thehiddencity

Card Review: Remaining MACR Subterrors

A quick rundown of the new Subterror support.

If you missed my previous article about Subterror support, I did a short review of Subterror Fiendess, so I won’t be doing any discussion on that. Feel free to look that up though if you’re interested, although I’ll say that article was a little rushed, so it’s kind of all over the place. As for this article, I’ll be doing the same format as the SPYRAL card review, I’ll go over each card individually and give you my thoughts.

Subterror Behemoth Speleogeist

 EARTH / Fiend / Level 11
3000 ATK / 1400 DEF
FLIP: You can target 1 monster on the field; change it to face-up Attack Position if it is in Defense Position, also change its ATK to 0. You can only use this effect of “Subterror Behemoth Speleogeist” once per turn.
When a face-up monster you control is flipped face-down, if you control no face-up monsters: You can Special Summon this card from your hand in Defense Position. Once per turn: You can change this card to face-down Defense Position.

Super Basics:

  • Tied for highest ATK of the Subterrors.
  • Easily summonable using using standard Subterror means.
  • Probably the highest damage outputting Subterror monster.
  • Bad..?

As far as I know at this point this card is not good. I’ve thought of some ideas that I would consider to be more of gimmicks, but perhaps a build based solely around Speleogeist would work in some amount. Other than that, Speleogeist provides no gaining of advantage or mechanisms for control for a Subterror player and only outputs a lot of damage. I understand the whole idea of using this with Subterror Final Battle to inflict 4400 damage to your opponent, but I feel doing the same with Subterror Behemoth Stalagmo is simply better because Stalagmo has an advantageous effect and also combines his ATK and DEF for a higher total than Speleogeist.

Basic Strategies:

The best strategy for this card is of course to not run it, but if you’re dead set on using this guy here’s some interesting things to think about:

  • This card basically assures the activation of Subterror Cave Clashes recursion effect So in theory this would work well in combination with Cave Clash and Fiendess to make a negation loop. That being said, once again you can practically do the same thing with Stalagmo, but if the opponent gets a monster with 2800 ATK then Speleogeist is better in that regard.
  • Putting a monster’s ATK to zero lets it be attacked over by any monster, so perhaps this could be combined with a monster that has trouble attacking over monsters or inflicting battle damage, for example Don Zaloog or maybe Jurrac Guaiba as classic examples. I have no ideas that involve new cards of actual relevance though.
  • This is a really easy way to nuke a Kaiju that you’ve given your opponent, so you could for example do this play using The Hidden City and Interrupted Kaiju Slumber:
    • Play The Hidden City getting Subterror Nemesis Archer
    • Normal Summon the Archer.
    • Activate Slumber destroying the archer summoning any Kaiju to the opponent’s side and a big Kaiju like Jizukiru to your side.
    • Archer summons a Speleogeist to your side face-down.
    • Use The Hidden City to flip up Speleogeist.
    • Speleogeist makes the opponent’s Kaiju have 0 ATK.
    • Attack for 3000 + 3300 = 6300 Damage.
  • Speleogeist also has combos utilizing cards that take advantage of opponent’s monsters having attack manipulated. For example you can basically OTK your opponent if you can summon a Speleogeist and a Number 33: Chronomaly Machu Mech, which inflicts burn damage equal to the difference between a monster’s current and original ATK. How do you get both on the field? You want to build this crazy deck, figure it out yourself!

Cards of Note:

I already mentioned Machu Mech, here’s some more weird cards:

  • Cursed Bill / Nitro Unit
    • These are Equip Spells that inflict damage equal to a monsters DEF / ATK to the controller of the equipped monster when it’s destroyed by battle. This combines for a lot of damage with Speleogeist. Yippee.
  • Reptilianne Vaskii
    • You can Special Summon Vaskii from your hand by tributing two 0 ATK monsters. Vaskii can destroy a face-up monster once per turn, has 2600 ATK, and is searchable through King of Feral Imps. Pretty good I guess…
  • U.A. Powered Jersey
    • Use a monster equipped with U.A. Powered Jersey to attack the monster you nuked with Speleogeist to win instantaneously. How did you do that?!

Subterror Behemoth Phospheroglacier

 EARTH / Aqua / Level 8
2600 ATK / 2500 DEF
FLIP: You can send 1 card from your Deck to the Graveyard. You can only use this effect of “Subterror Behemoth Phospheroglacier” once per turn.
When a face-up monster you control is flipped face-down, if you control no face-up monsters: You can Special Summon this card from your hand in Defense Position. Once per turn: You can change this card to face-down Defense Position.

Super Basics:

  • Built in Foolish Burial effect, but better because it can send anything.
  • Easily summonable with standard Subterror means.
  • Solid stats on both spectrums.
  • Level 8 tends to mean something.
  • Combo making gold!

This card is actually ridiculous, and although we only currently have one really good combo with this card, albeit the current combo is amazing, I’m pretty confident this card will be spawning some insanity in the future. Being able to send any card from your deck to the graveyard opens up a vast amount of potential for this card because that trait is desirable for a lot of different decks. Using a lot of 2 card combos you can get off Phospheroglacier’s effect and get him and some other bodies onto the field pretty easily, and given the right things to send in your deck there’s a lot of potential for crazy first turn combos if you’ve built them into your deck and now how to do them.

Basic Strategies:

This cards purpose is to be a one-of in every Subterror deck so that if your perform the ideal turn one play with the deck you can summon it and go off pretty hard. Here’s the standard play I’ve been going with when I test my pretty budget version of the deck, which isn’t the ideal build (which I think is Subterror because the synergy is incredible). The combo involves opening The Hidden City and Mythic Water Dragon (or any monster that you can special summon that’s at least level 4, but I like Mythic Water Dragon):

  • Activate the Hidden City searching Subterror Nemesis Warrior.
  • Normal Summon Warrior, Special Summon Mythic Water Dragon because you control an EARTH monster.
  • Use Warrior tributing Water Dragon to summon a Phospheroglacier from your deck face-down.
  • Use The Hidden City to flip Phospheroglacier face-up.
  • Chain link 1 Phospheroglacier’s effect, chain link 2 Nemesis Warrior’s revival effect in the graveyard.
  • Phospheroglacier sends Glow-Up Bulb to the graveyard and Nemesis Warrior is Special Summoned.
  • Use Glow-Up Bulb and then Synchro with Bulb and Warrior for Naturia Beast.
  • Flip Phospheroglacier face-down with its own effect.

I’ve been mentally toying with other ways to go with this combo, but I’ve settled on this for now.

Cards of Note:

Here’s some other cards worth sending to the graveyard with Phospheroglacier’s effect:

  • Performage Trick Clown
  • Destiny HERO – Malicious
  • Breakthrough Skill / Lost Wind
  • Mischief of the Yokai / Gnomes
  • Infernoid monsters perhaps? Just a thought.
  • Pieces of Exodia
  • Elemental HERO Shadow Mist
  • Plaguespreader Zombie
  • Infinite other things!!!

Subterror Final Battle

Normal Trap
Activate 1 of these effects, also, after that, Set this card face-down instead of sending it to the Graveyard.
● Change 1 Set “Subterror” monster on the field to face-up Attack or Defense Position.
● Change 1 face-up “Subterror” monster on the field to face-down Defense Position.
● ATK and DEF of 1 “Subterror” monster on the field become equal to its combined original ATK and DEF until the end of this turn.
● This turn, activated effects of “Subterror” cards cannot be negated.

Super Basics:

  • Helps Subterrors in almost every potential facet of there gameplay.
  • Allows easy ways to summon Behemoths.
  • One of the only ways to flip a Behemoth during the opponent’s turn.
  • Protects your own monsters by flipping them face-down.
  • In general, not overpowered in any way.

I thought this card was incredible when I read it at first, but it’s only okay in execution. It aspired to do so much in fixing Subterror’s flaws, and in some ways it achieved that goal, but it’s also a very slow card that requires a lot of time to gain advantage, and also doesn’t give a particularly large amount of advantage.

Subterror Final Battle fits quite well into the basic scheme of Subterrors, which is sustained advantage. For the most part Subterrors aim to gain advantage by maintaining all advantage that they gain and this card fits in with that nicely. It protects your advantage by flipping your own monsters face-down or preventing their negation while also propelling aggression, and it does all of this while staying on the field permanently and maintain advantage.

Basic Strategies:

I’ll go through each of the four effects and explain what I believe to be there best use:

  • Effect 1: Change 1 Set “Subterror” monster on the field to face-up Attack or Defense Position

This effect is for control during the opponent’s turn. This is the only reactive what the deck has, that is built in, to cause disruption on command during the opponent’s turn. The ideal candidates for this effects use are Subterror Behemoth Umastryx, Stygokraken, and Ultramafus. Umastryx is the most ideal, since it can banish an opponent’s monster on command in combination with Final Battle. Ultramafus is kind of just the turn ender type effect, but I rarely run Ultramafus, so that’s up to you. Stygokraken I typically will do during the opponent’s End Phase after they set Spell and Trap cards. In most instances I use a Nemesis Warrior’s effect during the End Phase to summon the Stygokraken face-down then during the same End Phase flip it face-up using Final Battle to hit the opponent’s back row.

  • Effect 2: Change 1 face-up “Subterror” monster on the field to face-down Defense Position.

Less useful than most effects, but still worth having if they’re going to give it to us. For the most part I usually use this as a course correction type effect. Sometimes you flip and switch the battle position of a Subterror Behemoth enough times during your turn to make it incapable of going back face-down that turn by its own means, in which instance it’s nice to be able to use Final Battle to put it back face-down if that’s where you would want it most. Other than that you can use this effect to dodge effects that would affect a face-up monster, such as Breakthrough Skill or Lost Wind type cards. These cards are for the most part out of the meta, so this doesn’t really come up.

  • Effect 3: ATK and DEF of 1 “Subterror” monster on the field become equal to its combined original ATK and DEF until the end of this turn.

This is by far the best effect of Subterror Final Battle. It seems simple because it is, it’s just ATK and DEF manipulation, but because Final Battle stays on the field this creates a constant ATK buff on your monsters, making even the weeniest monster like Subterror Nemesis Archer have 3000 ATK and crash into a Blue-Eyes White Dragon. You can stick a Stalagmo on board in attack position and protect it with just this card and then keep slamming your opponent for huge damage when you have nothing else to do. This effect also combines very nicely with Cave Clash because not only does it make it incredibly easy for your to attack over your opponent’s monsters and inflict battle damage, it also lets you do battle damage during the opponent’s turn as a Battle Phase trick and get the recursion effect as well.

  • Effect 4: This turn, activated effects of “Subterror” cards cannot be negated.

This effect is actually pretty neat. At first I thought this effect was irrelevant because I figured flipping your monsters face-down covered most of the same cards, but this effect actually covers quite a few really weird and other very common cards that are very helpful to be able to counter-play. The most important card this counters is Solemn Strike. You can already play around Strike to a degree using chain links and Subterror Nemesis Warrior, but with this you can activate effect 4 before you do any Subterror cards on your turn and lay into your opponent’s back row pretty freely since most people only run Solemn Strike and Dimensional Barrier as main-decked traps at the moment. Effect 4 is also very helpful against opposing monsters with negation effects, for example Evolzar Dolkka or Crystal Wing Synchro Dragon, all of which pretty common right now. You can simple chain Final Battle to those cards when they activate and then be fine. You can also chain Final Battle to simple cards like Fiendish Chain.

Cards of Note:

There aren’t really any cards to say that notably work with this card because it’s pretty self contained.

 

Written by: Kyle Oliver

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