Alucard pops sets but, no rank 4 does such a thing....

[VlausHieme]

Alucard pops sets but, no rank 4 does such a thing....

Crescent Moon Prince: Rank 4 EARTH Warrior-Type
Xyz Effect monster 2500 Attack and 1250 Defense

2 Level 4 monsters

This card can not be Special Summoned from the Graveyard. While this card have no Xyz Materials this card gains 1000 ATK. While this card have Crescent Counter(s), this card gains 200 ATK for each Crescent Counter on this card. Once per turn during either player's turn you can detach 1 Xyz Material from this card to destroy 1 Set card your opponent controls, place 1 Crescent Counter on this card and, this card loses 1000 ATK. When this card would be destroyed or targeted by a card effect you can remove 1 Crescent Counter from this card instead.

Your thoughts?

[Azure Wolf]

This card actually seems inferior to Alucard. I'm saying this as Alucard also prevents your opponent for attacking other ghostricks and face-down monsters and doesn't lower it's own attack to use its effect. The way it currently is it loses 800 ATK after each time you detach a material. Sure the counters can prevent its destruction by removing on but at the cost of its attack going down again. I'm not sure if the 1000 ATK lose is permanent but as it doesn't say 'until the End Phase' I'm going to assume so. When your out of material for it it would end up at best a 1900 ATK monster and at worst a 1500. Alucard on the other hand is a permanent 1800 ATK monster with a higher DEF as well.

 

You could make this card better by either lowering the ATK loss or make the loss until the End Phase. Also having it unsummonable from the grave means you can't target it with cards like Xyz Reborn can't summon it.

[Trebuchet MS]

You could make this card better by either lowering the ATK loss or make the loss until the End Phase. Also having it unsummonable from the grave means you can't target it with cards like Xyz Reborn can't summon it.

I believe that the inability for this card to be Special Summoned from the Graveyard is to ensure that you can't Call of the Haunted it to get a 3500 ATK monster.

 

What I feel the Rank 4 library strongly lacks is the ability to take out S/Ts. Lightning Chidori is a thing, but that's WIND-only, and inaccessible to any Deck that doesn't have a good share of WIND monsters. Cleaning out Set monsters isn't as big an issue. Then again, the possible lack of ability to hit backrow is what's keeping Rank 4, the master Rank, from being too strong.

 

So not only is this card trying to fill in a role that's not as important, but the way it's trying to execute it is impractically complex. Why not simplify the effect to let it destroy Set cards without any extra baggage, and offset it with just slightly reduced base stats?