[Written] Generic Dragon Support Archetype

[ZillaSmasher]

Dragon Rider Sapphire

Lvl 4 WATER

Spellcaster/Union/Effect

0/0

Once per turn, you can either target 1 Dragon-Type monster you control, equip this card from your hand or your side of the field to it OR: unequip this card and Special Summon it. This card is treated as a Dragon-Type monster if it is Special Summoned this way. (A monster can only be equipped with 1 "Dragon Rider" monster at a time.) The equipped monster cannot be destroyed by card effects. Once per turn, if this card is sent from the Spell/Trap Zone to the Graveyard, monsters you control cannot be targeted by card effects until your opponent's next End Phase.

 

Dragon Rider Emerald

Lvl 4 WIND

Spellcaster/Union/Effect

0/0

Once per turn, you can either target 1 Dragon-Type monster you control, equip this card from your hand or your side of the field to it OR: unequip this card and Special Summon it. This card is treated as a Dragon-Type monster if it is Special Summoned this way. (A monster can only be equipped with 1 "Dragon Rider" monster at a time.) The equipped monster can attack your opponent directly, but when it does using this effect, any battle damage it inflicts to your opponent is halved. Once per turn, if this card is sent from the Spell/Trap Zone to the Graveyard; you can target 1 "Dragon Rider" monster in your Graveyard, except "Dragon Rider Emerald", add it to your hand.

 

Dragon Rider Ruby

Lvl 4 FIRE

Spellcaster/Union/Effect

0/0

Once per turn, you can either target 1 Dragon-Type monster you control, equip this card from your hand or your side of the field to it OR: unequip this card and Special Summon it. This card is treated as a Dragon-Type monster if it is Special Summoned this way. (A monster can only be equipped with 1 "Dragon Rider" monster at a time.) If the equipped monster attacks a Defense Position monster, inflict piercing damage to your opponent. Once per turn, if this card is sent from the Spell/Trap Zone to the Graveyard, you can target 1 monster your opponent controls, destroy it.

 

Dragon Rider Topaz

Lvl 4 LIGHT

Spellcaster/Union/Effect

0/0

Once per turn, you can either target 1 Dragon-Type monster you control, equip this card from your hand or your side of the field to it OR: unequip this card and Special Summon it. This card is treated as a Dragon-Type monster if it is Special Summoned this way. (A monster can only be equipped with 1 "Dragon Rider" monster at a time.) If the equipped monster destroys an opponent's monster by battle, you can destroy 1 Spell/Trap card your opponent controls. Once per turn, if this card is sent from the Spell/Trap Zone to the Graveyard, you can target 1 Dragon-Type monster you control; that monster is unaffected by card effects until the End Phase of this turn.

 

Dragon Rider Onyx

Lvl 4 DARK

Spellcaster/Union/Effect

0/0

Once per turn, you can either target 1 Dragon-Type monster you control, equip this card from your hand or your side of the field to it OR: unequip this card and Special Summon it. This card is treated as a Dragon-Type monster if it is Special Summoned this way. (A monster can only be equipped with 1 "Dragon Rider" monster at a time.) The equipped monster can make up to 2 attacks on monsters during each Battle Phase. Once per turn, if this card is sent from the Spell/Trap Zone to the Graveyard, you can Special Summon 1 Lvl 8 or lower Dragon-Type monster from your hand, but it is banished during the End Phase.

 

 

Castle of the Dragon Riders

Field Spell

All monsters equipped with 1 "Dragon Rider" monster gain 500 ATK and DEF. Once per turn, when a "Dragon Rider" monster you control is sent from the Spell/Trap Zone to the Graveyard and you control a monster(s), you can equip 1 "Dragon Rider" monster with a different name from your hand or Deck to 1 monster you control.

 

Sigil of the Dragon Riders

Normal Spell

Add 1 "Dragon Rider" monster from your Deck to your hand.

 

Dragon Rider Bond

Quickplay Spell

When a Dragon-Type monster you control would be destroyed by battle or card effect; you can send 1 "Dragon Rider" monster that is equipped to that monster to the Graveyard instead.

 

 

Dragon Rider Duel

Trap Card

Tribute 1 "Dragon Rider" monster in your Spell/Trap Zone to target up to 2 cards your opponent controls; destroy them.

[Snatch Steal]

I'm going to be as nice as I possibly can with this. Bear in mind that I spent 45 minutes on this review, and take it with a grain of salt.

 

Okay, so sapphire is a searchable 2k Level 4 effect monster that protects Dragons and then protects all monsters from targeting. So not only can you beat your opponent down with it, but you can protect your already huge Dragons from destruction, and then, if they try to get rid of this card, you can protect ALL MONSTERS you control from card effects for as long as your opponent has momentum, or you can just send them yourself with, say, Storm (that’s a bad example, but it’s the first that comes to mind). Oh, and it becomes a Dragon-Type, which is fine. Its 0 DEF means it’s a valid target for Recurring Nightmare, too. I hate it. Searchable protection that can also beat your opponent down in the grind game is wrong. Remember Alexandrite Dragon, another Dragon? It’s got 2000 ATK, isn’t searchable, and has no effect. So this card fills all but one of Alexandrite Dragon’s roles (Vanilla), and more. K.

 

This one’s also searchable, has an easily accessible level, and no attacking restrictions. It also lets Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon attack directly for 2250 damage, and the new one does that t w i c e . And then you can recycle ANY CARD, say, Raigeki, Trade-In, Twin Twisters, Vanity’s Emptiness, Solemn Warning, Allure of Darkness, Sacred Sword of Seven Stars, Drowning Mirror Force, et cetera. Remember how Dark Magician of Chaos was banned? Yeah, you know why? Because it could recycle spells. Just spells. Imagine if you could recycle cards that single-handedly stopped your opponent in their tracks, just as a floater. 

AND IT’S SEARCHABLE.

AND 2K.

oh, and it recycles itself. like, it can literally just add itself back to your hand, so you have infinite direct attacking.

 

okay, I think it’s obvious that these are all searchable. This one is the most balanced one so far, since it just pierces and destroys, which are reasonable. That said, it’s a bit underwhelming, unless you’re attacking for game, in which case it could be useful. It still bugs me, though, that it’s 2k with two effects that floats and is searchable. This could make it easier to end games with gradual residual damage and removal over and over again. Also, with Emerald, you can recycle it, getting multiple pops. 

 

........Okay. I understand that I haven’t been very nice so far, so let’s try to be nice with this one.

This allows Dragon-Types to demolish the opponent’s field, since many of them have very high ATK or a way to get very much ATK. One card that would be extremely easy to abuse would probably be Galaxy-Eyes Prime Photon Dragon, who only requires 2 level 8s to get out (which is very easy) and can attack 2 monsters at 4k, at which point it can gain further ATK, or just Rank Up instead.

but this isn’t the brunt of it.

you can also special summon ANY dragon-type from your hand OR D E C K. There are so many ridiculous possibilities, considering this is, as I mentioned, Searchable, 2k, no summon restrictions, recyclable, and DARK, which has plenty of support, so you can use this in Chaos Dragons.

 

OKAY, YOU’VE TAKEN IT TOO FAR.

Obviously, this is too far. The boost is good, since it makes busted monsters even more busted, but the float is just……I foresee terraforming > twin twisters 1 opponent’s card and 1 of your Riders > Special Summon Red-Eyes Darkness Metal + Float > Recycle Onyx, so you can summon even more stuff > spam the field

This is considering there are even more Dragons coming. You can play 3 Onyx 2 Emerald 1 Ruby 1 Rota 3 Terra 1-2 Castle 2 Dragon Ravine and have an extraordinary engine in and of itself. Toss in some Dragons, and bam, you’ll be OTKing like it’s nothing. With pluses coming off of Trade-In and Cards of Consonance, you can just draw into one of your guys and Blue-Eyes Alternate/Silver’s Cry + Dragon Shrine and you’ve got something going.

Dragons are significantly better than you let yourself believe, it seems.

 

And they have their own Proving Ground, so there are at least 4 cards to search for them. This card alone speeds up this set even more than they already were. Now, 10% of your Deck will be able to search this card, so if I use bad math, that’s over 50% chance of getting into your Dragon Riders very quickly. Seeing as you can recycle any card in your Graveyard (or that you control), and you can get any monster of a well-supported type right from your deck at very little cost and very little restriction. 

 

On one hand, this is dead weight.

On the other hand, it lets you protect one of your Dragons from destruction, and then can either recycle itself or any card in your graveyard, prevent everything from being targeted, or Special Summon a Dragon from your Deck. Essentially, there is no downside to this card, since it can be used without setting it during your turn and still use it during your opponent’s turn. 

 

Sword is useless. It’s a weaker, more costly version of Axe of Despair that has no use outside of mediocre stat gain that can already be reached through your field spell. Belongs in the trash.

 

Dragon Rider Duel looks okay, and maybe it is, but it’s kind of pointless to keep the Dragon Riders on the field for too long, except in the grind game. I’d probably never Normal Summon any of these guys, so you may as well use something else to help you get cards faster.

 

Although, there is one simple fix to (most of) these cards:

Change it to monster zone.

If you restrict it to monster zone, their effects become more difficult to pull off, or, at least, aren’t accessible turn 1 too often. I don’t like Onyx’s ability to summon ANY dragon, or Emerald’s ability to add back ANY card, so those also need to be fixed.

[ZillaSmasher]

Edited the effects and hopefully made them way less abusable. Made them Spellcasters, they have to be sent from the Spell/Trap zone to the grave, put OTP on their floating effects, made them Unions, Emerald only targets Dragon Rider monsters, Onyx summons Lvl 8 or lower Dragons from the hand and banishes the dragon during the End Phase instead of destroying it, took out Sword, and some other minor things.

[Snatch Steal]

Edited the effects and hopefully made them way less abusable. Made them Spellcasters, they have to be sent from the Spell/Trap zone to the grave, put OTP on their floating effects, made them Unions, Emerald only targets Dragon Rider monsters, Onyx summons Lvl 8 or lower Dragons from the hand and banishes the dragon during the End Phase instead of destroying it, took out Sword, and some other minor things.

 

Definitely more balanced. Now they don't have as much field presence, but still support dragons. The new one also makes them unaffected, which is helpful. I'd make Castle an activated effect so that your opponent has a chance to respond to it.