What If You Never Existed: Evilswarm Exciton Knight

[AnnieShifter]

 

Evilswarm Exciton Knight

Rank 4

Fiend/XYZ/Effect

2 Level 4 monsters

Once per chain, during your Main Phase or your opponent's Battle Phase, if your opponent has more total cards in their hand and their side of the field than you do: You can detach 1 Xyz Material from this card; destroy all other cards on the field, also your opponent takes no further damage this turn (this is a Quick Effect).

 

Exciton Knight is one of the most powerful xyz in the game, and any rank 4 deck,even decks that barely run level 4s, will always run 1. The fact that it can blow up the field is simply amazing, although some people say it's a bad card. If you manage to resolve the card its game changing. It has an enormous influence, to the point that a player must always be prepared for it, and if you're not, you lose your field. Some people say that it's an unfair card that never should've never existed. So I'm going to start this series where we can discuss influential cards in yugioh, and whether or not it should've existed in the first place. Feel free to state your opinion and say whether or not the card should exist, or how the card is or isn't balanced.

[Zauls]

inb4 black comes in saying its bad

[Not-so-Radiant Arin]

It's not a bad card at all. It's only bad for the game from a design standpoint. If it perhaps wasn't a Quick Effect that activated when your opponent stopped Swarming T1, then it might be a bit more balanced.

[The Highlander]

A card which has the potential to reverse the advantage (and even at that WAY more balanced than heavy storm).

Indeed the quick part of the effect is powerful, however breakthrough skill and fiendish chain (as well as effect veiler) would anyways be chained to the effect.

On top of that this card improves the value of hand advantage, placing the field in a permanent danger.

 

(...) then it might be a bit more balanced.

It is as balanced as castel, who is a simple answer to about everything (leo etc. are still immune to him).

The only ridiculous awful part about balancing is the fact that rank 4 have way more devastating 2 material xyzs than any other rank (not counting cyber dragon nova (as infinity is a thing), (who is accessible for rank 4s), big eye and felgrand).

All in all this card punishes a player for having no defense, using pendulum monsters or focusing all advantage (with the first point of having no protection) on board.

[Toffee.]

....I still would have liked it if it was a 'Nobelswarm'.
Just sayin'

[Blake]

inb4 black comes in saying its bad

Not like I didn't give legit reasoning =T

 

Even if I call it bad at a point, it's not like it's going to be objectively bad forever, even if it is at a time. Last format I wouldn't run it at all, but I admit there's reason to run it now that wasn't around last format.

[Darj]

Should have been named "Exciton Knight Beelswarm" or something among those lines; "Noblswarm" would have been cool too, but I believe that was a name given by the translators when the card was just announced/leaked.

 

Personally, I'm fine with this card. Really, in a way it discourages and punishes overextending, which is fun for me. Something that I do to anticipate this is to keep in mind the card count of both players, and avoid setting 3+ backrows unless at least 1 of them can stop Verzbuth.

[I Hate Snatch Steal]

This card reminds me of a broken created card that someone I used to know ran in created card duels and makes the created card in question look tame ) : See for yourself:

This was his broken card:

 

The Big Goodbye:

Normal Spell

Destroy all cards on the field. Cards and effects cannot be activated and the destruction cannot be negated by anything because I say so. Each player skips their next Battle Phase.

 

I'd be winning (since his decks were almost never a threat to mine as a whole) and he'd drop that. It happened far too often for my liking and was ANNOYING!

 

Compared to the above, Exciton swaps uncounterability for ease of access. At least the above card had to be drawn from the deck to be used. Back to exiton, it also shouldn't be a quick effect, give that to galaxy destroyer instead so it can still use priority to stop summon response chains like Uria did in the old days. Konami knew full well that priority had been altered when they made SDRGD, but they didn't correct for it ) :, but yet they make this of all things "immune" to bottomless trap hole and compulsory.

 

tl;dr, Exiton's main problem is that he's a generic rank 4 so he doesn't need to be drawn to steal games. The quick effect that should be an ignition effect just makes it worse

[heraldry_lord]

Personally, I'm fine with this card. Really, in a way it discourages and punishes overextending, which is fun for me. Something that I do to anticipate this is to keep in mind the card count of both players, and avoid setting 3+ backrows unless at least 1 of them can stop Verzbuth.

 

It doesn't always punish overextension; sometimes it punishes a deck for just playing naturally.  D/D, for instance, amasses field advantage by its very nature and isn't as floater-heavy as Shaddolls or Burning Abyss, which makes Exciton a scourge for them if you don't have adequate negation on hand or don't blow up his would-be Xyz Materials in time.

 

Meanwhile, Nekroz don't care, because they barely commit to the field compared to other Tier 1s.

 

Really, the decks that this should punish are the most resistant to it.