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Hello and welcome to the first topic in this new segment ‘Tech of the Week’. This segment will each week talk about good tech choices that you may want to use in your own decks. I hope you enjoy and are able to learn something from this. Now let’s get started.
As shown above, today we are going to talk about Spirit Reaper but first I’m going to predict 3 decks that will be dominating throughout this new format: Six Samurai, Wind-Ups and Dino Rabbit. I think that Six Samurai will rise once again because now, with Wind-Ups, Inzektors and Dino Rabbit slowed down, it has become one of the fastest decks to play with easy access into a first turn Legendary Six Samurai – Shi En. One could say that Dino Rabbit is a dead deck, but I would disagree. At first, this was my point of view too, but after some testing on Dueling Network, I changed my mind. The deck can still open Rescue Rabbit or Tour Guide frequently and even if not, can still summon a powerful beater and then next turn overlay into a powerful Xyz. Wind-Ups can still make a first turn play to discard 3 cards from your opponent's hand using Tour Bus, and can still swarm the field with Xyz Monsters.
So let’s go back to today’s topic: Spirit Reaper. Dino Rabbit cry when they see this card. No monster they run can actually get over this card and the only real way of getting rid of Spirit Reaper with Dino Rabbit is to activate a Forbidden Lance on Spirit Reaper or have a Dark Hole ready to play. This means that you can stall until you are able to summon a bigger monster than Evolzar Laggia and Dolkka, and then from there go for game. It’s the same with Six Samurai. The only real way they have of destroying Spirit Reaper is Dark Hole or Hand of the Six Samurai. Wind-Ups also don't like this card. The only Xyz I could possibly think of that Wind-Ups would run to get rid of Spirit Reaper is Zenmaines or making a Rank 5 Xyz, which will use up tons of resources. This card single-handedly can basically defeat 3 of the decks that are going to be dominant this new format, which is one of the reasons it is a great tech to use.
Another reason to use this card is to stop people beating you before you have finished setting up. Decks like Hieratic or A Hero Lives OTK need time to set up properly, and often what will happen is that you find you don’t have enough time to set up. Also, Decks like Crystal Beasts find that they are easily overpowered and are very viable to OTKs. Spirit Reaper means that you no longer have to worry about any of this. The card stops the opponent from killing you quickly, meaning that you have a chance to strike back.
Now you are probably thinking “Why not use Marshmallon instead?” This is because Spirit Reaper has yet another broken effect. When it inflicts direct damage, you can discard one random card from your opponent’s hand. What this does is make Spirit Reaper an incredibly hard to kill card that can constantly sweep cards out of your opponent’s hand, in other words, an unkillable monstrosity.
To summarise, Spirit Reaper is a card that can single-handedly take down Dino Rabbit, Wind-Ups and Six Samurai, stop you from losing the game and can minus your opponent. Also, Spirit Reaper can give access to easy Rank 3 Xyz and be used as a tribute for cards like Caius the Shadow Monarch. I would recommend this card in any deck that doesn’t run many big monsters or takes a lot of time to set up. Thank you for reading this and I hope you enjoy the other Tech of the Weeks to come.
