Tag: BBTS

The Bohrok Va are the secondary monsters of the Bohrok archetype, lending different kinds of support to the primary Level 4 Flip Monsters. They themselves all come in the form of Level 2 Tuners with the ability to Special Summon themselves from the hand if you control their respective breed of Bohrok, making them the main means of access to the archetype’s own Synchro bosses, the Bahrag.

In addition to the shared traits above, all Bohrok Va have a helpful effect on the field and another one that activates during the End Phase of the turn in which they were sent from the field to the GY. The former is different for each monster, the latter divides them into two distinct flavours.

One of those are the Bohrok Va that use the End Phase to return a banished Krana to your hand, where it can lend its powers to the swarms once again.

• Tahnok Va
• Pahrak Va
• Lehvak Va

Tahnok Va

Bohrok Tahnok Va

Tuner Effect MonsterLevel 2 | FIRE Machine | ATK 800 / DEF 900

If you control “Bohrok Tahnok”, you can Special Summon this card (from your hand). You can only Special Summon “Bohrok Tahnok Va” once per turn this way. Once per turn: You can excavate the top 3 cards of your Deck, and if you do, banish 1 of them, and if it was a “Bohrok” monster, increase this card’s Level by the Level of the banished monster, until the end of this turn. During the End Phase, if this card is in the GY because it was sent there from the field this turn: Add 1 of your banished “Krana” monsters to your hand.

Bionicle: Beware the Swarm (v3.15.5)

The Tahnok Va, speedy and reckless, can pump its Level to 4 or 6 by banishing a Bohrok from among the top 3 cards of your Deck, but this might backfire if you fail to find one there. Should you succeed, though, you will instantly be able to pull out a nice and big Synchro in most cases, so it’s worth the risk.

Pahrak Va

Bohrok Pahrak Va

Tuner Effect MonsterLevel 2 | EARTH Machine | ATK 600 / DEF 1100

If you control “Bohrok Pahrak”, you can Special Summon this card (from your hand). You can only Special Summon “Bohrok Pahrak Va” once per turn this way. Once per turn: You can place 1 “Bohrok” card from your GY on the top of the Deck. During the End Phase, if this card is in the GY because it was sent there from the field this turn: Add 1 of your banished “Krana” monsters to your hand.

Bionicle: Beware the Swarm (v3.15.5)

The Pahrak Va, known to be slow unless they have a reason to move quickly, will stack the top of your deck with a Bohrok card from the GY, which is an effect that goes from slow to fast depending on whether or not you have some way to draw a card.

Lehvak V

Bohrok Lehvak Va

Tuner Effect MonsterLevel 2 | WIND Machine | ATK 1100 / DEF 600

If you control “Bohrok Lehvak”, you can Special Summon this card (from your hand). You can only Special Summon “Bohrok Lehvak Va” once per turn this way. When your opponent activates a Spell/Trap Card while you control another “Bohrok” monster (Quick Effect): You can Tribute this card; negate the activation, and if you do, destroy that card. You can only use this effect of “Bohrok Lehvak Va” once per turn. During the End Phase, if this card is in the GY because it was sent there from the field this turn: Add 1 of your banished “Krana” monsters to your hand.

Bionicle: Beware the Swarm (v3.15.5)

The noisy Lehvak Va drown out not only other sounds, but also your opponent’s Spells/Traps, though only with the backup of another Bohrok and at the cost of tributing itself. Would be a bit unfair otherwise.

The other flavour of Bohrok Va are those which grant you a draw in exchange for shuffling Bohrok from the GY into the Deck during the End Phase, which is a particularly valuable ability when things aren’t going too well for your strategy.

• Gahlok Va
• Nuhvok Va
• Kohrak Va

Gahlok V

Bohrok Gahlok Va

Tuner Effect MonsterLevel 2 | WATER Machine | ATK 900 / DEF 800

If you control”Bohrok Gahlok”, you can Special Summon this card (from your hand). You can only Special Summon “Bohrok Gahlok Va” once per turn this way. During your Main Phase: You can excavate the top card of your Deck, and if it is a “Bohrok” card, add it to your hand. You can only use this effect of “Bohrok Gahlok Va” once per turn. During the End Phase, if this card is in the GY because it was sent there from the field this turn: Shuffle 2 “Bohrok” monsters, except “Bohrok Gahlok Va”, from your GY into the Deck, then draw 1 card.

Bionicle: Beware the Swarm (v3.15.5)

The Gahlok Va move slowly, yet steadily, and will attempt to add an extra Bohrok card from the top of your Deck to your hand once per turn.

Nuhvok Va

Bohrok Nuhvok Va

Tuner Effect MonsterLevel 2 | EARTH Machine | ATK 700 / DEF 1000

If you control “Bohrok Nuhvok”, you can Special Summon this card (from your hand). You can only Special Summon “Bohrok Nuhvok Va” once per turn this way. You can send 1 card from your hand to the GY; draw 1 card. You can only use this effect of “Bohrok Nuhvok Va” once per turn. During the End Phase, if this card is in the GY because it was sent there from the field this turn: Shuffle 2 “Bohrok” monsters, except “Bohrok Nuhvok Va”, from your GY into the Deck, then draw 1 card.

Bionicle: Beware the Swarm (v3.15.5)

The Nuhvok Va take a more straightforward approach and just dig into the Deck at the appropriate cost of losing a card from your hand.

Kohrak Va

Bohrok Kohrak Va

Tuner Effect MonsterLevel 2 | WATER Machine | ATK 1000 / DEF 700

If you control “Bohrok Kohrak”, you can Special Summon this card (from your hand). You can only Special Summon “Bohrok Kohrak Va” once per turn this way. When an opponent’s monster declares an attack: You can Tribute this card; negate the attack, then end the Battle Phase. During the End Phase, if this card is in the GY because it was sent there from the field this turn: Shuffle 2 “Bohrok” monsters, except “Bohrok Kohrak Va”, from your GY into the Deck, then draw 1 card.

Bionicle: Beware the Swarm (v3.15.5)

Finally, the Kohrak Va are masters of evading attacks through camouflage, which lets them help you avoid battle. Not an amazing effect in the face of, you know, the entire concept of removal effects, but occasionally it does something.

With these monsters and the main Level 4 Bohrok in mind, the true power of the already good search spell Beware the Swarm becomes apparent. By adding either a Bohrok or Bohrok Va whose matching counterpart is in the GY, you instantly become able to place both of those monsters on the field. Assuming your hand is in a good enough state to not have to shuffle either of them back and you still have your Normal Summon, of course.

Like the larger Bohrok, the Bohrok Va also have the ability to form Kaita. These combiner models never played any role in the story at all, so I just went the route of giving them extra useful ways to support the archetype. And I’ll leave going over the dedicated fusion spell to the main Bohrok article, because most of the time you’d probably just Instant Fusion these guys out anyway.

Bohrok Va Kaita Ja

Fusion Tuner Effect MonsterLevel 2 | LIGHT Machine | ATK 1000 / DEF 1500

“Bohrok Gahlok Va” + “Bohrok Kohrak Va” + “Bohrok Lehvak Va”
If this card is used as Synchro Material, all other Synchro Materials must be “Bohrok” monsters. During the Standby Phase: You can Tribute this Fusion Summoned card; Special Summon 1 “Bohrok” Fusion Monster from your Extra Deck. During the End Phase, if this card is in the GY because it was sent there from the field this turn: You can add 1 “Bohrok” or “Krana” card from your Deck to your hand. You can only use this effect of “Bohrok Va Kaita Ja” once per turn.

Bionicle: Beware the Swarm (v3.15.5)

Bohrok Va Kaita Za

Fusion Tuner Effect MonsterLevel 2 | LIGHT Machine | ATK 1000 / DEF 1500

“Bohrok Tahnok Va” + “Bohrok Nuhvok Va” + “Bohrok Pahrak Va”
If this card is used as Synchro Material, all other Synchro Materials must be “Bohrok” monsters. During the Standby Phase: You can Tribute this Fusion Summoned card; Special Summon 1 “Bohrok” Fusion Monster from your Extra Deck. During the End Phase, if this card is in the GY because it was sent there from the field this turn: You can Special Summon 1 “Bohrok” monster from your GY in face-down Defense Position, except “Bohrok Va Kaita Za”. You can only use this effect of “Bohrok Va Kaita Za” once per turn.

Bionicle: Beware the Swarm (v3.15.5)

Just like the regular Bohrok Va, both of the Kaita are Level 2 Tuners (their Level remains the same when combining simply because it’s more convenient for Synchro math this way), but being just a Spell Card away in any arbitrary deck means they need the restriction of only performing Synchro Summons with other Bohrok. Both also share the ability to replace themselves with another Bohrok Fusion (including the big ones) during the Standby Phase, but only if they were properly Fusion Summoned themselves, and Instant Fusion’s little clause doesn’t help here because in that case they won’t even live to the Standby Phase.

Their other effects activate during the End Phase of the turn they went from the field to the GY, be it because they were used as Synchro Material, tributed by their own effects, or otherwise destroyed. In the case of Bohrok Va Kaita Ja, this allows you to add any part of the swarms, Bohrok or Krana, from the Deck to your hand. Bohrok Va Kaita Za on the other hand Special Summons any Bohrok monster, regardless of Level, from the GY in face-down Defense Position.

Conclusion

Bohrok Va supplement the basic Bohrok strategy by aiding the circulation of resources and simplifying access to more powerful boss monsters. Since they require specific Bohrok names on the field to work to their full potential, they are best when used together with a smaller subset of the six breeds, which seems like the most reasonable way to play Bohrok anyway.

Examples of incorporating Bohrok Va like this can be found in any of the Bohrok decks of the BBTS release.

The Bohrok swarms are the central focus of the BBTS expansion, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that a lot of the cards relate to them. This article will only cover the actual Bohrok that make up the main body of the swarms, as well as their standalone support cards. There are some additional groups of support that will be covered separately, namely Bohrok Va, Krana, and the Bahrag.

With that said, let’s take a look at these colorful rolling pellets of doom and destruction.

The Bohrok come in six breeds, making six Level 4 monsters with varying stats but relatively similar effects. Most importantly, they all share the Flip Effect that allows them to Special Summon a Level 4 Bohrok with a different name directly from the Deck in face-down Defense Position. So waking (flipping) one immediately sets up the next, and if this chain continues uninterrupted for a bit, you will soon have woken them all.

Once face-up on the field, the Bohrok will begin their work to clean all that must be cleaned, or in other words everything on your opponent’s field. Each type has a different removal effect at the cost of shuffling itself back into the Deck (so it can later be called by other Bohrok and continue the onslaught of the seemingly limitless swarms), with the slightly less potent ones delaying the shuffling until the End Phase.

Among the powerful effects that require their cost instantly at activation, we have the Tahnok, known for their speed, who can target and destroy an opponent’s face-up monster as a quick effect. Out of all Bohrok removal effects, this has the least options for targets but the highest options for timing, and it’s the only one of the six that can be used for disruption on the opponent’s turn. The other end of this spectrum are the Lehvak, which can use their acid powers to destroy any card on the field without even targeting, but can only do so specifically during your Main Phase 1. Finally, the Kohrak tend to value their cleaning task over fighting those wo try to stand in their way, and therefore have the more impactful removal of banishing an opponent’s face-up card at the additional cost of not being able to attack that turn.

The other three breeds leave you with the rest of the turn to use them for some kind of cost or material to avoid returning to the Deck, but in exchange their removal effects are also a bit weaker and/or more conditional. Such as the Gahlok, whose ever-changing and unpredictable methods of attack are implemented as three possible effects with the choice depending on the top card of your opponent’s GY. A monster allows you the standard move of destroying an opponent’s card, a Spell lets you non-targetingly turn a monster into a 0 ATK vanilla to deal with well-protected obstacles the other breeds struggle with, and a Trap enables a strike entirely beyond the normal range of the swarms, banishing a card directly from the hand. As you may have noticed, the power level of these options is scaled to how often each type can be expected to be found on average. Also conditional, but less mind-bending, is the effect of the Pahrak, which simply destroys a card at the end of a Battle Phase in which it battled. Their iconic trait of stubbornly ignoring outside interference while pursuing a goal aids them here by granting them protection from effects while they are battling. The last remaining Bohrok breed are the Nuhvok, and their effect is to destroy a Spell/Trap on the field and temporarily render its zone unusable with the holes they dig in the process. Note that this only works on the main five Spell/Trap Zones, so no locking your opponent out of Field Spells for a turn with this (but you can still destroy one).

Beware the Swarm is the archetype’s all-purpose search card, which can also recover an additional monster from the GY if you use it to search a monster, at the cost of returning a card from the hand to the Deck. Since it requires different levels, it’s not actually relevant with just the monsters above, but becomes very valuable if you also consider the Bohrok Va.

The Field Spell Bohrok Nest helps Bohrok do their thing in various ways. Your face-down monsters are protected from forms of interaction that don’t flip them, to increase the chance of properly getting the engine started. You get to draw of the Bohrok’s shuffle costs to maintain card advantage. And should it be destroyed, the Bohrok swarms released by that foolish action will wreak havoc and destroy something else on the field.

For those last two effects, it’s worth noting that the draw effect specifically only triggers when a Bohrok card in a public location (so not face-down or in the hand) is placed into the Main or Extra Deck face-down (shuffling not strictly required), and that it is entirely possible to upgrade the Nuhvok’s Spell/Trap destruction into a general destruction if you’re willing to sacrifice the Nest.

Moving on, we have a support card that is beautifully simple yet somehow effective in what it does. Bohrok Confrontation is basically just an archetypal version of Rush Recklessly, but with the added “cost” of sending a Krana from the Deck to the GY. Now, if you check out the Krana article to see what some of them do in the GY the synergy becomes clear, but for this section I’ll just say that pumping Bohrok stats up comes in handy in a surprising amount of situations.

Bohrok Invasion is a Continuous Trap that rewards Bohrok for successful cleaning work with a stacking ATK boost, potentially allowing them to attack for game right away through your opponent’s cleared field. It also helps you recover from setbacks by bringing a Bohrok from the GY back to the field in the ideal face-down Defense Position, and when you’re under attack, you can abandon the invasion to focus on defense instead.

The Bohrok come with several memorable taglines that were very helpful in deciding the focus of their archetype. We have already seen “Beware the Swarm” as the name of the search Spell, but another catchy phrase has made it onto not one, but two cards that form a little mini-combo put together.

If You Wake One… begins the play by supplying an additional face-down Bohrok along with an iteration of the regular engine, so you then have two ready to be flipped rather than just one. After doing so, it goes to the GY in the End Phase, and at that point it will Set you another Bohrok Trap that is then ready to use once the turn changes. To continue the combo, you would use this to get …You Wake Them All. Then, on your turn, you flip the two face-down Bohrok, get two more, and then return one of your 2-3 face-up Bohrok to the hand with the Trap to once again flip 2 Bohrok and summon 2 more. There’s actually a risk of running out of space on the field before summoning all the monsters with this combo, but that can be avoided by using the Bohrok’s insta-shuffling removal effects or just putting them into some Extra Deck monster.

Speaking of Extra Deck monsters, we also have some of those. The Bohrok Kaita are implemented as Fusions, and in fact specifically have to be Fusions because that’s the only Extra Deck summoning mechanic which allows the use of face-down materials. Obviously kinda pretty damn important for a Flip archetype.

The two Bohrok Kaita, Za and Ja, are each made by fusing three specific breeds of Bohrok. When Fusion Summoned, both of them allow you to add 1 Krana from your Deck to the hand and 2 to the GY, with your opponent choosing which of the three you offer goes where. Again, Krana are the focus of their own article, but generally they’re nice to have in both hand and GY, so this is certainly beneficial. Both of them also have quick effects on the field that banish up to 3 Bohrok from the GY (so you basically use their materials, is the idea): Za can buff itself up and, if it gets big enough, even become unaffected by card effects for a turn, while Ja banishes multiple cards from your opponent’s GY.

The idea of Bohrok Kaita in the lore is that the swarms form them to combat problems they cannot overcome on their own, so this is kind of what I was also going for here. The archetype generally relies on removing things with effects, so Kaita Za is a big beater that can just run over bosses that don’t allow this. And all the removal they have focuses on the field, so Kaita Ja is the tool required to combat GY-focused decks.

Bohrok Swarm Fusion is the archetypal fusion spell, though it does not actually fuse in any special way. But it does take advantage of the Kaita’s banishing costs with its own GY effect that triggers when Bohrok cards are banished from the GY, shuffling them back into the Deck and drawing a card.

With the final card I want to discuss here, we take a look at what actually caused the Bohrok swarms to awaken before their time. And fittingly enough, the role this card plays in the archetype is the ability to start your engine without needing to wait out the usual Flip monster delay.

Premature Bohrok Beacon has the rather unimpressive effect of flipping your own face-down monster face-up, but being able to activate it from the hand as long as the game state is “premature” enough to not contain any face-up monsters makes it a tool Bohrok can use quite well. Since this is a Makuta-related card, it also has a GY effect that adds more utility, in this case being able to summon itself as a Level 4 DARK Machine (obviously sneaky Orcust support and not just a combination of Bohrok Type and Makuta Attribute) that can replace any of the Bohrok as Fusion Material.

Conclusion

Bohrok have a lot of strong points: The very convenient Level of 4 on all the main monsters, the ability to bring each other out from the Deck, easily accessible removal effects, a really good search Spell that finds them any of their cards and still potentially does more, and multiple nice draw effects to offset the resource loss of shuffling themselves into the Deck. All of this dragged down by the unfortunate yet vital fact that they are Flip monsters whose entire engine relies on their flip effects. Let’s face it, setting one monster and hoping everything goes well so you can snowball from there isn’t exactly an unbeatable strategy in this decade or the last.

But what they lack in speed, the swarms can hopefully make up in consistency and sheer fucking resilience. Assuming you do manage to get the engine going at some point – and with help like Nest and Beacon this is not an entirely impossible task – your opponents will find themselves faced with a constant assault on their field while your monsters just keep calling each other from and returning to the Deck for all eternity. Before long, you will be clearly ahead in resources, and victory shall be yours. Probably. I never tested this on anything newer than the old YGOPro Percy AI that still lived in blissful ignorance of Link Monsters, so it might just be completely unusable in the modern game anyway. But the strategy is sound on paper, at the very least.

A few different ideas for Bohrok decks can be found in the BBTS release.