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For those who remember the story, the "Egyptian Gods" are one-of-a-kind all-powerful cards created by Maximillion Pegasus, who modelled them after three Ancient Egypt divine beasts represented around the Millennium Puzzle on the stone tablet which is said to hold the memories of the nameless Pharaoh. As such, the three Gods, “Slifer the Sky Dragon", "Obelisk the Tormentor" and "The Winged Dragon of Ra", serve as a focal point in the series' manga, the second series anime, and numerous video games. Considering the role they play in the story and how awesome they are, I always wanted to have these cards in my deck. Obelisk and Slifer.
Long time players have probably bumped into those cards in the past but now KONAMI has decided to make a brand new structure deck for both Obelisk and Slifer. The new structure decks for Slifer the Sky Dragon and for Obelisk the Tormentor are specifically designed around the characteristics of the two Gods and they could be a great way for new players to get into the game. Best of all, they also come as a twin starting set to maximize the value and the fun.
Structure Decks: General Overview
Each Egyptian God Deck contains 40 cards: 4 Ultra Rare Cards, 4 Super Rare Cards, 32 Common Cards. 5 among the eight Rare cards are new while all the others cards of the deck are reprints from previous sets.
Each box contains also the usual double-sided game mat that doubles as a duelling Guide. The mat is the same for both decks, showing Obelisk and Slifer on the front and a summarized guide on the back. When both mats are combined, the overall battlefield looks quite good from an aesthetic point of view. At the same time, I feel KONAMI could have made a more detailed strategic guide for each deck instead of having both summarized on the same mat.
In terms of strategy, the two main aspects that strike out immediately are: 1) there is only one copy of each God card in the deck and 2) you will need 3 tributes in order to summon it. Considering these two aspects, both structure decks are designed to provide ingenious ways to summon your divine-beast to the field as quickly as possible and then to maximize their power.
“Slifer The Sky Dragon, Reveal Yourself, My All-Powerful Beast!”
When using Slifer structure deck, your strategy should exploit the 8 cards with the ability to generate monster tokens. Having all these tokens available as tributes should get Slifer into the battlefield quite fast as far as you find a way to get the Divine-Beast in your hand.
To help with this, the deck also contains a couple of good tricks. Among them I like in particular the strategy to use “Card Advance” to look and re-order the first 5 cards of your deck followed by “The true name” that allows you to special summon Slifer from your deck as far as you guess the card on top of your deck. That's how to put two cards at good use....
In addition to some good token generating cards, your deck also contains a few cards that allow you to tribute your opponent monster instead of yours. That's a great way to push the balance of the game towards yourself by disrupting your enemy strategy and pushing forward your stronger monster. Among these cards, one is the well-known “Lair of Darkness” that allows you to first sacrifice any opponent monster to activate a card effect and then to special summon as many tokens as the tributed monsters. The other one is a whole new card, “Soul Crossing” that is designed with the purpose to special summon a Devine-beast by tributing your opponent's monsters. This is a great addition to these decks and you have a copy of them in both.
Once Slifer is on the field its ATK and DEF will be linked to how many cards you have in your hand. To make Slifer an unstoppable monster you could manage your hand carefully or you could unleash its full power by using its signature move: “Thunderforce Attack”. This special magic card can only be used if you have Slifer on the field and allows you to destroy all face-up monster your opponent controls and to draw a card for each of them. As Slifer gains 1000 ATK and DEF for each card in your hand, this move will probably change the tide of the game in your favour: not only it would probably make the Sky Dragon a strong monster but you should probably be able to score a substantial direct hit to your opponent's lifepoints as all their monsters have been wiped out by the magic card.
“Obelisk The Tormentor, Arise And Wreak Your Ultimate Revenge!”
Obelisk deck, on the other hand, does not contain token generating cards. The strategy here is to use your monsters to summon other monsters to fill your battlefield with tributes. For example, if you play Nimble Beaver or Super-Nimble Mega Hamster you would be allowed to also special summon another “Nimble” monster from the deck or the graveyard. Among the options, the best one is to pick Nimble Momonga. This little critter has only 1000 ATK points but once defeated or sent to the graveyard it would give you +1000 lifepoints and the option to special summon up to two more Nimble Momonga straight from your deck. These are worth another 2000 lifepoints if killed or could be two of the tributes you need to summon Obelisk.
The other nice card to look for is Ra's Disciple. The monster itself is an average 1100 ATK/ 600 DEF monster but its special ability allows a player to immediately special summon 2 more RA disciples from the deck into the battlefield. If you manage to keep them alive for one turn, you will have all the materials to to summon Obelisk assuming you managed to get the God in your hand.
As for Slifer deck, Obelisk structure deck has a couple of tricks to locate the Divine-beast card and to get it in your hand. Between the possible strategies, I like the two Lv6 and Lv7 Machine cards “Gizmek Makami, The Ferocious fanged fortress” and “ Gizmek Uka, The Festive Fox of Fecundity”. Both these cards have a very long name and a few interesting effects that could come in hand in any match. In particular, they both allow to summon to the field of your hand a monster as far as it has the same ATK and DEF stats.
Just a hint: Obelisk has the same ATK and DEF stats. More specifically, this Egyptian god brings to the field 4000 ATK and 4000 DEF making him a very solid hitter. There should be very few cards that could match the power of this god but if your opponent manages to have some annoying monster on his side, you could always use Obelisk magic card “First of Fate”. Once used, Obelisk will not only negate the effect of 1 effect monster on your opponent side, it will also destroy it and negate all effects of the cards with the same name of the destroyed monster. Just to be sure, this magic card also destroys all Spells and Traps your opponent controls. In one word, Obelisk will punch that monster so hard it will erase it from reality.....
Final Thoughts
Personally, I think that any time somebody mention Obelisk and Slifer, we should just ask “how long the shipment will take?”.
Jokes apart, these decks are a very good way to get into YuGiOH for anyone that is looking for a good balanced structure deck to get a feeling for the game. The cards in each of the two decks are not too complex to master and they allow for different strategies without the need to make any of your move counts. In addition, there is no extra deck in this set and that makes these two decks easier for new starters.
In terms of strategic value, these decks are completely built around the two Divine-beasts and they may struggle a bit against other more complex structure decks. Combining the two decks could be a good way to increase their efficiency and to get some interesting strategies. If you also have other decks or singles, you could for sure make good use of a portion of the cards that come with this set.
In summary and considering the average price of this Obelisk and Slifer twin deck, I would strongly recommend it for all new starters. All more experience players should probably also get it because you could not play YuGiOh and not have all the three Egyptian Gods in your collection...
