Card Review: Gishki Diviner

If you know me you know I like to look at decks in Japan, and this little card and a deck caught my attention. Gishki Diviner is a very peculiar draw engine that a very fun and viable deck can be built around. Matt mentioned him briefly on the Yugioh Terminology podcast as a card he really liked, and I’m sure you’ll at least find it very interesting too.

Once per turn: You can declare 1 card name; reveal the top card of your deck, and if it is the declared card, add it to your hand. Otherwise, return it to the top of your deck.

A very different effect that can basically allow you to draw a card, with some good prediction, every time it hits the field. Obviously, if that’s all there was to it, I wouldn’t be talking about it. So here’s a couple of the cards that you might want to try with it:

“I spy a very very old card.”

If you know these cards, it shouldn’t be too hard to figure out how these work with Diviner. First off, is Deep Sea Diva, a card that has seen the competitive lime light in the past, but has recently been put by the wayside. It is initially the best support for Diviner. When Diva is summoned you can Special Summon 1 level 3 or lower Sea Serpent from your deck; which, in this case, will likely be Gishki Diviner. This allows for quick and easy access to Diviner from the deck as well as a powerful Level 5 Synchro – like Ally of Justice Catastor or T.G. Hyper Librarian. If you draw the card from your deck with Diviner in this combo, it nets you a very tidy plus 1  (which is always good).

The real combo though is with an all but forgotten card: Convulsion of Nature. It’s so old in fact, that the card says “Magic Card” on it rather than “Spell Card”. Overall, it’s a very odd card; Convulsion of Nature is a Continuous Spell Card that makes both players play with their respective decks upside down. This means that both players can always see the top card of the opponent’s deck. This is an extreme advantage if you build a deck based around it and, in the case of Gishki Diviner, you can always call the card correctly off the top of your deck since you can literally see it. This means that if you have Convulsion of Nature, Gishki Diviner’s effect will always be a success. There’s other ways to take advantage of this card too like Archfiend’s Oath, which is pretty much a once per turn Continuous Spell version of Gishki Diviner’s effect, or cards like Mind Crush, since you always know what cards your opponent is drawing.

The last card is just an example of a card that stacks cards on top of your deck. Plaguespreader Zombie and cards like it (ex. A Feather of the Phoenix) have effects or costs that take a specific card and put them on top of your deck. This makes calling the card on top of your deck with Gishki Diviner all the more easy since you put the card on the top of your deck yourself.

After seeing all this you might say,”well that’s great and all but what kind of deck can utilize this kind of card?” Well, I’m glad you asked because I know just the deck…

“Is it cold in here or is it just me?”

It becomes clear after just a short bit of explanation that Gishki Diviner can find a fine place in a Destiny Hero build of an Elemental HERO Absolute Zero deck. First off, the deck already runs Deep Sea Diva and cards like Spined Gillman to be summoned with Diva. All you need to do is switch out cards like Gillman for Diviners to find a place for it in the monster lineup. Also, since one of the deck’s ace monsters is Destiny Hero – Diamond Dude, who has an effect that also benefits from the manipulation of the top cards of your deck it seems almost obvious to be running it with cards like Convulsion of Nature and Plaguespreader. It’s also smart to note that Absolute Zero decks already have a very powerful drawing engine. Combined with Diviner, you have a lot of control over your hand, which could make for some deadly card advantage; that and it’s always fun to just draw a bunch of cards! Try it out, I’m sure you’ll have lots of fun with it.

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