#spyral mission

All the new SPYRAL cards got announced/leaked a few days ago, but I’ve been taking some time to play around with them for a bit before posting here so I could gain a better understanding of their place in the deck before sharing with you guys!

So first up we have SPYRAL Tough, and he brings some pretty awesome field clearing to the deck! First and foremost, him being treated as SPYRAL Super Agent is phenomenal, meaning you can access your Quik-Fix, Drone, Resort Staff and Utility Wire effects while he is on the field or graveyard, making him already useful in that regard. His stats match Agent, and while he can’t special summon himself, his effect is incredibly useful. Firstly, unlike Agent, he can hit monsters which is awesome for clearing the field. But what’s also important that distinguishes him from Agent is that his effect is not a hard once per turn. If you can bring out multiple Toughs or summon the same Tough multiple times a turn (easy with Assault and/Big Red!) then you can potentially blow away multiple cards in one turn. But the biggest factor contributing to Tough’s usefulness is his ability to look at the top card of your opponent’s deck, like Misty or Drone. Now, between Misty, Drone and Tough, the deck has heaps of ways to set up for Agent’s special summon effect, making it almost guaranteed that you’ll know your opponent’s next draw and be able to extend your plays.

The SPYRAL GEAR - Utility Wire is up next and this card is AMAZING. The most important thing about it is, of course, that it is searchable by Quik-Fix, making it really, really easy to access. Requiring Super Agent (or Tough) on the field to use it is not really a cost as you should be getting Super Agent out onto the field quickly in the first place anyway. The card offers non-destroying removal and returns cards to the deck, the most disruptive form of removal there is in that it not only does not trigger any monster effects, but forcing your opponent to draw a potentially useless card can set them back a whole turn. Naturally, setting a main deck card back to the top of the deck also means you can accurately call Agent, Tough and Misty’s effects correctly, so the synergy is significant. Utility Wire is an excellent, excellent card.

And then SPYRAL MISSION - Recapture is a little less impressive. The effect sounds great when you first read it, but unfortunately there is no in-theme way of special summoning a SPYRAL on your opponent’s turn. As such, the card, although a trap, offers no effective way of interrupting your opponent’s plays on their turn like Utility Wire does, which is what would have made this card really nice. But instead you have a card that takes a turn to set up and effectively offers you little in the way of advantage. The two most crucial, positive applications of Recapture are this: to take control of your opponent’s monsters and use them for Xyz or Synchro summons on your turn (hint, hint, Zoodiacs) or to set up chain links with Super Agent so that he is chain link 1 and Recapture is chain link 2, effectively letting him dodge cards like Solemn Strike, which is okay. The graveyard effect also isn’t anything to write home about; it only protects SPYRAL monsterswhen Resort is the card that mostly needs protection, and even then, it only protects one SPYRAL monster if multiple would be destroyed. Super Agent is usually strong enough to resist any destruction by battle anyway, and then cards like Master or Quik Fix WANT to be destroyed and sent to the graveyard to use their effects anyway. And it can’t protect SPYGAL Misty, who also would benefit from this protection. The card, while searchable, is slow, has rather specific activation requirements and has no in-theme way of being used on the opponent’s turn which is where it needs to be used to be good. If our last set of of support gives us something that lets us special summon on the opponent’s turn, then this card we definitely have its uses. For now though, it’s certainly playable but I feel there are better options.

All in all, from my testing I’ve concluded that Misty, Tough and Wire are all exceptional cards, but Misty is proving to be the most effective. She sets up Agent, draws cards and gives you disruption during either player’s turn. I’ve found that cards like Dark Magic Veil and Summoner Monk give easier access to her and allow you to make full use of her effects despite her SPYGAL limitations. Tough and Wire further enhance the deck’s natural plays and maintain your board and field advantage whilst furthering the deck’s goals of simplifying the gamestate to eventually start hitting them with Drone for the win. With the addition of Symphonics and Zoodiacs in Raging Tempest as well, the deck is highly versatile and I’ve yet to settle on the best build (although it’s looking to be a build with Summoner Monk/Dark Magic Veil and Zoodiacs) and from initial testing I’ve definitely been having success against Zoodiacs and meta decks of the prior format. I’ll keep you all updated as the set is actually released, but I’m really looking forward to playing some more SPYRALs this upcoming format!