Card Review: Remaining MACR SPYRALs

I review the remaining SPYRAL support cards that have been revealed.

As per usual, we have a total of 4 new SPYRAL cards in the upcoming pack. I, in my previous article, wrote about the card SPYRAL Sleeper, which I’ll be referring to in this article because it clearly was designed to work with some of the following cards. So, if you haven’t read that feel free to go back and read that too, or not of course.

I’ll just go through each card and give some simple explanation. I want to try to make a kind of rubric for doing card reviews that can cleanly display a lot of info, so I’m going to try to keep things concise but hopefully still give out a lot of information. On with the article!

As a first note and a general overview of the new support, the new SPYRALs really stray from the previous bunch, which I’m more or less disappointed about because it breaks the them, but it’s also fine because most of the cards are pretty good. When I say they “break the theme” what I mean is that the effects of the new cards are almost completely unrelated to the espionage theme of the previous SPYRAL cards. The original idea behind the them was manipulation of the opponent’s deck and calling cards from the top of their deck. There was also this idea that there was the main secret agent and using this espionage you would allow youself to break into your opponent’s strategy with just the SPYRAL Super Agent and win with him alone in a strategy similar to protect the castle decks like Bujins. Both of those themes are kind of set by the wayside in this pack to a degree. There’s literally no call back to the deck manipulation, which is disappointing because that was the most original portion of the deck, and while the new cards still are about moving Super Agent to a degree, I would say they are lesser so.

This all is not to the deck’s detriment though, because with the new strategies, which I would say boil down to building around SPYRAL Sleeper, are potentially better than the Super Agent concentric deck of the past. It’s disappointing because it’s not really about espionage anymore, but I have no qualms with a working control deck.

SPYRAL GEAR – Last Resort

EARTH / Machine / Level 4
1000 ATK / 1000 DEF

You can target 1 “SPYRAL” monster you control; equip this monster from your hand or field to that target. While this card is equipped to a monster by this effect, the equipped monster cannot be destroyed by battle or card effects, also your opponent cannot target it with card effects. Once per turn, if this card is equipped to a monster by this effect: You can send 1 other card you control to the Graveyard; the equipped monster can attack directly this turn.

Super Basics:

• Can be searched by SPYRAL Quik-Fix, SPYRAL Resort, and SPYRAL Master Plan.
• Makes any SPYRAL virtually invulnerable.
• Allows you to attack directly by sending cards you want in the graveyard to the graveyard.

Easily the best card of the new SPYRAL set, loads of synergy with older and new SPYRAL cards, potential for setup, low combo ceiling and added capabilities. The only thing that could really make it any better was if it had good stats, namely 2000 DEF if I was to guess how it would be designed. I can’t really complain about that though, because it’s almost never worth summoning anyways.

Any monster equipped with Last Resort basically becomes invulnerable. This is naturally really annoying for the opponent. The furthers the potential of the protect the castle agenda and could bring life to a really trap heavy control variant of the deck, which I think would be very interesting.

Basic Strategies:

There’s really only two monsters that this card is aimed to be put on: SPYRAL Super Agent or SPYRAL Sleeper.

• With Super Agent, the intended strategy for the card is to have you continuously upping Super Agent’s attack with Drone and offing your own SPYRAL MISSION cards to allow Super Agent to attack directly.
• With SPYRAL Sleeper you now have a meaty body that becomes invulnerable and can destroy 2 cards once per turn during either players turn, which is really broken. Because the monster equipped with Last Resort cannot be destroyed, even by your own card effects, Sleeper can target himself for his destruction effect, not be destroyed because of Last Resort, and destroy 2 cards of your opponent’s of your choice.
• In a more dire scenario you can revive a Quik-Fix in defense and use Quik-Fix to search Last REsort and equip it to that same Quik-Fix. This can help to stall and can potentially be use in the same way as Super Agent and you can protect your boosted Quik-Fix.

Another important aspect of the card is the dumping effect that allows you to “send 1 card you control to the graveyard”. This is important for combos and setup:

• This can be used to get your SPYRAL Mission cards into the graveyard to get there graveyard effects, which are typically better.
• This can also be used to get SPYRAL Quik-Fix into the graveyard, which always seems to be a problem. Here’s an example play that adds the ability to setup more easily to the deck that requires only SPYRAL Super Agent and SPYRAL Quik-Fix, plus any blank cards:
  • Correctly call the top card of the opponent’s deck and Special Summon Super Agent.
  • Normal Summon Quik-Fix and search Last Resort.
  • Equip Last Resort to Super Agent.
  • Use Last Resort sending Quik-Fix to the graveyard.
  • Revive Quik-Fix by dumping a card and search another card, most likely SPYRAL GEAR – Utility Wire if you have no other combo pieces in hand.
  • If you have another Quik-Fix in hand you can discard that and grab a monster to discard with the first Quik-Fix and pitch it to revive the second and then search Utility Wire. From there you make a Rank 1 XYZ of choice.
• A more strange combination is that of Last Resort and SPYRAL Master Plan.
  • Master Plan gets her effect when sent to the graveyard, so you can send your own Master Plan to the graveyard with Last Resort to get her search effect very easily. You can also do combinations with Last Resort and Master Plan searches of SPYRAL Missions to summon multiple Master Plans in one turn, potentially making a Rank 7 XYZ. (Trust me it’s actually really easy and requires not a lot of cards, the merit of a Rank 7 for SPYRALs is in question though)

Cards of Note:

SPYRAL GEAR – Last Resort doesn’t really add much potential cards to the deck that weren’t already in the deck, but I figured I’m adding this section to every card in the review so I’ll give a short smattering of potential cards to think about.

• Instant Fusion
  • With the advent of more level 4 monsters that are viable in SPYRALs it’s more reasonable to think about adding Instant Fusion, Elder Entity Norden, and a handful of Rank 4 XYZ monsters into the deck. Here are some potentially notable Rank 4 XYZ monsters other than the obvious ones like Castel, the Skyblaster Musketeer or Utopia the Lightning:
    • Minerva, the Exalted Lightsworn
    • Zoodiac Broadbull and a mini Zoodiac engine
    • Bujinki Amaterasu
    • Number 82: Heartlandraco
• Continuous Trap Cards
  • You can do this even without Last Resort in SPYRALs, but Last Resort allows SPYRALs to run a lot of Continuous Trap cards with less detriment to themselves. SPYRALs can easily run cards that even hurt themselves because they can easily turn them off using Last Resort to send them to the graveyard. For example, despite running a slew of Spell cards, SPYRALs could potentially run Imperial Order because they can send it to the graveyard whenever they want with Last Resort.

SPYRAL GEAR – Fully Armed

Equip Spell Card

Equip only to “SPYRAL Super Agent”. It gains 1000 ATK. If it destroys your opponent’s monster by battle: You can banish both the opponent’s destroyed monster and 1 other card your opponent controls. When this face-up card on the field is destroyed and sent to the Graveyard: You can target 1 “SPYRAL Super Agent” in your Graveyard; Special Summon it.

Super Basics:

• Can be searched by SPYRAL Quik-Fix.
• Outs almost any card with it’s non-targeting effect.
• Makes Super Agent more durable.

This card is only so-so. I have a hard time believing that it can be anything better than a 1-of in a SPYRAL deck.

Basic Strategies:

This card is incredibly simple. It boost attack and allows for some easy removal of monsters. This card has a huge built in downside in that it cannot be equipped to anything but a SPYRAL Super Agent, which makes it dead when you don’t draw the Super Agent, which will be happening a fair amount in my opinion.

• Clear strategies here. Equip this to your Super Agent to put him at 2900, which is bigger than most things. This clears most monsters and even banishes them to get rid of them forever. In addition to that you’re given a non-targeting banish of another card, which is pretty insane. This just acts as that all bases covered out to anything kind of card for the deck.
• This card has more viability against specific decks, meaning I think additional copies may be welcome in the side deck. For example, this card is exceptional versus the Kozmo match-up and any other destruction oriented decks. I would say though that siding it with additional copies of SPYRAL Tough would make sense.

Cards of Note:

Not a whole lot to say here, I’d probably just run the 1-of and grab it when I need it, meaning it’s hard to justify any other cards with it. Here’s the only one I could really think of:

• Hidden Armory
  •  Fully Armed makes the deck have 2 total Equip Spells, and you can still only run the 1-of Full Armed and run Hidden Armory because it can search from the graveyard. SPYRALs really like the mill, but the one card mill isn’t really enough to make the difference you’d want from milling, though you can sack pretty hard milling a Super Agent and searching Big Red.
  • Hidden Armory also steals away your Normal Summon which really hurts the early game for SPYRALs since they tend to rely on Normal Summoning on there first turn a lot. My mind tells me that Hidden Armory is not viable, but I figure it deserves the honorable mention.

SPYRAL MISSION – Rescue

Continuous Trap

Destroy this card during your 3rd End Phase after activation. Once per turn: You can target 1 “SPYRAL” monster in your Graveyard; return it to the hand. You can banish this card from your Graveyard, then target 1 “SPYRAL” monster in your Graveyard; Special Summon it. You can only control 1 “SPYRAL MISSION – Rescue”.

Super Basics:

• Can be searched by SPYRAL Master Plan.
• Recycles SPYRALs from the graveyard, but you probably want them there…
• Gives an alternative way to Special Summon from the graveyard other than SPYRAL GEAR – Big Red.

I read this card and was amazed. I tested this card and was less than impressed.

Basic Strategies:

I suppose the intent behind this card is to recycle SPYRAL Sleeper, but recycling him to summon from the hand is a little silly. This card ends up falling under the same flaw as SPYRAL MISSION – Recapture in that it doesn’t have a functionally helpful continuous effect and has the better graveyard effect.

• This card inherently works with Master Plan because it can be searched by it. You can perform some weird combos using Master Plan and Quik-Fix in which you can combine the summoning from the hand with SPYRAL MISSION – Assault and graveyard with Rescue in order to manipulate your monsters into whatever you want. What I found interesting though was that I actually rarely needed to draw Rescue in order to perform them, making running high quantities less beneficial.
• More often than not I feel that this card is better used to recycle Last Resort and then use that same Last Resort to send Rescue to the graveyard. This gets the most mileage out of the card.
• Rescue has a lot of unique synergy with the other SPYRAL Mission cards. Rescue’s graveyard effect allows you to summon during the opponent’s turn, setting off Recapture. If you Special Summon a Super Agent you can destroy a Spell or Trap allowing you to set off Assault during the opponent’s turn. This is particularly potent during the End Phase.

Cards of Note:

SPYRAL MISSION – Rescue opens the door for a lot of unique builds, which I think is great. My favorite build so far though is one that only runs 1 Rescue though, but I’d really like to try some others.

• Foolish Burial Goods
  • Because Rescue’s effect gains a card as its end result, this makes Foolish Burial Goods a viable if not staple level choice for SPYRALs. Before sending the other Missions was okay, but usually wasn’t worth it, but because Rescue can turn Foolish Burial Goods into a one for one SPYRAL Monster Reborn it now becomes incredibly viable. I’ve been running builds with 3 copies of SPYRAL Master Plan with Foolish Burial Goods because you can effectively send copies of Assault to summon them from hand then search another Assault or search Rescue. You can make this pretty cool play with a Quik-Fix, Master Plan and Foolish:
    • Send Assault with Foolish.
    • Special Master Plan with Assault.
    • Master Plan adds another Assault or a Rescue.
    • Summon Quik-Fix and search Last Resort.
    • Equip Last Resort to Quik-Fix and use Last Resort to send Master Plan to the graveyard.
    • Master Plan can then search Resort and a SPYRAL monster.
  • From there you can do loads of different things depending on what you have in hand, it’s pretty crazy.
• That Grass Looks Greener
  • With the creation of SPYRAL MISSION – Rescue I say that SPYRALs have officially joined the 60 card deck club. I think it’s painfully obvious to see how Rescue functions in that kind of deck, and I suggest if you’re interested in this idea to go test it out on DevPro or the like. When will Grass get limited to one I ask? Sooner rather than later I hope.
• Magic Planter
  • SPYRALs now have 2 Continuous Trap cards, Rescue and Recapture. They both also have graveyard effects meaning they’re the ideal targets for Magic Planter. In my imagination this would work better with an extremely slow variant of SPYRALs in which you you mostly just utilize Tough and Super Agent as control mechanism in combination with a butt load of traps, meaning both SPYRAL Mission Continuous Traps as well as other control cards, combined with Magic Planter, Pot of Duality, and Card of Demise. With the addition of Last Resort and Full Armed this also seems like a pretty reasonable version of protect the castle.
• True King Things
  • True Kings have a lot of things they can be doing with SPYRALs now, but there’s so much possibilities I’m in state of analysis paralysis, meaning I don’t know where to start. First, True King Lithosagym, the Disaster (the EARTH one) helps put SPYRALs from your hand to the graveyard you would prefer there. The new True King Field Spell can destroy your SPYRALs from the hand as well but can also destroy your SPYRAL Mission cards to get their graveyard effects. True Kings from MACR can be summoned using Continuous Spells and Traps as Tributes, meaning the SPYRAL Mission cards. There’s clearly something functional here, I just don’t know what yet.

Overall Impressions:

I like the new support, but for the most part it still leaves SPYRALs wanting additional ways to set up on turn 1. SPYRALs really need a monster or spell that can discard any card from the hand for something beneficial that wont also take up there Normal Summon or too much space in the deck. For example I tried running Machina Fortress in SPYRALs in order to pitch copies of Quick-Fix or Drone, and now it could even be Last Resort, but this runs into the problem that you can’t reliably get Fortress either, meaning I want a “SPYRAL” card so I can search it that allows me to setup. Last Resort is really close to that and is a hugely welcomed member to the team, and there’s a lot of potential here for SPYRALs to be apart of the meta. Unfortunately they’re still going to be gated by the YCS prize card that makes them more exceptional than normal.

Tell me what you think below about the new SPYRAL support? Do you think this gives SPYRALs what it takes to be meta?

Written by: Kyle Oliver