Designer’s Quip: It’s a Bird! It’s a Plane! It’s a Rahi!

A Winged Beast Rahi, to be specific. Been a while since the last one, but this is the final big Type grouping, so let’s fly right into it.

See also:

Current Members

The expansions thus far have populated the sky with a familiar number of 9 Rahi with the Winged Beast Type, their Attributes split between EARTH and WIND with a touch of FIRE and their Levels mostly ranging from 2 to 4 with outliers at 5 and 6.

Level 2

As usual, these are Tuners with handtrap effects, with both of the Winged Beast pair hailing from BBTS.

Pokawi, Flightless Bird Rahi

Tuner Effect MonsterLevel 2 | EARTH Winged Beast | ATK 300 / DEF 600

(Quick Effect): You can banish this card from your hand or field and 1 “Rahi” monster from your GY; monsters your opponent controls lose 500 ATK for each of your banished “Rahi” monsters, until the end of this turn.

Bionicle: Beware the Swarm (v3.15.5)

The Pokawi is a representative of the EARTH Winged Beasts, or the flightless birds as its name states. The ATK reduction effect represents a deterrence tactic employed by Pokawi swarms, in which they abruptly scatter to disorient predators and flee in the confusion.

Mata Nui Fishing Bird, Rahi

Tuner Effect MonsterLevel 2 | WIND Winged Beast | ATK 500 / DEF 400

(Quick Effect): You can banish this card from your hand or field and 1 “Rahi” monster from your GY, then target 1 card your opponent controls; banish it until the End Phase, and if it was a face-up monster with 2000 or more ATK on the field, banish 1 random card from your opponent’s hand face-down. You can only use this effect of “Mata Nui Fishing Bird, Rahi” once per turn.

Bionicle: Beware the Swarm (v3.15.5)

The Mata Nui Fishing Bird is the aerial WIND representative in this smallest size range, with an effect based on how it habitually annoys much larger creatures.

What both of these effects have in common at a glance is banishing – the Pokawi’s ATK reduction scales with the number of your banished monsters and the Fishing Bird is a banisher in and of itself.

This is not so much an early attempt at a Winged Beast gimmick as just something that came about because the Rahi handtraps are generally heavy on banishing, but maybe it can be transitioned into the former as well. After all, banishing is a mechanic with a lot of meanings in the design language, from different dimensions to freezing, so why shouldn’t “abducted by a bird” be a valid reading? Though in that case I guess it best fits the WIND ones …

Level 3 and 4

Following the standard pattern, these are the non-Tuner Pendulums with GY/banish triggers at Level 3 and granting effects to Synchros at Level 4.

Kewa, Vulture Rahi

Pendulum Effect MonsterLevel 3 | Scale 2/2 | WIND Winged Beast | ATK 1400 / DEF 400

Pendulum Scale = 2
[ Pendulum Effect ]
If you control no other cards: You can add 1 WIND monster from your Deck to your hand, except “Kewa, Vulture Rahi”, and if you do, destroy this card during the End Phase. You can only use this effect of “Kewa, Vulture Rahi” once per turn.
—————————————-
[ Monster Effect ]
If this card is sent to the GY: You can Special Summon 1 Level 4 or lower WIND monster from your GY, except this card. If this card is banished: You can add 1 “Rahi” card from your GY to your hand. You can only use 1 “Kewa, Vulture Rahi” effect per turn, and only once that turn.

Bionicle: Challenge of the Rahi (v3.15.5)

The Kewa belongs to the former category, and is also part of a series we’ve previously seen with the Ussal . Just like that one floated into other EARTH monsters, this one floats into other WIND monsters, and it’s for more or less the same lore reason: Matoran used Kewa as airborne steeds, so in a Le-Koro deck this can combo with an accomplished pilot such as Kongu . The Pendulum Effect to search any WIND if you control no other cards is similarly splashable support (and possibly a bit too generic), while the recycling of Rahi cards on banish is mostly useful in its native archetype.

Infernavika, Lava Bird Rahi

Pendulum Effect MonsterLevel 3 | Scale 2/2 | FIRE Winged Beast | ATK 1100 / DEF 800

Pendulum Scale = 2
[ Pendulum Effect ]
Once per turn, at the start of the Battle Phase: You can target 1 face-up monster you control; this turn, when that target battles an opponent’s monster, destroy both monsters at the start of the Damage Step, except FIRE monsters.
—————————————-
[ Monster Effect ]
If this card is sent to the GY: You can Special Summon 1 Level 4 or lower FIRE monster from your GY, except this card. If this card is banished: You can banish the top card of your Deck; add this card to your Extra Deck face-up. You can only use 1 “Infernavika, Lava Bird Rahi” effect per turn, and only once that turn.

Bionicle: Beware the Swarm (v3.15.5)

The Infernavika, introduced one expansion later, is the FIRE member of that same series, but lacks the usual justification because nobody rides these. They’re more known for living around stuff so hot nobody dares approach them, which is a trait nicely implemented by the Pendulum Effect. The banish trigger, meanwhile, is a rare example of a Level 3 Rahi that does further banishing in hopes to trigger another, so that’s one more point in favour of banishing being a Winged Beast thing (though again not on a WIND one).

Moa, Bird Rahi

Pendulum Effect MonsterLevel 3 | Scale 2/2 | WIND Winged Beast | ATK 1300 / DEF 600

Pendulum Scale = 2
[ Pendulum Effect ]
You can banish 1 “Rahi” Pendulum Monster from your Deck; this card’s Pendulum Scale becomes the same as that monster’s, and if it does, destroy this card during the End Phase. You can only use this effect of “Moa, Bird Rahi” once per turn.
—————————————-
[ Monster Effect ]
If this card is sent to the GY: You can shuffle 1 of your banished “Rahi” cards into the deck. If this card is banished: You can Special Summon 1 Level 3 or lower “Rahi” monster from your hand. You can only use 1 “Moa, Bird Rahi” effect per turn, and only once that turn.

Bionicle: Challenge of the Rahi (v3.15.5)

For an actual WIND example of that concept, we have the Moa‘s Pendulum Effect, which banishes straight from the Deck as cost, providing a way to trigger any other Level 3 Rahi. The monster effects are just sort of arbitrary utility things, so not much to be said about those. Actually it’s kind of weird this is even WIND when it’s a probably flightless Po-Wahi creature …

Speaking of which, Husi time.

Husi, Ostrich Rahi

Pendulum Effect MonsterLevel 4 | Scale 5/5 | EARTH Winged Beast | ATK 1700 / DEF 1100

Pendulum Scale = 5
[ Pendulum Effect ]
If a card in your Pendulum Zone is destroyed: You can Special Summon 1 face-up Level 4 or lower “Rahi” Pendulum Monster from your Extra Deck. You can only use this effect of “Husi, Ostrich Rahi” once per turn. If you control no monsters: You can Special Summon this card from your Pendulum Zone.
—————————————-
[ Monster Effect ]
A Synchro Monster that was Summoned using this card as Synchro Material gains this effect.
●If this card is destroyed by a card effect and sent to the GY: Target 1 “Rahi” monster in your GY with a lower Level than this card; Special Summon it.

Bionicle: Challenge of the Rahi (v3.15.5)

All the abilities here are pretty much based on the Husi trading going on at Po-Koro’s markets: The Pendulum Effect “trades” itself destroyed in the scale for a Rahi in the face-up Extra Deck, and a Synchro that used it as material gains a similar effect for the GY. I think there’s probably more interesting things that could be done from that foundation, especially if we put aside the standard Level 4 effect pattern and that weird destruction-based Rahi subtheme that never really worked. But what exactly that is will probably depend on the result of this current Winged Beast analysis.

Taku, Duck Rahi

Pendulum Effect MonsterLevel 4 | Scale 5/5 | WIND Winged Beast | ATK 1400 / DEF 1700

Pendulum Scale = 5
[ Pendulum Effect ]
During your End Phase: You can add 1 “Rahi” Pendulum Monster from your Deck to your Extra Deck face-up. If you control no monsters: You can Special Summon this card from your Pendulum Zone.
—————————————-
[ Monster Effect ]
A Synchro Monster that was Summoned using this card as Synchro Material gains this effect.
● When a Spell Card is activated (Quick Effect): You can shuffle 1 face-up “Rahi” Pendulum Monster from your Extra Deck into the Deck; negate the activation, and if you do, destroy that card.

Bionicle: Challenge of the Rahi (v3.15.5)

The Taku represents yet another subtheme, namely the negate-granting we previously saw with the Kofo-Jaga . This little ducky takes care of the Spells, and its Pendulum Effect is meant to help provide the fodder you need to pay the negate cost.

Synchros

We’ve had Tuners and we’ve had non-Tuners, so how about we put them together? Conveniently, the existing Winged Beasts also provide Synchros for that purpose.

Dikapi, Ostrich Rahi

Synchro Tuner Effect MonsterLevel 5 | EARTH Winged Beast | ATK 1000 / DEF 1650

1 “Rahi” Tuner + 1+ non-Tuner monsters
When this card is Synchro Summoned: You can choose a number from 1 to 4; reduce this card’s Level by that number, then take damage equal to that number x 300. When using this Synchro Summoned card as a Synchro Material, you can use 1 face-up “Rahi” Pendulum Monster in your Extra Deck (and no other monsters) as the other Synchro Material.

Bionicle: Challenge of the Rahi (v3.15.5)

The Dikapi is even a Synchro Tuner, and a pretty flexible one since it comes with built-in Level modulation and the ability to reuse Pendulums as Synchro material. Works in just about every kind of Rahi deck.

Gukko-Kahu, Hawk Rahi

Synchro Effect MonsterLevel 6 | WIND Winged Beast | ATK 2500 / DEF 1000

1 “Rahi” Tuner + 1+ non-Tuner monsters
If this card is Synchro Summoned: Draw 1 card. If this card is sent from the field to the GY: Add 1 “Rahi” monster from your Deck to your hand. You can only use each effect of “Gukko-Kahu, Hawk Rahi” once per turn.

Bionicle: Challenge of the Rahi (v3.15.5)

And one Level higher, the Gukko-Kahu provides the double utility of drawing and searching as the greatest example of a domesticated Rahi. Also very generically useful, and unfortunately that makes it hard to glean any ideas for unique Winged Beast mechanics from it.

What we see here is an actually already pretty complete package of Tuners, non-Tuners, and Synchros, but without much unifying them beyond matching Levels. There’s the banishing concept, but even that feels pretty questionable at this point …

Hopefully the unimplemented Rahi of this Type can provide some enlightenment.

Potential Members

With 11 more unimplemented, there’s about as much here as what we’ve already covered. The dominant Attribute is unsurprisingly WIND, with individual specks of WATER, FIRE, EARTH, and LIGHT, as well as a few DARKs (already covered in the other article). So pretty much everything, but EARTH in particular actually only appears one additional time despite previously looking like a major group of “flightless birds”.

Level 2 and 3

Being covered togethere here because frankly, with birds it’s always hard to tell whether they’re really smol or just kinda smol. So anything I’ve noted down for one of these Levels could very well fit the other.

Ko-Metru’s Ice Bats probably go on the smaller end since they’re generally talked about in terms of large swarms, and being a Level 2 Tuner with a handtrap effect (as is the current concept, which may or may not survive) would well fit their nature as pests causing constant property damage. We’ve previously heard of these critters over at the Beasts as the Crystal Climbers’ favorite food, so it’d probably pay off to have something mechanically a little unique so the Climbers can interact with the Bats specifically.

The sole LIGHT Winged Beasts are the Klakk, releveant in the 2008 storyline because their screams conveniently happen to be the cure for all kinds of inner light drain. This suggests an effect that brings back stolen monsters, cures debuffs, or stuff like that – perhaps even a “banish a monster and return it to the field under its owner’s control” that would do all of that. Which, by the way, is another mark on the banishing tally.

Then there’s the Smoke Hawk, a Xian bird you’ve probably never heard of because it only showed up once and got no description whatsoever. The only reason to adapt this one is if we want to do something specific with the FIRE Attribute, since just by the name it could go in there.

And finally, the already discussed DARKs are Cliff Screecher and Necrofinch, which we may as well cover together because for some reason they’re both WAY up there on the edge scale. Cliff Screechers are bats said to be immortal because they keep their soul outside their bodies, and even outside of mythology they hunt by killing their prey through the shock of repeated near-death experiences. Put together, this sounds like a monster that just keeps coming back, and has an effect to (temporarily) sacrifice itself in order to wear down the opponent’s resources. The Necrofinch, meanwhile, can “remaing singing after it is deceased”, which just makes me think of a Tuner that Synchro Summons from the GY.

Level 4

The Lohrak makes its third appearance here after being considered as a Sea Serpent and as a Reptile, and with the benefit of hindsight I think it’s safe to say it fits either of those better than the Winged Beasts. Pretty much everything in here is a proper bird with a beak and all that, so a ravenous poisonous snake would be an odd inclusion, wings or not.

Back to said proper birds, we have the Lava Hawk, which for all intents and purposes is just the Infernavika’s big brother. They hunt literally inside of lava streams and are completely immune to heat, so something like the Archnemeses where a normally self-destructive effect is combined with destruction immunity seems worth considering. Well, that particular example is obviously way too high-powered for a low-Level monster. Also, thinking back to the Smoke Hawk, the one reason I can think of to implement that one is to round the FIRE Winged Beast Rahi out to a trio of Level 2-4. Maybe.

And another repeat performance from the Manutri, previously covered under the Aqua type due to card design precedent for Penguins. All I have on record for them is a vague idea of doing something with equips, which is so far out there we probably don’t need to bother breaking tradition to put them into Winged Beasts. Plus, it would mess with the whole EARTH flightless bird idea to suddenly have one of them as WATER.

Level 5-8

On to the big birds, of which there are surpisingly few.

Nivawk is a named representative of a species of large flying scavenger Rahi, though this particular individual also engaged in nest robbery to feed. It might be DARK in order to synergize with Makuta Teridax, its master, but the broader species without those evil inclinations and connections would probably just be plain old WIND. Starting to sound a bit like Simorgh here, maybe we could see some Tribute Summoning happen?

The Gukko is not to be confused with the already implemented Gukko-Kahu subspecies, but really quite similar in its role as a flying Rahi domesticated by Le-Matoran. That means the two will probably overlap mechanically, providing some manner of utility effects, but since they are in fact distinct creatures and the Gukko plays a fairly significant role in Mask of Light, there does kind of need to be a separate card for this. Maybe we can come up with some cute interaction between the two kinds of Gukko. Could also involve the Taku as another Gukko relative and the Kewa as another flying steed.

And the largest thing the spreadsheet has to offer the Winged Beasts is … not really a bird, despite my earlier claims.

The Vahki Hunter just fell into this Type by virtue of a) having wings, b) not looking like anything else whatsoever, and c) that little joke in Rahi Beasts where they ask Kualus to comment as the resident expert for flying Rahi, because this one has wings too. In any case, it does fill the very empty niche of an actually large boss for Winged Beast Rahi, given the fact that they literally eat Vahki for breakfast. That diet immediately suggest some sort of anti-Machine effect, but to avoid being cripplingly specific, maybe it should be something generic with a lore-friendly bonus when used against Machines? The fact that this thing is also an ambush predator is a topic in its own right …

Conclusion

I can’t exactly say the design direction for Winged Beast Rahi became clear and obvious at any point here, but having reviewed the data we can at least assert some key facts:

  • The currently implemented Winged Beasts already contain a solid balance of Tuners, non-Tuners, and mid-Level Synchros.
  • The most common Attribute is WIND followed by EARTH, with some interesting smaller groups at FIRE and DARK.
  • The Levels cap out at approximately 8, with no actual gigantic final boss in sight.
  • A few of their effects involve banishing in some capacity, but not quite enough to consider it an ongoing theme.

I feel like that last point might be worth building on, especially for the WIND Winged Beasts. That Attribute, after all, has a recurring theme of returning to the hand that presumably represents flight, so combining that with (temporarily) banishing opponent’s cards as design language for “snatched by a bird” makes a really straightforward and fitting set of effects. The EARTH Winged Beasts, being mostly covered by the early Rahi in the current expansions already, could then act as the more down-to-earth (haha) combo enablers that don’t bother with the gimmick and instead just provide an efficient route towards making your Synchros. The two or three FIRE monsters could form a nice little engine centered around the idea of being too hot to touch, while the DARKs with their shared undead theming could provide plays in the GY.

That’s a fair variety of playstyles already, and that kind of versatility is probably good to have when there isn’t really the one big payoff we want to go into. Instead, Winged Beast Rahi combos would aim to get easy and repeatable access to their mid-sized Synchros, which then help them win the game without any single one being a full win condition by itself.

Deck Idea: Mikanko Ta-Koro

An unexpected guest joins the Takara with her own fiery dance moves. The stage? The Battle Phase, of course.

Basically, this is a spin on the basic Ta-Koro OTK strategy that also mixes in the Mikanko archetype, with which it shares a similar focus on inflicting massive damage through battle with the opponent’s monsters.

Specifically, we integrate a small engine of Water Arabesque (which removes problem monsters while Summoning a Mikanko from the Deck), Ha-Re (a FIRE Warrior just like most other monsters in the Ta-Koro deck), and Fire Dance (searchable by Ha-Re, lets us get her back to the field after being used as material). The gist of the synergy is simply that smashing the equipped Mikanko into a big monster deals a bunch of extra reflected battle damage before you run it over via Ta-Koro, making it that much easier to hit lethal.

For more detail, let’s finally look at …

The Deck

https://www.duelingbook.com/deck?id=13350901

.ydk Download

You have a few different avenues to pull off the going-second OTK that forms the strategy’s ultimate goal. Generally it starts with a classic Isolde combo, here enabled mainly by Knights of Sublimation and Squeak, to dump some of your many Equip Spells and Special Summon one of your many FIRE Warriors. An easy route is sending Water Arabesque for Renaud, adding back the Arabesque, and bouncing an opponent’s monster to get Ha-Re, netting you enough material to make Vakama (and subsequently a Link-4) as well as a Fire Dance to revive your Mikanko. But under different circumstances, you might instead want to send Equip Spells including the Kanohi Hau and bring out Jala , who can then Normal Summon the Tahu searched by the Hau during the Battle Phase.

In fact, there’s a very powerful interaction between Mikanko damage reflection and Tahu specifically: A battle where your opponent takes the damage is, of course, still a battle, and therefore Tahu can trigger after damage calculation to turn an opponent’s monster into a 0 ATK bomb. This play alone, if you crunch the numbers, comes out to 8500 damage against an attack position monster with 3000 ATK. You know, like the Dogoran that’s also in the Deck. And combos really nicely with Water Arabesque, while we’re at it.

Since you only really need a few things in the Extra Deck to make all this work, Pot of Extravagance is our consistency booster of choice, and in consequence the important parts of the ED are secured with doubles and triples, while the 1-ofs are just for edge cases like being forced to go first. I should mention that the ratios here aren’t fine-tuned or anything – not all that much testing was done, so some things are just in here at a certain number of copies because that’s how they happened to fit. I figure even an optimized version might not be super consistent since all the OTK lines I know need several cards to work, but there being a few different combos like that has the nice effect of making each game a little riddle about stumbling your way into lethal with whatever hand you have vs whatever your opponent put up.

Sample Video

Mikanko Ta-Koro

Showcasing two of the many ways to OTK, one splendidly combining the titular Mikankos and Ta-Koro and the other, uh, not doing that at all.

Release: Bohrok-Kal Strike

After the Toa, it is now the Bohrok Swarms’ turn to undergo their (non-)Protodermic Evolution. Presenting the first wave of Bohrok-Kal, plus some related support cards.

Download for EDOPro

New Cards

As a reminder, the Bohrok were introduced in BBTS as an archetype of Flip monsters with massive potential for swarming and removal, mainly shackled by the fact that there’s inherently a turn of delay in starting a Flip-based engine. The Kal extension tries to cover for this weakness by providing an alternative gameplan to establish turn 1 disruption or deal with established boards turn 2, by means of Rank 4 Bohrok-Kal and Link-1 Krana-Kal.

But before we get into the additions to those Extra Deck groups, here are some new Main Deck cards to help as well.

Bohrok-Kal Strategy

Continuous Spell

When this card is activated: You can Special Summon 1 “Bohrok” monster from your hand. Once per turn, if a “Bohrok” monster(s) is Special Summoned to your field (except during the Damage Step): You can activate 1 of these effects, or, if you control a “Bohrok” Xyz Monster, you can activate both, in sequence;
●Target 1 other Spell/Trap on the field; destroy it.
●Add 1 “Bohrok” Spell/Trap from your Deck to your hand, except “Bohrok-Kal Strategy”.
You can only activate 1 “Bohrok-Kal Strategy” per turn.

Bionicle: Protodermic Evolution (v4.3.3)

Bohrok-Kal Strategy is perhaps the key piece for consistent combos on your first turn, bringing out a Bohrok from hand when first activated and then immediately triggering off that Summon to either destroy a Spell/Trap or search an archetypal one – or both if you have a Bohrok-Kal out. The first of these options is purely lore, referencing the Kal’s theft of the Nuva Symbols (which are here Continuous Spells with negative effects when destroyed), while the latter is purely utility, letting you find essential Bohrok support cards without spending too much deck space that they really need for monsters.

One of the best search targets is the newly added Counter Trap, Bohrok Counterattack (yes, the new Battlin’ Boxer card can technically search this too).

Bohrok Counterattack

Counter Trap

When your opponent activates a Spell/Trap Card, or monster effect, while you control a “Bohrok” monster or only face-down monsters (min. 1): Send 1 “Krana” monster from your Deck or Extra Deck to the GY; negate the activation, and if you do, you can attach that card to 1 “Bohrok” Xyz Monster you control as material.

Bionicle: Protodermic Evolution (v4.3.3)

This one represents the most straightforward form of the turn 1 disruption I’m trying to add – just a classic omni-negate that can be used both to protect your dormant Bohrok waiting to flip and to back up the swarms in action. Note that it does not destroy what it negates, so unless you have a Bohrok-Kal to attach to, this will let your opponent keep their monsters and continuous cards. Would be a bit too good otherwise, given its fairly low requirements and lack of HOPT.


Now for the stars of the show: Two more Bohrok-Kal join Gahlok-Kal to complete half of the team already.

Bohrok Tahnok-Kal

Xyz Effect MonsterRank 4 | FIRE Machine | ATK 2100 / DEF 2200

2 Level 4 “Bohrok” monsters
Place materials detached from this card on the bottom of the Deck, instead of sending them to the GY. Once per turn: You can attach 1 “Krana” monster from your hand, field, or GY to this card as material. (Quick Effect): You can detach 1 material from this card, then target 1 face-up monster your opponent controls; it cannot attack or activate its effects this turn, also you can detach 1 more material from this card, and if you do, destroy all monsters your opponent controls with less than 2000 ATK. You can only use this effect of “Bohrok Tahnok-Kal” once per turn.

Bionicle: Protodermic Evolution (v4.3.3)

Tahnok-Kal, just like its base form, offers monster destruction as a Quick Effect, but looking at official media makes it quite clear that its electric powers were actually not really used for destructive purposes as much as to stun its enemies. At the same time, I can’t in good conscience make the Lightning Bohrok-Kal not have some kind of built-in Raigeki, so here’s the compromise I ended up with: Detach 1 to stun a target monster for the turn, and then on resolution, you can detach another to blow up all of your opponent’s monsters below the 2000 ATK “Toa threshold”. This is also an extra balancing factor on this very powerful effect for a Rank 4, since it means removing it from the field before it resolves will stop the destruction.

Bohrok Nuhvok-Kal

Xyz Effect MonsterRank 4 | EARTH Machine | ATK 2000 / DEF 2300

2 Level 4 “Bohrok” monsters
Place materials detached from this card on the bottom of the Deck, instead of sending them to the GY. Once per turn: You can attach 1 “Krana” monster from your hand, field, or GY to this card as material. You can detach 2 or more materials from this card, then choose that many Main Monster Zones and/or Spell & Trap Zones on the field; return as many cards in those zones to the hand as possible, also those unused zones cannot be used until your next Standby Phase. You can only use this effect of “Bohrok Nuhvok-Kal” once per turn.

Bionicle: Protodermic Evolution (v4.3.3)

Nuhvok-Kal, in contrast, is slow, but armed with Gravity powers that are hard to resist and cover a wide range. I thought through a few concepts for this, but the one that won out is just a mass bounce (“floating” cards up off the field) limited only by material count that also locks zones in reference to base Nuhvok (“crushing” the land with supergravity). I kind of wanted to have something with flipping face-down in there as well, but couldn’t quite make it worthwile on a “slow” ignition effect. Fun Fact: This one can be really rude against Pendulum decks in particular.

Test footage of these two new bosses can be found in the below demo videos I posted earlier this month.

Thunderbolt and Lightning
Gravitation

The Krana-Kal have also been brought up to half-completion, but in their case that means 3 rather than 2 new ones, for a total of 4 (out of 8).

Krana Vu-Kal, Transporter

Link Effect MonsterLink-1 [↘] | DARK Zombie | ATK 0

1 “Bohrok” or “Krana” monster
Cannot be used as Link Material. Once per turn: You can target 1 Level 4 “Bohrok” monster this card points to; Special Summon from your Extra Deck 1 “Bohrok” Xyz Monster using that target as material. (This is treated as an Xyz Summon.) A “Bohrok” Xyz Monster that has this card as material gains this effect.
●Once per turn (Quick Effect): You can banish this card until the End Phase, and if you do, you can add 1 “Bohrok” card from your GY to your hand.

Bionicle: Protodermic Evolution (v4.3.3)

The Vu-Kal grants flight like its base version, but also enhanced speed, so rather than “dodge” things with targeting protection, it more literally lets its Bohrok-Kal dodge instantly off the field, optionally recycling a card in the process to live up to its name of “Transporter”. As a downwards-pointing Krana-Kal, its utility effect provides a way to Xyz Summon with only a single Level 4 Bohrok, which can then attach the Link Monster as its second material. This card is part of my current preferred turn 1 play, where I use it to make a Tahnok-Kal that can, on the opponent’s turn, activate the banish effect in chain before its own Quick Effect, letting you detach both materials to blow up the field while still getting a card back with the effect granted by the Vu-Kal.

Krana Su-Kal, Demolisher

Link Effect MonsterLink-1 [▲] | DARK Zombie | ATK 0

1 “Bohrok” or “Krana” monster
Cannot be used as Link Material. If an opponent’s monster this card points to battles a “Bohrok” monster, that opponent’s monster’s ATK/DEF become 0 during the Damage Step only. A “Bohrok” Xyz Monster that has this card as material gains this effect.
●This card gains 800 ATK/DEF and cannot be destroyed by card effects.

Bionicle: Protodermic Evolution (v4.3.3)

The upwards-pointing Krana-Kal, such as the Su-Kal, bring back a possibly familiar effect previously seen on the Servants of the Swarm, some technically-not-Bohrok (and thus kind of unplayable) cards from BBTS. A monster they point to will be brainwashed into voluntarily surrendering to the Bohrok in battle, setting its stats to 0 so it can easily be hit over. All of this is continuous, so it can out a gargantuan range of threats, assuming you can safely get it and a Bohrok to the Battle Phase. The actual power granted to a Bohrok-Kal using this Krana-Kal is as simple as it gets: Super strength (+800 ATK/DEF) and resistance to heat and cold (effect destruction protection).

Krana Za-Kal, Overseer

Link Effect MonsterLink-1 [↗] | DARK Zombie | ATK 0

1 “Bohrok” or “Krana” monster
Cannot be used as Link Material. If an opponent’s monster this card points to battles a “Bohrok” monster, that opponent’s monster’s ATK/DEF become 0 during the Damage Step only. A “Bohrok” Xyz Monster that has this card as material gains this effect.
●Once per turn, when a card or effect is activated that would destroy a “Bohrok” card(s) you control (Quick Effect): You can detach 1 material from this card; negate the activation, and if you do, destroy that card.

Bionicle: Protodermic Evolution (v4.3.3)

The Za-Kal has the same on-field utility effect and grants the power of telepathy, which turns Bohrok-Kal into budget Stardust Dragons. Sounds strange, but the background to that is that the original Krana Za allowed you to protect a Bohrok from destruction by shuffling back another monster, to represent the squad coordination it enables. Now plain old protection would have been redundant when the Su-Kal does that and more, so instead it shuts down destructive effects against all your Bohrok by detaching (and thereby shuffling back) an Xyz Material. This is a little less convenient than it sounds because it requires the effect to be one that would destroy a card from the archetype, so you won’t be able to chain it to anything that could theoretically be resolved in such a way that it only destroys unrelated cards (e.g. the average DPE activation).

Updated

The updates this time are simple, just refining the first drafts of the Bohrok support a bit now that I’ve worked my way deeper into it.

4.0.4

Bohrok Gahlok-Kal

Xyz Effect MonsterRank 4 | WATER Machine | ATK 2200 / DEF 2100

2 Level 4 “Bohrok” monsters
Place materials detached from this card on the bottom of the Deck, instead of sending them to the GY. Once per turn: You can attach 1 “Krana” monster from your hand, field, or GY to this card as material. At the start of the Battle Phase: You can detach 1 material from this card, then target 1 face-up monster on the field; that target cannot attack until the end of the next turn, also you can equip 1 other monster on the field to it. You can only use this effect of “Bohrok Gahlok-Kal” once per turn.

Bionicle: Protodermic Evolution (v4.0.4)
4.3.3

Bohrok Gahlok-Kal

Xyz Effect MonsterRank 4 | WATER Machine | ATK 2200 / DEF 2100

2 Level 4 “Bohrok” monsters
Place materials detached from this card on the bottom of the Deck, instead of sending them to the GY. Once per turn: You can attach 1 “Krana” monster from your hand, field, or GY to this card as material. At the start of the Battle Phase: You can detach 1 material from this card, then target 1 face-up monster on the field; that target cannot attack until the end of your turn, also you can equip 1 monster adjacent to it or in its column to it. You can only use this effect of “Bohrok Gahlok-Kal” once per turn.

Bionicle: Protodermic Evolution (v4.3.3)

As I said the moment it was first released, it’s just thematically super neat to have the range of Gahlok-Kal‘s “magnetism” limited to adjacent zones or the same column, so I ended up doing just that. And sure enough, it made zero difference in testing, partially because AI doesn’t understand how to play around things and partially because I can always just put a monster in the column myself. Oh yeah, and the attack restriction now always lasts until your End Phase only, so you can’t block an opponent’s monster by targeting it on your turn. This way it’s more of a downside to targeting something on your own field than additional benefit for an already powerful removal effect.

4.0.4

Krana Ja-Kal, Tracker

Link Effect MonsterLink-1 [◀] | DARK Zombie | ATK 0

1 “Bohrok” or “Krana” monster
Cannot be used as Link Material. You can Tribute this card; Special Summon 1 Level 4 “Bohrok” monster from your hand or GY, but shuffle it into the Deck if it leaves the field. A “Bohrok” Xyz Monster that has this card as material gains this effect.
●Once per turn: You can detach 1 material from this card, then declare 1 card name; your opponent cannot activate cards, or the effects of cards, with that original name, until the end of their turn.

Bionicle: Protodermic Evolution (v4.0.4)
4.3.3

Krana Ja-Kal, Tracker

Link Effect MonsterLink-1 [◀] | DARK Zombie | ATK 0

1 “Bohrok” or “Krana” monster
Cannot be used as Link Material. You can Tribute this card; Special Summon 1 Level 4 “Bohrok” monster from your hand or GY in face-up or face-down Defense Position, but shuffle it into the Deck if it leaves the field. A “Bohrok” Xyz Monster that has this card as material gains this effect.
●Once per turn: You can declare 1 card name; until the end of your opponent’s turn, “Bohrok” cards and Set cards you control are unaffected by the effects of cards with that original name.

Bionicle: Protodermic Evolution (v4.3.3)

For the Ja-Kal, both effects got some significant changes. First, the tag-out was buffed to also allow Special Summoning in face-down Defense Position, so you can use it as a way to prepare the Flip engine without needing to commit an actual Set action to it. This is, for example, relevant when using Bohrok-Kal Strategy, since activating it, Special Summoning a Bohrok, searching a Spell/Trap, and then using Ja-Kal to put that Bohrok face-down leaves you in a significantly better spot than just setting the monster right away.

The effect to block a card by declaring its name did always feel a bit too oppressive, so I ended up nerfing that part by bringing it more in line with the original Krana Ja and just granting your Bohrok (and face-down) cards immunity to the declared name instead. In exchange, it’s now free, so you can keep the materials attached for more important purposes.


A deck update, rather than a card update, was forced from me by Konami’s ruthless (but honestly deserved) banning of Spright Elf, thus rendering the last version’s Toa Nuva deck illegal. Due to the strict collective HOPT on all the Kanohi Nuva, conducting a Fusion Summon on the opponent’s turn is kind of super important if you want to use your resources optimally, so I needed something that could replace Elf’s role in setting that up. A card that can bring back Energized Protodermis Chamber as a Quick Effect, while also being consistently accessible through the basic Isolde combo. And I can proudly report that I have found it.

https://www.duelingbook.com/deck?id=12178919

In fact, it wasn’t very far from the Elf-shaped hole in the decklist at all: Within the same archetype, there’s Spright Double Cross, a Trap with multiple effects including GY revival, searchable by Spright Jet and therefore via Gigantic Spright, which can be made in the standard combo line after the first Toa Nuva by overlaying Isolde with a leftover C.C. Matoran (we play Hafu now to ensure the latter is available). Gigantic Summons Jet and Jet adds Double Cross, and if you further link those two into I:P Masquerena, you even get an additional way to interact for your trouble.

Now of course, with Hafu, Jet and Double Cross, that means three extra bricks we need to run, and after all is said and done this only works once, unlike Elf’s infinite revival forever and ever. The deck’s definitely worse now that it has lost one of its central pieces, but I’m also kind of glad it happened because it reminded me that it probably isn’t a good idea to make all the recursion dependent on some external card. That’s why the next update will contain, in addition to the remaining Toa Nuva, a card that provides this functionality in-archetype. Probably. More or less. We’ll see how it turns out.

Release(?): Polyglot Edition

For this year’s stupid thing I can only justify doing on this specific date, I have … donned my Kanohi Rau and produced some translations.

Specifically, this version includes all the Ga-Koro cards from BCOT in German, Japanese, and Matoric. If you’ve never heard of that last one, it’s a fan-made “reconstruction” of the Matoran language from which the various strange names in Bionicle originate, courtesy of outofgloom. Go check it out, it’s really well made.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a YGOPro Expansion if it wasn’t playable, so here’s some download links (each containing the full BCOT, but with only Ga-Koro actually translated):

German

Japanese

Matoric

Or just take a look in this brief demo video.

Polyglot Edition Showcase

For the rest of this post, I’ll provide some notes on each language and the translation process, with the bulk of the focus of course falling on the Matoric PSCT grammar I had to construct from scratch to make this happen.

German

Gali

Toa Mata Gali

Effect MonsterLevel 6 | WATER Warrior | ATK 2300 / DEF 1800

Um diese Karte offen als Tributbeschwörung zu beschwören, kannst du ein WASSER oder “Toa Mata”-Monster in deiner Hand, außer “Toa Mata Gali”, statt eines Monsters das du kontrollierst als Tribut anbieten. Einmal pro Spielzug, wenn der Gegner des Zugspielers einen Monstereffekt aktiviert, außer “Toa Mata Gali” (Schnelleffekt): Du kannst 1 anderes offenes Monster auf dem Spielfeld wählen; annulliere seine Effekte, und falls du dies tust, erhält diese Karte 400 ATK.

Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.21.6)
Kaukau

Große Kanohi Kaukau

Equip Spell

Falls das ausgerüstete Monster mit einer anderen “Kanohi”-Karte ausgerüstet wird, zerstöre diese Karte. Falls das ausgerüstete Monster ein “Toa”- oder “Makuta”-Monster ist, bleibt es von Effekten deines Gegners unberührt, es sei denn, sie wählen es als Ziel. Falls diese Karte auf den Friedhof gelegt wird: Du kannst 1 Monster von deinem Friedhof verbannen; füge deiner Hand 1 “Toa Mata Gali” von deinem Deck hinzu. Du kannst diesen Effekt von “Große Kanohi Kaukau” nur einmal pro Spielzug verwenden.

Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.21.6)
Nokama

Turaga Nokama

Link Effect MonsterLink-2 [▲ ↙] | WATER Spellcaster | ATK 1200

2 Monster, darunter ein WASSER Krieger Monster
Diese Karte kann nicht durch Kampf zerstort werden, solange sie auf ein Monster zeigt. (Schnelleffekt): Du kannst 1 Karte von deinem Friedhof verbannen und dann 1 Karte abwerfen; bis zum Ende dieses Spielzugs bleiben diese Karte und Monster, auf die sie zeigt, unberührt von Effekten von Karten mit einem anderen Kartentyp (Monster, Zauber, und/oder Falle) als die Karte, die verbannt wurde, um diesen Effekt zu aktivieren, außer von denen dieser Karte. Während der End Phase deines Gegners, falls diese Karte auf ein Monster zeigt (Schnelleffekt): Du kannst 1 deiner WASSER Monster wählen, das verbannt ist oder sich in deinem Friedhof befindet; füge es deiner Hand hinzu. Du kannst jeden Effekt von “Turaga Nokama” nur einmal pro Spielzug verwenden.

Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.21.6)🎉
Ga-Koro

Ga-Koro, Dorf des Wassers

Field Spell

Falls alle Monster in deinem Friedhof WASSER sind (min. 1), kann dein Gegner während seines Spielzugs als Reaktion auf die Aktivierung deiner WASSER Monstereffekte als Kettenglied 2 oder höher weder Karten noch Effekte aktivieren. Du kannst 1 Monster von deinem Friedhof verbannen; beschwöre 1 WASSER Monster als Spezialbeschwörung von deiner Hand in die Verteidigungsposition, aber seine Effekte werden annuliert und es wird zum selben Typ wie das verbannte Monster, zusätzlich kannst du für den Rest dieses Spielzugs keine Monster als Spezialbeschwörung vom Extra Deck beschworen, außer WASSER Monstern. Du kannst diesen Effekt von “Ga-Koro, Dorf des Wassers” nur einmal pro Spielzug verwenden.

Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.21.6)
Maku

C.C. Matoranerin Maku

Effect MonsterLevel 2 | WATER Warrior | ATK 500 / DEF 200

Wenn dein Gegner eine Karte oder einen Effekt auf dem Spielfeld aktiviert (Schnelleffekt): Du kannst diese Karte als Spezialbeschwörung von deiner Hand oder deinem Friedhof in deine Zone in die Spalte jener Karte beschwören, und falls du dies tust, ändere 1 offenes Monster auf dem Spielfeld in die Verteidigungsposition. (Schnelleffekt): Du kannst 1 andere offene Karte wählen, die du kontrollierst; für den Rest dieser Kette, oder bis zum Ende dieses Spielzugs, falls es ein “Matoraner”-Monster ist, bleibt sie von Karteneffekten unberührt, außer von ihren eigenen. Du kannst jeden Effekt von “C.C. Matoranerin Maku” nur einmal pro Spielzug verwenden.

Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.21.6)
Rau

Edle Kanohi Rau

Equip Spell

Falls das ausgerüstete Monster mit einer anderen “Kanohi”-Karte ausgerüstet wird, zerstöre diese Karte. Einmal pro Spielzug, falls das ausgerüstete Monster ein “Turaga”-, “Toa”- oder “Makuta”-Monster ist, wird der erste aktivierte Effekt, der es als Ziel wählt, zu “Du kannst 1 Monster in der Main-Monsterzone in eine andere Main-Monsterzone auf der Spielfeldseite seines Beherrschers bewegen, dann kann dein Gegner 1 Monster in der Main-Monsterzone in eine andere Main-Monsterzone auf der Spielfeldseite seines Beherrschers bewegen”. Falls sich diese Karte in deinem Friedhof befindet: Du kannst 1 Monster als Tribut anbieten und dann 1 “Turaga Nokama” in deinem Friedhof wählen; beschwöre sie als Spezialbeschwörung und rüste sie mit dieser Karte aus. Du kannst diesen Effekt von “Edle Kanohi Rau” nur einmal pro Spielzug verwenden.

Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.21.6)
Nixie

Matoraner-Astrologin Nixie

Tuner Effect MonsterLevel 2 | WATER Warrior | ATK 400 / DEF 500

Wenn ein Monstereffekt aktiviert wird, solange du ein WASSER Monster kontrollierst und sich diese Karte in deiner Hand befindet (Schnelleffekt): Du kannst 1 Karte ziehen und vorzeigen, dann, falls es ein Monster ist, beschwöre diese Karte als Spezialbeschwörung, und falls du dies tust, wird ihre Stufe gleich der Stufe des vorgezeigten Monsters. Andernfalls wirf diese Karte ab. Falls diese Karte von der Hand oder dem Spielfeld auf den Friedhof gelegt wird und du keine Zauber/Fallen in deinem Friedhof hast: Du kannst 1 Zauber/Falle von deinem Deck auf den Friedhof legen. Du kannst jeden Effekt von “Matoraner-Astrologin Nixie” nur einmal pro Spielzug verwenden.

Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.21.6)

Being the only one of these languages that I actually speak, this one was far and away the easiest to figure out. I pretty much just sat down and translated, though since PSCT is its own beast, there was also a good bit of cross-referencing with the German TCG card database involved.

One somewhat interesting aspect here is the handling of gendered nouns and their corresponding pronouns. For some reason it appears that players, who are referred to with “they” in all modern English card texts, are simply assumed to be male, but when it comes to cards, German PSCT does go out of its way to match the language with the name’s grammatical gender (such as in T.G. Hellebardenkanone/Angriffsmodus). While I couldn’t find a clear precedent on how that works when the name is a completely made-up personal name, like “Turaga Nokama” on the Kanohi Rau, as a Bionicle lore nerd I obviously can’t miss an opportunity to clarify that the blue ones are in fact girls. So the Rau revival effect does properly refer to Nokama with “sie”.

Also, check the alt art on the Rau I included to go with the occasion. Being able to get high-quality Kanohi images at any angle from Studio does open up some nice possibilities in that department, even for my artistically challenged self.

Japanese

Gali

トーア・マタ・ガーリ

Effect MonsterLevel 6 | WATER Warrior | ATK 2300 / DEF 1800

このカードを表側表示でアドバンス召喚する場合、自分フィールドのモンスターの代わりに手札の「トーア・マタ・ガーリ」以外の水属性モンスターまたは「トーア・マタ」モンスターをリリースできる。①:1ターンに1度、ターンプレイヤーから見て相手プレイヤーが「トーア・マタ・ガリ」以外のモンスターの効果を発動した時、このカード以外のフィールドの表側表示モンスター1体を対象として発動できる。そのモンスターの効果を無効にし、このカードの攻撃力を400アップする。

Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.21.6)
Kaukau

グレート・カノイ・カウカウ

Equip Spell

このカード名の③の効果は1ターンに1度しか使用できない。①:装備モンスターが他の「カノイ」カードを装備した場合にこのカードを破壊される。②:装備モンスターが「トア」、「マクタ」モンスターの場合、装備モンスターを対象とする効果以外の相手の効果を受けない。③:このカードが墓地へ送られた場合、自分の墓地からモンスター1体を除外して発動できる。デッキから「トーア・マタ・ガーリ」1体を手札に加える。

Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.21.6)
Nokama

ツラガ・ノカマ

Link Effect MonsterLink-2 [▲ ↙] | WATER Spellcaster | ATK 1200

戦士族・水属性モンスターを含むモンスター2体
このカード名の②③の効果はそれぞれ1ターンに1度しか使用できない。①:このカードのリンク先にモンスターが存在する限り、このカードは戦闘では破壊されない。②:自分・相手ターンに、自分の墓地からカード1枚を除外し、手札を1枚捨てて発動できる。このカード及びこのカードのリンク先のモンスターはターン終了時までこの効果を発動するために除外したカードと種類(モンスター・魔法・罠)が異なるこのカード以外のカードの効果を受けない。③:相手エンドフェイズにこのカードのリンク先にモンスターが存在する場合、自分の墓地のモンスター及び除外されている自分のモンスターの中から、水属性モンスター1体を対象として発動できる。そのモンスターを手札に加える。

Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.21.6)🎉
Ga-Koro

水の村ガ・コロ

Field Spell

このカード名の②の効果は1ターンに1度しか使用できない。①:相手ターンの間、自分の墓地のモンスターが水属性モンスターのみの場合、自分の水属性モンスターの効果のチェーン2以降に発動に対して相手は魔法・罠・モンスターの効果を発動できない。②:自分の墓地からモンスター1体を除外して発動できる。手札から水属性モンスター1体を守備表示で特殊召喚する。この効果で特殊召喚したモンスターは効果が無効化され、除外したモンスターと同じ種族になる。この効果の発動後、ターン終了時まで自分は水属性モンスターしかEXデッキから特殊召喚できない。

Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.21.6)
Maku

C.C.マトラン・マックー

Effect MonsterLevel 2 | WATER Warrior | ATK 500 / DEF 200

このカード名の①②の効果はそれぞれ1ターンに1度しか使用できない。①:相手がフィールドのカードの効果を発動した時に発動できる。このカードをその縦列の自分フィールドに手札・墓地から特殊召喚し、フィールドの表側表示モンスター1体を選んで守備表示にする。②:自分・相手ターンに、このカード以外の自分フィールドの表側表示のカード1枚を対象として発動できる。そのカードはチェーン終了時まで、「マトラン」モンスターだった場合ターン終了時まで、自身以外のカードの効果を受けない。

Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.21.6)
Rau

ノーブル・カノイ・ラウ

Equip Spell

このカード名の③の効果は1ターンに1度しか使用できない。①:装備モンスターが他の「カノイ」カードを装備した場合にこのカードを破壊される。②:装備モンスターが「トア」、「ツラガ」、「マクタ」モンスターの場合、1ターンに1度だけ、装備モンスターを対象とする効果は「メインモンスターゾーンのモンスター1体の位置をそのコントローラーのフィールドの他のメインモンスターゾーンに移動できる。その後、相手はメインモンスターゾーンのモンスター1体の位置をそのコントローラーのフィールドの他のメインモンスターゾーンに移動できる」となる。③:このカードが墓地に存在する場合、自分フィールドのモンスター1体をリリースし、自分の墓地の「ツラガ・ノカマ」1体を対象として発動できる。そのモンスターを特殊召喚し、このカードを装備する。

Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.21.6)
Nixie

マトランの占星術師ニックシー

Tuner Effect MonsterLevel 2 | WATER Warrior | ATK 400 / DEF 500

このカード名の①②の効果はそれぞれ1ターンに1度しか使用できない。①:自分フィールドに水属性モンスターが存在し、このカードが手札にある場合、モンスターの効果が発動した時発動できる。自分はデッキから1枚ドローし、お互いに確認する。確認したカードがモンスターだった場合、このカードを特殊召喚し、レベルは確認したモンスターのレベルと同じになる。違った場合、このカードを捨てる。②:自分の墓地に魔法・罠カードが存在せず、このカードが手札・フィールドから墓地へ送られた場合に発動できる。デッキから魔法・罠カード1枚を墓地へ送る。

Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.21.6)

The difficulty level got a lot higher here, what with my understanding of Japanese only being good enough to reasonably navigate the card database and Frankenstein together relevant effects. And there were also the barriers of a different writing system and different basic card text structure to overcome. But clearly I managed, so here we are.

To figure out how names should be written, I took a look around archives of the official Japanese Bionicle website as well as some fan sites that popped up in search. Most of it was just a straightforward representation of the sounds in katakana, but one little surprise was that Kanohi apparently becomes カノイ (that is, the “h” is dropped). For Nixie’s job description of “Astrologer”, I had to consult an actual dictionary too, ending up with 占星術師. Googling it brings up FF14 stuff, so I assume it’s appropriately mystical. For a while I also considered spicing up some of the boring katakana names with meaningful (read: chuuni) kanji representations and ruby text, but that idea was dropped in favour of keeping card image generation simple.

As for the card text structure, I do love the numbered effects and how easy it makes all varieties of HOPT clauses. On the other hand, our PSCT generally feels like it flows much better with the way it’s clearly sectioned by punctuation and can leave a lot of boilerplate phrases unsaid thanks to that. Tradeoffs.

Matoric

Alright, welcome to the deep end. Not only did I not know anything about this language when I started, but there was also zero documentation or precedent on how to apply it in Yugioh card text. There was no cross-referencing or Frankensteining here, just raw, unfiltered, phrase-by-phrase, sentence-by-sentence translation. On that note, a huge shout out to the language’s original creator outofgloom – not only for writing the Matoric documents that made this at all possible, but also for taking the time to personally answer several questions I couldn’t figure out on my own.

The result is a PSCT variant that looks quite similar to the Matoric language, but technically should be considered distinct from it for a number of reasons:

  • Punctuation and general effect layout has mostly been retained from the English texts, even where it doesn’t quite match with conventions of Matoric grammar.
  • The vocabulary for game mechanics and some other things are my own additions that more or less derive from official terms, but may well be contradicted by future dictionaries.
  • I’ve incorporated some grammatical concepts from unpublished WIP material that I obtained through communication with outofgloom, so those might also change by the time the language gets its next proper update.
  • And of course, it’s always possible that I’ve simply misunderstood a grammar rule or two and ended up with the Matoran equivalent of Engrish.

So, we are looking at a base Matoric language and a presumably quite similar “PSCT Matoric”, but explaining the core grammar or even just all the modifications made to accommodate card text would turn out far too long and dry. If you’re interested in the former, I once again refer you to the official resources instead, and for the latter, I’ll do my best to quickly list out the points of note for each card.

English

Toa Mata Gali

Effect MonsterLevel 6 | WATER Warrior | ATK 2300 / DEF 1800

To Tribute Summon this card face-up, you can Tribute a WATER or “Toa Mata” monster in your hand, except “Toa Mata Gali”, instead of a monster you control. Once per turn, when the turn player’s opponent activates a monster effect, except “Toa Mata Gali” (Quick Effect): You can target 1 other face-up monster on the field; negate its effects, and if you do, this card gains 400 ATK.

Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.21.6)
Matoric

Toa Mata Gali

Effect MonsterLevel 6 | WATER Warrior | ATK 2300 / DEF 1800

Paro’o-sapo za okhau-ido ihu ya ke, ke a manas GAHA “Toa Mata” su (“Toa Mata Gali” va) arnoro’u po, manas ya-uka borau-za va za okhau ya vo. On agiro u takaro, e’e alhii agiro ai-rupu ta manas-akiro “Toa Mata Gali” va za lutu ya po (Kah-Akiro): Uka ihu-ku-manas nuala po 1 za aro ya vo ke; akiro’ai rya, e apaia paro’o-sapo ai-ATK za peha 400 ya ke.

Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.21.6)

The most complicated part of Gali is actually the special Tribute Summoning condition, structured as “To […] you can Tribute […] instead of […]”, a combination of two grammatical features not explicitly covered anywhere. So I went and asked outofgloom directly, to which he kindly provided me the following solutions:

  • [do X] ke ke [do Y] – “To do X, do Y”; this is a pretty roundabout phrasing based on conditional markers that more directly translates to “conditioning of doing X is conditioned by doing Y”. A further layer of complexity arises from the fact that Tribute Summoning Gali this way is optional, which I tried to represent by attaching the “ability” marker vo to the full sentence – making “conditioning of doing X can be conditioned by doing Y”.
  • a [X] [Y] va – “X instead of Y”; a simple repurposing of a basic coordinative marker meaning “but not” or “except”. Which brings some unfortunate overlap with the “except “Toa Mata Gali”” in the same sentence, so I moved that into parentheses for clarity.

Homecooked vocabulary in this effect includes sapo (“card”; lit. “thin stone”, based on the idea that a paperless culture would play card games on stone tablets), okhau (“Tribute”; from okh hau u “without preservation”), ido (“Summon”; shortened form of ika do ya “to call a being”) and ihu (“face-up”; lit. “upward”, mirroring iru for “downward”, plus it’s pretty funny to have a mountain with that name).

The other effect is comparatively simple in grammar, but makes significant use of those bits of artistic license that separate the language of these cards from “raw” Matoric. Right at the start you have on agiro u takaro (“once per turn”; lit. “once inside of a turn”), which is probably grammatical nonsense but serves as a nice way to keep the OPT clause together. And at the macro level, I’ve retained the punctuation of English PSCT since that saves me a lot of text to translate.

That means we begin with a “when” activation timing represented by e’e [X] po, the first half of a conditional construct with explicit present tense to distinguish from “if”. After the colon, this is followed by targeting instructions, which close out the conditional with [Y] ke, and finally the actual effect with its “and if you do” conjunction. Said conjunction simply translates to e apaia (“if successful”), allowing it and the second half of the effect to occupy a nice standalone conditional clause.

Lots of original vocab here too – agiro (“turn”; lit. “game cycle” from the root word algis “game” and rho “cycle”), takaro (“once”; combination of taka “one” and aro “discrete unit”) , rupu (“opponent”; from ru-apu “not-friend”) and akiro (“effect”; from akiro’a “originating from work”).

Finally, one might wonder why the Warrior Type is translated to Toh. The reason is simply that the only word in the dictionaries with a translation in that direction is Toa (“hero”, “warrior”), which is obviously loaded with a lot more meaning than what we want here. So as a cheap trick I just changed it ever so slightly, perhaps someone with actual knowledge of linguistics could argue this is some kind of archaic form that retained generic use even after the modern Toa split from it.


English

Great Kanohi Kaukau

Equip Spell

If another “Kanohi” card becomes equipped to the equipped monster, destroy this card. If the equipped monster is a “Toa” or “Makuta” monster, it is unaffected by your opponent’s card effects, unless they target it. If this card is sent to the GY: You can banish 1 monster from your GY; add 1 “Toa Mata Gali” from your Deck to your hand. You can only use this effect of “Great Kanohi Kaukau” once per turn.

Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.21.6)
Matoric

Kanohi Nui Kaukau

Equip Spell

E’e haran-manas aha ku-sapo “Kanohi” ran ai ta, paro’o-sapo za ikhya ke. E’e haran-manas manas “Toa”, “Makuta” su ai, ohi a hiki rupu ai-akiro yaru-aka iza aro ru ke. E’e bakuala ko paro’o-sapo za ivo ya: Uka manas bakuala’u po 1 za khu ya vo ke; at sapuru’u a arnoro’u ko “Toa Mata Gali” 1 za ivoya. On agiro u uka paro’o-akiro ai-“Kanohi Nui Kaukau” za ran 1 ko ya voru.

Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.21.6)

The standard Kanohi exclusion effect is clearly a conditional structure that translates straight to e’e [X] [Y] ke, so the more interesting detail of grammar here is that I translated “A becomes equipped to B” as an equative sentence with the inceptive marker ta, making it more literally “B begins to be equipped with A” (the switch from “to” to “with” is just because it makes flipping the relation easier, but that’s not relevant here). I’ve decided to adopt haran (“armor”) as the term for the Equip mechanic, and so the marker for the “equipped with” relationship is somewhat randomly derived from that as aha_ran. The use of ikhya for the imperative of “destroy” might technically not be correct – one dictionary lists ikhi as “destruction”, but another has just khi ya as “destroy”. However, with the word for banishing being khu, using the shorter version would lead to “destroy” and “banish” not being distinguishable when their end vowel is dropped in an imperative sentence, which would be a much bigger problem.

The on-field protection effect is notable for its use of a subordinate clause in “unless they target it”, which I paraphrased to “that do not target it”. Subordination is the part of the Matoric language that I am most likely to have screwed up in my translations, but to my best understanding in this case it works by taking the sentence akiro ta iza aro yaru (“The effect(s) do(es) not target it”), lifting its subject akiro (marked by ta) outside and replacing it with the placeholder aka, and turning the original sentence’s suffix yaru into a prefix so that the resulting phrase can be used as a modifier. Hence, akiro yaru-aka iza aro should mean “effects that do not target it”.

The unaffectedness by those effects is expressed using a negated equative sentence ending in ru, with the help of the marker a hiki _ (“manipulated by”). That means a literal translation would be “it is not manipulated by effects that do not target it” – sounds about right!

As for the GY effect, it showcases both the use of Location/Direction markers in sentences dealing with movement and the Matoric names of various in-game locations. The activation condition is bakuala ko paro’o-sapo za ivo ya (“this card moves forward to the GY”), where the ko marker lets us conveniently keep a clear distinction from “returning to the GY” (which would be marked by nu “moves backward to”). And what you do is at sapuru’u a arnoro’u ko “Toa Mata Gali” za ivoya (“move “Toa Mata Gali” originating from your Deck forward to your hand”).

The location names I made up are bakuala (“Graveyard”; from kui-vala “loss-place”, prefixed by an Agoric stem ba- “death” because there’s no known direct word for that in Matoric and I really wanted it included explicitly) and sapuru (“Deck”; from sapo-huru “card elevation”). Arnoro for hand is just the standard term for the body part, didn’t bother coming up with anything card game specific.


English

Turaga Nokama

Link Effect MonsterLink-2 [▲ ↙] | WATER Spellcaster | ATK 1200

2 monsters, including a WATER Warrior monster
Cannot be destroyed by battle while it points to a monster. (Quick Effect): You can banish 1 card from your GY, then discard 1 card; until the end of this turn, this card and monsters it points to are unaffected by the effects of cards with a different card type (Monster, Spell, and/or Trap) than the card banished to activate this effect, except this card’s. During your opponent’s End Phase, if this card points to a monster (Quick Effect): You can target 1 of your WATER monsters that is banished or in your GY; add it to your hand. You can only use each effect of “Turaga Nokama” once per turn.

Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.21.6)
Matoric

Turaga Nokama

Link Effect MonsterLink-2 [▲ ↙] | WATER Spellcaster | ATK 1200

Manas 2 ai-ohi po manas GAHA Toh
E’e ka manas a paro’o-sapo ai, paro’o-sapo za barra-ikhi ya voru ke. (Kah-Akiro): O’o uka sapo bakuala’u po 1 za khu ya, uka sapo 1 osapu ya ka vo; paro’o-agiro ai-oko po, paro’o-sapo manas ai-ka’a ohi no a hiki sapo ya-aka ku-atu (Manas, Doka, Ilhura no/su) za ima te sapo paro’o-akiro lutu ya ke ke ya-khu-za nu ai-akiro paro’o-sapo ai-akiro va ru. E’e rupu ai-End-Phase po ai, ka manas a paro’o-sapo ai (Kah-Akiro): Uka manas’u GAHA khu bakuala’u su po 1 za aro ya vo; arnoro’u ko ivoya. On agiro u uka aro-akiro ai-“Turaga Nokama” ran 1 ko ya voru.

Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.21.6)🎉

Okay, so on this one I really have to hold back, because the moment I start rambling about all the things in Nokama’s translation is the moment this article gets out of hand.

It starts with the materials line, which is paraphrased to “2 monsters among whom there is a WATER Warrior monster” and translated via subordinate clause. Then the battle protection has ka_a (“pointing to”) used in reference to Link Arrows and features the term barra-ikhi (“battle-destroyed”), whose similarity to Barraki probably makes for quite the pun in-universe.

And with the main Quick Effect, we get into the real meat of the matter. The cost and targeting clause includes an original coordination marker o_ka that connects things in sequence (i.e., “then”), as well as the fancy term osapu (“discard”; from ohsapo’u “separation from card”). Once you start resolving, you have to apply something until the end of the turn, or paro’o-agiro ai-oko po (“during the future of this turn”), followed by identifying the “monsters [this card] points to”. What sounds like a simple task for a subordinate clause is immensely complicated by the fact that the clause being subordinated is an equative sentence without a real subject or object, so how do we signify that the “monsters” it is modifying goes within the ka_a marker? The answer I settled on is “not at all”, simply leaving the marker empty and hoping the gap makes it obvious enough how it should be read.

As if that wasn’t enough, the next task is to state “cards with a different card type from […]”, or “cards that have a different card type than […]”, if we want to phrase it with a subordinate clause. This, however, is a rare sentence where that subordination isn’t even the biggest hurdle – it’s the fucking from. To tackle this, I had to employ a sentential marker right out of the previously mentioned WIP materials: _te_, translatable to various things including “relative to”. So, by extending the subordinate clause of “having a different card type” with te X, we can express the card type should be different “relative to X”. But wait, what’s X? Well, X is “the card (that was) banished to activate this effect”.

Ooohhh boy. That is a “[did X] to [do Y]” construction, which as seen back with Gali would already be a headache to do straight. And now it has to be bent into its subordinated form as well. What I settled on, without any real idea whether it’s right or not, is sapo paro’o-akiro lutu ya ke ke ya-khu-za nu – using the whole purpose-expressing structure as a modifier on the card, but only actually writing the directly relevant part (“the card was banished”) as a desentential unit ya-khu-za nu.

The interesting terminology are obviously the card types. Manas (“Monster”) is obligatory as a canon term, Doka (“Spell”) comes from do ka ya (“speak with energy”; the idea being that literal magic would mostly set itself apart from standard MU powers by its verbal incantations or, well, Spells), and Ilhura (“Trap”) from ilahu tura (“suprising binding”).

And during the End Phase, which is a term imported unchanged to Matoric just like it isn’t any different in German or Japanese, you just get to “move a card forward to your hand” once more.

Phew.


English

Ga-Koro, Village of Water

Field Spell

During your opponent’s turn, if all monsters in your GY are WATER (min. 1), your opponent cannot activate cards or effects in response to the activation of your WATER monster effects as Chain Link 2 or higher. You can banish 1 monster from your GY; Special Summon 1 WATER monster from your hand in Defense Position, but its effects are negated and it becomes the same Type as the banished monster’s, also you cannot Special Summon monsters from the Extra Deck for the rest of this turn, except WATER monsters. You can only use this effect of “Ga-Koro, Village of Water” once per turn.

Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.21.6)
Matoric

Ga-Koro, Gaha Ai-Koro

Field Spell

E’e rupu ai-agiro po ai bakuala’u po maa-manas GAHA (ve 1 u) ai, manas-akiro’u GAHA ai-lutu ve ivai-aro 2 u ta rupu u sapo akiro sa za lutu yai voru ke. Uka manas bakuala’u po 1 za khu ya vo; a’a at arnoro’u a ka hau a manas GAHA 1 za fe-idoya o’o akiro’ai za ru ya vah’ai manas ya-khu-za nu ai-vah ai ta na va, paro’o-agiro ai-oko po at sapuru va a manas ru-GAHA za fe-ido ya voru. On agiro u uka paro’o-akiro ai-“Ga-Koro, Gaha ai-Koro” ran 1 ka ya voru.

Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.21.6)

This one has the concept of “in response to”, which had me quite stumped until I was pointed towards causative sentences that express meanings such as “X makes Y do Z” (X ta Y Z yai). Adapting them for this complex use case took a bit of (guess)work, but what I ended up with essentially translates to “The activation of your WATER monster effects as Chain Link 2 or higher cannot make your opponent activate cards or effects”.

The new term Chain Link translates to ivai-aro (“linked structure item”; ivai “Chain” from ivo-vai “linkage-arrangement”), and what’s also interesting is my repurposing of Location/Direction markers to express relations on numbers. This was already subtly visible in all the HOPT clauses, but this effect does itself include two instances of ve_u (“extending from”) around a number, meaning “min.” and “or higher”, respectively – basically >=.

The other effect has nothing weird going on with its grammar for once, but introduces a bit of new vocabulary as well, such as fe-ido (“Special Summon”; from fehi “innovation”, in the sense that it’s an “unusual” Summon), ka hau a (“in Defense Position”; lit. “oriented towards defense”), vah (“Type”; lit. “herd, swarm”), and sapuru va (“Extra Deck”; lit. “non-primary Deck”).


English

C.C. Matoran Maku

Effect MonsterLevel 2 | WATER Warrior | ATK 500 / DEF 200

When your opponent activates a card or effect on the field (Quick Effect): You can Special Summon this card from your hand or GY to your zone in that card’s column, and if you do, change 1 face-up monster on the field to Defense Position. (Quick Effect): You can target 1 other face-up card you control; for the rest of this Chain, or until the end of this turn if it is a “Matoran” monster, it is unaffected by card effects, except its own. You can only use each effect of “C.C. Matoran Maku” once per turn.

Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.21.6)
Matoric

A.A. Matoran Maku

Effect MonsterLevel 2 | WATER Warrior | ATK 500 / DEF 200

E’e nuala po rupu ta sapo akiro su za lutu ya po (Kah-Akiro): At arnoro’u bakuala’u su a vala’u on otu’u-sapo ai-zasa u ko uka paro’o-sapo za fe-ido ya vo, e apaia ihu-manas nuala po 1 za hau-kama ko itya ke. (Kah-Akiro): Uka ihu-ku-sapo ya-uka borau-za 1 aro ya vo; paro’o-ivai ai-oko, e manas “Matoran” ai paro’o-agiro ai-oko ke su, ohi a hiki akiro akiro’ai va ru. On agiro u uka aro-akiro ai-“A.A. Matoran Maku” ran 1 ko ya voru.

Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.21.6)

The most interesting portions that haven’t been touched on already are probably the “to your zone in that card’s column” and “for the rest of this Chain, or until the end of this turn”. The former can be handled with nested Location/Direction markers [vala’u [on otu’u-sapo ai-zasa u] ko] (“forward to your zone inside of that card’s column”) , and the other by appending the su (“or”) coordination marker to a conditional-marked unit to make that “or […] if”.

Defense Position appears for the second time, but this time with a more complete name hau-kama (“defensive orientation”; kama derived from marker ka_a “oriented toward”), and we also encounter zasa (“column”; based on tsasus from the Agoric dictionary).

You might also be wondering why C.C. becomes A.A. – that’s because Chronicler’s Company translates to something like Amaja-Apu. The alliteration survives!


English

Noble Kanohi Rau

Equip Spell

If another “Kanohi” card becomes equipped to the equipped monster, destroy this card. Once per turn, if the equipped monster is a “Turaga”, “Toa”, or “Makuta” monster, the first activated effect that targets it becomes “You can move 1 monster in the Main Monster Zone to another Main Monster Zone on its controller’s field, then your opponent can move 1 monster in the Main Monster Zone to another Main Monster Zone on its controller’s field”. If this card is in your GY: You can Tribute 1 monster, then target 1 “Turaga Nokama” in your GY; Special Summon it and equip it with this card. You can only use this effect of “Noble Kanohi Rau” once per turn.

Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.21.6)
Matoric

Kanohi Lui Rau

Equip Spell

E’e haran-manas aha ku-sapo “Kanohi” ran ai ta, paro’o-sapo za ikhya ke. On agiro u takaro, e’e haran-manas manas “Turaga”, “Toa”, “Makuta” su ai, lutu-akiro ya-aka iza aro takua “O’o uka manas manas ai-vala ga po 1 za manas ai-ku-vala ga boraua’ai ai-nuala po ko ivo ya vo, rupu ta manas manas ai-vala ga po 1 za manas ai-ku-vala ga boraua’ai ai-nuala po ko ivo ya vo ka” ai ta ke. E’e bakuala’u po paro’o-sapo ai: O’o uka manas 1 za okhau ya, uka “Turaga Nokama” bakuala’u po 1 za aro ya ka vo ke; o’o iza fe-idoya, aha paro’o-sapo ran ai ta na. On agiro u uka paro’o-akiro ai-“Kanohi Lui Rau” za ran 1 ko ya voru.

Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.21.6)

This card’s name actually includes the one piece of vocabulary I’ve decided to borrow from the older version of the Matoran Language that was not yet called Matoric: Lui for “Noble”. In the context of Kanohi, it’s just really nice how that rhymes with Nui for “Great”.

The on-field replacement effect is structured around a “becomes”, which is a verb that translates neatly not into a full verbal sentence, but rather an inceptive equative sentence (i.e., one that ends in ai ta – a “starts to be”). The effect in quotation marks is nothing shocking at this point, just two optional actions linked with “then”, but it does introduce the term I’ve chosen to use for “Main Monster Zone”: manas ai-vala ga (“primary zone of monsters”; the ga particle is a made-up one to contrast the va already seen in the translation of “Extra Deck”). Notably, the core of this phrase is the possession-marked vala, so further modifiers like “other” can attach directly to it and yield interesting results such as manas ai-ku-vala ga.

The GY effect showcases the basic “and” conjunction, which is adapted directly by use of the o_na marker. The final portion of the sentence is yet another inceptive equative sentence replacing a verb, paraphrasing “equip it with this card” to “it starts to be equipped with this card”.


English

Matoran Astrologer Nixie

Tuner Effect MonsterLevel 2 | WATER Warrior | ATK 400 / DEF 500

When a monster effect is activated while you control a WATER monster and this card is in your hand (Quick Effect): You can draw 1 card and show it, then if it is a monster, Special Summon this card, and if you do, its Level becomes the shown monster’s Level. Otherwise, discard this card. If this card is sent from the hand or field to the GY, and you have no Spells/Traps in your GY: You can send 1 Spell/Trap from your Deck to the GY. You can only use each effect of “Matoran Astrologer Nixie” once per turn.

Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.21.6)
Matoric

Nixawa-Matoran Nixie

Tuner Effect MonsterLevel 2 | WATER Warrior | ATK 400 / DEF 500

E’e manas-akiro za lutu ya po, uka manas GAHA za borau ya, arnoro’u po paro’o-sapo ai (Kah-Akiro): O’o o’o uka sapo 1 za kiva ya iza aku ya na vo ke. E’e ohi manas ai, paro’o-sapo za fe-idoya, e apaia bahtu’ai manas aku ai-bahtu ai ta ke ke ka. E’e ohi manas ru, paro’o-sapo za osapya ke ka. E’e at arnoro nuala su a bakuala ko paro’o-sapo za ivo ya, bakuala’u po Doka/Ilhura ru: At sapuru’u a bakuala ko uka Doka/Ilhura 1 ivo ya vo ke. On agiro u uka aro-akiro ai-“Nixawa-Matoran Nixie” ran 1 ko ya voru.

Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.21.6)

Nixie closes out the set, but not without some grammatical quirks of her own. That already begins with the card name that lists her occupation and name, which ends up sounding a bit redundant since Matoric often interprets Matoran names as relating to that individual’s Duty. To slightly alleviate this, I went and attached a little marker -wa (“representative of”) to the job title.

The next eyecatcher lies still before the card text, namely Dehrab (“Tuner”; from dehi-raba “sound finalizer”), and once we finally get into the text, the weirdness continues. Not only is Nixie’s first effect a “when” with multiple requirements, it also operates on an if-else basis when it resolves, with a “then” thrown in for good measure. The result is some pretty involved nesting of o_ka and e_ke, crossing sentence boundaries in a way that might just lose more clarity than the boundaries themselves provide. Also somewhere in there is the term bahtu (“Level”; a generalization of bahtua “sea level”).

On the other hand, the final effect is almost laughably simple by comparison, to the point where I feel comfortable weaseling out of an explanation by simply speaking the magic words: Left as an exercise to the reader.

Final Notes

So does this mean the project is officially going multilingual? Absolutely not, there’s no way I have the time to do this on any kind of larger scale. For the foreseeable future, it’s going to remain a one-time April Fools’ thing.

However, in putting this together, I was able to set the stage fairly well for supporting more than one language in the creation and release processes. As you can see, the card viewer blocks have no problem displaying the information (though I have not bothered to translate card types, Attributes, Monster Types, etc), and I also succeeded in jury-rigging my installation of the ygopic card generator into outputting not only additional languages, but even using different fonts and layouts for Japanese and Matoric. Really, translation time is the only major problem stopping this from being an actual thing.

That is to say, if there’s a language in which you really want to see Bionicle cards, you could probably make it happen by just sending me finished translations 😉

Designer’s Quip: The Rahi who Secretly Rule Society

There aren’t that many of them, but the Reptilians have surely invaded every single influential position in the Matoran Universe. What scaly visage is hiding beneath YOUR Turaga’s mask?

So yeah, welcome to the Reptile Rahi article.

See also:

Current Members

A nice set of 5 Reptile Rahi is currently in the expansion, though with not much diversity on other card properties – all of them are Level 4 or higher, and the only Attributes present are FIRE, WATER, and EARTH.

Normal Pendulums

AKA the Tarakava family.

Tarakava, Lizard Rahi

Normal Pendulum MonsterLevel 6 | Scale 3/3 | WATER Reptile | ATK 2600 / DEF 1200

Pendulum Scale = 3
[ Pendulum Effect ]
While you have a Level 6 Reptile “Rahi” Pendulum Monster Card in your other Pendulum Zone, your opponent’s cards and effects cannot be activated in response to the Pendulum Summon of a “Rahi” monster. When an opponent’s monster declares a direct attack: You can destroy this card, and if you do, Special Summon 1 face-up “Rahi” Pendulum Monster from your Extra Deck.
—————————————-
[ Flavor Text ]
The first thing to remember about Tarakava is that even if you can’t see them, they are always there.

Bionicle: Challenge of the Rahi (v3.15.5)

Sand Tarakava, Lizard Rahi

Normal Pendulum MonsterLevel 6 | Scale 8/8 | EARTH Reptile | ATK 2300 / DEF 1800

Pendulum Scale = 8
[ Pendulum Effect ]
While you have a Level 6 Reptile “Rahi” Pendulum Monster Card in your other Pendulum Zone, cards in your Pendulum Zones cannot be destroyed by your opponent’s card effects. Once per turn (Quick Effect): You can target 1 “Rahi” Pendulum Monster you control; place that target in your Pendulum Zone.
—————————————-
[ Flavor Text ]
Sand Tarakava are slightly smaller than their Tarakava relatives. Their hunting method is to hide under the sand and wait for unsuspecting prey to come near.

Bionicle: Challenge of the Rahi (v3.15.5)

Tarakava-Nui, Lizard King Rahi

Synchro Effect MonsterLevel 7 | WATER Reptile | ATK 2900 / DEF 0

1 “Rahi” Tuner + 1+ non-Tuner monsters
You can target 1 monster your opponent controls; this card loses 1000 ATK, and if it does, shuffle that target into the Deck. You can only Special Summon “Tarakava-Nui, Lizard King Rahi(s)” once per turn.

Bionicle: Challenge of the Rahi (v3.15.5)

These Lizards with a Determination to Fist are mostly characterized by their high ATK stats, though the Sand variant is a lot more balanced in that regard. For Pendulum Effects, other than the standard Type-based protection clauses, the regular Tarakava summons itself into battle in a way matching its signature surprise attacks, while the Sand Tarakava kind of performs the inverse operation by putting a Rahi into your Pendulum Zone at will. And the big Tarakava-Nui can just punch things straight back into the Deck at the cost of its own big ATK.

I feel like all of these effects could use some improvement, considering the Sand Tarakava one is even a Quick Effect on a Spell and thus massively against design principles, but let’s consider them as they are for now. An interesting theme I’m seeing here is a mix between beatsticks and effect-based removal on the same cards, almost like a middle ground between the proposed Beast and Aqua/Fish/Sea Serpent Rahi playstyles. A “missing link”, if you will. Fitting, isn’t it?

Others

Now let’s see if that idea holds up through the remaining two examples.

Bog Snake, Rahi

Pendulum Effect MonsterLevel 4 | Scale 5/5 | WATER Reptile | ATK 1500 / DEF 1500

Pendulum Scale = 5
[ Pendulum Effect ]
If your opponent takes effect damage: Draw 1 card. You can only use this effect of “Bog Snake, Rahi” once per turn. If you control no monsters: You can Special Summon this card from your Pendulum Zone.
—————————————-
[ Monster Effect ]
A Synchro Monster that was Summoned using this card as Synchro Material gains this effect.
● Each time your opponent activates a card or effect, inflict 300 damage to your opponent immediately after it resolves.

Bionicle: Challenge of the Rahi (v3.15.5)

And immediately the Bog Snake makes things screwy by going into a completely different direction, namely effect damage. Because venom. This is more significant for its interaction with the Ghekula, its natural enemy, than with any other Reptiles, so maybe we shouldn’t think too much about this one.

Ranama, Magma Toad Rahi

Synchro Effect MonsterLevel 4 | FIRE Reptile | ATK 2200 / DEF 600

1 “Rahi” Tuner + 1+ non-Tuner monsters
You can target 1 card your opponent controls; banish both that target and this card until the End Phase of your next turn. You can only use this effect of “Ranama, Magma Toad Rahi” once per turn.

Bionicle: Challenge of the Rahi (v3.15.5)

The Ranama is our one and only Level 4 Synchro, and it does bring the desired combination of reasonably high stats and effect-based removal. That said, I feel like it tilts a bit more towards the latter, and, come to think of it, a toad should probably rather be placed in the Aqua Type for consistency’s sake. Hmmm.

Not much clarity on what exactly could set the Reptiles apart yet, but moving on.

Potential Members

The unimplemented part of the spreadsheet promises up to a quintupling of the Reptile Rahi pool, with 20 more entries waiting in the wings. Granted, some of those are the Rahi Nui and various worms that are unlikely to really get this Type in the final product, but that still leaves a fair number.

Level 4 and below

The selection of small (potential) Reptile Rahi starts at the Level 1 Spine Slug (already aptly covered in the DARK article), continues with the Level 2 Sand Frog (mentioned once in a serial), right into the Level 3 Fire Serpent (mentioned once in an online character bio with no direct archive available).

And after that three-card straight flush of things we don’t need to bother with, Level 4 finally brings some more noteworthy examples. Well, once we skip over the Air Serpents allegedly from Karda Nui, at least. Okay, the Stone Snake Krahka transformed into one single time probably also doesn’t count.

Which leaves us with two we’ve actually looked at before. The Crystal Climber could be a Beast or could be a Reptile, and is probably going to end up wherever its little mini-synergy with the Ice Bat can be implemented more smoothly (probably Beast though, to keep the Tri-Types together).

The Lohrak has a pretty good chance of becoming a Reptile since it is primarily a snake, and the same thing applies here as when we went over it for the Sea Serpents: Surprise attacks and poisonous flesh, kind of a decent fit mechanically.

Level 5

A surprising number of Reptiles are seemingly sized just between Matoran and Toa, which is a range of exactly this one Level.

A familiar one is the Cable Crawler, a bird-eating Rahi that kind of seems like a climbing lizard. Or a Beast, the lines tend to blur. What speaks for the Reptile typing is their vertigo-inducing Rhotuka power, which they use both to hunt their prey and stun larger creatures – a fine match with the kind of modular strategy considered so far. Assuming you can make the Rhotuka effects work, which might be a bit though in a Deck not focused on them. The tangentially mentioned Mud Crawler suffers from the same Beast-Reptile ambiguity, but if we even bother implementing it, it probably falls here as well due to the acid breath.

The Longfang is explicitly a Reptile, but also a bit disappointing in terms of abilities, since it’s just big and hunts with it jaws, which sounds more like a beatdown-focused Beast Rahi. Throws a little wedge into our plans.

The situation with the Swamp Stalker is similar, though it at least has the decency to be an ambush predator. Estimating the Level for this one is a little tricky because while we know the one that existed as a combiner model was mutated and enlarged, it’s not exactly clear what size the regular ones would be. Of course, that only matters if that version gets a card to begin with.

Finally, the Tunnelers make up for the above examples’ lack of abilities in spades, with their special power to absorb and reproduce anything used against them. This notably can and has been exploited as a weakness, so what it likely translates to is a mandatory trigger effect that copies the opponent’s effects somehow. There’s also the strange “madness” that causes them to change physically and go on a rampage, which could supply the beatdown component to round out this tricky effect in a hybrid Reptile strategy.

Level 6 and 7

Tahu reached the top of the barrier and looked at Lewa as if his brother Toa had turned into a giant swamp lizard.

BIONICLE Chronicles #4: Tales of the Masks

And that’s all it took to put the “Giant Swamp Lizard” into the BS01 Rahi list and therefore into my spreadsheet. No way we’re implementing this one, but presumably it would be Giant (Level 6-ish) Swamp (WATER/WIND) Lizard (Reptile). Shocking.

Speaking of which, the Red Serpent is a Maze of Shadows Rahi with electric powers, which in their one canon use had the remarkable effect of temporarily fusing Matau into a wall. And this right here is where I get a brilliant idea for a gimmick that could set Reptiles apart from all other Types of Rahi. It’s based on a pun, so get ready for this. Are you ready for this?

Scale Manipulation.

As in, Pendulum Scales. Because Reptiles have scales, the two main deck Tarakava already sort of do something like this, and the Red Serpent’s ability could also be very nicely represented by having it shove a monster into the backrow Vaylantz-style. The beatdown/removal hybrid could then be a secondary thing to ensure you have all the tools you need to win while playing around with such a weird gimmick.

The DARK Subterannean Worm is the kind of Worm that I’d rather have as a Reptile than as an Insect, but really both of those options kind of overlap the Normal Pendulums it’s supposed to be grouped with for the whole Rahi Nui package. Still unsure about this one, but its Attribute means it’s not too relevant for the broader Type anyway.

Night Creepers belong to the category of briefly described creatures, with six legs and seven feet (of length), overall sounding kind of like a lizard to me. Nothing of major interest here either.

Furnace Salamanders are said to be the size of a Toa when upright, but upon further consideration, that’s probably a poor reason to put them at the same Level – their swarming behaviour definitely suggests a smaller, less powerful creature at Level 4 or something. Size aside, they’re notable for their agile movements and painful bite, so it sounds like we have another candidate for mixing tricky effects and decent beatdown ability here.

Level 11 (Crystal Serpents)

The most magnificient (likely) Reptile Rahi are those created not by a Makuta, but by the master smith Artakha: The four Crystal Serpents. They spend most of their time dormant in the four corners of their maker’s island, but when active, amplifying light through their bodies lets them generate heat rays powerful enough to destroy a whole wave of Visorak at once. So between that impressive feat and their general legendary status and origins, they obviously have to get a pretty high Level. However, given how odd they are in the context of Rahi overall, I went with 11 rather than the 12 usually used for ginormic boss monster Rahi, just to make it a little weirder.

And while it’s subtle, the above description does contain a nice connection to the Pendulum Scale gimmick considered before: The serpents live in the four corners of the island, and where are the Pendulum Zones located? That’s right, the four corners of the field.

So what I’m thinking here is this: Each of the four serpents actually gets a distinct card to make a little Level 11 mini-archetype, and their effects allow them to be placed into both your and your opponent’s Pendulum Zones. Then, on some trigger, they wake up, Special Summon to your field, and just blow shit up immediately. It’s even more fitting because Crystal Beasts, while not Pendulums, are the OG “monsters in S/T Zone” gimmick deck, and what is a Crystal Serpent if not an off-Type Crystal Beast?

Conclusion

The Reptile Rahi are a mix of snakes, lizards, and generic predators that could just as well be argued to be Beasts. Unlike that Type, however, their hunting methods tend to involve “trickery” such as toxins or special abilities, suggesting something other than the most straightforward beatdown strategy. At the same time, they are also physically more formidable than the smaller end of the aquatic Types of Rahi, which kind of puts them at a balanced middle ground between being beefy beaters and control tools with disruption or removal effects.

That alone may not be enough to guarantee a solid identity, but several of them also have powers or traits suggesting a gimmick of backrow and Pendulum Scale manipulation (which coincidentally also fits with the already implemented Tarakava). So by focusing on that, we can establish a unique playstyle and win condition for Reptile Rahi decks, which the individual monsters’ jack-of-all-trades nature should help carry out in a variety of situations.

Designer’s Quip: Rahi of Many Legs

And/Or chitinous hides, mandibles, compound eyes – whatever it is that identifies them as Insects.

See also:

Current Members

In BCOR, we can find 9 Insect-Type Rahi, spread across all regular Attributes except DARK, with WIND just barely being the most common at 3. Of these Rahi, 4 are Level 2 or lower Tuner monsters, which isn’t all that surprising considering smallness is quite the intuitive Insect trait. The rest doesn’t get all that big either, capping out at Level 6.

Normal Pendulums & Associates

Nui-Jaga, Scorpion Rahi

Normal Pendulum MonsterLevel 5 | Scale 8/8 | EARTH Insect | ATK 2300 / DEF 700

Pendulum Scale = 8
[ Pendulum Effect ]
While you have a Level 5 Insect “Rahi” Pendulum Monster Card in your other Pendulum Zone, cards in your Pendulum Zones cannot be destroyed by your opponent’s card effects. Once per turn: You can add 1 face-up “Rahi” Pendulum Monster in your Extra Deck to your hand, then destroy 1 card in your Pendulum Zone.
—————————————-
[ Flavor Text ]
Nui-Jaga commonly hunt in packs, which helps to make up for the fact that they are not very fast. One of the creatures will drive prey forward, usually into a canyon, where others wait to strike. Once the target is surrounded, the Nui-Jaga will call to each other. Their cries have been compared to the sound of glass breaking.

Bionicle: Challenge of the Rahi (v3.15.5)

Nui-Rama, Fly Rahi

Normal Pendulum MonsterLevel 5 | Scale 3/3 | WIND Insect | ATK 1800 / DEF 1700

Pendulum Scale = 3
[ Pendulum Effect ]
While you have a Level 5 Insect “Rahi” Pendulum Monster Card in your other Pendulum Zone, your opponent’s cards and effects cannot be activated in response to the Pendulum Summon of a “Rahi” monster. You can target 1 “Rahi” monster you control; Special Summon 1 “Rahi” monster with the same Type and a lower or equal Level from your Deck, but it cannot attack this turn. You can only use this effect of “Nui-Rama, Fly Rahi” once per turn.
—————————————-
[ Flavor Text ]
A harsh buzz fills the air…a rustle of wings…a dark shape flying out of the sun…the warning signs of a Nui-Rama attack.

Bionicle: Challenge of the Rahi (v3.15.5)

Nui-Jaga and Nui-Rama form the only pair of Rahi to currently rely on the Insect type, in this case to get the same standard Pendulum enhancements that Muaka and Kane-Ra have over at the Beasts. Additionaly, the former recycles a monster while popping a Pendulum Scale for synergy with the destruction-based subtheme (you can really tell how poorly thought out that was when a card that demands Insects interacts in a way not relevant to a single other Insect Rahi), and the latter does some good old swarming.

Both of these effects are useful, but more in a generic way that doesn’t really suggest any particular design direction for the Type as a whole. I guess swarming makes some literal sense when you think of Insects, but that alone does not a gameplan make.

Nui-Kopen, Wasp Rahi

Synchro Effect MonsterLevel 6 | WIND Insect | ATK 2100 / DEF 2000

1 “Rahi” Tuner + 1+ non-Tuner monsters
Once per turn: You can target 1 face-up monster your opponent controls; excavate cards from the top of your Deck until you excavate a “Rahi” monster, then, if that monster’s ATK is higher than the target’s, send all excavated cards to the GY and take control of the target until the End Phase. Otherwise, Special Summon that monster and shuffle the remaining cards into the Deck.

Bionicle: Challenge of the Rahi (v3.15.5)

The matching Synchro upgrade is the Nui-Kopen, which implements a very fancy method of stealing a monster or Special Summoning even more Rahi from the Deck. One option references the role it played in Lewa getting an infected mask in MNOG and the other fits into the swarming theme, so this seems sensible enough in principle.

Fikou, Spider Rahi

Tuner Effect MonsterLevel 1 | EARTH Insect | ATK 600 / DEF 400

You can banish this card from your GY, then target 1 Level 3 or higher “Rahi” monster you control; reduce that target’s Level by 1, then Special Summon 1 “Fikou, Spider Rahi” from your hand or Deck. You can only use this effect of “Fikou, Spider Rahi” once per turn.

Bionicle: Challenge of the Rahi (v3.15.5)

In case you were wondering why the Synchro upgrades are always one Level higher than the base forms, it’s because of the Fikou, a Level 1 Tuner that brings out other copies of itself by draining a Level from a Rahi on the field. Which technically means you’d end up with the same total Level rather than +1, so I may not have entirely done the math to the end. Still, I really like the idea of this effect, and again it provides another way of swarming.

Handtraps

Other than occuring in swarms, Insects have a reputation for being annoying as hell, so it’s only fair that we find a relatively high concentration of the Level 2 handtrap Rahi in this Type.

Hoto, Firebug Rahi

Tuner Effect MonsterLevel 2 | FIRE Insect | ATK 600 / DEF 300

(Quick Effect): You can banish this card from your hand or field and 1 “Rahi” monster from your GY, then target 1 Spell/Trap your opponent controls; banish that target. Your opponent cannot activate the targeted card in response to this effect’s activation. You can only use this effect of “Hoto, Firebug Rahi” once per turn.

Bionicle: Challenge of the Rahi (v3.15.5)

The Hoto is your Spell/Trap removal, with the built-in benefits of banishing and not letting the targeted card be activated in response, since the cost would otherwise be pretty high for such an effect.

Lightning Bug, Rahi

Tuner Effect MonsterLevel 2 | LIGHT Insect | ATK 600 / DEF 300

(Quick Effect): You can banish this card from your hand or field and 1 “Rahi” monster from your GY; negate the effects of 1 face-up monster on the field until the end of this turn. You can only use this effect of “Lightning Bug, Rahi” once per turn.

Bionicle: Challenge of the Rahi (v3.15.5)

The Lightning Bug, which if the wiki is to be believed should actually be called Electric Bug (they hadn’t figured that out yet when I made BCOR), negates monster effects, and even does so without targeting, which is pretty strong to have as a Quick Effect. In a more functional Rahi archetype, this might honestly be overpowered, but right now it really doesn’t feel that way. Also, only currently implemented LIGHT Insect.

Cliff Bug, Rahi

Tuner Effect MonsterLevel 2 | WATER Insect | ATK 500 / DEF 500

When your opponent activates a card or effect (Quick Effect): You can banish this card from your hand or field and 1 “Rahi” monster from your GY, then target 1 card on the field; it is unaffected by the effects of cards with the same card type (Monster, Spell, or Trap) as the card your opponent activated, until the end of this turn. You can only use this effect of “Cliff Bug, Rahi” once per turn.

Bionicle: Challenge of the Rahi (v3.15.5)

The Cliff Bug goes in a more defensive direction by just making cards unaffected by some card type. This is actually pretty similar to what Turaga Nokama does in the updated version of BCOT, which is quite fitting due to the Cliff Bug being a Ga-Wahi creature (and the only WATER Insect Rahi for now), but completely accidental. I did not remember this card existed until a good while after I did the overhaul for everything Ga-Koro.

It’s worth noting that in contrast to the Beasts, which had a few monsters that benefit from being banished but no handtraps to do the banishing, the Insects suffer from the opposite problem right now – handtraps, but no banish triggers.

Others

Two more cards remain. First, a single Level 4 Pendulum and the second FIRE Insect Rahi.

Kofo-Jaga, Scorpion Rahi

Pendulum Effect MonsterLevel 4 | Scale 5/5 | FIRE Insect | ATK 1300 / DEF 1900

Pendulum Scale = 5
[ Pendulum Effect ]
When a “Rahi” monster is Normal Summoned: You can add 1 “Rahi” Pendulum Monster from your Deck to your hand. You can only use this effect of “Kofo-Jaga, Scorpion Rahi” once per turn. If you control no monsters: You can Special Summon this card from your Pendulum Zone.
—————————————-
[ Monster Effect ]
A Synchro Monster that was Summoned using this card as Synchro Material gains this effect.
●When a monster effect is activated (Quick Effect): You can shuffle 1 face-up “Rahi” Pendulum Monster from your Extra Deck into the Deck; negate the activation, and if you do, destroy that monster if its ATK is lower than the ATK of the monster you shuffled into the Deck.

Bionicle: Challenge of the Rahi (v3.15.5)

The Kofo-Jaga is the first we’re seeing out of an attempted three-part engine that all grant monsters using them as Synchro material a negate at the cost of shuffling back a Rahi Pendulum from the Extra Deck. In the Pendulum Zone, it has the standard ability to Special Summon itself, and it can search another Rahi Pendulum if a monster is Normal Summoned. You’re basically meant to use this by Normal Summoning a Tuner, searching your other Pendulum Scale, and spamming out a bunch of monsters for a big Synchro play, which is certainly … a bit less reliable following MR4.

Kirikori-Nui, Locust Rahi

Synchro Effect MonsterLevel 3 | WIND Insect | ATK 1400 / DEF 1000

1 “Rahi” Tuner + 1+ non-Tuner monsters
When this card is Synchro Summoned: You can send 1 “Rahi” monster from your Deck to the GY; this card gains 500 ATK. You can banish this card until the End Phase of your next turn; destroy 1 card on the field. You can only use this effect of “Kirikori-Nui, Locust Rahi” once per turn.

Bionicle: Challenge of the Rahi (v3.15.5)

Keeping with the theme of Insects being smol, the Kirikori-Nui is a tiny Level 3 Synchro, and one I’m quite fond of. It dumps a Rahi to the GY for cost on summon (potentially triggering various things … that are not Insects), and then can just banish itself for a bit to non-targetingly destroy a card. Probably a bit too slow by modern standards seeing how it’s not a quickie and for some reason comes back during your next End Phase, but still cool.

Potential Members

35 of these little critters still await their implementation, so that’s quite a lot. For the most part, we are looking at tiny Level 1 and 2 monsters, but there’s also a few at Levels 3 and 4 and a decent amount at Level 5 and above, up to legitimate Level 12 candidates. Given the massive skew towards low Levels, it will be interesting to see if we can actually derive a competent strategy from these.

Level 1

Practically every Level 1 monster in the spreadsheet belongs to this Type, boasting a grand total of 11 unimplemented entries.

This includes a wide variety of astonishingly irrelevant critters such as the Acidfly, Bog Leech, and Metallic Hornet – names that probably won’t seem intimately familiar even to dedicated Bionicle fans, because they were each mentioned one single time solely as a comparison for how something sounds or looks or whatever. Given the nigh-zero amount of information that can thus be gleaned from the source material about them, the only reason I could see to implement these is if I really need some extra Level 1s. Which seems unlikely given how many there are here anyway.

Just marginally higher on the relevance scale are Fireflyers and Devourers, whose swarms at least have a smidgen of actual screentime courtesy of an Insect Control Rahkshi. Still, they’re more likely to appear on a Spell/Trap depicting that particular incident in the Archives than as dedicated monster cards. Sand Snipes are one of those curious creatures that only appear in guidebooks, but have a unexpectedly interesting description – in this case, they’re small biting pests with a strange habit of drowning themselves in liquid protodermis. That suicidal nature could well inspire some kind of entertaining self-sacrifical effect.

Meanwhile, the Fikou-Nui is a boss from the cancelled ’01 game, but the fact that visual footage of it exists and its relation to the iconic little orange spider might just mean it will get its share of spotlight in the expansion at some point. Maybe because it’s all black, I once upon a time put together a draft of it as a Rank 1 Xyz Monster, which would be quite a unique niche to fill in the archetype.

And probably the most significant role played by any of these miniature Insects in the actual story goes to the Protodites, microscopic beings who were seen in 2006 both as the building blocks of Zaktan’s body and in massively enlarged form as Protodax. Their ability to split in two when struck could make for a neat monster effect (though kind of limited by only having 3 copies), but since their appearances are so indirect, maybe they’ll also end up relegated to a Spell/Trap slot.

The remaining entries – Worms, Spine Slugs, and Niazesk – are clear DARK monsters and therefore have already been covered in that article.

Level 2

A wide variety of worm-like Rahi can be found noted at this level, among them Spiked Fire Worms, Slime Worms, Feeder Worms, Borer Worms, and Rock Worms. All but the last one are just more rhetorical devices with a single mention in the books, and the Rock Worm’s slightly greater relevance only stems from the fact that the Toa Metru once faced a giant one mutated by Energized Protodermis. So the small one might make it in too at that point, just to have a canon material for bringing out its big version.

The Electric Spider is exclusively a Quest for the Toa enemy that was retroactively packaged into a common naming pattern with the Electric Bug. If implemented as a card, it would probably do something similar to that little effect-negating handtrap. Maybe negate effects outside the field or something?

And finally, the Frost Leech is another parasite like the aforementioned Spine Slug, except it feeds off heat rather than rage. Perhaps this could translate to some kind of union-like mechanic where the Leech attaches to a monster and slowly “freezes” it.

The surprising takeaway so far is that, even though the numbers suggest a cornucopia of extremely low-Level Insect Rahi, a detailed inspection reveals that almost all the actually relevant ones have been implemented already.

The Visorak Ecosystem

Perhaps the most relevant Insect Rahi are 2005’s Visorak, already featured prominently in the DARK article along with various Rahi directly related to them. Still, it’s not totally impossible that the Visorak could end up getting other Attributes once we reach them, so let’s quickly go over them in the context of Insects as a whole too.

The Visorak themselves would be Level 4 monsters that, if not DARK, would be spread across FIRE, WATER, EARTH, and WIND as per their color schemes. The main features I have currently planned for them are a generally tightly coordinated playstyle likely making use of a dedicated “Visorak” archetype, and Rhotuka effects that trigger off the activation of some basic “Rhotuka” Spells to represent the various Rhotuka powers found in the lore. These very specific features mean they probably wouldn’t mix too well with random other Insect Rahi, but perhaps planning some crossover points in advance would be nice.

The obvious candidates for those are the other Insects canonically related to Visorak: Venom Flyers, Gate Guardians, Silver Chute Spiders, and Metru Mantisses. All of those do even have options for non-DARK Attributes listed: WIND because it flies, LIGHT because it projects illusions, LIGHT because its shiny, and WIND because it’s green, in that order. However, in the case where Visorak aren’t DARK either, WIND would overlap with the main horde’s Keelerak, which is a bit annoying. An interesting point for the Insect Rahi pool as we’ve seen it so far is that all of these are Level 4 or higher, but it’s possible that the ones we have yet to cover sufficiently fill that niche anyway.

The Zivon also needs to be mentioned as a gigantic Level 12 Insect Rahi, meant to be the final boss Visorak. I’ve cooked up a nice little plan to make this one a Ritual Monster summoned not by a regular Ritual Spell, but rather by the Rhotuka effect of the Visorak Kahgarak – exactly the way it’s canonically called forth from the Field of Shadows. That’s not exactly compatible with generic usage, however, so another reason I’d honestly prefer the Visorak sectioned off in their own DARK Insect corner.

Level 3 and 4

The only(!) Level 3 Insect Rahi on record is the Dagger Spider, found in the Green Belt of Voya Nui and built as a tiny little combiner model. Incidentally, the latter is a quality it shares with the Kirikori-Nui, so maybe it could be another low-Level Synchro? Effect-wise, their method of attacking involves feints, so maybe similar mechanics as with Utopia + Double or Nothing could be applied.

Level 4 includes the Visorak and some other DARK Insect stuff mentioned previously, but also the Sea Spider. Which is technically still connected to the Visorak, but since it’s one of their natural predators and unlike the nocturnal Metru Mantis has nothing to do with darkness, I can’t really justify shoving it into DARK. Not sure what to do with this one.

And that’s it for this section. Shockingly, there are practically no Insect Rahi I would place at these Levels, so unless I find other stuff to up-/downgrade or come up with a very unusual playstyle, there might legitimately be no choice but to let the Visorak mix with the general Insect pool after all. But even then, that would mean Insect Rahi only really start working in 2005 …

Level 5 and Higher

After the drought in the middle Level range, it’s surprising to see that quite a few oversized Insects can still be found at the higher Levels.

One particular subcategory I’d like to start with are those that have “Flip” listed as a potential subtype: Archives Beast, Tunnel Stalker, and Chute Lurker. These three share the common trait of being ambush predators, which is something I might yet devote a separate article to since it applies to quite a few Rahi and has some interesting ways to be implemented in card form. One possibility being that we make them Flip Effect Monsters, and since they’re all pretty big and high-Level, they’d probably Special Summon themselves face-down as well. Also, all three of these could have different Attributes (Beast DARK, Stalker EARTH, Lurker WIND/WATER), which is always nice for variety.

Outside of the ones connected to the Visorak, there’s some further big DARK Insect Rahi. The Subterranean Worm set to release in BPEV is probably going to be support for the Rahi Nui since that’s the main focus of that expansion Rahi-wise, but if it really does end up an Insect, it could be generically useful enough to also include in the broader strategy of the Type. Protodax and Fenrakk Spawn appear in Voya Nui and are both related to the guardians of the Ignika (the former directly, the latter indirectly), but again, generic usefulness in an Insect deck may be possible.

With the WATER Attribute, we have the Frost Beetle, one of several creatures closely connected to Ko-Metru’s Knowledge Towers (maybe a multi-Type subtheme/engine is hiding here?). Their thing is that the whole species got more intelligent by consuming the Towers’ Memory Crystals and integrating the information therein into their hivemind, which is … cool, but doesnt quite give me any functional ideas until I’ve figured out what Knowledge Towers do. In-game, I mean.

The magma-shooting Catapult Scorpions are FIRE Insects for a rather obvious reason, and since they look like significantly beefier Nui-Jaga, their Level is noted as up there at something along the lines of 8. Considering that they are explicitly super aggressive in addition to their size, they’re probably the most straightforward choice for a big game-ending Insect Synchro boss monster.

And if you want to go even more huge, consider the Troller, a worm stated to have a mouth “large enough to swallow a city block”. That would suggest it can’t possibly be anything below Level 12 as noted in the spreadsheet, but at this point I’ve practically dropped that idea for two reasons. One, Krahka transforms into one while fighting Roodaka, and I just see no way that scene could logistically work if their size was really as described. And two, from what we’ve seen so far, there’s really no way an Insect Rahi deck could support a full-on Level 12 boss monster. So we might go a bit smaller with this, maybe a more defensive option in the same weight class as the Catapult Scorpion (though it also doesn’t feel entirely right to group these two together).

Conclusions

Quite possibly the strangest Type yet. They’re either tiny or gigantic, with very little in the mid-Level size range, which leads to them almost completely missing certain crucial components of the Rahi playstyle as it has been implemented so far. The main redeeming factor in that sense are the Visorak, but they’re kind of busy doing their own thing and also don’t show up until a while later in the story.

It might therefore be necessary to step out of preconceived notions about Rahi card design a bit further than I’ve done in previous Type analyses. Beasts were a Pendulum/Synchro deck with a beatdown focus while Fish & co were a Pendulum/Synchro deck using more effect-based means of board control, but maybe Insects don’t necessarily have to be Pendulums or Synchros in the first place. Especially the latter is kind of inconvenient for a deck full of low levels anyway, unless we’re talking about teensy utility Synchro Monster like the Kirikori-Nui. For actual boss monsters, it could very well end up being the case that Insect Rahi instead put out a Link, a Rank 1 or 2 Xyz, or even an easily searchable Main Deck monster. Maybe the Level 2s won’t even be Tuners or handtraps if both of those features don’t synergize well with everything else.

Of course, once the Visorak and their relatives/allies/enemies do appear, the potential for a more conventional Synchro strategy does increase significantly. I am, however, still leaning towards placing those into a more isolated section as DARK Insects, so if the main Insect Rahi deck should use them, that would require an unusual degree of DARK acceptance on that end. I think this is realistically achievable by just making sure the Visorak never apply any locks that extend beyond the Type and keeping their interactions with the “Visorak” archetype and the DARK Insect typing strictly positive, so you can still put them in a non-DARK deck to use some of their features (though they’d obviously be more powerful in their dedicated strategy). This special mixing of Attributes could then be yet another strange feature of Insect Rahi compared to other Types.

More generally, I think “weird kinds of variety” might unexpectedly wind up being the niche for Insect Rahi, judging by these last two points. Having stuff like Links, Xyz, low-level Synchros, Main Deck bosses, and an entire DARK sub-archetype in the toolbox would probably provide ways to work around certain things regular Rahi decks might struggle with. And in that sense, having the weirdness of Insects also be splashable to some degree should be very healthy for the versatility and resiliency of Rahi as a whole.

Theme Guide: Energized Protodermis (BPEV)

I guess I should get around to this one before it slips my mind again, huh.

Welcome to the very first Theme Guide featuring BPEV cards, specifically the mystery substance that is secretly the root cause of just about the whole Bionicle lore: Energized Protodermis.

This shiny silver liquid had its first appearance at the end of 2002 and immediately exhibited its strange properties by transforming the Toa Mata into the Toa Nuva when they came in contact with it. As the story went on, we also learnt that it will destroy anything that does not have a destiny to transform, that the substance is in fact sapient, and finally that its discovery on the ancient planet Spherus Magna was what ultimately led to the Core War, The Shattering, and the creation of the Matoran Universe as a whole. So yeah, it’s kinda important.

But as we still remain on the island of Mata Nui, what matters for now is its basic ability to transform those who are destined and destroy all others. Hence its current implementation as a small, simple archetype revolving around two key phrases – “Fusion Summon” and “send it to the GY”.

Energized Protodermis Chamber

Effect MonsterLevel 2 | LIGHT Aqua | ATK 0 / DEF 0

If only your opponent controls a monster, you can Special Summon this card (from your hand). If this card is Normal or Special Summoned (except during the Damage Step): You can Fusion Summon 1 Fusion Monster from your Extra Deck using this card and 1 monster in your hand as material. If this card is used as material for a Fusion Summon, except by its own effect: Target 1 Special Summoned monster on the field; send it to the GY. You can only use this effect of “Energized Protodermis Chamber” once per turn.

Bionicle: Protodermic Evolution (v4.1.3)

Both of them can immediately be seen in our sole Main Deck monster, Energized Protodermis Chamber. When Normal or Special Summoned (the latter of which it inherently allows you to do against established boards), it fuses with exactly 1 monster in your hand, and when fused by any effect except that one, it has a mandatory Trigger Effect to send a Special Summoned monster from the field to the GY.

Let’s unpack that bit by bit. The main effect is obviously the one that performs a Fusion Summon, and the idea is to “induce transformations” by Energized Protodermis to turn the monster in your hand into its upgraded form from the Extra Deck. This paradigm is currently implemented on the Toa Nuva, represented below by their glorious leader.

Toa Nuva Tahu

Fusion Effect MonsterLevel 8 | FIRE Warrior | ATK 2900 / DEF 1900

“Toa Mata Tahu” + 1 “Energized Protodermis” monster
If this card is Fusion Summoned: You can add 1 “Nuva” Spell/Trap from your Deck or GY to your hand, then discard 1 card. If your opponent controls a monster (Quick Effect): You can target 1 other face-up Attack Position monster on the field; its ATK becomes 0, and if it does, this card gains ATK equal to that monster’s original ATK, until the end of this turn. You can only use this effect of “Toa Nuva Tahu” once per turn.

Bionicle: Protodermic Evolution (v4.4.4)

That, of course, is an entirely separate archetype that just incorporates Energized Protodermis by design, but what’s relevant for this guide is just the first line with the Fusion Materials: A specifically named Toa Mata, plus any “Energized Protodermis” monster. This is how we represent the destined transformations – if exactly the correct individual comes into contact with Energized Protodermis, a new being will be born. Also keep in mind that Toa Mata are Level 6 monsters, so Chamber taking the other material from the hand specifically saves you a Tribute Summon.

The other half of Energized Protodermis is that it will destroy those not destined to transform by it, and this is represented in a slightly roundabout way by the mandatory effect sending a monster to the GY. The idea is that “forcibly” using it as Fusion Material is a violation of destiny, and so the destruction kicks in, eliminating a Special Summoned monster such as the one you just Fusion Summoned. Or, and this is pure bullshit for gameplay convenience, you can also hit any other Special Summoned monster including your opponent’s, so this drawback can be twisted into a major advantage if you play your cards right. It will just sometimes give you trouble when going first. And even though I say “destruction”, it’s implemented as non-destruction removal because of how almost nothing can resist it in-universe.

Funnily enough, as long as you use Chamber’s own effect to fuse, it has no problem whatsoever with making things that aren’t lore-accurate, destiny-conforming transformations. In fact, any Fusion is fair game as long as this particular Level 2 LIGHT Aqua monster is valid material for it, including quite a few pretty significant boss monsters from existing archetypes. That freedom is the main thing allowing us to mix Energized Protodermis with a lot of things other than just the Toa Mata/Nuva.

An additional option you have, at least under somewhat specific conditions, is the archetype’s own Fusion Monster: Energized Protodermis Flow.

Energized Protodermis Flow

Fusion Effect MonsterLevel 4 | LIGHT Aqua | ATK 0 / DEF 0

2 “Energized Protodermis” monsters
If this Fusion Summoned card is sent to the GY: Look at your opponent’s Extra Deck and send 1 monster from it to the GY. During your Main Phase: You can Fusion Summon 1 Fusion Monster from your Extra Deck, by banishing 2 Fusion Materials mentioned on it from your GY, including this card. You can only use each effect of “Energized Protodermis Flow” once per turn.

Bionicle: Protodermic Evolution (v4.2.5)

While 2 monsters from the archetype is normally a really easy and generic material requirement, that’s not so true when the archetype currently only has a single Main Deck monster. Basically, Chamber + Chamber is your only means to bring this out, which won’t come up outside of very specific situations.

If it does, though, one of the Chambers would be fused away by an external effect, hence triggering its mandatory effect to send a monster on the field to the GY. Ideally this is aimed at your opponent’s side as removal, but Flow is also built to take a little advantage of the cases where no targets other than itself are available, since it will then proceed to relay the archetypal “send to GY” to the opponent’s Extra Deck. Also, it can be used to Fusion Summon from the GY, which technically works even if it wasn’t on the field before (but it’s kind of hard to usefully mill a 0 ATK monster from the Extra Deck).

To walk back that earlier statement a little, there are a few other ways to make this monster. It’s Level 4, so Instant Fusion works, and the effect to send from the opponent’s Extra Deck will then trigger in the End Phase even if you don’t have a way to e.g. Link it off more quickly. Or you could use the final card currently included in the archetype.

Energized Protodermis Destiny

Quick-Play Spell

Target 1 face-up monster you control; Special Summon 1 “Energized Protodermis Token” (Aqua/LIGHT/Level 2/ATK 0/DEF 0), then apply 1 of these effects.
●Send the targeted monster to the GY, and if you do, you can destroy that Token and Special Summon 1 “Energized Protodermis” monster from your Deck.
●Fusion Summon 1 Fusion Monster that mentions an “Energized Protodermis” monster as material from your Extra Deck in Defense Position, using only that Token and the targeted monster as Fusion Material.
You can only activate 1 “Energized Protodermis Destiny” per turn.

Bionicle: Protodermic Evolution (v4.1.3)

Energized Protodermis Destiny is the entire transformation/destruction dynamic on which all the effects are based, encapsulated into one neat little Quick-Play Spell.

When you activate this card, you take the role of a Great Being shortly before everything went to shit and conduct an experiment with a little sample of Energized Protodermis in the form of a Token. If the unwitting guinea pig you targeted at activation has a destiny to transform, you can carry out that transformation with a Fusion Summon, limited to Defense Position because this works in the Battle Phase. Otherwise, your only option is to send the target to the GY, but in order to study the strange substance more closely (and still benefit in some way), you can then trade your Token for an actual Energized Protodermis monster in your Deck. Which, notably, will trigger Chamber, so under the right circumstances both options secretly say “Fusion Summon”.

Sample Decks

Aside from the straightforward Toa Nuva deck that will be covered in its own guide eventually, you have a couple interesting build options that take advantage of Energized Protodermis and its particular characteristics.

One example I’ve worked out in detail and tested is Pure Energized Protodermis Shaddoll Invoked (P.E.P.S.I).

https://www.duelingbook.com/deck?id=12382564

The key synergy lies in El Shaddoll Construct and Invoked Mechaba having a generic LIGHT material that can be covered by an Energized Protodermis monster, so Chamber + a Shaddoll or Aleister is a hand that makes the respective boss monster in basically a single move. This is especially valuable with the Shaddolls, since it gives you an additional way to send them to the GY and trigger their effects, but on the Invoked side too, having an alternative to the classic combo helps you bait out and play through more things. That’s especially true going second, where you’ll usually be able to Special Summon Chamber and then, should it get negated, just follow up with an unhindered Normal Summon of Aleister to make Mechaba anyway.

Another way the archetypes line up is in the Fusion Spells: Shaddoll Fusion can use materials from the Deck under certain conditions, and Invocation from the GY. That gives you two extremely efficient ways of triggering the mandatory effect on Energized Protodermis Chamber in order to poke a hole in a board of Special Summoned monsters. And since the timing at which it triggers is sharead with the Fusion Summon itself, having Magical Meltdown active will render your opponent unable to respond to this threat.

Finally, we also have Energized Protodermis Flow summonable by Chamber + Chamber, Destiny targeting Chamber, or plain old Instant Fusion. You can get this into the GY at your leisure using Gravity Controller, where it can then create the aforementioned Fusions practically ex nihilo … and also Invoked Augoeides, because as it turns out a Fusion in the GY is still a Fusion.

To take proper advantage of both Shaddoll Fusion and Chamber’s S E N D, this deck tries to go second, which also enables the use of powerful board breakers including Forbidden Droplet and Super Polymerization.

If you lean just a little further into the Bionicle aspect and also add just a smidgen of Toa Nuva to this formula, you obtain another similar recipe that is no longer Pure, but rather Protodermically Energized Nuva Invoked Shaddoll. You’re not getting an acronym for this one.

https://www.duelingbook.com/deck?id=12383388

Of course, Tahu and Onua here could be any other pair of Toa, or even just one to leave a little more space. Either way, there really isn’t much difference to the PEPSI deck – in fact a lot of the time you’re just doing Invoked/Shaddoll stuff and that’s enough to last you a whole game. But the occasional chance you get to bring out a Toa Nuva does feel nice, as does sometimes being able to search your Energized Protodermis cards via Nuva Symbols. While it’s nowhere near as good as a proper Nuva deck and fitting in all the necessary cards is a real struggle, it’s another option to play around with for some fun.

I previously compiled some footage of these two builds into the Best of Test: Energized Protodermis video, as seen below.

Best of Test: Energized Protodermis

Beyond that, there’s some more ideas that could be worth exploring in the future. In a similar vein to Shaddoll, Albion is a Fusion with a generic LIGHT material and Branded Fusion a compatible Fusion Spell using materials from the Deck, so some kind of Branded pile going second could make real good use of Chamber.

Or, to go even more modern, you could follow the Type instead of the Attribute and put Chamber to work as the Aqua material of Tearlaments Kitkallos. Probably not particularly optimal in that Deck since it’s a) useless when milled and b) won’t trigger its removal effect if shuffled back into the Deck as material, but perhaps it could to some degree serve as additional copies of Instant Fusion. Maybe even a replacement in a hypothetical future where that card is banned. Sure, it takes another Tearlaments monster to work, but that monster’s effect would then also trigger to Fusion Summon at least Rulkallos, in the process triggering Kitkallos to mill 5,I may have managed to forget how Tear fusion effects work in the span of 2 sentences here and holy hell it’s already sounding insane. Might have to try this after all.

Conclusion

Energized Protodermis a substance whose central property is that, upon contact, it transforms those who are destined and destroys those who are not. Translated to cards, this becomes a small Fusion engine whose main monster is a combination of Fusion Spell and material, meant to be merged with certain specific monsters in order to fulfill their destiny of evolution. Meanwhile, fusing it by external means will cause a violent destructive reaction that sends a Special Summoned monster from the field to the GY – potentially an opponent’s monster, so what is a liability going first can be utilized as a weapon going second.

In addition to the currently intended use case with the Toa Nuva, Energized Protodermis can be splashed into a variety of Fusion decks, the one condition being that some purple card in the Extra Deck can use exactly Energized Protodermis Chamber as material. In such a hybrid, the base strategy is enhanced with not only an additional way to Fusion Summon, but also with the potential of targeting non-destruction removal tied to its own Fusion Spells.

The 2023 Roadmap

The good news: Regular updates will continue in this coming year. The bad news: I’m extending the standard interval from 2 months to 4. While last year’s schedule mostly worked out, it also kept me pretty damn busy, so between IRL commitments and the desire for some general technical updates on stuff like the site or my development tools, I feel a need to dial it back a bit and leave more time for other things.

With that, here’s the plan:

  • April 2023: Bohrok-Kal (1st Wave)
  • August 2023: Toa Nuva (2nd Wave)
  • December 2023: Bohrok-Kal (2nd Wave)

In other words, by the time the year is over, the cast of the Nuva vs Kal conflict should be fully gathered, and all that will be left for 2024 is the fabled Rahi update and the obligatory lore cards.

Happy new year!

Release: Symbols of Power

The Toa Nuva receive their first proper wave of two times three (plus one) cards, and the archetype’s general concept begins to take a more refined form.

Download for EDOPro

I’ll be honest, I totally forgot about the Energized Protodermis guide until I saw it mentioned just now in the previous release post, so that’s gonna take a while longer. What I do have ready is a little introduction to what I believe is currently the most effective way to play Toa Nuva. Worth checking out if you’re planning to try the deck yourself.

If you’d just like to see what’s changed in this update, simply continue below.

New Cards

Gali

Toa Nuva Gali

Fusion Effect MonsterLevel 8 | WATER Warrior | ATK 2700 / DEF 2200

“Toa Mata Gali” + 1 “Energized Protodermis” monster
If this card is Fusion Summoned: You can add 1 “Nuva” Spell/Trap from your Deck or GY to your hand, then discard 1 card. (Quick Effect): You can target 1 other face-up monster on the field; negate its effects until the end of this turn. You can only use each effect of “Toa Nuva Gali” once per turn.

Bionicle: Protodermic Evolution (v4.2.5)

Toa Mata Gali

Effect MonsterLevel 6 | WATER Warrior | ATK 2300 / DEF 1800

To Tribute Summon this card face-up, you can Tribute a WATER or “Toa Mata” monster in your hand, except “Toa Mata Gali”, instead of a monster you control. Once per turn, when the turn player’s opponent activates a monster effect, except “Toa Mata Gali” (Quick Effect): You can target 1 other face-up monster on the field; negate its effects, and if you do, this card gains 400 ATK.

Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.21.6)
Lewa

Toa Nuva Lewa

Fusion Effect MonsterLevel 8 | WIND Warrior | ATK 2600 / DEF 2300

“Toa Mata Lewa” + 1 “Energized Protodermis” monster
If this card is Fusion Summoned: You can add 1 “Nuva” Spell/Trap from your Deck or GY to your hand, then discard 1 card. During the Main Phase (Quick Effect): You can target 1 monster on the field; return it to the hand, then, if it was a monster you controlled, you can return 1 additional monster on the field to the hand. You can only use each effect of “Toa Nuva Lewa” once per turn.

Bionicle: Protodermic Evolution (v4.2.5)

Toa Mata Lewa

Effect MonsterLevel 6 | WIND Warrior | ATK 2200 / DEF 1900

To Tribute Summon this card face-up, you can Tribute a WIND or “Toa Mata” monster in your hand, except “Toa Mata Lewa”, instead of a monster you control. Once per turn, if a monster(s) is Special Summoned from the hand, Main Deck, and/or GY while you control this card: You can target 1 monster on the field; return it to the hand, then, if it was a monster you controlled, you can return 1 additional monster on the field to the hand.

Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.21.6)

The protagonists of the release are the Toa Nuva of Water and Air, Gali and Lewa. I went with these two because their effects as Toa Mata were the ones that worked best for interacting on the opponent’s turn, so adding them to the Nuva roster – where the effects are the same but much more freely usable – would immediately provide some reliable end board options. This panned out as expected, and I can proudly report that pure Toa Nuva decks are now playable in the sense that they consistently put up at least one relevant disruption.

If you make Gali Nuva, you get a targeting monster negate usable whenever you want, though it lacks the stacking ATK boost of her Mata form to make up for the added flexibility. If you make Lewa Nuva, you get a targeting bounce that can be made non-targeting if you’re willing to get rid of one of your own monsters as well, which is exactly what he already did as a Toa Mata (if the trigger condition was met).

You might notice that Lewa is Main Phase only, while Gali has no such limitation. This reflects a newly introduced general rule for adapting Mata Trigger Effects to Nuva Quick Effects: If all the features of the effect are essentially retained, it will be limited to the Main Phase, but cutting out some bonus such as Gali’s ATK gain allows me to lift that restriction. And save some words, which is neat.

Of course, both of the Toa Nuva also have the archetypal ability to search a “Nuva” Spell/Trap when Fusion Summoned, with which we segue straight into Nuva Symbols.

Gali

Nuva Symbol of Flowing Harmony

Continuous Spell

You can shuffle this card you control into the Deck; add 1 “Toa Mata Gali” from your Deck to your hand, or reveal it in your hand and add 1 “Energized Protodermis” card instead. When a card or effect activated by your opponent in response to your “Nuva” Fusion Monster’s effect activation resolves, you can negate that effect, and if you do, destroy that card. You can only use each of the preceding effects of “Nuva Symbol of Flowing Harmony” once per turn. If this card leaves the field: Target 1 “Nuva” Fusion Monster you control; negate its effects. You cannot activate monster effects in response to this effect’s activation.

Bionicle: Protodermic Evolution (v4.2.5)
Lewa

Nuva Symbol of Soaring Vitality

Continuous Spell

You can shuffle this card you control into the Deck; add 1 “Toa Mata Lewa” from your Deck to your hand, or reveal it in your hand and add 1 “Energized Protodermis” card instead. If a face-up “Nuva” Fusion Monster you control leaves the field by card effect (except during the Damage Step): You can target 1 Level 8 or lower monster in your GY; Special Summon it. You can only use each of the preceding effects of “Nuva Symbol of Soaring Vitality” once per turn. If this card leaves the field: Target 1 “Nuva” Fusion Monster you control; negate its effects, and if you do, you cannot Special Summon for the rest of this turn.

Bionicle: Protodermic Evolution (v4.2.5)

Like all Nuva Symbols, Flowing Harmony and Soaring Vitality can go straight back to the Deck to find you a missing fusion material for their respective Toa Nuva, they have on-field effects granting benefits to all the Nuva (but synergyzing especially well with the correct one), and, if removed from the field, activate a mandatory effect of negation and punishment contrasting the benefit.

Gali’s Nuva Symbol of Flowing Harmony protects the Toa Nuva from outside interference by negating and destroying any response to their effects (once per turn, of course). Continuously negating and destroying, which means it works even against things that can’t be responded to otherwise, and even if you were to set up the symbol at Quick Effect speed after your opponent already activated their response. You know, hypothetically. If there was some way to do that. The matching punishment you suffer if the card is destroyed is simply that you cannot activate monster effects in response to the negation of your Toa Nuva, so you miss out on that last chance to fire its effects.

Lewa’s Nuva Symbol of Soaring Vitality acts as an outsourced floating effect, bringing back a Level 8 or lower monster from the GY if a Toa Nuva leaves the field by card effect. Incidentally, Toa Nuva happen to be Level 8, so in some cases you can just revive the exact same monster immediately. Or a Toa Mata. Or an Energized Protodermis Chamber to make a new Toa Nuva. It also triggers off your own card effects, so if Lewa Nuva has to bounce himself to get some non-targeting removal, here’s your replacement. However, if the Symbol itself instead leaves the field, you’ll be locked out of Special Summons for the rest of the turn.

Our other search targets, the Kanohi Nuva, got a significant design overhaul, so let’s talk about those.

Gali

Great Kanohi Kaukau Nuva

Equip Spell

If another “Kanohi” Equip Spell becomes equipped to the equipped monster, destroy this card. If the equipped monster is a “Nuva” Fusion Monster, it is unaffected by your opponent’s card effects, unless they target it. If this card is sent to the GY, and you have not activated any “Kanohi” Equip Spell effects in the GY this turn: You can banish 1 monster from your GY; place 1 “Nuva” Continuous Spell from your Deck face-up in your Spell & Trap Zone, also if you control a “Nuva” Fusion Monster, the face-up monsters you currently control cannot be destroyed by card effects this turn.

Bionicle: Protodermic Evolution (v4.2.5)
Lewa

Great Kanohi Miru Nuva

Equip Spell

If another “Kanohi” Equip Spell becomes equipped to the equipped monster, destroy this card. If the equipped monster is a “Nuva” Fusion Monster, negate any effect activated by your opponent that targeted it. If this card is sent to the GY, and you have not activated any “Kanohi” Equip Spell effects in the GY this turn: You can banish 1 monster from your GY; place 1 “Nuva” Continuous Spell from your Deck face-up in your Spell & Trap Zone, also if you control a “Nuva” Fusion Monster, your opponent cannot target the monsters you currently control with card effects this turn.

Bionicle: Protodermic Evolution (v4.2.5)

Gone are the cumbersome bullet point effects, and instead the ability granted when equipped is now listed just like it was on the original Great Kanohi, but limited to Toa Nuva.

The major changes lie in the GY effects, however. They still generally do the same thing as the Kanohi Nuva seen in previous versions: Banish a monster from the GY, get a Nuva Symbol from Deck. But now the former secondary bullet point effect to temporarily buff or protect your whole field has been merged into this, under the condition that you must control a Toa Nuva (since sharing the power requires having someone who can use it in the first place).

The first part of this shared effect has proven extremely valuable in making all the different components of a full Toa Nuva deck work together smoothly, in more than one way. It boosts consistency by letting you get Toa Mata/Energized Protodermis searches off Isolde or even just by linking off an equipped monster, it offsets the discard included in the Toa’s on-summon effects since you can just discard a Kanohi Nuva to get a Nuva Symbol for free, and it provides you with a way to set up Nuva Symbols on the opponent’s turn as well. But it is also a +1, and when what you’re getting isn’t always just a Level 6 monster in your hand (as it was with the Mata Kanohi), that gets a little out of hand with this many cards able to do it. Adding the shared buffs to these effects obviously doesn’t make them any tamer, either. So how to keep this under control without throwing out all the fantastic utility it offers?

The answer came to me in a literal fever dream: One must simply be limited to only using a single Kanohi Nuva per turn, and then neither the plusses nor the buffs can accumulate to an unreasonable degree! In practice, I achieve this by requiring you to not have previously activated any “Kanohi” effects in the GY the same turn, which means the first one you use locks you out of all the others. It’s a bit of a weird approach and I couldn’t find a clear ruling on how it would work with multiple simultaneous triggers (I imagine you’d still only get one, and coded it as such), but it’s nicely compact in wording and has the added benefit(?) of making it so you can’t chainblock the ashable Mata Kanohi with the non-ashable Nuva Kanohi. Also, notice how we can completely forgo individual HOPT clauses now, because the restriction also keeps other copies of the same card from activating.

And that just leaves one thing to cover, and ideally it should be covered in Nuva Symbols.

Nuva Cube

Continuous Trap

While you control a “Nuva” Continuous Spell, your opponent cannot target this card with card effects. Once per turn: You can target up to 6 “Nuva” Continuous Spells with different names on your field and/or in any GY(s); shuffle them into the Deck, then you can apply any of these effect(s), in sequence, based on the number shuffled.
●1+: Place 1 “Nuva” Continuous Spell from your Deck face-up in your Spell & Trap Zone.
●3+: Negate the effects of 1 other face-up Spell/Trap on the field until the end of this turn.
●6: Special Summon up to 2 of your banished monsters.

Bionicle: Protodermic Evolution (v4.2.5)

The Nuva Cube is the first Toa Nuva search target that doesn’t belong to a series of six and also the first Trap (we have officially outpaced Nekroz). In the story, its role was limited to being the spot where the Bohrok-Kal have to put the stolen Nuva Symbols to undo the seal on the Bahrag, and after that arc it was never seen or heard from again. Seriously, even when the Bahrag later are actually unsealed, the Toa Nuva seemingly do it by just combining their powers without the use of the cube. It’s all a bit strange.

In gameplay, meanwhile, I think I’ve found a decent use for it as insurance against removal targeting your vulnerable Nuva Symbols. First of all, while surrounded by “Nuva” Continuous Spells (i.e. the Symbols), it is safely out of reach of your opponent’s effects. And at Quick Effect speed, because that’s how Traps work, you can shuffle different Nuva Symbols from your field or either GY into the Deck and then proceed to resolve various effects depending on how many Symbols you “placed on the Cube” this way. You’re always given the option to get a single replacement Symbol from your Deck, so even if you’re not dodging removal, you can use this to swap into what you need at a given moment (now where have we heard this before?). If you’ve gathered at least 3 symbols, it also negates another face-up Spell/Trap until the end of the turn, which could even be the Harpie’s Feather Duster your opponent activated to get rid of all your Nuva Symbols. And if you manage all 6 (currently impossible, as only 4 have been created), you get to “unseal the Bahrag”. Which, in more generically useful terms, means you can Special Summon up to 2 of your banished monsters.

This last effect and its lore association is the reason you can shuffle from either GY, by the way. Because then a Bohrok-Kal deck could, if facing a Toa Nuva deck, follow the canon by removing Nuva Symbol after Nuva Symbol, and finally fulfill the mission as planned by returning them all from the opponent’s GY to the Deck in order to Special Summon a pair of banished Bahrag. In this hypothetical lore-accurate duel, those were previously banished by the effect of Toa Seal, of course.

Updated

Updates to the structure of Kanohi Nuva means the old ones are adjusted to match, of course.

4.1.3

Great Kanohi Hau Nuva

Equip Spell

If another “Kanohi” Equip Spell becomes equipped to the equipped monster, destroy this card. If this card is sent to the GY: You can banish 1 monster from your GY; place 1 “Nuva” Continuous Spell from your Deck face-up in your Spell & Trap Zone. You can only use this effect of “Great Kanohi Hau Nuva” once per turn. While equipped to a “Nuva” Fusion Monster, this card gains these effects.
●The equipped monster cannot be destroyed by battle, also you take no battle damage from battles involving it.
●Once per turn: You can discard 1 card; face-up monsters you currently control cannot be destroyed by battle, until the end of your opponent’s turn.

Bionicle: Protodermic Evolution (v4.1.3)
4.2.5

Great Kanohi Hau Nuva

Equip Spell

If another “Kanohi” Equip Spell becomes equipped to the equipped monster, destroy this card. If the equipped monster is a “Nuva” Fusion Monster, it cannot be destroyed by battle, also you take no battle damage from battles involving it. If this card is sent to the GY, and you have not activated any “Kanohi” Equip Spell effects in the GY this turn: You can banish 1 monster from your GY; place 1 “Nuva” Continuous Spell from your Deck face-up in your Spell & Trap Zone, also if you control a “Nuva” Fusion Monster, the face-up monsters you currently control cannot be destroyed by battle this turn.

Bionicle: Protodermic Evolution (v4.2.5)
4.1.3

Great Kanohi Pakari Nuva

Equip Spell

If another “Kanohi” Equip Spell becomes equipped to the equipped monster, destroy this card. If this card is sent to the GY: You can banish 1 monster from your GY; place 1 “Nuva” Continuous Spell from your Deck face-up in your Spell & Trap Zone. You can only use this effect of “Great Kanohi Pakari Nuva” once per turn. While equipped to a “Nuva” Fusion Monster, this card gains these effects.
●The equipped monster gains 1000 ATK, also if it attacks a Defense Position monster, inflict piercing battle damage.
●Once per turn: You can discard 1 card; all monsters you currently control gain 500 ATK, until the end of your opponent’s turn.

Bionicle: Protodermic Evolution (v4.1.3)
4.2.5

Great Kanohi Pakari Nuva

Equip Spell

If another “Kanohi” Equip Spell becomes equipped to the equipped monster, destroy this card. If the equipped monster is a “Nuva” Fusion Monster, it gains 1000 ATK, also if it attacks a Defense Position monster, inflict piercing battle damage If this card is sent to the GY, and you have not activated any “Kanohi” Equip Spell effects in the GY this turn: You can banish 1 monster from your GY: place 1 “Nuva” Continuous Spell from your Deck face-up in your Spell & Trap Zone, also if you control a “Nuva” Fusion Monster, all monsters you currently control gain 600 ATK, until the end of this turn.

Bionicle: Protodermic Evolution (v4.2.5)

Aside from the generic updates to merge the field buffs into the GY effect and the collective OPT, the Pakari Nuva also now gives an extra 100 ATK with its field buff, for a total of 600. This incredibly relevant change serves to mirror the stat boost Normal Summoned Toa Mata get from the Mata Nui Field Spell, and also makes it so the 400 extra on each stat the Nuva have compared to their old forms get rounded up to a nice 1000 while affected by a shared Pakari.

4.1.3

Toa Nuva Tahu

Fusion Effect MonsterLevel 8 | FIRE Warrior | ATK 2900 / DEF 1900

“Toa Mata Tahu” + 1 “Energized Protodermis” monster
If this card is Fusion Summoned: You can add 1 “Nuva” Spell/Trap from your Deck or GY to your hand, then discard 1 card. During the Main Phase (Quick Effect): You can target 1 other face-up Attack Position monster on the field; its ATK becomes 0, and if it does, this card gains ATK equal to that monster’s original ATK, until the end of this turn. You can only use each effect of “Toa Nuva Tahu” once per turn.

Bionicle: Protodermic Evolution (v4.1.3)
4.2.5

Toa Nuva Tahu

Fusion Effect MonsterLevel 8 | FIRE Warrior | ATK 2900 / DEF 1900

“Toa Mata Tahu” + 1 “Energized Protodermis” monster
If this card is Fusion Summoned: You can add 1 “Nuva” Spell/Trap from your Deck or GY to your hand, then discard 1 card. (Quick Effect): You can target 1 other face-up Attack Position monster on the field; its ATK becomes 0, and if it does, this card gains ATK equal to that monster’s original ATK, until the end of this turn. You can only use each effect of “Toa Nuva Tahu” once per turn.

Bionicle: Protodermic Evolution (v4.2.5)

Compared to his Mata form, Tahu Nuva is missing the burn part of the effect and can also only target Attack Position monsters, but he does instead boost his own ATK for a turn and is able to target your own monsters as well. I’ve come to the conclusion that this overall comes out to an effect that lacks features from its original incarnation (mainly that it no longer lets you deal big damage through a defense position wall), and so by the current design philosophy, it should not be limited to the Main Phase. Which means we are now free to Tahu Nuva during the Damage Step, which is kind of nice. I also ended up not including a restriction that prevents draining your own monsters after they already attacked, because

  1. the biggest risk is that you can OTK against an empty field if you manage to put out another monster with >2500 ATK, and that sounds kind of reasonable.
  2. the drain to 0 ATK is permanent, so in cases where you don’t OTK being left with a powerless Attack Position monster is a drawback.
  3. Tahu getting overly “heated” to the detriment of his own allies is actually fairly lore-friendly at this stage of his character.

Still not 100% sure if it was really the right call to lift the Main Phase restriction, but so far it hasn’t felt broken or anything.

4.1.

Energized Protodermis Flow

Fusion Effect MonsterLevel 4 | LIGHT Aqua | ATK 0 / DEF 0

2 “Energized Protodermis” monsters
If this Fusion Summoned card is sent to the GY by a card effect: Look at your opponent’s Extra Deck and send 1 monster from it to the GY. During your Main Phase: You can Fusion Summon 1 Fusion Monster from your Extra Deck, by banishing 2 Fusion Materials mentioned on it from your GY, including this card. You can only use each effect of “Energized Protodermis Flow” once per turn.

Bionicle: Protodermic Evolution (v4.1.3)
4.2.5

Energized Protodermis Flow

Fusion Effect MonsterLevel 4 | LIGHT Aqua | ATK 0 / DEF 0

2 “Energized Protodermis” monsters
If this Fusion Summoned card is sent to the GY: Look at your opponent’s Extra Deck and send 1 monster from it to the GY. During your Main Phase: You can Fusion Summon 1 Fusion Monster from your Extra Deck, by banishing 2 Fusion Materials mentioned on it from your GY, including this card. You can only use each effect of “Energized Protodermis Flow” once per turn.

Bionicle: Protodermic Evolution (v4.2.5)

Energized Protodermis Flow got ever so slightly buffed by also letting you rip something from your opponent’s Extra Deck if sent to the GY by ways other than card effect, which means you can just use it as Link material or something now. The condition of needing to be Fusion Summoned remains, though, so no Dogmatika shenanigans still.

3.20.4

Matoran Guard Captain Jala

Effect MonsterLevel 2 | FIRE Warrior | ATK 800 / DEF 500

While your opponent controls a face-up monster, Level 4 or lower FIRE Warrior monsters you control gain 400 ATK for each “Matoran” monster you control. During your Main Phase, you can Normal Summon 1 “Matoran” or FIRE “Toa” monster in addition to your Normal Summon/Set. (You can only gain this effect once per turn) You can only control 1 face-up “Matoran Guard Captain Jala”.

Bionicle: Challenge of the Rahi (v3.20.4)
4.2.5

Matoran Guard Captain Jala

Effect MonsterLevel 2 | FIRE Warrior | ATK 800 / DEF 500

While your opponent controls a face-up monster, Level 4 or lower FIRE Warrior monsters you control gain 400 ATK for each “Matoran” monster you control. At the start of the Damage Step, if this card attacks, you can: Immediately after this effect resolves, Normal Summon 1 Warrior monster. You can only control 1 face-up “Matoran Guard Captain Jala”.

Bionicle: Challenge of the Rahi (v4.2.5)

Last but not least, Jala got the effect update that’s been listed in Pending Changes for a bit. Instead of an awkwardly targeted continuous extra Normal Summon, you now just get an effect-induced Normal Summon when he attacks (during the Damage Step, nicely safe from interaction), with which you can bring out any Warrior. Maybe a fellow Matoran to boost his own ATK just in time, maybe Tahu Mata to aid an ongoing OTK, or maybe something generic I haven’t found yet. I have tested this a grand total of once and actually beat the Swordsoul AI with Ta-Koro, so I shall firmly conclude that this version of the effect works great and I was justified in thinking myself genius when I came up with it. No further questions.

Deck Idea: Toa Nuva ft. Link-2 Enablers

As of version 4.2.5, 4 out of 6 Toa Nuva have been implemented, accompanied by their Nuva Symbols and Kanohi Nuva. That’s not quite enough to make a final Theme Guide just yet, but in testing these cards, I’ve come up with a pretty interesting build that seems to make pretty good use of them.

The core idea of this deck relies on a few convenient properties of the Nuva-related cards: Kanohi Nuva search Nuva Symbols when sent to the GY, Nuva Symbols can search any Energized Protodermis card if you already have the matching Toa in hand, and Energized Protodermis Chamber just so happens to be Level 2.

Energized Protodermis Chamber

Effect MonsterLevel 2 | LIGHT Aqua | ATK 0 / DEF 0

If only your opponent controls a monster, you can Special Summon this card (from your hand). If this card is Normal or Special Summoned (except during the Damage Step): You can Fusion Summon 1 Fusion Monster from your Extra Deck using this card and 1 monster in your hand as material. If this card is used as material for a Fusion Summon, except by its own effect: Target 1 Special Summoned monster on the field; send it to the GY. You can only use this effect of “Energized Protodermis Chamber” once per turn.

Bionicle: Protodermic Evolution (v4.1.3)

The consequence is that any combo that makes Isolde will be able to search you Energized Protodermis Destiny (because she adds a Toa Mata on summon, and the Kanohi Nuva sent to GY as cost for her other effect can get the matching Nuva Symbol), which in turn can send one of your monsters to the GY and get Chamber from the Deck, triggering its effect to fuse with the Toa Mata searched by Isolde. And by linking into Spright Elf (Isolde is valid material for this!), you can bring back the Chamber every Main Phase to make additional Toa Nuva as long as you have a Toa Mata in your hand. Which is usually going to be the case when Toa Nuva search Nuva Symbols on summon, and Nuva Symbols search Toa Mata.

The Deck

… comes in two flavours – a 40 card version optimized for consistency, containing pretty much just the bare minimum to make the combo work, and a more bricky 60 card version that also takes advantage of various Toa Mata support cards.

Compact 40 card version

https://www.duelingbook.com/deck?id=12178919

The combo is facilitated either by Neo Space Connector (summoning Aqua Dolphin) or by Kopeke (searching Taipu or Tamaru, potentially also returning a garnet to the deck). As outlined above, you make Isolde one way or another, add a Toa Mata to your hand (usually the one whose Nuva form you want to make), and send some number of Kanohi Nuva to your GY to Special Summon a Warrior monster (my preference is Taipu or Tamaru, depending on what has already been used). One of those Kanohi Nuva will then be able to trigger and place a Nuva Symbol from your Deck in your Spell & Trap Zone, and by getting one that matches a Toa Mata in your hand, you will be able to search Energized Protodermis Destiny.

Next, you use Isolde and the Warrior you summoned as material for Spright Elf and immediately activate it to bring back any Level 2 from your GY. Activate Destiny targeting that Level 2 monster, send it to the GY, Special Summon Energized Protodermis Chamber from your Deck, and Fusion Summon your first Toa Nuva. All of them have the effect to add a “Nuva” Spell/Trap and discard 1 on Fusion Summon, so if you can spare a card from your hand, you can get a Kanohi Nuva, a Nuva Symbol, or the Nuva Cube depending on your needs at that particular moment. And with Spright Elf on the field and Energized Protodermis Chamber in the GY, you are ready to bring out yet another Toa Nuva as soon as your opponent’s Main Phase rolls around. Furthermore, since the collective once per turn clause on the Kanohi Nuva will have reset by that point, the search and discard lets you put another Nuva Symbol on the field immediately, and since you control a Toa Nuva, you even get a nice little buff for your whole field along the way.

All currently implemented Toa Nuva are included in this Deck, but Gali and Lewa are slightly prioritized as our main disruption providers with a monster negate and a bounce, respectively. We run one of each Kanohi Nuva and Nuva Symbol to have a variety of benefits available, but realistically you could easily cut a few Kanohi Nuva – without a Suva, they’re mostly used for searching, and Kopeke putting a card back in the deck means Isolde will be live even if you happen to draw all of them. The Nuva Cube helps you dodge removal on your Nuva Symbols to escape their adverse effects, while granting you benefits including a quick swap to another Symbol and a Spell/Trap negate depending on how many of the Symbols you have gathered.

A great feature of this Deck I would like to point out is how well it lines up for Small World searches. Practically any monster you can draw has a bridge into all the others, be it starters, extenders, or handtraps. This is largely made possible by the fact that we play Neo Space Connector and a single copy of Fire Flint Lady, both of which share exactly the Warrior Type with all of the Matoran and Toa (except the Lady/Tahu pairing). This excellent consistency boost is more or less the only reason Connector is even in the deck over Takua (who wouldn’t need any additional bricks).

The Extra Deck has Xyz lines for Rank 2 (Matoran) and 8 (Toa Nuva) as well as a Zeus, none of which ever came up. Almiraj is a way you can trigger Kanohi searches from awkward positions, letting you still get to Destiny and therefore a Toa Nuva provided you have a Toa Mata in hand already. As for the Side Deck, a pretty funny detail is that Nibiru Tributes by effect and would therefore trigger a Nuva Symbol of Soaring Vitality if you activate it while already having an established board. Again, never came up.

Fancy 60 card version

https://www.duelingbook.com/deck?id=12179095

This version is built on the same core as the other one, but uses the additional 20 cards of space on some fun things. First and foremost, that means redundancy on the remaining Toa Mata and a slew of their classic support cards: Kini-Nui lets you easily access a Rank 6 or Isolde if you draw 2 different Toa Mata, the Suva lets you actually easily equip Kanohi to Mata and Nuva alike, the Suva Kaita can bring back Mata from the GY as well as any Toa that is banished, and Coming of the Toa lets you get up to 3 Toa Mata straight from the Deck. Depending on your luck, Call of the Toa Stones can set all of that up, and Quest for the Masks allows you to get a bit more value out of all those Kanohi.

To keep some amount of consistency, Takua was included as an additional starter. If Normal Summoned, he offers another guaranteed way to get Taipu or Tamaru onto the field, which translates to a full Isolde combo. Still, the overall amount of playable hands you open in 60 cards is obviously going to be less than in 40.

In the Extra Deck, the Xyz package has been replaced by one each of the Toa Mata Combinations, which actually are quite useful if you go through a line with Kini-Nui, Coming of the Toa, and/or Suva Kaita. A spicy detail set up long, long ago is that Storm does not prevent using the monsters it summons from the Deck as fusion material, so Destiny can totally upgrade one of those into a Toa Nuva. The deck also includes Instant Fusion and Energized Protodermis Flow, which gives you the option to make Toa Nuva via the GY and also mess with your opponent’s Extra a little.

Sample Video

Includes a duel in EDOPro, as well as a little walkthrough of the base combo in Duelingbook.

Toa Nuva ft. Link-2 Enablers