Necloth of Decisive Armor

[Darj]

 

You can Ritual Summon this card with any "Nekroz" Ritual Spell Card. Must be Ritual Summoned without using any Level 10 monsters, and cannot be Special Summoned by other ways. You can only use each of these effects of "Nekroz of Decisive Armor" once per turn.
● During either player's turn: You can discard this card, then target 1 "Nekroz" monster you control; it gains 1000 ATK and DEF until the end of this turn.
● You can target 1 Set card your opponent controls; destroy it, and if you do, banish it.

 

Making this thread mainly to ask if someone else thinks this deserved to be better, as far as Necloth Rituals go

(Sort of rant incoming).

I mean, I think we all know how some Necloth Rituals carry really strong effects, or at least questionable, while some are relatively fair, but I feel this one got the short end of the stick for some reason. If I remember correctly, this was one of the latest Necloth Rituals to be released, and (I remembered incorrectly) this makes me think that Konami randomly decided to make the remaining Necloths fair, after making crazy cards such as Trishula, Brionac or Unicore. If this was the case, then why? couldn't they make this as busted as the aforementioned Necloths? They deliberately made Necloths strong, so why suddenly stop at the end of the Necloth "pack" (so to speak)?

 

And with "being better" I mean that some aspects of the card could have been improved.

First, the 1000 ATK/DEF boost: This is a Level10 monster we are speaking of, and yet it gives the same ATK boost as that Yosenju, a Level4 monster, and even less than Kalut. Really, this card deserved to be a Bujingi Crane, or at least grant a higher boost, perhaps a value around 1500 ATK/DEF.

 

Then, the field effect: Don't get me wrong, removing Set cards, including Spell/Traps and monsters, and banishing them is really nice, but it feels too fair while Brionac, Trishula, etc got more devastating field effects. They could very well have given the AoJs Heavy Storm effect to this card, or even better, both, if not the 3, different optional effects (obviously adapted to fit the Necloth theme; for instance, the heavy effect could require the tribute of a Necloth, similar to Valkyrus).

 

(And yes, these would have been a questionable buffs, but I repeat, Necloths were designed to be overly strong and raise the power level of the game, so this kind of effect would have been more or less acceptable in my opinion.)

 

Finally, as if that wasn't enough, look at its stats: As far as I know, this is the only Necloth Ritual that has lower stats than its Synchro counterpart. I know it's not too relevant but still, why? From all the Necloth Rituals, it was this one who got a stat reduction.

 

All this is because, as the Necloth with the highest Level (excluding Sophia since she was arguably designed for a different Necloth build, if not Zefras), in my opinion this should have been, if not the true boss of Necloths, at least as good as Trishula himself, but I think it's clear that this isn't the case. Plus look at that artwork: a literally walking giant cannon, and also has that "I'm going to beat you up" walk/stance; cool as hell. Granted, flavor-wise Trishula should be the strongest because of its power in the DT lore, but still.

 

 

Anyway, discuss.

I guess the card is good enough as a 1-of since I see it being played often in DN duels for dealing with certain threats or pushing for game, but part of me wishes it was better.

[Wildflame]

They were all released at the same except Gungnir and Sophia.

 

And it's not that bad of a card imo. Can do some stuff other Nekroz can't do. Decent 1-of I'd say.

[Darj]

Thanks for the correction.

But still, it feels like they wanted to be fair with this one, despite going crazy with some of the other Rituals.

[Azuh]

It's actually searchable by Melody of Awakening Dragon which is neat

[heraldry_lord]

Flavour-wise, it makes sense that this card's effect is "weaker" than its Synchro counterpart (which is the case for many other Nekroz Rituals), because they're just using its corpse rather than the full-blown monster.

 

Gameplay-wise, it's decent in its own right, but the deck just has generally better options, which ends up crowding this guy out.

[VCR_CAT]

This guy is actually quite good to tech in at 1 or 2. He may not be the uber explosive one, but 3300 is a lot of power and both his muscle and attack booster can help the Nekroz decks get out of a lot of situations none of the others could.

[Darj]

Flavour-wise, it makes sense that this card's effect is "weaker" than its Synchro counterpart (which is the case for many other Nekroz Rituals), because they're just using its corpse rather than the full-blown monster.

 

I disagree on this. Flavor-wise one could think they are weaker, but we really don't know how strong is, let's say, Necloth Trishula compared to the original Trishula; maybe the current DT foes in the storyline are so strong that Necloth Trishula's strength is overshadowed.

But even then, effect-wise most of the Necloth Rituals are equally strong, if not better, although it's true that some are bound to the archetype and/or were adapted to fit the archetype's theme (e.g. affecting ED monsters only). For instance, Necloth Catastor shares its effect with fellow Necloths, unlike AoJ Catastor who keeps it for itself, while Necloth Gungnir is a Quick Effect unlike the Synchro Gugnir. So there are few reasons, if any, for concluding they are weaker than the original counterparts. The only ones that arguably became weaker are Brionac (but to be fair, Brionac is crazy with the lack of OPT clause) and this one (although it comes with the perk of banishing the Set monster); and Unicores have different field effects so they cannot be directly compared.

[(GigaDrillBreaker)]

This card used to be a crucial 1-of for dealing with Apoqliphort Killer.

[heraldry_lord]

I disagree on this. Flavor-wise one could think they are weaker, but we really don't know how strong is, let's say, Necloth Trishula compared to the original Trishula; maybe the current DT foes in the storyline are so strong that Necloth Trishula's strength is overshadowed.

But even then, effect-wise most of the Necloth Rituals are equally strong, if not better, although it's true that some are bound to the archetype and/or were adapted to fit the archetype's theme (e.g. affecting ED monsters only). For instance, Necloth Catastor shares its effect with fellow Necloths, unlike AoJ Catastor who keeps it for itself, while Necloth Gungnir is a Quick Effect unlike the Synchro Gugnir. So there are few reasons, if any, for concluding they are weaker than the original counterparts. The only ones that arguably became weaker are Brionac (but to be fair, Brionac is crazy with the lack of OPT clause) and this one (although it comes with the perk of banishing the Set monster); and Unicores have different field effects so they cannot be directly compared.

 

Actually, Trishula's on-field effect also became weaker, because the original Trishula didn't care if you had something to banish in all 3 locations.  Although not originally a Synchro, Sophia also became weaker.

[Blake]

Actually, Trishula's on-field effect also became weaker, because the original Trishula didn't care if you had something to banish in all 3 locations.  Although not originally a Synchro, Sophia also became weaker.

tbf, Valk and Catastor got stronger, and Unicore did get stronger though in a different way.-

[Darj]

Actually, Trishula's on-field effect also became weaker, because the original Trishula didn't care if you had something to banish in all 3 locations.  Although not originally a Synchro, Sophia also became weaker.

 

Well, if you get technical then yes, some appear to be weaker. For instance, Clausolas only hits ED monsters while Synchro Clausolas can hit anything. But in essence I would say they are equally good; Trishula may miss its effect if it cannot hit the 3 cards, but it still can banish 3 cards like the Synchro. Sophia did lose some perks, but in exchange it should be much easier to Summon (in a dedicated Deck of course, which I believe would be a Necloth-Zefra variant? I don't know). And Sophia is sort of an exception, anyway.

[玄魔の王]

tbf, Valk and Catastor got stronger, and Unicore did get stronger though in a different way.-

Unicore got shifted laterally, in the sense its Effect isn't limited by a condition but has less scope of what it can actually do.

The same goes for Decisive here. He no longer requires a LIGHT Monster to use his effect, banishes what he kills, and is less costly than a 3+ Material Synchro thanks to Shurit, but he lost the 2 Stronger effects and 1K DEF (this doesn't matter quite as much though).

I'd say he's worth teching at 1, since his ATK can get you over a few challenges and his boost effect can be used in damage step.

[CLG Klavier]

Erm...there's like zero reason not to run 1 copy. It's really strong, despite what it looks like. Dunno why people are trying to say he's bad when he's really damn strong.

[Darj]

I don't see anyone saying that is bad. My only complain is that it could have been better, given the power level of some fellow Necloths.

Of course, as the Necloth Ritual with the highest ATK plus the boosting effect, it earned a place in the deck, but personally it would have been neat if it was as important as, let's say, Trishula or Valkyrus, to the point that running 2~3 copies was desirable, if not a-must.