Crimson Blader

Crimson Blader
Fianlly, a post. Anyway, I was roaming Pojo and I found this.

CrimsonBlader-JP-Anime-5D.jpg
Crimson Blader(anime artwork)

Crimson Blader「クリムゾン・ブレーダー」
FIRE/Warrior - Synchro - Effect/8/2800/2600
Tuner + 1 or more Non-Tuner Monster
When this card destroys an opponent's monster by battle and sends it to the Graveyard, during your opponent's next turn, your opponent cannot Normal Summon or Special Summon a Level 5 or higher monster.

It has been confirmed as one of the three promo cards for Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's Tag Force 6 for the PSP. I must say I am very impressed.

This card is fantsastic, possibly a new extra deck staple to replace the long outdated Colossal Fighter. There's an old proverb that says "Prevention is better than cure". This is also true for YGO. What you get with Blader is the ability to really put pressure on your opponent. By cutting of their Special Summons, you cut off most of their ability to reverse the game. They can kill Blader, but they can't reestablish field presence.

For example, you could summon this, attack Grapha, Dragon God of Dark World, and then your opponent will be unable to revive it or make any large monsters at all. This is great. You silenced their most powerful threat and essentially gave yourself a free turn. If your opponent goes on the defensive with monsters, you can continue to starve your opponent of their much needed Special Summons while you have time to anchor yourself on the field and make it impossible for a turn around. No Grapha revives, no Machina Fortess escapes, no Hyperion or Kristya, no Plant synchro spam, nothing. The most they can do is Dark Hole and end.

Crimson Blader also has a lot of physical bulk. 2800 2600 are some pretty impressive stats. Even Burei can't get over it without help, provided that Burei survives. It also stops Book of Moon being a viable strategy just due to the fact that Blader wont die to anything but an even bigger monster, or a card effect.

One of the things I noticed about this card is its "Level 5 or higher" restriction. This means that most Exceed monsters are free from its grasp. This is probably an attempt by Konami to promote them by weakening the effectiveness of Synchros, much like the TCG exclusive Orient Dragon: a card specifially designed to make synchros die as soon as possible, including Shi En.

This card could suffer the same fate as Infernity Archfiend, being a highly sought after VG promo. I'm not sure how staple Blader is, but I'll probably be getting Tag Force 6. I don't have a PSP.

I'm sure there are things about Blader I missed. 5 out of 5 to Konami for excellent card design. Leave a comment with your thoughts below.