#The Bystial Aluber

[fyeahygocardart]

The Bystial Aluber

[yugiohcardsdaily]

The Bystial Aluber

"This card's name becomes 'Fallen of Albaz' while on the field or in the GY. If this card is Normal or Special Summoned: You can discard 1 card, then target 1 Dragon monster your opponent controls or in their GY, and activate the appropriate effect;

Send this card to the GY, and if you do, take control of that monster on the field until the End Phase.

Send this card to the GY, and if you do, Special Summon that monster from the GY to your field.

You can only use this effect of 'The Bystial Aluber' once per turn."

[wyvyrnygo]

I love him so much

[raccoonskoodilypoopdungeon]

this is their dynamic to me

[qedmirage]

Yugioh Rants: Blazing Cartesia, The Virtuous

I've been playing a lot of yugioh lately on master duel and in particular the "Bystial Runick" deck. It's all quite fun but I'd like to highlight the gameplay and story integration going on with one card in particular, not even the best in the deck but possibly my favorite:

This is Blazing Cartesia, The Virtuous and she's one of the best designed Yugioh cards I've seen.

So, first off, story background. Cartesia is a corrupted/brainwashed/evilified version of "Ecclesia", a girl featured across many cards in the Albaz/Branded storyline. Important for our discussion here is that Ecclesia is good friends with Dogmatika Fluerdelis / The Iris Swordsoul, and very close adventuring partners/love interest of "The Fallen of Albaz". Along the way they're opposed at first by the more villainous Dogmatikas, then later the Bystials and Despians as well. More under the break, this post is quite long.

Like a lot of modern Yugioh cards Cartesia has a paragraph on her so we'll take it piece by piece. First, her basic stats and name (yes that has a gameplay effect):

Blazing Cartesia, The Virtuous Light Attribute | Lvl 4 1500 ATK / 1500 DEF Spellcaster / Tuner / Effect

Cards in Yugioh are grouped into archetypes by strings in their names. Notable here is that Cartesia doesn't belong to any of the Albaz storyline archetypes specifically; she assists lots of the villain ones, but she's not technically a member. Being specifically a "LIGHT Spellcaster monster whose ATK equals its own DEF", she can be special summoned by the graveyard effect of Despian Luluwalilith, the corrupted form of Iris. The two still have a bond despite what's happened to them.

Finally, being a lvl 4 Tuner means she can be used to Synchro summon. With a level 6 monster (like all of the Bystials) she can be used to summon "The Bystial Dis Pater", that archetype's extra deck boss monster. With a level 8 monster however, she can be used to summon Despian Luluwalilith. You know who's level 8? All of the Fusion monsters Albaz forms. So already she combos very nicely with the hero and villain cards from the storyline. On to her effects.

If you control "Fallen of Albaz" or it is in your GY: You can Special Summon this card from your hand.

This one's fun. Cartesia does her best work on the field and this gets here there, but it does so based on where Albaz is. It works to show that she still has feelings towards Albaz even in her current state. Instead of her interacting with Aluber, The Bystial Aluber has a name-replacement effect that makes his name count as "Fallen of Albaz" under most situations; she has feelings for Albaz, but Aluber's tricked her and redirected her to work with him.

During the Main Phase (Quick Effect): You can Fusion Summon 1 Level 8 or higher Fusion Monster from your Extra Deck, using monsters from your hand or field as material.

Albaz's deck/playstyle revolves around fusion summoning and Cartesia facilitates that. Fusions have some inherent weaknesses, and Cartesia working the way she does helps mitigate them. The "Level 8 or higher" restriction just allows her to make all of Albaz's dragon forms. Special mention here to one specific target she can make, Granguignol the Dusk Dragon:

This card has a lot going on but worth noting is the clasped hands on the dragon's neck; concept art calls them "hands of the holy maidens", and indeed Ecclesia was one of the holy maidens of Dogmatika before the story started. As for effects, Gran-Guginol can send one of your cards from the extra deck to the GY, an effect very in-theme for the Dogmatikas!

Going back to Cartesia, she has one more effect and a restriction:

During the End Phase, if a Fusion Monster(s) was sent to your GY this turn: You can add this card from the GY to your hand.

You can only use each effect of "Blazing Cartesia, the Virtuous" once per turn.

The restriction is nothing too notable; it's a standard "Hard Once Per Turn" effect done to prevent silly infinites and the like (This isn't MtG!). The last effect is notable. Albaz's fusions often send themselves or other fusions into the GY, and doing so lets you recover Cartesia for follow-up plays.

As for her art, Cartesia's dress uses the diamond pattern seen on Aluber's various cards and a vareity of Despians. So you know she's evil now (her bust size has also increased mysteriously). All in all, she's an evil form of a well known and caring person. While she's working for the bad guys, she still has in her heart her love for her friends, and her effects reference that. Even without any flavor text she's one of the most flavorful cards I think I've seen. In passing, I'll note the parallels between these two cards (Branded Regained and Branded Bond), one of her evil form helping Bystial Druiswurm and one of her non-corrupted form helping Albion, one of Albaz's dragon forms.

[krawlernyannyan]

YGOMD 9-22-23

Another round of games in the Xyz/Fusion Festival today. Playing a modified list, mostly to include a Bystial lineup alongside the Branded/Despia stuff.

Versus Lunalights. Had a good game with this one! They got their big untargetable indestructible boss out but unfortunately for them Mirrorjade doesn't target or destroy. [Win]

Versus HEROs. Some days you get good opening hands and some days you get a bunch of cards that love being fused and no way to actually fuse them. I had to set an Edge Imp Chain, pass, and hope to live. Considering they made me go first they were very much ready to deal with a single Set card. [Loss]

A Branded mirror! And a really fun one that had a nice back-and-forth. I powered through a Mirrorjade board and almost had lethal but had to skip the one summon that would do it because I was under Maxx C and worried they'd draw into like, The Golden Swordsoul but left them with 400 LP. The Maxx C draws they had wound up giving them a full backrow, which included an Imperm and a Super Poly to muck up my follow-up plays. Thankfully I had my own Super Poly set after that and they summoned Aluber on their turn which let me SP into Masquerade, completely locking them out of effects. [Win]

And that's actually all I have time for today! Short but satisfying round of games.