thehiddencity

Card Review: Subterror Fiendess

AKA run 3 of this card in Subterrors.

Until not too long ago I really didn’t have an article planned for this week. But as fate would have it Konami accidentally printed cards from Maximum Crisis (MACR) in OTS packs, specifically the Super Rares, so we all got a sneak peak at the Super Rares from the upcoming pack. The good news is that we got a Subterror card revealed and also that it’s completely bonkers. Because of how late I was to learning about this card, my article may be a bit rough and and the shorter side. Here’s Subterror Fiendess:

Level 1 / EARTH / Spellcaster
800 ATK / 500 DEF
During either player’s turn, when your opponent activates a card or effect: You can send this card from your hand or field to the Graveyard, then target 1 “Subterror” monster you control; negate the activation, then change the targeted monster to face-down Defense Position. You can target 1 face-up monster you control; change it to face-down Defense Position, and if you do, Special Summon 1 “Subterror” monster from your hand or Graveyard, in face-up or face-down Defense Position. You can only use each effect of “Subterror Fiendess” once per turn.

This card is a combination of 2 of the things I wanted from the Subterror archetype’s new support and even more than that. It’s surprisingly similar to 2 cards I made up myself in my previous article combined into one single card, which of course means it must be pretty crazy.

First off, this card is a level 4 or lower Subterror monster that can flip itself into face-down defense position. This of course means it’s a normal summon that can be searched by The Hidden City that can set off your Subterror Behemoth effects. What’s comical though is that that isn’t even neccessary anymore considering this card’s effect when flipping itself (or another monster) face-down completely invalidates the need for summoning the Subterror Behemoths from that hand that way to begin with because that effect inherently summons another Subterror monster! What? But it’s not so simple, because this card has the ability to infinitely recover your monsters from the graveyard because this card’s effect essentially boils down to once per turn summon a Subterror monster from the graveyard by flipping itself face-down. Now all we need is ways to dump Subterror monsters to the graveyard for no reason. The two best ways I could think of off-hand where One for One, which is now a staple in this deck, and Ritual summoning, Prediction Princess Tarotei for example. Perhaps we get a Destiny Draw type card for Subterrors? Maybe too wishful of thinking.

Not only does this card serve as the perfect starting piece for the deck but it’s also an insanely good hand trap because it can effectively negate any card except for a counter-trap. The cost is only that you have a face-up Subterror monster, and did I forget to mention you can also use this effect by sending it from the hand or FIELD too. Craziness… I’m a little incredulous at how good this card is.

This hand trap effect is very good, but it still requires that you get setup first, meaning with just this card, Subterrors are still incredibly vulnerable when trying to setup. All the same cards can interrupt a typical setup play and almost completely end a Subterror players turn, for example Solemn Strike almost always wrecks a Subterror player, but perhaps Fiendess incentives the use of Twin Twisters because it loads the graveyard and deals with such annoying threats.

Fiendess also has a lot of surprising synergy with other cards from the deck, namely Subterror Cave Clash and Subterror Nemesis Defender, whom I’m still not sure is worth running. Cave Clash is pretty obvious, it makes an even more terrifying recursion loop by being able to recur Fiendess. Not only that, but with just 2 face-down monsters Fiendess becomes a respectable 1800 ATK, which is pretty nice.

Nemesis Defender takes advantage of the fact that people would want to attack a Fiendess when you use its effect on itself flipping itself face-down. Here’s an example, you use Fiendess, flipping itself, and set some big Behemoth. The opponent now wants to attack the face-down Fiendess to prevent you from re-using its summoning effect as well as prevent it from becoming face-up allowing it to negate cards, thus they attack. Conveniently enough, Fiendess sets up all the conditions for Defender, meaning you can discard Defender to force the opponent to attack the Behemoth you have face-down, which can potentially devastate the opponent depending on the monster. This is even better with Cave Clash on the field because this may force the opponent to ram into a high DEF monster and take battle damage, giving you an extra recursion from the graveyard, which would at worst be the Defender you just pitched.

Weird lore points, this monster is neither a Nemesis or a Behemoth, which is kind of strange. It’s also a Spellcaster while clearly being a Fiend-type monster. If you read my bit on the Subterror design rules I think it fits pretty cleanly into there and takes a similar approach to what I did except it makes a lo of sense that if they were to make a Behemoth that was level 4 or lower it would not be a Behemoth anymore because you’d expect it to be small. I expect to see some demon lord level 11 Subterror Behemoth to go along with the Fiendess for lore aspects as well.

That’s all I’ve got for now, hopefully we’ll get some more leaks to talk about soon!

Written by: Kyle Oliver

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