Aarikku
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Card #36 - The Trophy MonstersTwo things to make this Card Review special:
1) Pick your favourite out of the seven below cards to review. They all do exactly the same thing.
2) Anyone who can name all seven Trophy'd monsters gets 1000 Shmod Points. Though these Shmod Points don't allow you to do anything, and mean zilch. (Note that not all of these have been Reviewed. I don't actually expect anyone to get 'em all.)
Also, for the sake of not wanting to type the same thing seven times, this'll be pure picture:
      
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Naardaas
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Since I'm a complete Dragon freak, I'll go with Ruby Dragon.
This card is NUTS. With its effect, add another Ruby Dragon to your hand,, play it for free, and keep doing this until you run out. Then pick Heir Dragonling. This card is basically Shmod's Masked Dragon, and for that reason it's incredibly useful. Near BROKEN in a Noble Dragon beck. Bottom line, I give it a 4.5/5
As for naming the trophy-fied creatures:
Deathstalker Scorpion, Noble Dragon, Kinogaeru - Lord of the Frogs, Jack of the Lantern, R-1, Chimera of Fate, and I have no idea what the angel is.
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Aarikku
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Sorry, you've got one wrong and one that you didn't know. No Shmod points for you! I really didn't expect you to get Chimera of Fate, though... did I show you that from my sketchpad?
I digress. Recently I've been trying to invent cards based on what the game needs. My testing showed that, since decks in Shmod generally use more monsters than Yugioh, it was nigh impossible to create an Earth deck without Pandas, a Water deck without Frogs/Tadpoles and a Metal deck without MetaDragons or the Blastblaze cards.
Therefore, more themeless cards were in order. I started to think of how other card games did themeless cards. In Magic the Gathering, the sets have so bloody many cards that making any kind of deck imaginable is easy. In Duel Masters, which bears many similarities to Shmod with the Mana system, every card is themeless. But we all know that Yugioh is Shmod's biggest inspiration.
I decided that if each theme had a card to replace itself, it would help any kind of deck. In addition, since nearly every deck will be running 4 of one kind of Trophy, there are less spots that would be taken up by filler like Kamikaze Soldier or something. I decided to, yes, base the cards on Yugioh's 'recruiter' monsters - Shining Angel, Mother Grizzly, Giant Rat, etc. With a few differences:
1) The trophies can't attack. This probably wasn't too necessary, but it does make Shmod's recruiters less abusable than Yugioh's.
2) The trophies can search out strong monsters. Every type has a 1900-ATK effectless Level-1 monster. They are now searchable, however! They are not immediately summonable.
3) The trophies have more limitations. Yugioh's recruiters can search out a ridiculous amount of cards that were supposed to take work to summon. Namely the 0-ATK Yubel, which takes at least three cards to destroy. The trophies, on the other hand, can only play Level One monsters. Since there will never be a Level One that is impossible to deal with, the Trophies themselves will be less of a threat.
Onto the review. The trophies all have an additional category (or two, for Emerald) that make it slightly more powerful in dedicated decks. For example, Sapphire Frog powers up Wicked Frog. Ruby Dragon is searchable via Dragons' Spire. However, I didn't give them Categories with a ridiculous amount of support (like Pandas - imagine Panda Drummer being able to search out as many Emerald trophies as you had Mana!).
These cards will be 4.9/5's. I can't give them perfect scores, but every deck should use 4 of at least one kind of trophy.
==EDIT==
SPOILER ALERT (highlight): The monsters are Chimera of Fate, Deathstalker Scorpion, Zoria, Lord of Light, Jack of the Lantern, Noble Dragon, Majestic Bullfrog and R-1.
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Naardaas
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No, you did not show me Chimera in your sketchbook. I found its Transformation - Lightning-Armoured Chimera - on your DeviantArt page. I guess I'm more resourceful that you thought.
And why in Drahondes' would you post "The Monsters Are" and not add the associated images?!?!
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Aarikku
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Because I can't hide images by changing text colour. And yeah, I figured Deviantart would be the other way you found Chimera.
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Naardaas
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Good point, but in all honest how many more people do you think will try guessing? We're pretty much the only ones who come here on a regular basis.
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Aarikku
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Fine, fine.
      
I am aware that the lion head of Chimera of Fate kinda looks crappy. And that Deathstalker Scorpion's half DARK; I just didn't want to make an Emerald Panda that not only looked like every Panda, but also had too much support.
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