not saying he was bad. But as someone who played competitively back when you could run Yata Garasu - most people didn’t use Summoned Skull. Because consistency. Summoned Skull was easily one of the best Tribute (1 or 2) for a LONG time. But I almost never ran into it at a top table.
For all monsters that switch to defense mode after attacking, like Giant Orc, Goblin Attack Force etc..they make VERY good old-school combo with Final Attack Orders. I wonder why no one is mentioning it.
skill drain was better for that tho
@@OlgaZuccati but of course, except skill drain was hellishly pricy and limited/semi-limited at one point. Final attack on the other hand was lil worthless, serving only this purpose, so for casual gaming this was an ok card.
Believe it or not but indomitable fighter lei lei has 1 thing that goblin attack force doesn’t. He has a union monster named Protective Soul Ailin equipped to him allowing you to switch his battle position once a turn.
Was it useful? No. It is however worth noting if only barely.
Lei lei is one of good target for cattle call which you can cheat out easily Gaia Drake the universal force, 3500 ATK fusion monster that cannot be destroyed or targeted by monster effects and banish it with interdimensional matter transporter, dimension hole or world legacy clash to avoid cattle call's downside
Interestingly so does Giant Orc, with Second Goblin
I wouldn't have been able to go on without this info tysm
If I've learned one thing from Dzeeff its that every card in BP 3 is great in that format.
Armor Exe is likely based on a golem, creatures made by magi to act as defenders and such. They feed off magic to stay alive so its likely Armor Exe is based on that (it "feeds" off the spellcounters to stay alive)
Would be cool to see a retrain of it
Have an armor off mode like Silver Chariot
How about instead of spell counters you have to banish a spell card from your graveyard
I can't believe I forgot about Giant Orc. That card was everywhere, and the Lei Lei card while not used as often was a real budget player favourite for a while.
I love these Nostalgia videos. I remember trying to use Arsenal Bug, and my brother used Nuvia the Wicked to force a special summon of his Mecklords.
That's actually a pretty neat play .
Giant orc and Goblin attack force were my win conditions with skill drain! Back in 2003 - 2005
did you ever try using giant orc with second goblin?
@@megabladechronicles962 No. I just played beat down. With Skill drains, Ultimate offering, Final attack orders with Axe of despair and other cards.
I basically tried to finish games as fast as possible.
@@JDBass36 One card that works well with both cards is gaap the divine soldier. It’s a level 6 fiend monster who forces all monsters to remain in attack mode
@@megabladechronicles962 I remember winning so many matches in locals. With my beat down deck lol.
Then after 2005 I stop playing for like 3 years. I went over a friend's house to play YGO with the same beat down deck. I got destroyed when he was sychro spamming in 2008. I had no idea about sychros at that time lol
Same! I remember thinking back then, "I don't need a complicated strategy, if I just hit you 4 times with 2000atk beaters I win the duel." Combine with fissure and nobleman of crossout to clear the way, and Hate Buster and Ring of Destruction to finish the game. Good times.
Giant Orc also had "Second Goblin", a Union monster that let it switch back to ATK position faster.
Is he second in command to Giant Orc...
Or is he second because the orc accidently ate his first pal?
@@runningoncylinders3829 Bruh
@@AwesomeHairo You don’t eat goblins by accident? I wouldn’t be mad.
@runningoncylinders3829 he's second because in some fights, you have a second to take your place if you go down.
@@berthelot19 So they have a tag team wrestling theme? Neat.
I loved Spear Dragon but then again, I love piercing damage cards. Just set a Wabaku or other battle trap and your good.
i can tell you about my local meta at the very early stages of YGO, spear dragon was VERY relevant, both because it destroyed flip creatures which were very strong when you could get back stuff like raigeki, plus it was a technically free direct attack if you hit a goblin attack force. it was a really aggro card until stuff like giant orc and such came out which didn't crash against other 1900 attack monsters
but it was really hard to set up a field vs a deck that "controlled" via aggro by just going over everything, and that if your opponent tried to revive one of your monsters then you could trample over it. it fought by exchanging resources 1-by-1 while dealing more damage than what was dealt to you.
also, they could cast all the scapegoats they wanted, spear dragon went brrr
none were as powerful as pre-errata Nuvia though ;_;
mm I remember Spear Dragon being pretty note worthy around coming out, because (at least to the knowledge of myself and my school friends) it was basically the first normal summon-able piercing damage monster that didn't require tributes since Mad Sword Beast, and had 1900 atk at that, all of which is a big deal especially when you're a scrub playing with other scrubs. It has the big number, it's easy to summon as soon as you draw it, and best of all "You still take the damage!".
But no joke that inherent 500 atk over Mad Sword Beast while still having piercing that others like Archfiend Soldier don't meant a lot to us at the time.
On the other side of the spectrum, are there enough cards like Big Shield Gardna to talk about?
that card can negate effects face down
Not high defense, but Ancient Lamp while facedown has an effect like Magical Arm Shield when attacked
The defence side
Big Shield Gardna, Destiny Hero Defender, Boycotton, Noble Knight Brothers, Steel Cavalry of Dinon, and Giant Kozaky.
Gear Golem the Moving Fortress is pretty good as well as D-Hero Defender.
if nuvia's summon effect activated on special summon as well, it would be a nice way to get a monster in ur graveyard or trigger an on - destroy effect, but im pretty sure theres other monsters that are better suited for that play and more versatile than it that have been released since then.
Skill Drain back then : "It's free real state"
Spear Dragon was a massive card back in it's day. 1900 was solid, and being able to pierce was a huge benefit for aggro decks (Especially when combined with cards like United We Stand or Mage Power). While it did switch to defense, it was fairly easy to back it up with cards like Mirror Force, Magic Cylinder, or Book of Moon.
Having natural outs to Scapegoat/Spirit Reaper via piercing damage (With Spear Dragon or Air Knight Parshath) could make or break a deck in certain match-ups.
...and yet dragoon has 7 great effects and basically no drawbacks.
powercreep is a bitch
Power creep.
@@ShiningJudgment666 Of course. I just always get a kick out of how dragoon compares to many other cards with restrictions (and probably harder to summon) and it has none itself.
@@Partylikeits-br7bb The whole combo is highly splashable too. You only need 3 main deck spots minimum (not really hard), Predaplant Verte Anaconda and a way to make Link 2 monsters so you can bring out Verte. It's ridiculous. Dragoon is a huge problem that should be banned (once per turn omni-negate, very good protection, twice per turn destroy and burn effect and still able to attack that turn). Limited isn't enough.
@@ShiningJudgment666 Red eye fusion itself is a bit too easy to summon him with even with the downsides of not summoning anything else for a turn.
I am surprised how many Goblin Attack Force cards there are.
Skill Drain appreciates this video.
I actually had a weird thing for the Kozaky cards, and built a Kozaky deck! It was dumb, terrible, annoying, but it was amusing the wacky things it could do in casual duels where it got lucky, back when a lot of duels where pretty samey and predictable. It's like watching team rocket or something, you know it'll probably lose in the end, but it's entertaining watching it get there.
throttle
zero gravity was a cool trap card that kinda counter the draw back of cards the switch battle position after they attack i play that card way past when it was meta cause i had nothing better at the time and it annoyed my opponent like nothing else cause it has save me from being otk
These days there is a card that seems like it was designed perfectly for the Goblin Attack Force cards. It's called "Spikeshield with chain".
It's an equip trap that boosts ATK by 500, and if the attacked monster is in defence position, it will add it's ATK on its DEF for that battle only.
But this came out way too late to make the archetype viable.
You could also play a Continuous Trap, Labryrinth of Nightmare. It changes the position of everything in the End Phase. But Zero Gravity can also avoid a full-field Mirror Force, or close out the game if your opponent has like, a Spirit Reaper, and you can't out it.
@@floodinmon14 Labyrinth of Nightmare is such a fun card, especially for all of those "if this card switches to defense/attack position, then..."
I'm pretty sure that in the next episode we will talk about the union monsters related to these monsters and the sad story of Indomitable Fighter Lei Lei.
I wish flavor text would come out for some of the most iconic effect monsters in ygo. I love flavor text.
Just like the Egyptian gods
I actually made the same mistake Dzeeff did back in the day misreading Nuvia's effect. Hope he sees this and feels at least a LITTLE better.
Spear Dragon was amazing to get over and deal some good damage when def position was still a very common first turn option for cards like Sangan. You always got good damage. Goblin Attack Force can't hold a candle.
I used Giant Org as a child myself and it helped me to get to the finals in my first local. My opponent just couldn't run over it once I equiped Mage Power too it. And when it was sent to the GY, you could use it as means to summon Chaos Sorcorer because unlike Goblin Attack Force, it had the Dark Attribute which had a bunch of support.
Ya know it makes me feel better that even yugi-tubers fall to the age old stereotype of yugioh players not being able to read lmao. I like the video nonetheless 😊
Spear dragon was an absolute boss of a card when it was released. It destroyed GAF. It traded with Gemini elf and breaker. Probably the best card you’ve included between the two episodes so far. Right there with GAF.
Konami: trys to balance monsters that wouldn't have an effect if it wasnt for there attempt to balance it when it was already fine
Also Konami: Makes timelords
Final Attack Orders was a good card to pair with Spear Dragon, Goblin Attack Force, and Giant Orc. It is a searchable card also with Cat of ill Omen if I do recall. Also I enjoyed using Spear Dragon, especially in a wind deck in various handheld games.
Spear Dragon: Basically invents anti-meta
Dzeeff: not bad i gues
I kid you not, Spear Dragon won me a few down to the wire duels in the old days.
Thank you for all the effort you put into this channel. Loving the vids. Keep it up Doug!
If I remember well, Indomitable Fighter Lei Lei had a union monster that helped it avoid it's drawback: Protective Soul Ailin.
surprisingly enough Skill Drain was printed before Armor EXE was printed if I recall. So yeah Skill Drain a free 2400 beat stick was an option even if it was overlooked at the time.
Removing a Spell Counter from EXE is a maintance cost, so it can’t be negated. At least that was the ruling at the time. I haven’t checked if that’s still valid.
@@pyrotempestwingyes it can. skill drain, my dude, skill drain
Arsenal bug was halfway decent in duel links. But I forget the exact deck it was used in.
Giant orc is the way it is for a good reason, the reason it's a strictly worse goblin attack force is because its intended use with second goblin which can move it back to attack position, although that admittedly required setup needing frontline base to special summon second goblin. Where cards like giant orc really shined where in beatdown decks of the time that utilised skill drain and final attack orders in order to mitigate or negate the downsides of many high attack normal summonable monsters like goblin attack force or zombyra the dark. And in those slower formats, searching traps like skill drain with cat of ill omen was viable.
Using skill drain or final attack orders also of course mitigates the downside of spear dragon.
Not saying these decks where great at the time or anything, but they where definitely playable, especially with spear dragon being able to pierce through scapegoat tokens with scapegoat being a universal stall card at the time. Skill drain obviously was also great at stopping opposing flip and other effect monsters. Although honestly traditional beatdown with berserk gorilla and enraged battle ox was just better, mainly with berserk gorilla power creeping so many cards. Being the first normal summonable 2000 attack monster with a very minor drawback.
At lest with Giant Orc it had a union monster called Second Goblin that could change the battle position of Giant Orc when it was equiped to it
Cards that were staples in the "beatdown" deck of the time were: Berserk Gorilla, Spear Dragon, Goblin Attack force and sometimes Elite attack force, also Gemini Elf aaaah and breaker the magical warrior! the memories...
I actually had some success with Arsenal Bug back in the day in a deck with Doom Dozer and Anteatereatingant. It wasn't like, perfect, but it was fun to play
As soon as I saw Arsenal Bug, I could smell the oncoming obligatory Battle Pack reference 👌
Another thing to note about Armor Exe's effect, while a lot of these cards drawback effects can potentially be negated to have a big beater, you cant negate maintanance costs, so while you can negate not being able to attack on summon you still have to pay a counter or lose the card, making it still bad in the kind of decks that would like these type of cards
I recall people playing stuff like Nuvia The Wicked and Thunder Nyan Nyan in Chaos back in the day. I'm not saying it was optimal but they did see some play.
Spear Dragon also can be changed back to attack on your next turn, making it a lot more viable to keep around for multiple turns.
I'm pretty sure Giant Orc was played in '09/'10 ish twilightsworn a bit because its a normal summonable deck devistation virus target.
I was just rewatching this series! YAYYYY!!!
I would say chainsaw insect is a huge draw back. granted strong as a red eyes black dragon 2400 atk beat stick. however giving the player a free card is a big deal if u think about it
Ok, finally talked about my boy Spear Dragon, I'm happy 😁
Spear Dragon was a beast against Goats
asura's priest was better, oh you have 4 tokens ? let me wiping them out
This makes me ponder how high of an ATK a normal level 4 monster would have to have before it would be broken. Would a 2500 normal level 4 be OP? 3000?
Yeah I think a level 4 2400 attack or higher would probably push it to be almost broken. It can out a vanity fiend etc.. But it probably still wouldn't see play.
Since decks today are more combo oriented.
Imagine Summoned Skull as a Level 4.
(And it had a different name if the support is actually good for it.)
Would you use it?
@@runningoncylinders3829 It has Archfiend support since it's considered an Archfiend card (because of the OCG original naming and Archfiends weren't a TCG thing until Dark Crisis).
@@JDBass36 Would be overpowered but probably not outright broken if it can't be searched. If it was like a DARK Warrior or DARK Dragon, yeah, it would probably be outright broken.
I think the highest level 4 attack monster was 2000. of course now these days I have seen strong token monsters and they are consider to be normal. effect level 4 strongest is chainsaw insect and I use to use this with axes of fools or mage power on it. good times
*Skill Drain has entered the chat*
I think one of the DS games used Nuvia the Wicked's self-destruct as an easy way to bring out Meklord Emperors. That was kind of interesting.
You forgot some things about Armor Exe. It can't hold spell counters, since those can only be placed on cards which have an effect to place spell counters on themselves. Also, while its summoning sickness can be negated by Skill Drain to allow it to attack on the turn it's summoned, it's maintenance cost cannot be stopped.
I'm surprised Weevil never used Arsenal Bug in the anime.
Also, if Skill Drain is on the field, most of these cards could be a whole lot better.
I think that even works with Night Express Knight iirc.
If you want a beatstick to summon easily.
I used arsenal bug as a kid, because I had an english copy and thought that the word "become" means "bekommen" in german, which means "get". So I thought I had the ultimate 3000 ATK normal summon and since my elementary school friends weren't better at english I got away with it :)
Oh I was hoping for a video like this.
Giant Orc had a partner monster I believe augmented its effect.
Second Goblin, creating a Brain & Brawn duo of sorts.
I suppose you could use amour exe with tin gold fish or maurding captain etc to tribute it for great maju garzett for 4800 atack that was my original use for it back in the day
Giant Orc, Goblin Attack Force, Goblin Elite Attack Force, & Indomitable Fighter Lei Lei with Skill Drain makes a very bad day for your opponent back in the day
rq it's pronounced Armor Eg-zeh!
Good video as always Doug!
Arsenal Bug came out during a time where there were only 3-4 type themed decks you could feasibly run. Forget Insect decks, there were barely any good insect monsters. It was really a shame cause that thing could've been a threat if it were something like a spellcaster or warrior.
i dont know alot about the meta back in the day (anymore) but i did play a deck with 2 spear dragons in it and had not to bad results at tournaments
Spear Dragon was a meta card in its era. Almost everyone atleast sidedecked it. It is because a strategy called 'goat control' that used scapegoat tokens to stall and eventually get out ter was top meta at the time and this card punished. Also remember that at this time in the game reactive combat traps were common and could save them til they turned atk next turn.
Could you cover monsters such as Big Shield Gardna
Old school normal bugs weren't too shabby, you had Insect Knight, Neo Bug, Girochin Kuwagata at 1900 1800 and 1700, along with two bug recruiters (one was for wind monsters in general but is a bug itself) so you were likely to have a bug on the field with one of those. Shame that this was pretty much all the bugs could do I guess.
reminds me of Duel Links players in casuals who play decks based around cards like giant orc, and now i don't wanna play online in fear of them having BEAWD after january 12th
With "Giant Orc", you forgot about it's union support.
Yeah I feel like you should have mentioned giant orc and lei lei had personalised support in union monster which rid them of their downsides
on the up side Giant Orc and Lei Lei both have bad union monsters to keep them in ATK mode
I consider like and dark monsters like giant orc and thunder nyan nyan were decent ways to run budget chaos back then as they were big monsters and their own draw backs helped summon chaos sorcerers. Also I'm hoping tardy orc makes the bus to the next video lol.
I played Spear Dragon in tandem with Goblin Attack Force and Giant Orc lol, I liked having big cheap beaters a bit too much plus I could only get 2 copies of Attack Force
Hell yeah! H e put Giant Kozaky in the video! I'm nut sure if he even read my comment but I was expecting that card to be in that video, so I said something of either questioning why he didn't put him in the video or saying he forgot about that card
I called cards like GAF 'Axe' Cards, as in you axe something. After all, it can beat Cyber Dragon when attacking.
One interesting that Giant Orc and Indomitable Fight Lei Lei have in common besides being Goblin Attack Force copies is that both of them have a union monster, Second Goblin for Giant Orc and Protective Soul Allin for Lei Lei, that lets you bypass their drawback.
Lei lei is one of good target for cattle call which you can cheat out easily Gaia Drake the universal force, 3500 ATK fusion monster that cannot be destroyed or targeted by monster effects and banish it with interdimensional matter transporter, dimension hole or world legacy clash to avoid cattle call's downside
Its really fun to see those video when i was young a friend of mine played skill drain deck with Giant Kozaki and rolled me i tought that that deck was t1, i guess not XD
Haha, i think the Design of giant Kozaky could be salvaged with an admitteldy big buff, but one that keeps the flavor:
GIve it an effect to special summon it if you have "Kozaky" on the field.
When I pulled Armor Exe from a pack I never knew what spell counters were or how they were produced, so I just assumed when you summoned it, it put 3 spell counters on itself 😂
I remember spear dragon being very annoying in old school yugioh 😒
Forget the drawbacks. The Goblin Attack Force type cards deserve special mention for weird wording. It says you can't change the battle position of the card until "the end phase of your next turn." This implies that any of these types of cards CAN change their battle position in the end phase as part of their effect. Back in the day when these cards were still new I even tried to do it in a duel only to be told it doesn't work that way. In that regard the original printing made more sense than the errata'd version, since it said you can't change the position on your next turn.
Oh yeah, I had a friend back in the day who played dragons with Spear Dragon. Not a bad card at the time, though yeah, it was years and years ago.
I thought about using axe of fools or skill drain on armour exe but then even if the effects are negated the cost is not I never understood that
Fighter lei was good in fire beasts as a one of if you needed a strong attacker. It also saw some play in glad beasts (fringe play of course)
Lei Lei does have a small advantage over goblin attack force since it has a Union monster to go with it which removes the restricitions, Protective soul Ailin allows you to switch his battle position once per turn.
Because of how minor of a bonus that is and how awkward old Unions were I honestly don't consider it an advantage
@@Dzeeff I can agree with that. the warrior typing propably lent GAF better utility anyways
armor exe actually see some use during dark gaia format, and his stats as rock and light works well with fiend-dark for summoning chaos sorcerer or dark gaia
Nuvia is actually nit too bad in a vacuum... it is dark fiend level 4 so it can be targeted by many effects that can add it to your hand or all kinds of stuff... also level 4 is decent as XZ material and sometimes you can use XZ materials in your graveyard. Also, activating reverse trap on your opponents turn with nuvia out actually works against them for each monster they summon... it is definitely not a great card, but if you were playing one of the older Nintendo DS games or Legacy of the duelist you could probably make a neat little deck around it...
These cards were goated in sacred cards and reshef of destruction
But Spear Dragon was actually perfectly balanced and actually pretty good. The only viable low level Dragon for years, he had great attack and the built in piercing effect was quite unique at that point and fairly useful in the era when people actually set their monsters. Also being able to switch him back to attack on your next turn gave him a huge advantage over Goblin Attack Force and the other similar monsters on your list.
Goblin Attack Force was really strong but it would basically always die after one attack because it went into defense mode and it had 0 defense
OH SNAP I remember seeing a Nivia video some time ago for DevPro/YGOPro of someone creating illegal game states with that card lol That card is degenerate in all of the wrong ways. If I ever find the video I'll link it to you dzeef it was some funny stuff. The entirety of details I forget off the top of my head but I remember the normal self destruct being the initiator of the gamestate itself.
Don’t forget a lot of these cards are intended to be used with Skill Drain so you can have level 4 beatsticks with no drawbacks
Inspired by you I decided to build an altergeist magician deck. Sort of also as a way to see if my old roll of a spellcaster engine works. I'm doing one to turbo Dragoon.
spear dragon was very played in 2003 to counter decks that abused scapegoat
Old yugioh drawback : half the atk, cannot atk , destroyed on a condition, change to def after atk, opponent draw a card. Pay life poin upon activation
New yugioh drawback: cannot special summon this , can only special summon that, special summon , special summon once, after this can only this , can only active this
I just preferred using Giant Orc because it was good Dark Necrofear fuel.
Ah reverse trap, brings back memories of when me and my younger brother didn't read the cards and thought that it literally just reverses traps 😅 kids and their house rules