Ghostrick Frost: Is Book of Moon set back to 4?

A few days ago, I’ve seen Bahamut’s deck for the latest AsiaPlus Singapore team Tournament and one of the tech cards he used was a card from the latest ocg booster set, which caught my eye. It was the following:

“I’m the abominable cute snowman!”

Meet Ghostrick Frost. Its effect?: "Cannot be Normal Summoned, unless you control a "Ghostrick" monster. Once per turn: You can change this card to face-down Defense Position. When an opponent's monster declares a direct attack: Change that monster to face-down Defense Position, and if you do, Special Summon this card from your hand in face-down Defense Position."

What’s so interesting about this card? Well, if your opponent declares a direct attack, you can put that monster face-down (Book of Moon anyone?) and then special summon this card in face-down defense position.

Basically, this is what happens when Battle Fader eats Book of Moon (let that thought sink in for a while).

Yes, its effect is limited to direct attacks only, but since you can activate it from your hand, it’s harder to get rid of (unlike book of moon). Also, it doesn’t end the battle phase.

So, that makes for an interesting, yet balanced effect which can help you get rid of annoying boss monsters like Stardust (Spark) Dragon (/Assault Mode), Shi En, Dracosack, Wind-up Zenmaines, etc. They can’t stop anything while they’re face-down (lol).

Is this card better than Book of Moon?

No. While this card mimics the effect of Book of Moon, it is not better. Okay, you can use it three times, that does make it kind of better (lol). But all in all, Book of Moon can be used in both players’ turns, in any sort of Phase and on any monster, including your own. This card just puts the opponent’s attacking monster face-down. That’s very limited, but still very annoying for the opponent (that’s what signals a balanced card).

What decks can run this card?

Any deck, basically. But if you want to pick a few decks where this card can flourish, here’s a few:

• Chaos / Chaos Dragons: If you didn’t like Battle Fader’s side-effect of banishing itself, you might consider using this card. It’s Dark and gets send to the grave after it’s gone.
• Dark World: I'm not a fan of Dark Worlds, but this IS a DARK Fiend. That makes it a good defender in Dark World decks to protect them when they have their consistency issues.
• Monarchs: A Book of Moon that works as Tribute Fodder and doesn’t consume backrow? Do I even need to say anything else?
• Dragon Rulers: Yeah, Bahamut played Frost in his Dragon Ruler deck and it worked very well in there. If you need to grind your way to victory, this can become a very useful asset.
• Piper decks: The Piper Eninge (Piper + Kinka-Byo + as many Lv. 1 monsters as possible) requires good Lv. 1 monsters. This is a good Lv. 1 monster. Nuff said.
• Lightsworn: Follow-up Frost with Lightsworn monk Ehren and watch your opponent rage.
• Ghostrick: Duh!

Afterword

Even if the Ghostricks end up being another dud-deck, there are already some interesting cards in the archetype.

• Yukki-Onna is a nice Lv. 2 Spellcaster that works in spellcaster decks that use Apprentice Magician.
• Dullahan is the key card in that awesome Lv. 1 deck I posted a while ago. And he’s now basically the best Rank 1 monster.
• And now Frost is a new, good hand trap.

And seriously, I like that. Konami focuses too much on archetype-specific cards, so I can only applaud it if Konami releases some cards that can work outside of their box (like how Tenki works for all Beast-Warriors).

Let’s just hope Konami doesn’t pimp it to Ultra/Secret rare foil in TCG, because this is now one of the few interesting cards I’m looking for.

Until next time, V out.