Heiress of the Lich King

[Darj]

2 Level 4 DARK monsters
While you control a Zombie-Type monster, your opponent cannot target this card with effects or for attacks. Once per turn: You can detach 1 Xyz Material from this card, then activate 1 of these effects. Each effect can only be used once while this card is face-up on the field.
• Target 1 monster in your Graveyard; Special Summon that target. It becomes Zombie-Type, also it gains 300 ATK, and its effects are negated.
• Target 1 face-up monster your opponent controls; its ATK becomes 0, and it cannot activate its effects.

 

[spoiler=Previous effect]

2 Level 4 DARK monsters
While you control a Zombie-Type monster, your opponent cannot target this card with effects or for attacks. When this card is Xyz Summoned: You can target 1 monster in your Graveyard; Special Summon that target. It becomes Zombie-Type, also it gains 500 ATK, and its effects are negated. Once per turn: You can detach 1 Xyz Material from this card, then target 1 face-up monster your opponent controls; its ATK becomes 0, and it cannot activate its effects.[/spoiler]

 

A Rank 4 Xyz for DARKs who benefits from Zombies on the field, and with yet another negation effect (but for the sake of flavor). The card and effects are based on a lich; however, the girl is not a lich herself. Instead, she is accompanied and protected by a lich king from an unknown kingdom.

 

Flavor-wise, the girl in the artwork was chosen by the lich king as the heiress of his kingdom. As such, the lich is devoted to protecting her in battles by using his dark powers to resurrect undead monsters at her service (first and second effects), and cast curses on her enemies (last effect). It is unknown if the girl is actually the king's daughter, or a skilled knight who became worthy of the king's trust, respect and inheritance, or both.

 

EDIT:

07/08/2014: Now you have to detach to activate either of the effects, you can only activate each effect once, and the ATK boost on the summoned monster was reduced to 300.

[Trebuchet MS]

I generally love the flavour behind this card's effects, along with their simplicity. Necromancy and curses are pretty much the basis of the dark arts, and the effects don't need some ridiculously complex restrictions or downsides to balance them.

 

The passive protection effect makes one want to try run her in a Zombie Deck, but there might be complications due to some good Zombies being EARTH instead. At least she can already create a Zombie escort on Summon.

[Darj]

Well, there are a couple of DARK Zombies that should make this card easy to play (e.g. Zombie Master, Goblin Zombie, Gogogo Ghost), but I get your point. The thing is that making it generic would be problematic, mostly because of its summon effect (an easy Rank 4 reborn); on the other hand, making it type-specific would badly hurt its playability.

[krakonfour]

For a generic DARK Rank 4, I don't think we should be getting both a Monster Reborn and a Starleige Palydynamo... and a Sandayu-like protection effect.... and all this for a single detach.

 

In my opinion, each of these effects alone is enough to make a very strong card, considering how easy it is summoned. Two powerful effects together usually mean a difficult summoning requirement, such as 3 lvl 4 Zombies. 

 

I strongly suggest you reduce the number of power effects, or increase the difficulty of summoning it to accommodate. 

[Darj]

Good point. I forgot about Paladynamo and thus didn't realize this card blatantly outclassed it (except that Paladynamo stops continuous effects and this one cannot, but both effects are arguably equally powerful).

How about something like this instead?

 

While you control a Zombie-Type monster, your opponent cannot target this card with effects or for attacks. Once per turn: You can detach 1 Xyz Material from this card, then activate 1 of these effects. Each effect can only be used once while this card is face-up on the field.

● Target 1 monster in your Graveyard; Special Summon that target. It becomes Zombie-Type, also it gains 300 ATK, and its effects are negated.

● Target 1 face-up monster your opponent controls; its ATK becomes 0, and it cannot activate its effects.

 

Now you can only use each effect once, and you have to wait until the next turn to use the remaining effect, plus I slightly reduced the ATK boost on the summoned monster. The protection effect remains because flavor.

[krakonfour]

Good point. I forgot about Paladynamo and thus didn't realize this card blatantly outclassed it (except that Paladynamo stops continuous effects and this one cannot, but both effects are arguably equally powerful).

How about something like this instead?

 

While you control a Zombie-Type monster, your opponent cannot target this card with effects or for attacks. Once per turn: You can detach 1 Xyz Material from this card, then activate 1 of these effects. Each effect can only be used once while this card is face-up on the field.

● Target 1 monster in your Graveyard; Special Summon that target. It becomes Zombie-Type, also it gains 300 ATK, and its effects are negated.

● Target 1 face-up monster your opponent controls; its ATK becomes 0, and it cannot activate its effects.

 

Now you can only use each effect once, and you have to wait until the next turn to use the remaining effect, plus I slightly reduced the ATK boost on the summoned monster. The protection effect remains because flavor.

Well, it is slightly less broken now. Good attempt at balancing it, but I still don't like the 'unable to be targeted by card effects' protection. 

[Darj]

Well, it is slightly less broken now. Good attempt at balancing it, but I still don't like the 'unable to be targeted by card effects' protection. 

 

I find that surprising because that's the less threatening effect of the card in my opinion. You will rarely protect the card with Zombies except for the monster it summons herself, and nowadays it is quite easy to remove a monster from the field so she shouldn't remain protected for too long. Even in Zombie decks, they usually go for Xyzs, which most of them are non-Zombie, before leaving a Zombie on the field; except Vampires where one of the bosses is a Zombie, but as far as I know they don't make Rank 4s often (but still possible through Vampire Sorcerer + Zombie Master, I guess).