Thursday, May 7, 2009

Raging Battle Card Review: Dark End Dragon and Light End Dragon




For this last card review, I'll be looking at Dark End Dragon and Light End Dragon, two dragon synchro monsters which have very powerful, but costly, effects. I realize that Dark End Dragon is not a card in Raging Battle, but the two go together. Dark End Dragon can now be won at Shonen Jump Championships. Anyway, on to the effects!

Dark End Dragon
Dark
Dragon/Synchro
1 Tuner + 1 or more non-Tuner DARK monsters
Once per turn, you can have this card lose 500 ATK and DEF, and send 1 monster your opponent controls to the Graveyard.

Light End Dragon
Light
Dragon/Synchro/Effect
1 Tuner + 1 or more non-Tuner LIGHT monsters
When this face-up card attacks, you can have it lose 500 ATK and DEF and have the opponent's monster that this card is battling lose 1500 ATK and DEF until the End Phase.

In a deck based around these two monsters, the preferred method for summoning these two monsters would be to use Chaos End Master to destroy an opponent's monster in battle, and use its effect to special summon Sphere of Chaos. Because Sphere of Chaos counts as both a Dark and a Light monster, you'll have the option of summoning either Light End Dragon or Dark End Dragon.
You'll want to pick Dark End Dragon when you have multiple monsters on the field facing several monsters on your opponent's side of the field. Dark End Dragon can clear away the monsters, and the rest of your team can attack.
On the other hand, Light End Dragon specializes more in taking down single monsters whilst dealing damage. Both are pretty cool, but on the whole, Dark End Dragon is the one you'll be choosing more, since it is capable of taking down up to five monsters once it is summoned. Furthermore, note that it does not destroy monsters - it merely sends them to the graveyard. Stardust? Useless. Prime Material Dragon? Helpless to prevent this.

Both Dragons reduce their own life points in order to activate their effects, similar to Light and Darkness Dragon. This is obviously meant to be a hinderance, in order to make their effects more balanced (especially in the case of Dark End Dragon), but this effect isn't all bad. In fact, it just makes the two even more fun to play, as they can combine other cards to make the best of their effects. Here are some of the ways you can take advantage of or bypass their attack reducing abilities:

1. By removing it from the field temporarily, you allow its attack stat to return to normal after it returns - use Interdimensional Matter Transporter for this. Another card in the upcoming pack Ancient Sanctuary has a similar effect, but I'll leave that for next time.

2. Reverse Trap can turn very nasty after the attack of the dragons have dropped very low. Your opponent will no doubt attempt to take advantage of this and attack them when they're low on attack, so that will be the perfect time to activate Reverse Trap, turning the tables on your opponent completely! A Light End Dragon with 100 attack would turn into a 5100 attack monster, and Dark End Dragon would have the potential to destroy ten monsters! (Not that that's likely to happen, though). You could activate this on your turn to boost the attack of Dark End Dragon, use it to sweep your opponent's monsters away and attack for a devestating hit to your opponent's life points.

3. In the case of Dark End Dragon, you could use Crush Card Virus to tribute Dark End Dragon after it's down 600 or less attack.

4. By boosting the attack of Light End Dragon or Dark End Dragon with something like Rush Recklessly, you are essentially getting a 1-for-1 tradeoff, which isn't too bad.

A final word of caution: When you activate Light End Dragon or Dark End Dragon's dragon, if they have fewer than 500 attack when their effect resolves, nothing will happen.

Well, that wraps up my card reviews for Raging Battle. I hope you enjoyed the series. Enjoy the new cards you get, search for new ways to take on the big decks, and most importantly, have fun!

Duel with Honor!
~Geno

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