Frostwave Xyvern [Update]

[weeb 14]

Artwork Source: Found the image on Google, couldn’t find the original source.

 

Frostwave Xyvern

Rank 7 | WATER | Dragon/Xyz/Effect

ATK: 2600 – DEF: 0

Effect: 2 Level 7 monsters

You can detach 1 Xyz material from this card: While this card is face-up, until the end of your opponent's next turn, Set cards cannot be activated or Flipped face-up, also if a face-down monster is attacked, destroy it at the start of the Damage Step. While this effect is active, if this card attacks a monster: you can flip that monster into face-down Defense Position.

 

Design Notes: The inspiration behind this card basically combines two things I like: Rank 7 monsters, and one of my favorite Spells, Cold Wave. I really like Elemental Dragons, as broken and deserving the banhammer as they are, so Rank 7s (a key part of that deck) have always had a soft spot in my heart. And Cold Wave gives me a lot of nostalgia, because back around the middle school lunch table, I ran that thing in 3s and my friends hated it. Well, I hated Magic Cylinder and Sakarestu Armor just as much. With that being said, on to the card itself.

So its first effect is basically a pseudo-Cold Wave. Unlike Cold Wave, it affects only Set cards, but it affects Set monsters, Spells, and Traps, preventing them from being flipped face-up. It doesn’t stop all Spells/Traps outright, so it’s arguably not as much of a “ha, you can’t play” card that Cold Wave is. The fact that it, in addition to this, blows up face-down monsters seems a little random, but actually the logic behind that is, when you attack a face-down monster, you have to flip it face-up, naturally. But, this card says you can’t do that – so, something’s got to happen to these monsters. I opted to have them blow-up. This is useful, because while freezing the backrow probably varies in usefulness depending on the format/Deck, since this monster also can flip face-down anything it attacks, it can basically act as easy monster removal as well. I picture it like that old cliché where a character gets frozen in a block of ice, and then gets shattered when something tips them over.

A final note and fun-fact about the name: I initially meant to type “Wyvern”, but somehow typed “Xyvern” instead. I thought the typo looked cool, and worked since it is a Xyz monster, so “Xyvern” it is.

Anyways, what do you think of this card? How does it stack up against other Rank 7s?

 

The reason for the update is, this is actually the original card effect I had for this card, that I initially dropped cuz it doesn’t deal with Link monsters. But, I decided to re-update the card with this old effect, because I decided I like it more than the other idea I had. Here's the initial post effect:

Spoiler

 

Frostwave Xyvern

Rank 7 | WATER | Dragon/Xyz/Effect

ATK: 2600 – DEF: 0

Effect: 2 Level 7 monsters

You can detach 1 Xyz material from this card: While this card is face-up, until the end of your opponent's next turn, Set Spells/Traps and the effects of monsters in the hand cannot be activated, also those cards cannot be activated in response to this effect's activation. Once, each time this effect is active: you can target 1 face-up Spell/Trap; Set that target.

 

 

 

Edited February 12, 2019 by weeb

[Summer Darj 292]

A bit on the edge on this one. I cannot but feel it does a little too much but stunning both Set Spell/Traps and hand-traps. Also flavor-wise are like opposite effects: half stuns the board, and the other half stuns the hand. Would make more sense to me if it simply didnt't let players activate Spell/Traps and monster effects from hand, basically flipping the backrow stun effect. That means you would have to Set Normal and Continuous Spells first to activate them, while Traps and Quick-Play Spell would inherently be stunned by their Setting mechanics (cannot be activated the turn they are Set). The last effect feels a bit random and even a bit overkill-ish to me.

[weeb 14]

Yeah, I agree. Thematically, it is kind of a mess - originally, I had some effect like this: 

 

Spoiler

2 Level 7 monsters
You can detach 1 Xyz material from this card: While this card is face-up, until the end of your opponent's next turn, Set cards cannot be activated or Flipped face-up, also if a face-down monster is attacked, destroy it at the start of the Damage Step. While this effect is active, if this card attacks a monster: you can flip that monster into face-down Defense Position. 

I think I should've kept it this way though anyway (and will probably edit it into the OP) (edit: and so I did) because it feels more put together. It lacks the response prevention, sure, but it could act as monster removal. It had the appeal of seeming like it was freezing everything on the field, and the reason why it had that anti-Defense position effect was in-part because normally you have to flip face-down monsters face-up when you attack them, and also because I imagined that old movie/show cliche where someone gets frozen in a block of ice, and then someone pushes the block over and the body shatters into pieces.

But I moved away from it last minute when I realized it wouldn't do anything against Link Monsters. After your feedback and more thought, Link Monsters or not, I think I like this original effect better than what I posted. 

That said, that one effect about setting Spells/Traps was supposed to work with its stun effect, so it wasn't totally random (Though I agree it was unnecessary). That said, I might slide that effect into my back pocket and keep it for a later card idea... 

Edited February 12, 2019 by weeb