#undead warrior

[ivaloinen-arts]

Found scorched pants from Undermine, had to make a transmog for my ud warrior. Behold, thigh season is here.

I will be finishing this bit later. Currently swamped with work.

[magicandwizards29anniversary]

Yugi's Pre-Duelist Kingdom Minor Monster Cards, Part 2: Land, Sea, and the Underworld

If you hear a howl in the night, don't be alarmed; it's only the greeting of our first card, "Silver Fang"!

This is a monster with a fun design that sadly doesn't get used too often in the Duelist Kingdom arc. I personally enjoy the silhouetted look the manga card's illustration has more than what Konami ended up doing, though I understand that their art ultimately makes things clearer and more readable for identification reasons. It's a shame the more impactful approach didn't win out, but that's the way the cookie crumbles, as they say.

This card may be named as a tribute to the 1980s Weekly Shonen Jump manga Silver Fang: Shooting Star Gin by Yoshihiro Takahashi, one of the best-selling manga of its era.

I also suspect that this card's illustration is inspired by the right half of this Magic: the Gathering card:

Wyluli Wolf, from Magic: the Gathering Arabian Nights, released in December 1993. Image sourced from scryfall.com.

Below: the other two frontiers of our journey beckon!

Lurking under the surface of the ocean, we see "Great White" as it stalks through the currents!

Fun fact: this is perhaps the only confirmed Water attribute monster Yugi ever uses over the course of the manga. It's also stronger than most of the 'small fry' cards Yugi takes with him to Duelist Kingdom proper, at 1600 ATK compared to "Elf Swordsman" and "Fortress Guardian Wyvern"'s 1400 ATK values. But there's a reason for that, as we learn during the Dark Yugi vs. Mai duel.

I don't think "Great White" is based on a Magic: the Gathering card. But it's funny to note that in the era of this card's on-panel appearance (about 1998), there was only one Magic: the Gathering card that featured a shark:

Giant Shark, from Magic: the Gathering The Dark, released in August 1994. Image sourced from scryfall.com

And now it's time for the "Undead Warrior" to rise from its grave!

This was another card whose original illustration was blocked off. Once again, my friend @illuthra stepped in to fill the gap. And their work was superb, as always! Be sure to check out their art blog at the link; they've got plenty of great stuff on there!

In the manga, the bottom of this card is covered by Yugi's thumb, so it's hard to tell what its stats are. The English translation by Viz shows its attack as starting with a 1, so it seems to be 1000 or 1-something, and the defense is still totally covered, so I wasn't sure what to do for a while. Ultimately I went with the stats seen on Konami's card.

Speaking of: you'll notice that the Konami version of "Undead Warrior" is a Fusion Monster. This is likely because "Undead Warrior" was primarily obtained via the fusion mechanic in Konami's early "Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters" Game Boy games from the late 90s and early 00s. Many of the early physical Konami cards took certain cues from those games, and this card was one of them.

That attainable-via-fusion status served a purpose in those games, as early-game cards were extremely weak, and "Undead Warrior" was an easy-to-fuse-for card that could help you get an edge in the early duels. But this makes the physical version of the card almost worthless; after all, if you're going to put a Fusion Monster in your deck, you can get many of the ones that are stronger or more effective than an effectless monster with only 1200 ATK!

Lastly: this card doesn't seem to be based on any Magic: the Gathering cards. I think this card is based on the concept of skeleton warriors you might encounter in tabletop RPGS like Dungeons & Dragons, or Takahashi's favorite system Sword World RPG, in the same way that "Mushroom Man" from a few posts ago may also been based on generic enemy types from those games.

And that's all for now. Next up, we're looking at Monster Cards introduced in Duelist Kingdom proper! As always, thanks once again for reading. And don't be afraid to ask about those cards!

[jadeparrot]

Talya Woefield for @Icerider22

[morbidfantasy21]

maslenok by Valeriy Voronov (nekrosis on artstation)

[rothebear]

‘Unrest’ by Taran Fiddler on ArtStation

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/R3m0RD

Ahhh… the Undead. Highly undervalued opponents in D&D. Add some levels and the Priest’s face will go blank the moment his Turn fails. Add the possibility of them adding diseases and other afflictions and players will think twice the next time they encounter a band of wandering undead or a town infested by them. They’re not just ‘XP in a Box’. Tinker them a little bit and you can make it a real ‘horror laden encounter’ for your players.

[voidwulv]

[domjordanillustration]

t’lan imass warrior

[omusasteelhorn]

Working on some commissions!