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.
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.
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):
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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”).
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.
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!
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”.
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.
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 😉
The original of the above image with all the cards at readable resolution is so large that WordPress refuses to display it, but you can find them in an even more convenient form on the BCOT page instead.
Or, if you have a bit of time and prefer to actually see things moving, the following demo video also shows and describes everything:
Anyway, this last update mostly consists of PSCT refinements, refactored scripts (that more correctly handle certain edge cases), and visual improvements. For example:
If another “Kanohi” card is equipped to the equipped monster, destroy this card. At the start of the Damage Step, if a “Matoran”, “Turaga”, or “Toa” monster equipped with this card battles an opponent’s monster: You can destroy both this card and that opponent’s monster. When a monster declares an attack while this card is in your GY: You can equip this card to the monster you control with the highest ATK, but banish it when it leaves the field. You can only use this effect of “Copper Kanohi of Victory” once per turn.
Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.21.5)
3.21.6
Copper Kanohi of Victory
Equip Spell
If another “Kanohi” card becomes equipped to the equipped monster, destroy this card. At the start of the Damage Step, if a “Matoran”, “Turaga”, or “Toa” monster equipped with this card battles an opponent’s monster: You can destroy both this card and that opponent’s monster. When a monster declares an attack, while this card is in your GY: You can equip this card to 1 monster you control with the highest ATK (your choice, if tied), but banish this card when it leaves the field. You can only use this effect of “Copper Kanohi of Victory” once per turn.
Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.21.6)
If another “Kanohi” card is equipped -> If another “Kanohi” card becomes equipped (to clarify that the effect happens once at the moment of equipping)
When a monster declares an attack while this card is in your GY -> When a monster declares an attack, while this card is in your GY (most similar precedent has the comma)
the monster you control with the highest ATK ->1 monster you control with the highest ATK (your choice, if tied) (clarifies tiebreaking, matches precedent)
but banish it when it leaves the field -> but banish this card when it leaves the field (to clarify you banish the Copper Kanohi, not what you equipped it to)
In addition to these text changes, the card image is now noticeably different and in higher resolution. This is owed to the ygopic component of piface314’s ygo-fabrica, which I have finally gotten around to setting up so it can be used for all the cards going forward.
Of course, the higher resolution also looks quite a bit nicer when printed 😉
The attentive reader who happens to be familiar with my versioning system (mostly hypothetical, because why would anyone) may have noticed moving from 3.21.5 to 3.21.6 technically requires some functional changes, rather than just cleanup and maintenance. This is a weakness of the versioning system that probably should be fixed, but for now, I have complied and included some tiny updates I still had in reserve.
While in your hand, and while face-up on the field if you control a “-Koro” Field Spell Card, this card is also WIND, WATER, FIRE, and EARTH-Attribute. Once per Chain (Quick Effect): You can pay 500 LP, then target 1 “Toa” monster you control; equip 1 “Kanohi” Equip Spell from your hand or GY to that target, except a card that is in the GY because it was destroyed while face-up on the field and sent there this turn. If you control a “Toa” monster: You can Special Summon this card from your GY. You can only use this effect of “Suva” once per turn.
While in your hand, and while face-up on the field if you control a “-Koro” Field Spell, this card is also EARTH, WATER, FIRE, and WIND-Attribute. Once per Chain (Quick Effect): You can pay 600 LP, then target 1 “Toa” monster you control; equip 1 “Kanohi” Equip Spell from your hand or GY to that target, except a card that is in the GY because it was destroyed while face-up on the field and sent there this turn. If you control a “Toa” monster: You can Special Summon this card from your GY. You can only use this effect of “Suva” once per turn.
Discard 1 card; roll a six-sided die and excavate cards from the top of your Deck equal to the result, and if you do, you can add up to 2 excavated “Toa Mata” monsters with different names to your hand, also shuffle the rest into the Deck. Then, apply this effect, based on the number of cards added to your hand this way. You can only activate 1 “Call of the Toa Stones” per turn. ●0: Set 1 “Coming of the Toa” directly from your Deck. It can be activated this turn. ●1: Add 1 Level 1 Rock monster with 0 ATK/DEF from your Deck to your hand. ●2: Gain 2000 LP.
Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.21.5)
3.21.6
Call of the Toa Stones
Spell
Discard 1 card; roll a six-sided die and excavate cards from the top of your Deck equal to the result, and if you do, you can add up to 2 excavated “Toa Mata” monsters with different names to your hand, also shuffle the rest into your Deck. Then, apply the following effect, based on the number of cards added to your hand this way. You can only activate 1 “Call of the Toa Stones” per turn. ●0: Set 1 “Coming of the Toa” directly from your Deck. It can be activated this turn. ●1: Add 1 Level 1 Rock monster with 0 ATK/DEF from your Deck to your hand. ●2: Gain 1800 LP.
Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.21.6)
Long story short, the LP cost and gain on Suva and Call of the Toa Stones respectively were moved to the closest multiples of 600. The basis for this is that I wanted the Suva to be able to cycle through a set of 6 Kanohi for less than 4000 LP total, and 6*600=3600 still fits that requirement. The LP gain from Call then follows from that, as basically 3 additional Suva activations. It’s a bit less arbitrary than the previous 500 and 2000, but probably won’t make any practical difference.
Other News
I’ve added a “Pending Changes” page to keep track of some improvements I still had in mind, but wasn’t sold on enough to actually include them in this final release. It’s not included in the on-site navigation currently, instead I’ll just throw the link at people when asking for feedback in hopes that some outside input will help me make up my mind. I guess if I ever figure out a way to include multiple comment areas and maybe even some kind of voting system on the page, it could be turned into a convenient little feedback hub of its own.
The finalized release of the BCOT overhaul, with nicely cleaned up scripts and card texts, was meant for release this month, but unfortunately it’s not gonna work out. I seem to have underestimated how much time it would take to apply all the refactoring steps I had lined up to a grand total of 66 cards, and when I was finally through with all of them, I found it was already the last week of June. Making the posts and showcase video I’d like to have as part of this release that quickly just isn’t realistic between other, more urgent obligations, and so I’ve decided to make use of the privilege that separates a true hobby from work: I simply gave up on finishing it within schedule.
Now if you read between the lines, you’ll notice I do have the expansion itself done, and indeed the finalized version 3.21.6 can be found at the top of the Downloads page already. It’s just the promotional material, release notes, etc that will take a bit more time. Might be as soon as next week, might take until the end of July, who knows. I’m hoping the delay at least won’t be any longer than that so I can still stick to the roadmap overall.
At last, the time has come. BCOT has had its last few cards remade, and is now only one final round of polish away from its complete release that will be followed by the next evolution of BYE. But for this month, the news are just the cards added to the current version and a small adjustment of the roadmap.
Oh, and also adding these last few cards has finally made it possible to write the last two remaining Theme Guides, where you will find detailed information on the strategies mainly affected by this update:
You take no Battle Damage this turn, also shuffle your entire hand into the Deck and draw the same number of cards, then you can activate any of the following effects in sequence, depending on the number of “Toa” monsters in your hand, and discard 1 card. ●0: Add 1 “Toa” monster from your Deck or Graveyard to your hand. ●1+: Special Summon this card as a Normal Monster (Rock-Type/LIGHT/Level 6/ATK 0/DEF 0). It cannot be destroyed by card effects. ●2+: Special Summon 1 “Toa” monster from your hand. ●3+: Add 1 “Kanohi” Equip Spell Card from your Deck to your hand.
Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v1.0.0)
3.21.5
Call of the Toa Stones
Spell
Discard 1 card; roll a six-sided die and excavate cards from the top of your Deck equal to the result, and if you do, you can add up to 2 excavated “Toa Mata” monsters with different names to your hand, also shuffle the rest into the Deck. Then, apply this effect, based on the number of cards added to your hand this way. You can only activate 1 “Call of the Toa Stones” per turn. ●0: Set 1 “Coming of the Toa” directly from your Deck. It can be activated this turn. ●1: Add 1 Level 1 Rock monster with 0 ATK/DEF from your Deck to your hand. ●2: Gain 2000 LP.
Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.21.5)
First on the list is Call of the Toa Stones, and I just had to put the comparison between the old and new versions in for this one because holy shit almost everything changed. What was previously a Trap Card meant to keep you alive for a turn after you bricked while also replacing the brick with something more playable is now a Spell that directly searches you the cards you need to play in the most convoluted way possible. The image is now also different. And obviously the effect has been updated into something more functional.
The change of card type is because it occured to me that, in a game where a single undisrupted turn can very well make a setup that locks the other player out of the game, taking that long to repair a terrible opening hand is probably a bad idea even if you’re guaranteed to technically not die. And it also kind of sucks to have one of your main consistency cards be a Trap in an archetype that would otherwise be pretty decent going second. By making it a Spell, we get to do the unbricking quickly and proactively enough to actually be useful, and the part where the card prevents damage is still kind of sneakily represented by the 2000 LP it gains you if you’re really lucky.
As for the different image, I’ll have to honestly admit that I never actually played Quest for the Toa (where both images are from) and just got the artwork from BS01 back in the day. It was only when I watched the game’s ending sequence more recently that I noticed the wiki’s gallery is actually missing a shot, and that particular one happens to be a much better fit for a square canvas while also showing the “Call” itself more clearly. So obviously I had to swap it in, and I think the result is a clear improvement.
Some things I would like to note about the updated effect is that excavating up to 6 cards is a direct reference to Takua, who was of course majorly involved in the depicted event, and that the die roll to decide the number of excavated cards was mostly added because one of the few people who actually comment on my Youtube videos suggested I do some gambling effects. As I always say, I do appreciate any input I can get.
Target up to 3 Level 4 or lower monsters in your Graveyard that were destroyed this turn; Special Summon 1 “Toa” monster with the same Attribute from your hand or Deck for each of these monsters. Monsters Special Summoned by this effect cannot attack during the turn they are Summoned. If this face-down card is destroyed by your opponent’s card effect and sent to the Graveyard: You can destroy all monsters you control (min. 1); Special Summon 1 “Toa” monster from your hand or Deck. You can only activate 1 “Coming of the Toa” effect per turn, and only once that turn.
Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v1.0.0)
3.2.15
Coming of the Toa
Trap
Target up to 3 monsters with different names in your GY; Special Summon 1 “Toa Mata” monster from your Deck with the same Attribute as each target, but they cannot attack, also return them to the hand during the End Phase. Then, if all targets are in the GY because they were sent there this turn, you can place 1 “Quest for the Masks” from your Deck face-up in your Spell & Trap Zone. You cannot Special Summon monsters with 2000 or more ATK the turn you activate this card, except “Toa” monsters. You can only activate 1 “Coming of the Toa” per turn.
Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.21.5)
Coming of the Toa changed much less drastically, but since we were already comparing I might as well keep doing that. In both the old and the new version, the idea is to get a bunch of Toa at once to your field after your GY has been filled with monsters of matching Attributes. The old one was much more restrictive about this, letting you only work with monsters that were destroyed the turn you activate it, and thus needed a second effect to still bring out a Toa if it was destroyed before the activation conditions were met. The new one drops both the same-turn requirement and the secondary effect, instead making it a convenient chainable Trap Card at any point after you have set up your GY. It also adds some harsher restrictions to balance out its powerlevel, which the card most likely should have had in the first place anyway.
Special thanks to the card Doll House released in 2021, which provided some nice compact PSCT wording for effects that do something “for each” of a number of targets. The EDOPro script was also a good starting point for setting up the complicated targeting procedure this needed.
When a monster your opponent controls is destroyed by battle: You can send 1 “Kanohi” Equip Spell Card from your Deck to your Graveyard. You can send this card from the field to the Graveyard; add 1 “Kanohi” Equip Spell Card from your Graveyard to your hand.
Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v1.0.0)
3.21.5
Quest for the Masks
Continuous Spell
When a “Toa” monster is Normal Summoned: You can equip 1 “Great Kanohi” or “Noble Kanohi” Equip Spell from your Deck to it. You can send any number of “Kanohi” Equip Spells from your hand to the GY; draw that many cards. You can only use this effect of “Quest for the Masks” once per turn. Once per turn, during the End Phase: You can target 1 of your banished monsters whose Level is less than or equal to the number of “Kanohi” Equip Spells with different names in your GY; Special Summon it, then destroy this card.
Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.21.5)
The changes to Quest for the Masks are also fairly tame and basically amount to a speed and utility boost. The part where the Toa gather their masks now happens by equipping when they are Normal Summoned (which kind of recreates the Normal Summon effect the Toa Mata themselves had back then) rather than by milling on battle destruction, and the reward for quest completion was changed from simple Kanohi recycling to a revival from banished that actually takes into account how many masks you really collected. And as a third (second, in terms of order) effect, you now have a way to trade away bricks in Kanohi-heavy decks, a service previously provided by the Kini-Nui.
Target 1 “Toa” monster you control and 1 “Suva” you control or in your Graveyard; Banish the second target, then destroy all Equip Spell Cards equipped to the first target and equip 1 “Kanohi” Equip Spell Card from your hand, Deck or Graveyard to it, also you gain 800 LP for each “Kanohi” card in your Graveyard.
Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v1.0.0)
3.21.5
Gift of the Shrine
Quick-Play Spell
Target 1 face-up monster you control, then activate 1 of these effects; ●Equip 1 “Kanohi” Equip Spell from your hand or GY to that target. ●Banish 1 Level 1 Rock monster with 0 ATK/DEF you control or in your GY, and if you do, equip 1 “Noble Kanohi” or “Great Kanohi” Equip Spell from your Deck to that target.
Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.21.5)
Gift of the Shrine kind of almost got nerfed, with it no longer restoring a bunch of LP in addition to equipping a Kanohi. But the new version represents a massive convenience gain, since it can now target monsters other than Toa and has a less powerful effect to use if you don’t have a Suva ready to banish.
Must be equipped to a “Toa” monster that has no “Kanohi” card equipped by banishing 6 “Kanohi” Equip Spell Cards with different names that could be equipped to that monster from your Graveyard. This card gains the effects of each card banished by its effect as long as they remain banished. During each of your End Phases: Shuffle 1 of your banished “Kanohi” Equip Spell Cards into the Deck.
Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v1.0.0)
3.21.5
Great Golden Kanohi
Equip Spell
If another “Kanohi” card is equipped to the equipped monster, destroy this card. While this card is equipped to a “Toa” monster: You can banish 6 “Great Kanohi” Equip Spells with different names from your GY, and if you do, replace this effect with those banished cards’ original effects. If this card is sent to the GY: You can send 1 “Kanohi” Equip Spell from your Deck to the GY; add this card to your hand, then place 1 card from your hand on the bottom of the Deck. You can only use this effect of “Great Golden Kanohi” once per turn.
Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.21.5)
The Great Golden Kanohi underwent a name change to take it out of the “Great Kanohi” sub-archetype. Mechanically, the main adjustments are that copying Kanohi powers now happens as a separate effect while the card is already equipped, that you can only copy Great Kanohi now (to match the lore), and that it actually keeps the copied powers indefinitely. In fact, you could say the effect that returns banished Kanohi was almost reversed into one that helps you set them up in the GY to prepare the Golden Kanohi. I figured something like that was more reasonable to include than a glaring intentional weakness, seeing how banishing your Kanohi stockpile is already such a risky move and the whole thing completely loses to backrow removal.
Cannot be destroyed by card effects. You can shuffle this card from your hand into the Deck, and if you do, draw 1 additional card for your next normal draw. If you draw this card during your Draw Phase: Discard it. If this card is banished: Place 1 “Copper Kanohi of Victory” from your Deck on top of your Deck. When this card is sent from the hand or field to the Graveyard, activate 1 of the following effects: ●Send 1 “Kanohi” Equip Spell card from your Deck to the Graveyard, except “Copper Kanohi of Victory”. ●This turn, if a “Toa”, “Matoran”, or “Turaga” monster battles an opponent’s monster, destroy that opponent’s monster before Damage Calculation. You can only activate 1 effect of “Copper Kanohi of Victory” per turn, and only once that turn.
Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v1.0.0)
3.21.5
Copper Kanohi of Victory
Equip Spell
If another “Kanohi” card is equipped to the equipped monster, destroy this card. At the start of the Damage Step, if a “Matoran”, “Turaga”, or “Toa” monster equipped with this card battles an opponent’s monster: You can destroy both this card and that opponent’s monster. When a monster declares an attack while this card is in your GY: You can equip this card to the monster you control with the highest ATK, but banish it when it leaves the field. You can only use this effect of “Copper Kanohi of Victory” once per turn.
Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.21.5)
For the Copper Kanohi of Victory, I left behind the admittedly cute and unique mechanics centered around randomly drawing the card and instead made it something more in line with the general pattern used by other Kanohi. That said, “victory” is still the basic idea behind the effects, and the main one on field is pretty much just an adaptation of the most useful thing it did originally.
When the effect of a “Toa”, “Matoran”, or “Turaga” card is activated: Place 1 counter on this card. During either player’s turn: You can send this card with 6 or more counters to the Graveyard; Add 1 Spell/Trap Card from your Deck to your hand. You can only control 1 face-up “Makoki Stone”.
Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v1.0.0)
3.21.5
Makoki Stone
Continuous Trap
When this card is activated: Banish 1 card from your Deck, face-down. Each time an effect of a “Matoran”, “Turaga”, or “Toa” card is activated, place 1 Key Counter on this card when that effect resolves (max. 6). You can send this card with 6 Key Counters to the GY; add the card banished by this card’s effect to your hand. You can only control 1 face-up “Makoki Stone”.
Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.21.5)
The Makoki Stone now more accurately reflects the idea of sealing something and then unsealing it when 6 keys are gathered, by simply banishing the card you want to get at activation. To make up for the additional risk taken this way, it can now also search monsters, even if the lore technically has no precedent for sealing a living creature or something like that.
Initially my overhaul also had a condition that prevented using the searched card the same turn you add it to your hand, but between the inherent delay of a Trap card and the need to get 6 effects off for the keys, it was just way too slow to ever work. By the way, the wording may sound like you can also gain counters by activating archetypal Spells and Traps like “Coming of the Toa”, but as I learnt after looking up rulings, this clause does in fact ignore the activations of Spell/Trap Cards (but not their effects when they are already on the field, GY, etc). Might still change this to explicitly say “monsters” to avoid confusion, since there aren’t really any other Matoran/Toa/Turaga cards that qualify currently.
If a “C.C. Matoran” monster you control attacks, your opponent’s cards and effects cannot be activated until the end of the Damage Step. At the start of your Battle Phase: You can banish this card from your GY, then target 1 face-up monster you control that was not Summoned this turn; it can make a second attack during this Battle Phase. You can only use this effect of “C.C. Matoran Kapura” once per turn.
If a “C.C. Matoran” monster you control attacks, your opponent’s cards and effects cannot be activated until the end of the Damage Step. At the start of your Battle Phase: You can banish this card from your GY, then target 1 face-up monster you control that was not Summoned this turn; it can make up to 2 attacks on monsters during this Battle Phase. You can only use this effect of “C.C. Matoran Kapura” once per turn.
Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.21.5)
This one has been mentioned before, so no surprises here. Kapura now only grants a second attack on monsters rather than a second attack in general, since the restriction to monsters not Summoned that turn proved too light when cards like Omega can basically fulfill it without risk or effort.
If this card is Normal or Special Summoned: You can Special Summon 1 Level 4 or lower “Matoran” monster from your hand. If this card is in your GY, except during the turn it was sent there: You can banish this card, then target 1 WIND Warrior monster in your GY, except “Matoran Musician Makani”; add it to your hand. You can only use each effect of “Matoran Musician Makani” once per turn.
If this card is Normal or Special Summoned from the hand: You can Special Summon 1 Level 4 or lower “Matoran” monster from your hand. If this card is in your GY, except during the turn it was sent there: You can banish this card, then target 1 WIND Warrior monster in your GY, except “Matoran Musician Makani”; add it to your hand. You can only use each effect of “Matoran Musician Makani” once per turn.
Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.21.5)
Makani‘s overall level of convenience just felt a bit too high despite the individual effects all being fairly tame, so I limited the effect on Summon to trigger only if you are bringing him out from the hand. This stops it from having synergy with Isolde and revival effects, while still working the same as a Normal Summon or when Special Summoned by Matau in a Le-Koro deck.
2 monsters, including a WIND Warrior monster During your Main Phase: You can Special Summon 1 Level 4 or lower WIND monster from your hand in Attack Position, but its ATK becomes 0. If this card is sent from the field to the GY: You can activate this effect; during the Standby Phase of your next turn, add 1 other WIND monster from your GY to your hand, then, if your opponent controls more monsters than you do, you can make all monsters they currently control lose 700 ATK/DEF until the end of this turn. You can only use each effect of “Turaga Matau” once per turn.
2 monsters, including a WIND Warrior monster During your Main Phase: You can Special Summon 1 Level 4 or lower WIND monster from your hand in Attack Position, but its ATK becomes 0. If this card is sent from the field to the GY: You can activate this effect; during the Standby Phase of your next turn, add 1 WIND monster from your GY to your hand, then, if your opponent controls more monsters than you do, you can make all monsters they currently control lose 700 ATK/DEF until the end of this turn. You can only use each effect of “Turaga Matau” once per turn.
Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.21.5)
That same Turaga Matau also got a change of exactly 1 word in this update, but rather than a balance improvement, this one is just to avoid some annoying edge cases. Previously, his delayed effect that adds a WIND monster from GY to hand during your next Standby Phase after he goes there couldn’t be used to recycle himself, but in theory, “1 other WIND monster” COULD be the same physical copy of Turaga Matau if it somehow leaves the GY and returns there during the delay. That is very stupid, so I just went and dropped the “other” to avoid the problem entirely.
Roadmap Change
Just a slight change of plans: Instead of doing both the final refactoring/release of BCOT and the update to 4.0 with the first BPEV cards in June, I’ve decided to focus on BCOT only that month and push the new cards back by one release cycle, so to August. I fear I’d end up half-assing the important last layer of polish due to lack of time otherwise, and I also might to do some internal updates to my tools and workflow before starting on the next expansion. This unfortunately means we won’t be getting to the Bohrok-Kal this year, unless something else goes faster than expected.
The main roadmap post has already been updated with this information.
When the Great Spirit was cast into a deep slumber, the Toa Mata were the six heroes sent out to rectify the situation. However, some faulty equipment caused them to miss their intended landing point and float in the ocean for a thousand years before they could actually begin their mission, turning them into the colorful sentai team of amnesiac skeletons we know and love today. Now, it is time to dive into the cards representing these central figures of Bionicle lore and their tale.
To Tribute Summon this card face-up, you can Tribute a FIRE or “Toa Mata” monster in your hand, except “Toa Mata Tahu”, instead of a monster you control. Once per turn, if a monster battles, after damage calculation: You can target 1 face-up monster your opponent controls; its ATK becomes 0, also if it is destroyed by battle this turn, your opponent takes damage equal to its original ATK.
Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.21.6)
Tahu triggers after a battle has occured to target another opponent’s monster and “set it on fire”. This lowers its ATK 0 permanently and makes it so that being destroyed by battle during the same turn will result in an explosion that directly damages your opponent.
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)
Gali‘s effect can be chained to any monster effect activated by the player whose turn it currently is not. She allows you to target a monster and negate its effects, and this also makes herself gain 700 ATK permanently, building towards a truly torrential force with enough patience.
To Tribute Summon this card face-up, you can Tribute an EARTH or “Toa Mata” monster in your hand, except “Toa Mata Onua”, instead of a monster you control. Once per turn, if a monster(s) is sent from the hand or Deck to the GY: You can target 1 card in either GY; place it on the top or bottom of the Deck, and if it was a monster whose original ATK in the GY was lower than this card’s current ATK, gain LP equal to the difference.
Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.21.6)
Onua triggers when a monster is sent from the hand or Deck to the GY. He lets you target a card in either GY, place it on the top or bottom of the Deck, and gain LP if it was a monster with sufficiently low ATK. This Earthshattering Event has extremely varied applications, ranging from recycling your own cards to disrupting your opponent’s combos to setting up a dead draw for the next turn.
To Tribute Summon this card face-up, you can Tribute an EARTH or “Toa Mata” monster in your hand, except “Toa Mata Pohatu”, instead of a monster you control. Once per turn, if a monster(s) is Special Summoned from the Extra Deck, or a monster Special Summoned from the Extra Deck activates its effect: You can target 1 Spell/Trap on the field; destroy it, also, if you control a Rock monster, you can destroy 1 additional Spell/Trap on the field.
Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.21.6)
Pohatu destroys a Spell/Trap when a monster is Special Summoned from the Extra Deck, or when such a monster activates its effect (on a new chain after resolution, because it is still a Trigger Effect). And if you are roleplaying the “kicking rocks” theme of this effect so well that there actually is a Rock monster on your field, you get a second pop, too.
To Tribute Summon this card face-up, you can Tribute a WATER or “Toa Mata” monster in your hand, except “Toa Mata Kopaka”, instead of a monster you control. If this card attacks, it is changed to Defense Position at the end of the Battle Phase. While this card is in face-up Defense Position, your opponent’s monsters cannot target monsters for attacks, except “Toa Mata Kopaka”. Once per turn, if another card(s) you control leaves the field by an opponent’s card effect: You can banish 1 card your opponent controls.
Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.21.6)
Kopaka triggers when your opponent causes another of your cards to leave the field, and will non-targetingly banish one of their cards in a freezing retaliatory strike.
Much like he is the one Toa Mata to hold two different pieces of equipment in his hands, a sword and a shield, he is also the only one to have another effect on the field. After battle, he will automatically change to Defense Position to become a respectable 2.5k wall, and this wall is further strengthened by the fact that your opponent cannot attack your other monsters while he is in that state.
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)
Lewa triggers off any Special Summon from the hand, Main Deck, or GY that happens while he is already on the field (so no, his own Summon doesn’t count). His effect lets you target a monster on the field and bounce it back to the hand, as is common in the WIND Attribute, and if that monster was previously on your field, you also get to bounce a second monster chosen at resolution. This basically allows you to bypass targeting protection at the cost of having to remove some of your field as well.
Aside from the individual traits outlined in the tabs above, there are some noteworthy shared aspects to discuss. The Toa Mata are all Warriors of varying Attributes, and they are Level 6 because that’s kind of an iconic number and also feels like about the right placement for Toa in general – they’re too special to be among the low-level “fodder”, but also not that individually powerful compared to some of the other crazy beings that can be found in the Matoran Universe.
This choice of Level means they require a Tribute to Normal Summon and are therefore horrendous unplayable bricks by default. The normal (and most effective) way to work around this would be adding some handy built-in Special Summoning conditions, but to properly match the delayed arrival of this Toa team, I went with something slower instead and made a “simplified” Tribute Summon the standard method of bringing them out. What that means is that they all share an effect that allows their Tribute to come from the hand instead of the field, provided it is either another Toa Mata or a different monster of their same Attribute. This way, they are actually pretty easy (though still somewhat expensive) to Summon provided you are playing them in either a dedicated Toa Mata deck or an Attribute-based strategy (likely their village‘s), which is exactly how they’re meant to be used.
Once you get the monsters on your field, they each provide different effects meant to represent their elemental powers. These effects are relatively strong, but bogged down by another intentional inconvenience included in the design: As the Toa Mata are fundamentally a reactive force created to respond when the universe is in danger, their effects too will only activate in response to certain events. The trigger conditions are mostly generic enough that you can reasonably set them off yourself and not wait for your opponent to play into them, but that still means a Toa Mata alone is often no more than a beatstick. Refer to the individual descriptions for more detail on these effects and how to trigger them.
What we have so far is just a lineup of mighty heroes with some pretty inconvenient downsides, so it’s going to take a bit of external help to work around those downsides and build a deck that feels good to play. Luckily the Toa Mata had some ridiculously good support infrastructure despite being stranded on an island in the middle of nowhere, so the lore gives us plenty of setup here.
First and foremost, there’s the 12 Kanohi each of them had access to, but those are covered in detail in a different guide, so let’s just quickly note that they are Equip Spells that grant different effects to Toa and each of the 6 Great ones has a GY effect which banishes a monster from the GY to search the Toa Mata who mainly wears that mask.
To manage the many Kanohi and ensure you have the correct power when you need it, a Suva is absolutely essential, but in a proper Toa Mata strategy, these shrines can do even more than that.
While in your hand, and while face-up on the field if you control a “-Koro” Field Spell, this card is also EARTH, WATER, FIRE, and WIND-Attribute. Once per Chain (Quick Effect): You can pay 600 LP, then target 1 “Toa” monster you control; equip 1 “Kanohi” Equip Spell from your hand or GY to that target, except a card that is in the GY because it was destroyed while face-up on the field and sent there this turn. If you control a “Toa” monster: You can Special Summon this card from your GY. You can only use this effect of “Suva” once per turn.
Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.21.6)
The mask-swapping effect is in fact sandwiched between two other abilities that help the Mata. Since the Suva counts as all Attributes except DARK in the hand, you can always Tribute it for any Toa without even Summoning it first, granting a big consistency boost. And the fact that it comes back from the GY once per turn if you control a Toa immediately offsets the Tribute cost, while ensuring fairly reliable access to any Kanohi you have in the hand or GY.
If Suva is so good, why isn’t there a Suva 2? Well, there is.
While in your hand or GY, this card is also EARTH, WATER, FIRE, and WIND-Attribute. (Quick Effect): You can Tribute this card, then target 1 Level 6 “Toa” monster in your GY; Special Summon that target. You can banish this card from your GY, then target 1 of your banished “Toa” monsters; Special Summon it in Defense Position, also you cannot Special Summon monsters from the Extra Deck for the rest of this turn, except “Toa” monsters. You can only use each effect of “Suva Kaita” once per turn.
Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.21.6)
Situated at Kini-Nui, the Suva Kaita is a central shrine built not to store Kanohi, but as a gathering point and entrance into what lies beneath the island. It’s mostly symbolic really, but that doesn’t stop me from giving it effects to aid the Toa Mata in working together. Like the regular Suva, it counts as all the Attributes you need while in the hand (and also in the GY – more on that below), and comes with two effects for Special Summoning Toa. The one on the field is a Quick Effect and gets exactly a Level 6 from the GY, but requires the Suva Kaita to Tribute itself. The one in the GY gets back any banished Toa and costs you nothing except banishing the already spent Suva Kaita, but it’s instead restricted by only summoning in Defense Position and comes with an archetypal Extra Deck lock for the rest of the turn. Both of these can be used in the same turn, so with sufficient setup a single Suva Kaita can already get you a Rank 6.
The Great Temple, Kini-Nui
Field Spell
During your Main Phase, you can Normal Summon 1 “Toa Mata” monster in addition to your Normal Summon/Set. (You can only gain this effect once per turn.) If a “Toa” monster(s) is Tributed for the Tribute Summon of a “Toa Mata” monster and sent to your GY: You can target 1 of those monsters; Special Summon it in Defense Position, but banish it when it leaves the field. During the End Phase: You can destroy this card, and if you do, Special Summon 1 Level 1 Rock monster with 0 ATK/DEF from your Deck. You can only use each effect of “The Great Temple, Kini-Nui” once per turn.
Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.21.6)
Zooming out a bit, Kini-Nui is also an important piece of Toa Mata support. As the very location in which the full team finally came together after separate adventures in their respective regions, this is pretty much the Field Spell that does everything the Toa Mata monsters themselves don’t do to directly support each other as a functioning archetype. It grants an additional Normal Summon to make up for the lack of built-in Special Summons (though this part is more relevant to hybrid strategies that also want to play a non-Toa Normal Summon), turns Toa used as Tributes for Toa Mata (often from the hand!) into additional monsters on the field to again enable Rank 6 plays, and fetches either Suva or Suva Kaita from the Deck in the End Phase at the cost of itself.
Since I keep mentioning Rank 6 Xyzs every time an opportunity to put multiple Toa Mata on the field together comes up, I should probably start introducing the Extra Deck monsters that go with the archetype. First off, three mid-bosses representing the teamwork of pairs of Toa Mata.
2 Level 6 “Toa Mata” monsters You can detach 2 materials from this card; send 1 Level 1 Rock monster with 0 ATK/DEF from your Deck to the GY, and if you do, you can halve the ATK/DEF of 1 monster your opponent controls. (Quick Effect): You can Tribute this card with no material, then target 2 Level 6 “Toa Mata” monsters (1 EARTH monster and 1 FIRE monster) in your GY; Special Summon them, but they cannot attack this turn. You can only use 1 “Toa Mata Combination – Magma” effect per turn, and only once that turn.
2 Level 6 “Toa Mata” monsters During the Main or Battle Phase (Quick Effect): You can detach 1 material from this card; Special Summon 1 “Toa Mata” monster from your Deck, but change its ATK to 0, it cannot be used as material for a Synchro, Xyz, or Link Summon, also banish it during the End Phase of the next turn. (Quick Effect): You can Tribute this card with no material, then target 2 Level 6 “Toa Mata” monsters (1 WATER monster and 1 WIND monster) in your GY; Special Summon them, but they cannot attack this turn. You can only use 1 “Toa Mata Combination – Storm” effect per turn, and only once that turn.
2 Level 6 “Toa Mata” monsters When a Spell/Trap Card or effect is activated (Quick Effect): You can detach 2 materials from this card; negate that effect, and if you do, banish that card. (Quick Effect): You can Tribute this card with no material, then target 2 Level 6 “Toa Mata” monsters (1 EARTH monster and 1 WATER monster) in your GY; Special Summon them, but they cannot attack this turn. You can only use 1 “Toa Mata Combination – Crystal” effect per turn, and only once that turn.
Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.21.6)
Magma combines the powers of Tahu and Onua to call forth something like a volcanic eruption, detaching all materials in one huge burst to both launch a Rock (Hint: The Rock is one of the Suvas) into the GY and make an opponent’s monster’s stats shrink to half under the heat.
Storm is a collaboration of Gali and Lewa, as seen in canon, calling forth a fierce thunderstorm in which the bolts of lightning are replaced by Toa Mata coming out from the Deck during either player’s turn. As such brief flashes, they are robbed of their ATK, can mostly not be used as material for anything, and disappear at the end of the next turn, but their effects remain usable, so this is a great way to throw in a little surprise when your opponent is just about to do something that happens to meet a trigger condition.
Crystal features the iconic tag team of Pohatu and Kopaka, mixing the former’s Spell/Trap hate with the latter’s banishing into a banishing Spell/Trap negate. This is a type of effect missing from both the regular Toa Mata and the generic Rank 6 pool, so it seemed like a useful addition.
To properly link these combinations to their intended materials, they share a second effect where they can, once used up completely (but not on the same turn they used their other effect), tag out for a pair of Toa Mata with exactly the correct Attributes. Due to overlapping Attributes, you can slightly cheat by e.g. turning a Crystal into Gali and Onua, but close enough. In terms of gameplay, this is another way to get the right trigger effects to your field at convenient times and provides a clear long-term resource advantage to using the archetypal Xyz over generic stuff.
A cut above that are the big bosses, the canonical combination models: The Toa Kaita, who come with their own Kanohi as well.
3 Level 6 “Toa Mata” monsters Your opponent cannot activate cards or effects during the Battle Phase. If this card battles an opponent’s monster, that monster has its effects negated until the end of the Damage Step. Once per turn, when this card destroys an opponent’s monster by battle: You can detach 1 material from this card; inflict damage to your opponent equal to the destroyed monster’s original ATK.
Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.21.6)
Great Kanohi Aki
Equip Spell
If another “Kanohi” card becomes equipped to the equipped monster, destroy this card. If the equipped monster is a “Toa Kaita” monster, it cannot be destroyed by battle, gains 1000 ATK, and can attack all monsters your opponent controls once each, also if it attacks a Defense Position monster, inflict piercing battle damage. Once per turn, while this card is equipped to a “Toa Mata” monster you control: You can Special Summon 1 “Toa Mata” monster with the same Level from your hand, then, immediately after this effect resolves, Xyz Summon 1 “Toa” Xyz Monster using monsters you control, including that Special Summoned monster.
3 Level 6 “Toa Mata” monsters Once per turn, when a card or effect is activated (Quick Effect): You can detach 1 material from this card; negate the activation. If a material(s) is detached from this card (except during the Damage Step): You can declare 1 card type (Monster, Spell, or Trap); your opponent reveals 1 random card in their hand and the top card of their Deck. Then, apply the following effect(s) in sequence, based on the number of cards of the declared type revealed. You can only use this effect of “Wairuha, Toa Kaita of Wisdom” once per turn. ●1+: Draw 1 card. ●2: Banish 1 card your opponent controls or in their GY.
Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.21.6)
Great Kanohi Rua
Equip Spell
If another “Kanohi” card becomes equipped to the equipped monster, destroy this card. If the equipped monster is a “Toa Kaita” monster, it is unaffected by your opponent’s card effects, also your opponent must keep their hand revealed. Once per turn, while this card is equipped to a “Toa Mata” monster you control: You can Special Summon 1 “Toa Mata” monster with the same Level from your hand, then, immediately after this effect resolves, Xyz Summon 1 “Toa” Xyz Monster using monsters you control, including that Special Summoned monster.
Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.21.6)
While Summoning 2 Toa Mata at a time is relatively easy, getting the third one usually requires either multiple turns or a really good hand plus setup, so these are intended as legitimate win conditions for the deck.
Akamai is a certified unga bunga way to end a game. With 3000 ATK, locking your opponents effects in the Battle Phase, negating effects such as battle protection of whatever he is fighting, and burning after winning a battle, the Toa Kaita of Valor pretty much guarantees you at least 3000 damage all by himself. The Kanohi Aki further elevates this to solo OTK potential with 1000 more ATK, piercing damage, and being able to attack all the monsters.
Wairuha on the other hand is the more defensive option you go into if you expect the game to continue. I don’t think it needs to be said that an omninegate, even a non-destroying one, is a pretty strong effect, but in the hands of a wise player, the Toa Kaita of Wisdom grants even more power than that. As a second effect that triggers when a material is detached (and therefore immediately after using the negate), you get to play a little guessing game regarding your opponent’s hand and top of the Deck, and depending on how correct you are, win some crazy plusses. The Kanohi Rua enhances this package with effect immunity so you don’t have to waste the negate on protecting Wairuha, as well as revealing your opponent’s hand to give you an edge when guessing.
Since the two Kanohi that only work on Toa Kaita would be extremely dead draws most of the time, they have a secondary effect when equipped to a regular Toa to let you Xyz Summon with an additional material from your hand. This gives you another way to hit the necessary 3 with reasonable effort.
After introducing the characters, the stage, and the props with which they interact, all that’s missing from this grand show is the story itself. That part is told through a series of three Spells and Traps supporting the Toa Mata archetype.
Call of the Toa Stones
Spell
Discard 1 card; roll a six-sided die and excavate cards from the top of your Deck equal to the result, and if you do, you can add up to 2 excavated “Toa Mata” monsters with different names to your hand, also shuffle the rest into your Deck. Then, apply the following effect, based on the number of cards added to your hand this way. You can only activate 1 “Call of the Toa Stones” per turn. ●0: Set 1 “Coming of the Toa” directly from your Deck. It can be activated this turn. ●1: Add 1 Level 1 Rock monster with 0 ATK/DEF from your Deck to your hand. ●2: Gain 1800 LP.
Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.21.6)
It all begins with the Call of the Toa Stones, a failsafe activated by the adventurer Takua to call the Toa lost at sea towards the island where they were meant to be. This is essentially the Toa Mata archetype’s standard issue search Spell, but I got carried away and made it way more complicated. Instead of simply adding a monster to the hand, you excavate equal to a die roll (resemblance to the “excavate 6” in Takua’s own effect very intentional), add 0-2 Toa Mata you find to your hand, shuffle the rest back, and then proceed in different ways depending on how many you actually added. This means the randomness just changes your plays and mostly can’t ruin them, and since you get to pick how many you add, higher rolls and more hits can only expand your options.
If you found 2 Toa Mata, your Call has succeeded, the Toa have arrived, you broke even on card advantage, and to celebrate all that you gain a bunch of LP. If you only found 1, you’re able to also grab a Suva or Suva Kaita to support that single Toa, offsetting the initial discard cost in a different way. And if you did not add any cards, you’ll have to live with the minus, but in exchange you can immediately continue the story in the proper way with the Coming of the Toa.
Coming of the Toa
Trap
Target up to 3 monsters with different names in your GY; Special Summon 1 “Toa Mata” monster from your Deck with the same Attribute as each target, but they cannot attack, also return them to the hand during the End Phase. Then, if all targets are in the GY because they were sent there this turn, you can place 1 “Quest for the Masks” from your Deck face-up in your Spell & Trap Zone. You cannot Special Summon monsters with 2000 or more ATK, except “Toa” monsters, the turn you activate this card. You can only activate 1 “Coming of the Toa” per turn.
Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.21.6)
This one, as random Trap Cards in archetypes usually need to be, is kind of crazy. Best case scenario, it gives you three Toa Mata and a Continuous Spell on the field. Potentially during the first turn if you get it with Call and are also able to execute a combo that puts the necessary Attributes in the GY. Even with less perfect setup, you’ll still be able to Summon at least one monster from your Deck, and that tends to be pretty good.
There of course need to be downsides to balance this out, which are as follows:
No attacking with the Summoned monsters.
Everything goes back to the hand at the end of the turn.
The Toa Mata need to be in your Deck.
The only monsters with 2000 or more ATK you can Special Summon during the whole turn you activate this are Toa.
It’s the last two points especially that disqualify this card from being splashable to a degenerate level, since Toa Mata by themselves can be huge bricks in a deck that doesn’t also play their support and making a Wairuha turn 1 is a lot less good when it locks you out of pretty much all other boss monsters. Meanwhile, a dedicated Toa Mata strategy doesn’t have such an easy time setting up the GY for big Coming plays early in the game (hence the Suva Kaita’s ability to substitute for any Attribute), so this mostly acts as another way of throwing whichever Toa Mata your opponent is about to trigger onto the field.
And finally, what the Toa embark on after their Call and Coming is a Quest for the Masks.
Quest for the Masks
Continuous Spell
When a “Toa” monster is Normal Summoned: You can equip 1 “Noble Kanohi” or “Great Kanohi” Equip Spell from your Deck to it. You can send any number of “Kanohi” Equip Spells from your hand to the GY; draw that many cards. You can only use this effect of “Quest for the Masks” once per turn. Once per turn, during the End Phase: You can target 1 of your banished monsters whose Level is less than or equal to the number of “Kanohi” Equip Spells with different names in your GY; Special Summon it, then destroy this card.
Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.21.6)
This is slightly more generic support for Toa and Kanohi in general, and particularly good in Toa Mata since it’s searchable. It equips Kanohi from the Deck on Normal Summon and trades Kanohi you bricked on for draws, but especially notable for the purpose of this guide is the End Phase effect to trade itself for a banished monster. This is meant to synergize with the Great Kanohi’s cost of banishing a monster to search their respective Toa Mata, but also has other uses like bringing back a Suva Kaita (only needs one Kanohi!) that used both its effects already.
A relatively pure way to play Toa Mata is by mixing them with Kanohi, in particular the “Great” subset of them. The basic win condition of this deck is establishing one or more Toa on the field together with a Suva, and filling the GY with as many Kanohi as possible. This gives you a boss monster that can be endowed with any necessary protection or offensive boost at will, while possibly also disrupting the opponent with its own effect depending on which Toa you picked.
One of the easiest ways to accomplish this is obviously Isolde, who turns any two Toa on the field into a full Kanohi setup plus a fresh Toa on the field. But you also have more thematic ways of gathering Kanohi via Quest for the Masks, Gift of the Shrine, and the Golden Kanohi, and by using those you keep your Toa on the field free to overlay into the archetypal Xyz Monsters, which are also capable of using Kanohi powers. The major weakness of this deck is the sheer amount of Kanohi it plays, making it very easy to find multiple in your opening hand instead of directly playable cards. When that happens, you better hope Quest for the Masks is also there to unbrick you.
Shout out to Skill Drain for being the only non-custom card in the Main Deck, it just makes too much sense when the strategy is beatsticks who gain their powers from Equip Spells.
If you want to be a bit more experimental, but still remain lore-friendly, you can consider an alliance of the Toa Mata with the Chronicler’s Company, AKA C.C. Matoran. Instead of stuffing the deck with all the Kanohi it can take, we just play a few particularly useful ones to enable Isolde combos, which the C.C. Matoran can execute easily while climbing into Link-4 boss monsters. Doing so will automatically give you access to some Toa by searching them with Kanohi or setting up Attributes for Coming of the Toa in the GY, and those can either become additional threats right away (if you have a spare Normal Summon via Kini-Nui or got Coming from Call) or serve as powerful followup on subsequent turns.
Due to these basically guaranteed searches, the deck plays only one of each Toa Mata, so Call of the Toa Stones will most frequently be used to Set a Coming of the Toa that can be activated during the same turn. For these situations, I:P Masquerena is especially handy because ending on her and Isolde means you don’t Special Summon any non-Toa monsters with 2000 or more ATK, can use Coming to ideally get a Toa Kaita on turn 1, and then link into an indestructible Avramax during your opponent’s turn.
And if you really want to make sure you don’t brick on any Kanohi, here’s a somewhat less immersive deck that gets away with playing zero of them. Instead, we use Prank-Kids as our main combo to make the usual Battle Butler and then use the plethora of Attributes in the GY for a big Summon with Coming of the Toa on the next turn. This is strictly a multi-turn setup even if you get the quick activation for Coming with Call of the Toa Stones, since Prank-Kids Dodo-Doodle-Doo (why are their names like this?) will usually be needed to complete the main combo and has just enough to ATK to clash with the restriction on Coming of the Toa.
The uneven ratios of Toa here, with 2 Tahu, 2 Lewa, and 1 of everyone else, are just to reduce the chances of not having an Attribute left in the Deck. This way, opening Tahu or Lewa still leaves you with a FIRE/WIND target for Coming of the Toa.
Demo Video
Best of Test: Toa Mata
The tests shown here span multiple versions, so you can even see a few different iterations of the decks I came up with. The Toa Mata generally performed really well in tests against the AI, with some obvious bricking issues in the more Kanohi-heavy builds, and a hilariously large part of that seems to be how often they just happen to have the largest ATK stat on the field.
My feeling is that the high winrate is more due to the bots having trouble with stuff like that than the archetype being (too) strong, but there were a few interactions that occasionally felt just a little broken. It wasn’t enough to convince me I need to change something, but if you also happen to notice something like that, I’d be very grateful for a comment so I have more data to work with here. On that note, all other feedback is of course also very welcome.
Conclusion
The Toa Mata are an archetype centered around six strong, but somewhat unwieldy high-level Warrior monsters with varied effects that allow you to respond to different in-game events. Their individual flaws are compensated by their interactions with a wide range of external support, including masks, shrines, a temple, and a story told through Spells and Traps making it easy to get the team to your hand and field. Further power can be unlocked by using the Xyz bosses that represent them working together, finally culminating in their actual physical combined forms, the Toa Kaita.
The masks of power known as Kanohi play a central role in the story of Bionicle from start to finish, so obviously they also get a fair amount of representation in this humble card game adaptation. With Equip Spells, Yugioh provides a pretty obvious niche for placing inanimate objects that grant their wearer additional powers, but making Equip Spells remotely worth playing in this day and age always takes a bit of creativity. Let’s take a look at what I came up with for the Kanohi featured in BCOT.
If another “Kanohi” card becomes equipped to the equipped monster, destroy this card. If the equipped monster is a “Toa” or “Makuta” 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: You can banish 1 monster from your GY; add 1 “Toa Mata Tahu” from your Deck to your hand. You can only use this effect of “Great Kanohi Hau” once per turn.
Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.21.6)
Kaukau (Water Breathing)
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)
Pakari (Strength)
Great Kanohi Pakari
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 gains 1000 ATK, also if it attacks a Defense Position monster, inflict piercing battle damage. If this card is sent to the GY: You can banish 1 monster from your GY; add 1 “Toa Mata Onua” from your Deck to your hand. You can only use this effect of “Great Kanohi Pakari” once per turn.
Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.21.6)
Kakama (Speed)
Great Kanohi Kakama
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 can attack all monsters your opponent controls, once each. If this card is sent to the GY: You can banish 1 monster from your GY; add 1 “Toa Mata Pohatu” from your Deck to your hand. You can only use this effect of “Great Kanohi Kakama” once per turn.
Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.21.6)
Akaku (X-Ray Vision)
Great Kanohi Akaku
Equip Spell
If another “Kanohi” card 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; add 1 “Toa Mata Kopaka” from your Deck to your hand. You can only use this effect of “Great Kanohi Akaku” once per turn. While equipped to a “Toa” or “Makuta” monster you control, this card gains these effects. ●Your opponent must keep their hand revealed. ●Once per turn, if your opponent adds a Spell/Trap(s) to their hand (except during the Damage Step): You can banish that Spell/Trap(s) until the End Phase.
Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.21.6)
Miru (Levitation)
Great Kanohi Miru
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, negate any effect activated by your opponent that targeted it. If this card is sent to the GY: You can banish 1 monster from your GY; add 1 “Toa Mata Lewa” from your Deck to your hand. You can only use this effect of “Great Kanohi Miru” once per turn.
Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.21.6)
The first thing to notice here are some common elements to all these effects. They begin with a continuous effect ensuring one can only wear a single Kanohi at a time, by simply blowing up the moment a second one becomes equipped – this allows for the important mask-swapping mechanic, unlike a simple restriction preventing the equipping of additional Kanohi.
Then there are one or more effects that are only active when equipped to monsters from certain archetypes, in the case of Great Kanohi usually Toa or Makuta. These correspond to the actual abilities granted by the mask, and having them limited this way both simplifies design by not having to worry about random synergies and matches the lore, where Kanohi were indeed only usable by certain races with sufficient willpower.
Finally, they have an effect that triggers when sent to the GY. Unlike the previous two components which are meant to be universal to all Kanohi, this one is unique to the six Great Kanohi worn by the Toa Mata, though it does represent a more general design philosophy that Kanohi cards should do something beyond granting power when equipped. GY effects are particularly nice for this role due to Isolde exactly making it piss easy to mill Equip Spells while doing a combo, and even without that particular broken card, gathering a stockpile of Kanohi in the GY was already an intentional part of their strategy when I came up with the original version in ancient times before Link Monsters. Anyway, for these six Great Kanohi in particular, their secondary effect is simply that they can search the matching Toa by banishing a monster from the GY when they are sent there, which helps maintain hand advantage and incentivizes running the correct pairs.
Last but not least, to quickly summarize the on-field effects and what Kanohi powers they represent:
Great Kanohi Hau, Mask of Shielding – Lets the wearer generate a protective force field, in this case guarding only against battle destruction and damage (because the shield probably won’t be up outside battle, I guess).
Great Kanohi Kaukau, Mask of Water Breathing – Lets the wearer breathe water. To get a useful effect, I generalized this to protection from adverse environmental conditions, meaning immunity to all non-targeting effects.
Great Kanohi Pakari, Mask of Strength – Increases the wearer’s physical strength. This is simply and straightforwardly implemented as an ATK increase, plus the ability to inflict piercing damage because they become strong enough to punch straight through walls.
Great Kanohi Kakama, Mask of Speed – Lets the wearer move at great speed. Great enough to attack all of the opponent’s monsters in a single Battle Phase, in fact.
Great Kanohi Akaku, Mask of X-Ray Vision – Allows the wearer to see through solid objects. Here, it sees through the opponent’s hand, and to provide a more active component, can snipe a freshly added Spell/Trap out of it for a turn.
Great Kanohi Miru, Mask of Levitation – Allows the wearer to float in the air, outside the range of targeting effects from which it grants protection. The specific method of negating the effect entirely is for compatibility with Kanohi-swapping Quick Effects (see Support section below).
When the Toa Mata combine into Toa Kaita, so do their masks, forming two even more powerful Great Kanohi.
Great Kanohi Aki
Equip Spell
If another “Kanohi” card becomes equipped to the equipped monster, destroy this card. If the equipped monster is a “Toa Kaita” monster, it cannot be destroyed by battle, gains 1000 ATK, and can attack all monsters your opponent controls once each, also if it attacks a Defense Position monster, inflict piercing battle damage. Once per turn, while this card is equipped to a “Toa Mata” monster you control: You can Special Summon 1 “Toa Mata” monster with the same Level from your hand, then, immediately after this effect resolves, Xyz Summon 1 “Toa” Xyz Monster using monsters you control, including that Special Summoned monster.
Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.21.6)
Great Kanohi Rua
Equip Spell
If another “Kanohi” card becomes equipped to the equipped monster, destroy this card. If the equipped monster is a “Toa Kaita” monster, it is unaffected by your opponent’s card effects, also your opponent must keep their hand revealed. Once per turn, while this card is equipped to a “Toa Mata” monster you control: You can Special Summon 1 “Toa Mata” monster with the same Level from your hand, then, immediately after this effect resolves, Xyz Summon 1 “Toa” Xyz Monster using monsters you control, including that Special Summoned monster.
Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.21.6)
The Aki combines the powers of Hau, Pakari, and Kakama, while the Rua does the same for Kaukau, Akaku, and Miru – in both cases with some omissions, because there’s no way the full effects would ever have fit on the cards. However, these insanely powerful abilities are only available to the Toa Kaita, and a sole Toa Mata equipped with one of these cards will instead merely receive some assistance in forming such a combination. Still pretty useful.
And finally, the ultimate “boss” of the Great Kanohi is that which lies beyond the Quest for the Masks, accessible only to a Toa who has gathered all of the six individual masks: The Golden Kanohi.
Great Golden Kanohi
Equip Spell
If another “Kanohi” card becomes equipped to the equipped monster, destroy this card. While this card is equipped to a “Toa” monster: You can banish 6 “Great Kanohi” Equip Spells with different names from your GY, and if you do, replace this effect with those cards’ original effects. If this card is sent to the GY: You can send 1 “Kanohi” Equip Spell from your Deck to the GY; add this card to your hand, then place 1 card from your hand on the bottom of the Deck. You can only use this effect of “Great Golden Kanohi” once per turn.
Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.21.6)
By banishing exactly 6 Great Kanohi gathered in your GY, it gains their powers as long as it remains on the field. A rather reckless all-in move since it permanently removes the masks you copy and loses to Spell/Trap removal, but certainly satisfying when it works out. The first hurdle is obviously setting up the GY, which the Golden Kanohi itself helps with: Send it to the GY and it will mill you another Kanohi and return to your hand or Deck, continuing to wait for its time to be activated.
This one is technically not a Great Kanohi by name just so nobody can be funny and copy a Golden Kanohi with a second Golden Kanohi.
If another “Kanohi” card becomes equipped to the equipped monster, destroy this card. If the equipped monster is a “Turaga”, “Toa”, or “Makuta” monster, your opponent’s monsters cannot target it for attacks while you control another monster. If this card is in your GY: You can Tribute 1 monster, then target 1 “Turaga Vakama” in your GY; Special Summon it and equip it with this card. You can only use this effect of “Noble Kanohi Huna” once per turn.
Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.21.6)
Rau (Translation)
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)
Ruru (Night Vision)
Noble Kanohi Ruru
Equip Spell
If another “Kanohi” card becomes equipped to the equipped monster, destroy this card. You can only use each of the following effects of “Noble Kanohi Ruru” once per turn. ●While this card is equipped to a “Turaga”, “Toa”, or “Makuta” monster: You can target 1 Set card your opponent controls; reveal it. If it is a Spell/Trap, inflict 500 damage to your opponent. If it is a monster with less ATK than the equipped monster, inflict damage to your opponent equal to the difference. ●If this card is in your GY: You can Tribute 1 monster, then target 1 “Turaga Whenua” in your GY; Special Summon it and equip it with this card.
Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.21.6)
Komau (Mind Control)
Noble Kanohi Komau
Equip Spell
If another “Kanohi” card becomes equipped to the equipped monster, destroy this card. If the equipped monster is a “Turaga”, “Toa”, or “Makuta” monster and your opponent controls 2 or more monsters, the monster(s) your opponent controls with the lowest ATK cannot activate its effects. If this card is in your GY: You can Tribute 1 monster, then target 1 “Turaga Onewa” in your GY; Special Summon it and equip it with this card. You can only use this effect of “Noble Kanohi Komau” once per turn.
Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.21.6)🎉
Matatu (Telekinesis)
Noble Kanohi Matatu
Equip Spell
If another “Kanohi” card becomes equipped to the equipped monster, destroy this card. Once per turn, while this card is equipped to a “Turaga”, “Toa”, or “Makuta” monster: You can change the battle position of 1 monster on the field. The equipped monster cannot attack the turn you activate this effect. If this card is in your GY: You can Tribute 1 monster, then target 1 “Turaga Nuju” in your GY; Special Summon it and equip it with this card. You can only use this effect of “Noble Kanohi Matatu” once per turn.
Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.21.6)
Mahiki (Illusions)
Noble Kanohi Mahiki
Equip Spell
If another “Kanohi” card becomes equipped to the equipped monster, destroy this card. Once per turn, while this card is equipped to a “Turaga”, “Toa”, or “Makuta” monster and you control no other monsters: You can Special Summon 1 “Illusion Token” (Spellcaster/WIND/Level 3/ATK 0/DEF 0), but destroy it when this card leaves the field. If this card is in your GY: You can Tribute 1 monster, then target 1 “Turaga Matau” in your GY; Special Summon it and equip it with this card. You can only use this effect of “Noble Kanohi Mahiki” once per turn.
Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.21.6)
The Noble Kanohi worn by Turaga follow the same general structure, but predictably also grant their special powers to said Turaga. In exchange, the abilities themselves have lower impact and/or stricter conditions and drawbacks. As their secondary effect, these Kanohi do not search their matching Turaga, but instead act as a revival Spell from the GY by tributing a monster you control, which is useful for rebuilding a broken board or just Link climbing. They also conveniently equip themselves when reviving a Turaga this way.
The powers of the Noble Kanohi included in this expansion are:
Noble Kanohi Huna, Mask of Concealment – Hides the wearer from the opponent’s attacks, but only while there are other monsters to hide amongst.
Noble Kanohi Rau, Mask of Translation – “Translates” the text of an effect targeting the wearer into a different effect that geometrically “translates” monsters along the Main Monster Zones. It’s basically a convoluted negate based on a stupid pun.
Noble Kanohi Ruru, Mask of Night Vision – Illuminates a face-down card and inflicts damage if it’s a Spell/Trap or a monster smaller than the equipped one.
Noble Kanohi Komau, Mask of Mind Control – Mentally influences your opponent’s weakest monster(s) into being unable to activate its effects, but only if your opponent actually controls multiple monsters. As indicated by “monster(s)”, this can theoretically affect all opponent’s monsters at once if they have the same ATK.
Noble Kanohi Matatu, Mask of Telekinesis – Telekinetically (and non-targetingly) changes the battle position of a monster, but the focus required means the wearer does’t get to attack that turn.
Noble Kanohi Mahiki, Mask of Illusions – Generates an illusory Token that stays as long as the mask is active, but doing so requires the wearer to be alone on your field.
Support
That’s it for the masks of power themselves, but there are some other cards that interact with them as well.
While in your hand, and while face-up on the field if you control a “-Koro” Field Spell, this card is also EARTH, WATER, FIRE, and WIND-Attribute. Once per Chain (Quick Effect): You can pay 600 LP, then target 1 “Toa” monster you control; equip 1 “Kanohi” Equip Spell from your hand or GY to that target, except a card that is in the GY because it was destroyed while face-up on the field and sent there this turn. If you control a “Toa” monster: You can Special Summon this card from your GY. You can only use this effect of “Suva” once per turn.
Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.21.6)
The Suva is the Kanohi-storing shrine that supports the Toa Mata by allowing them to switch between the masks they have collected at will, and in relation to Kanohi that is indeed exactly what this card does as well. With the additional limitations of a small LP cost and not being able to re-equip a Kanohi destroyed the same turn, you can equip any Kanohi in your hand or GY to any Toa you control (not just Mata!), which will conveniently cause any already equipped Kanohi to self-destruct, effectively accomplishing the swap.
Gift of the Shrine
Quick-Play Spell
Target 1 face-up monster you control, then activate 1 of these effects; ●Equip 1 “Kanohi” Equip Spell from your hand or GY to that target. ●Banish 1 Level 1 Rock monster you control or in your GY with 0 ATK/DEF, and if you do, equip 1 “Noble Kanohi” or “Great Kanohi” Equip Spell from your Deck to that target.
Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.21.6)
Gift of the Shrine is just that effect on a Quick-Play Spell, giving you another option in case the Suva itself becomes unavailable. By banishing a Suva (or a monster with an identical statline – as of this writing, the real game has none), you can also use an alternate effect that equips a Kanohi directly from the Deck instead. This part is explicitly limited to Noble and Great Kanohi, just to make sure it’s not quite so easy to acquire the yet-to-be-implemented Legendary Kanohi. Another difference from the Suva’s effect is that the target of this Spell doesn’t need to be a Toa, so you can use it with Turaga or even just equip a Kanohi from your Deck to a monster that can’t use it only to get it into circulation.
Quest for the Masks
Continuous Spell
When a “Toa” monster is Normal Summoned: You can equip 1 “Noble Kanohi” or “Great Kanohi” Equip Spell from your Deck to it. You can send any number of “Kanohi” Equip Spells from your hand to the GY; draw that many cards. You can only use this effect of “Quest for the Masks” once per turn. Once per turn, during the End Phase: You can target 1 of your banished monsters whose Level is less than or equal to the number of “Kanohi” Equip Spells with different names in your GY; Special Summon it, then destroy this card.
Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.21.6)
Quest for the Masks simulates the Toa Mata’s search for their respective set of Great and Noble Kanohi after arriving on Mata Nui. The first stage of this is that any Normal Summoned Toa (not just Toa Mata – I figure this card might be useful for future teams and their Kanohi as well) immediately gets to equip a Great/Noble Kanohi of your choice from the Deck, finding that mask and permanently adding it to your Suva-accessible collection. Second, if you happen to find any Kanohi by drawing them, you can throw them into the GY to further progress the quest and draw the same number of fresh cards that are probably more useful in your hand. And finally, once you have gathered a sufficient amount of Kanohi, you can declare the Quest for the Masks completed at the end of the turn, recover a banished monster as a reward, and destroy the Continuous Spell. You specifically get to bring back monsters with a Level up to the number of different Kanohi you have, which fits nicely because a complete set of 6 will exactly get you a Toa and if you somehow gather both Greats and Nobles for a total of 12, your options include literally any leveled monster in the game.
Copper Kanohi of Victory
Equip Spell
If another “Kanohi” card becomes equipped to the equipped monster, destroy this card. At the start of the Damage Step, if a “Matoran”, “Turaga”, or “Toa” monster equipped with this card battles an opponent’s monster: You can destroy both this card and that opponent’s monster. When a monster declares an attack, while this card is in your GY: You can equip this card to 1 monster you control with the highest ATK (your choice, if tied), but banish this card when it leaves the field. You can only use this effect of “Copper Kanohi of Victory” once per turn.
Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.21.6)
The Copper Kanohi of Victory is not so much a support card as it is a honorary member of the archetype, being a mask that neither contains special powers nor is actually meant to be worn like one. Given that second point, it might be unfitting for it to even have the usual self-destruct when another Kanohi shows up, but if it didn’t it would still cause the previous Kanohi to blow up, and I figured having different mechanics depending on the order in which masks are equipped would just be weird.
Anyway, what this trophy mask actually does is simply granting “victory” in battle to the entire Matoran evolution line, by destroying itself along with the opponent’s monster. Like the actual Kanohi, it also offers a secondary effect in the GY, and this one acts as a kind of battle trap, equipping to the current “champion” among your monsters on attack declaration.
It’s pretty much just a pack of alternative arts for all the Toa Mata monsters. Making the MOCs, editing them onto the respective background, and putting together a release on such short notice ended up being a bit more work than expected, but I somehow made it in time. If your timezone disagrees, it’s wrong.
Oh yeah, and I also recorded a quick video showing how these look in a duel. Enjoy.
Yep, it’s a big one. Just as foretold in the ancient prophecies of the roadmap, this month was focused on giving the Koro strategies I’ve been building up throughout the BCOT overhaul some more material to work with. One half of that was making the older Matoran from BCOR and BBTS align with their respective village’s newly established gameplan, and the other was introducing actually new cards representing Matoran of varying irrelevancy. This was a lot to get done in not a lot of days and as a result testing was a bit more minimal for these, so if you see something that looks blatantly broken, definitely speak up because there’s a good chance you’re right.
Rather than the usual release note structure of New / Updated, I think it makes more sense to go village by village here and investigate how each deck is impacted by its new options. At some point I’ll also have to update the old theme guides with that information, but for now let’s just put it here.
General
First of all, we should get the two tweaks with a more global impact out of the way.
If this card is Normal or Special Summoned: You can take 1 of your “C.C. Matoran” monsters from your Deck, GY, or that is banished and place it on top of your Deck, and if you do, this card’s Attribute becomes that monster’s original Attribute. You can discard 1 card; excavate the top 6 cards of your Deck, and if you do, you can Special Summon 1 excavated “C.C. Matoran” monster, also you can add 1 excavated “The Chronicler’s Company” to your hand, also shuffle the rest into your Deck. You can only use this effect of “Matoran Chronicler Takua” once per turn.
If this card is Normal Summoned: You can take 1 of your “C.C. Matoran” monsters from your Deck, GY, or that is banished and place it on top of your Deck, and if you do, this card’s Attribute becomes that monster’s original Attribute. During your Main Phase: You can excavate the top 6 cards of your Deck, and if you do, you can Special Summon 1 excavated “C.C. Matoran” monster or add 1 excavated “The Chronicler’s Company” to your hand, also shuffle the rest into your Deck. You can only use this effect of “Matoran Chronicler Takua” once per turn.
Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.20.4)
Takua now only does the convenient setup for getting a C.C. Matoran from the Deck when he is Normal Summoned, which means you’re in gambling territory if you Special Summon him using Isolde, for example. However, after implementing this and testing, it became apparent that outside a deck filled to the brim with Chronicler’s Company members, the discard cost before excavating was never worth paying given the tiny chance of actually finding anything. So away went the discard, and along with that, the option to add “The Chronicler’s Company” (the archetypal Trap Card) was transformed from a lucky bonus to an alternative. Otherwise you’d be looking at a potential +2, which probably isn’t too healthy of a design.
With this change, Takua seems to perform well both in various Koro decks and in the main C.C. Matoran strategy. But he was also an essential component in the gimmicky Turaga Nui Turbo deck, and there, the inability to stack the deck and change his Attribute when Special Summoned actually does completely break one part of the combo. Thankfully, I was able to fix this issue by changing another card, Amaja-Nui, in a way that I think even improves it from a lore adaptation and balance standpoint.
2+ monsters, including a “Turaga” monster This card’s Attribute is also treated as the original Attributes of all “Turaga” Link Monsters you control or in your GY. You can only use each of the following effects of “Circle of Legends, Amaja-Nui” once per turn. If this card is Link Summoned: You can send 1 “Turaga” monster from your Deck or Extra Deck to the GY. You can target 1 of your Level 4 or lower “Matoran” monsters with the same Attribute as this card that is banished or in your GY; Special Summon it to your zone this card points to.
2+ monsters, including a “Turaga” monster This card’s Attribute is also treated as the original Attributes of all “Turaga” Link Monsters you control or in your GY. You can only use each of the following effects of “Circle of Legends, Amaja-Nui” once per turn. If this card is Link Summoned: You can send 1 “Turaga” monster from your Deck or Extra Deck to the GY. You can target 1 of your Warrior monsters that is banished or in your GY; Special Summon 1 “Legend Stone Token” (Warrior/ATK 0/DEF 0) with the same Level and Attribute to your zone this card points to, then place that target on the top or bottom of the Deck.
Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.20.4)
The old version let you bring back a Matoran with the same Attribute as Amaja-Nui (meaning LIGHT or the Attribute of any Turaga you’ve used) as if calling them before the gathering of Turaga, which kind of fails to convey the core purpose of the location – telling stories and legends. On the other hand, the latest update changes this to creating a Token inheriting Level and Attribute of a spent Warrior monster, representing the stones within Amaja-Nui that were a key device in exactly this storytelling. The original monster is then placed on the top or bottom of the Deck, which is also important to recreating the combo that used to be possible with Takua.
Previously, what you would do is revive Takua with Amaja-Nui, stack Kapura on top of your Deck, and then use Takua (now FIRE) and another monster to make Vakama, who is then able to summon a FIRE Warrior from the top of your Deck and thus give you an extra body to continue the combo. Now, you instead directly target a FIRE Warrior with Amaja-Nui, place it on top of the Deck, and then use the Token you get to make Vakama for the same result. Only downside is you now need to get a FIRE Warrior banished or into the GY first, but that can be done pretty consistently by adopting Sublimation Knight as one of the starters in the deck.
Speaking of Kapura, he’s this month’s winner of the “should probably fix this but haven’t yet” prize. Specifically, in the final few test duels of the latest version, I noticed that letting any monster that survives a turn attack twice enables OTKs that just feel undeservedly sudden. Especially taking into account that the wording of the limitation as “not Summoned this turn” means something like a PSY-Framelord Omega coming back to your field after your opponent had no opportunity to interact with it at all is also a valid target.
If a “C.C. Matoran” monster you control attacks, your opponent’s cards and effects cannot be activated until the end of the Damage Step. At the start of your Battle Phase: You can banish this card from your GY, then target 1 face-up monster you control that was not Summoned this turn; it can make a second attack during this Battle Phase. You can only use this effect of “C.C. Matoran Kapura” once per turn.
Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.0.0)
The very simple solution I’m considering here is making that second attack on monsters only, which is a common restriction on effects of this type and greatly limits the potential damage output. In the Ta-Koro strategy itself, attacking monsters is what you want to do anyway, so it shouldn’t make any problems there.
The unga bunga strategy of Ta-Koro, a simple beatdown that hopes to OTK and benefits from destroying monsters in battle, receives an updated version of the captain of the guard himself as their first new asset.
While your opponent controls a face-up monster, “Matoran” monsters you control gain 400 ATK for each “Matoran” monster you control. During your Main Phase, you can Normal Summon 1 “Matoran” 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 Jaller”.
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)
Where Jala previously buffed all other Matoran, that same buff is now applied to all your FIRE Warrior monsters up to Level 4, so it also affects the Tokens Vakama creates when his effect misses. And the additional Normal Summon can now be spent on not only Matoran, but also a FIRE Toa, which at this point means exactly Tahu. This part of the design I’m not terribly happy with, because it feels extremely forced and out of line with the other Matoran who do not directly reference the Toa (after all, they were fighting without them for a thousand years). The reason it’s in here for the time being anyway is that Tahu’s effect to both lower ATK and inflict burn damage upon battle destruction is extremely helpful when it comes to pulling off an OTK, but you also don’t really have the spare Normal Summon to get him out in the same turn you set up all your other stuff. If I eventually figure out a way to get around this without an ugly crutch, Jala is presumably going to change accordingly.
Moving on, this village’s contribution to the lineup of fresh Matoran is perhaps the most irrelevant of them all: Lhii, the legendary lava surfer.
During the Damage Step, when your FIRE monster battles an opponent’s monster (Quick Effect): You can send this card from your hand to the GY; until the end of this turn, that opponent’s monster loses 500 ATK/DEF, also its effects are negated. If your FIRE Warrior monster destroys an opponent’s monster by battle, while this card is in your GY: You can Special Summon this card, and if you do, it gains ATK equal to that destroyed monster’s original ATK, until the end of this turn. You can only use 1 “Matoran Legend Lhii” effect per turn, and only once that turn.
Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.21.6)
This entirely fictional (as in, more fictional than the rest of the story) individual was only found as a brief mention in some sections of the website in the early years, and only much later properly established to be a legend told in memory of the deceased Toa Lhikan. What this translates to is a 0 ATK/DEF monster (because he is not, in fact, real) that supports the residents of Ta-Koro by acting as a handtrap enabling destruction by battle where it would normally not have been possible, and by returning from the grave as a source of additional damage to close out games. These effects were chosen mostly because they were useful to the deck, but the fun thing is that I could potentially come back and reference them when I eventually implement the actual Lhikan, thus creating a solid piece of L O R E from absolutely nothing.
Another downside of Lhii being such an absolute background detail is that there wasn’t any official depiction of him, so rather than go look for fanart and having to deal with nuisances such as “permissions” and “credit”, I just went and made my own – a task only slightly complicated by not actually possessing the ability to draw. Praise be unto Krita and its wide array of brushes that can be spammed randomly until the image looks kinda decent.
Art for Lhii in full size
The simple concept here is to show the Legend of Lhii being told through fire and smoke, with the fire being the lavaboard and the smoke the rest of the body. Hope that’s recognizable at least. From what I’ve found, there’s also the idea that Lhii is supposed to wear a Kanohi Pakari floating around, but that doesn’t seem to be backed by very solid evidence, so I went with the more obvious approach of giving the Matoran based on a Hau-wearing Toa a Hau.
… Did you notice the lava surfer in the background?
For Ga-Koro’s signature playstyle that involves a lot of both defensive and offensive actions on the opponent’s turn, we have Hahli as the updated BCOR Matoran.
If you control a “Matoran” monster other than “Matoran Assistant Hahli”, you can Special Summon this card (from your hand). Other “Matoran” monsters you control cannot be destroyed by card effects. Once per turn, if you control another “Matoran” monster: You can add 1 “Matoran” monster from your Deck to your hand, except “Matoran Assistant Hahli”.
Other “Matoran” monsters you control cannot be destroyed by card effects. You can only use each of the following effects of “Matoran Assistant Hahli” once per turn. During the Main Phase (Quick Effect): You can inflict 400 damage to your opponent. If a WATER “Matoran” monster(s), except “Matoran Assistant Hahli”, is sent to your GY, while this card is in your GY (except during the Damage Step): You can Special Summon this card, but banish it during the End Phase.
Bionicle: Challenge of the Rahi (v3.20.4)
Unchanged is the destruction protection granted to other Matoran, but the rest of the card, a combination of a non-OPT Special Summon from hand and soft OPT Matoran search, was frankly broken as hell and needed to go. In it’s place comes a Quick Effect that does nothing but inflict a little bit of damage, reflecting the basic, yet helpful chores Hahli had to do in her position as assistant flax maker. The purpose of this is really just letting you easily get to Chain Link 2 on the opponent’s turn (the threshold where Ga-Koro makes all your effects unrespondable), so the amount of damage might even need to be lowered a bit. The other thing new Hahli has to offer is the ability to Special Summon herself from the GY when another WATER Matoran goes there, for example via being discarded for Nokama’s cost. Effects that trigger when sent from the hand or field to the GY are, to give a little spoiler, a staple of Ga-Matoran, so by having this trigger at the same timing, Hahli can once again “assist” in building Chain Links. I think it might make sense to have this effect happen during the opponent’s turn only so you can’t easily dodge the EP banish and instead need to recycle with Nokama, but the extra setup tool felt kinda important during testing, so for now it’s staying like this.
Before we get to the new face, there’s also a Matoran from BBTS that has received an update this time.
The monster(s) your opponent controls with the highest original ATK loses 800 ATK during the Battle Phase only. If this card is Normal Summoned: You can target 1 monster on the field; its owner draws 1 card, and if they do, return that target to the hand. You can only use this effect of “Matoran Tender Kotu” once per turn.
During the Main or Battle Phase (Quick Effect): You can make the monster(s) your opponent currently controls with the highest ATK lose 800 ATK, until the end of this turn. If this card is sent from the hand or field to the GY: You can target 1 monster on the field; its owner draws 1 card, and if they do, return that target to the hand. You can only use each effect of “Matoran Tender Kotu” once per turn.
Bionicle: Beware the Swarm (v3.20.4)
Kotu only got very slight changes to her mechanics so they align better with the deck – reducing the opponent’s largest monster by 800 ATK is now an activated Quick Effect for dem Chain Links, and her previous effect on Normal Summon is now one of those effects that trigger when sent to the GY. Otherwise, it still does the same.
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 that 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 (v3.20.4)
As her job involves observing the stars, I wanted to do something with Level manipulation, and since Ga-Koro tends to use Synchros, that went well with making her a tuner. The effects are once again a pair of a Quick Effect – this time triggering from the hand – and a trigger effect when sent from hand or field to the GY. The former makes you draw a card, check its Level (or “observe its stars” if you will), and Special Summon Nixe with the same Level, or discard her if it’s not a monster (though you still get to keep the card). The latter simply puts a Spell/Trap in a GY that doesn’t have them, to help set up Nokama’s protection.
Final tweak is on Ga-Koro itself, and simply consists of lifting the Level limit on WATER monsters you can Special Summon from your hand.
During your opponent’s turn, if all monsters in your GY (min. 1) are WATER, your opponent’s cards and effects cannot be activated 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 Level 4 or lower WATER monster from your hand in Defense Position, but its effects are negated and its Type becomes the same 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 (v3.12.10)
3.20.4
Ga-Koro, Village of Water
Field Spell
During your opponent’s turn, if all monsters in your GY (min. 1) are WATER, your opponent’s cards and effects cannot be activated 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 its Type becomes the same 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 (v3.20.4)
There are already several official cards that can do the same thing, so it’s pretty safe to say it doesn’t enable degenerate bullshit, and this way you can more easily make powerful Synchros worth protecting with Nokama.
The key feature of Onu-Koro is its ability to constantly replenish your resources, and this release supplements that with a nice little resource loop facilitated by an adjusted Onepu, the Ussal from the Rahi archetype, and the newly added Midak.
During your Main Phase: You can Special Summon 1 Level 4 or lower Beast or Winged Beast monster from your Deck in face-up Defense Position, and if you do, this card gains 800 ATK until the end of this turn. You can only use this effect of “Matoran Racer Onepu” once per turn.
When this card is Normal Summoned: You can target 1 of your banished EARTH monsters; place it on the bottom of the Deck, then you can reveal any number of “Matoran” monsters in your hand, and if you do, gain 500 LP for each. During your Main Phase: You can Special Summon 1 Level 4 or lower Beast “Rahi” monster from your hand or GY, but banish it when it leaves the field. You can only use each effect of “Matoran Racer Onepu” once per turn.
Pendulum Scale = 2 [ Pendulum Effect ] Once per turn: You can reduce the Pendulum Scale of the card in your other Pendulum Zone by 1 until the End Phase; this turn, while this card is in your Pendulum Zone, you can also Pendulum Summon “Rahi” Pendulum Monsters from your GY, but monsters Summoned this way are destroyed during the End Phase. —————————————- [ Monster Effect ] If this card is sent to the GY: You can Special Summon 1 Level 4 or lower EARTH monster from your GY, except this card. If this card is banished: You can Special Summon 1 Level 3 or lower “Rahi” monster from your GY. You can only use 1 “Ussal, Crab Rahi” effect per turn, and only once that turn.
If you control a “Matoran” monster, except “Matoran Tender Midak”: You can send this card from your hand to the GY; send 1 EARTH monster from your Deck to the GY, and if you do, gain 400 LP. If this card would be returned from the GY to the Deck by a card effect, you can add it to your hand instead. You can only use each effect of “Matoran Tender Midak” once per turn.
Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.20.4)
To walk you through the play quickly: Putting Onepu on the field fulfills the condition to activate Midak in your hand, sending him and an Ussal from your Deck to the GY and being rewarded with 400 LP because he did his job as an Ussal handler. This will trigger the Ussal to bring back another EARTH monster from your GY, such as Midak. Furthermore, Onepu’s effect allows him to bring out the Ussal from the GY as well (and not from the Deck like in the old version, that was pretty stupid), and suddenly you have three whole monsters on the field. After using them all as material for something, Onepu and Midak will be in the GY where Onu-Koro can put them back into your Deck so they’re ready to go again, except Midak will avoid the darkness of the Deck and instead claim a bright spot in your hand – he’s not the Midak Skyblaster’s namesake for nothing. Meanwhile, the Ussal remains banished, but if you can just manage to find Onepu again, his other effect allows you to recycle that as well, with a bonus of gaining an LP reward depending on how many Matoran are in attendance to be awed by the tales of the great Ussal Racer’s achievments. And at this point, you might have noticed, you’re at the exact point where the combo started and can do it all over again.
Po-Koro follows the tried-and-true principle of Special Summoning a bunch of monsters and using them as fodder to bring out bosses from the Extra Deck via various mechanics. Their new support helps with this in what I find to be interesting ways, starting with Huki.
Your opponent cannot target “Matoran” monsters for attacks, except “Matoran Champion Hewkii”. Once per turn, if you control another “Matoran” monster, this card cannot be destroyed by battle. At the end of the Damage Step, if this card battled a monster with 2000 or more ATK: Destroy that monster and inflict damage to your opponent equal to its ATK.
If your opponent controls a monster, you can Special Summon this card (from your hand) in Attack Position to your zone in a column with no monsters. You can only Special Summon “Matoran Champion Huki” once per turn this way. Once per turn: You can target 1 face-up monster your opponent controls in the same column as a “Matoran” monster you control; until the end of this turn, this card gains ATK equal to that target’s current ATK, but it cannot attack directly.
Bionicle: Challenge of the Rahi (v3.20.4)
Special Summoning from the hand with some funny column shenanigans obviously helps you combo, especially if you manage to hit a zone Onewa points to (thus triggering further Special Summons). Meanwhile, the ATK boosting effect is a more balanced replacement for the old version’s crazy blowout effect when battling powerful monsters. I think I may have even overbalanced it by making its activation condition stand at odds with the Special Summon condition, but who knows.
And to be entirely honest, a lot of this effect was designed to interact specifically with Maku and thus recreate the most classic ship from a world where love is not canon. I even made a little video to illustrate.
Shippers Rejoice
I know, I’m a comedic genius.
Anyway, there’s another Po-Matoran to talk about, and among the new additions he stands out as easily the most plot-relevant one. It is none other than the prolific traitor trader Ahkmou.
During your Main Phase: You can Special Summon this card from your hand to your opponent’s field, and if you do, Special Summon 1 Level 4 or lower “Matoran” monster from your hand. You can only use this effect of “Matoran Trader Ahkmou” once per turn. If you activate a monster effect, except “Matoran Trader Ahkmou”: Give control of this card to your opponent.
Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.20.4)
The trade deal offered by this trustworthy merchant involves placing him on the opponent’s field in exchange for bringing out one of your Matoran from the hand, but he will in fact change sides at the drop of a hat, or rather at the activation of a monster effect. What this does in practical terms is putting a monster on your opponent’s field going first, turning off certain interruptions like Infinite Impermanence or Gamma and softening the blow of others by giving you an additional monster to work with once the chain resolves. Just make sure you don’t accidentally lose his allegiance again before you can use him. Oh, and Ahkmou can enable Huki’s inherent Special Summon turn 1, which is also pretty cool.
For the stall strategy of Ko-Koro, the new release provides more ways to get yourself the advantage in field presence you need to keep the game locked down until you win. As the BCOR updatee (is that a word?), we have Matoro, Nuju’s translator.
If this card was Normal Summoned this turn: You can Tribute this card; Special Summon up to 2 Level 2 “Matoran” monsters from your GY, except “Matoran Translator Matoro”. You can only use this effect of “Matoran Translator Matoro” once per turn.
If this card was Normal Summoned or flipped face-up this turn: You can Tribute this card; Special Summon up to 2 Level 2 “Matoran” monsters from your GY, except “Matoran Translator Matoro”. When a monster(s) you control is flipped face-down, while this card is in your GY: You can banish this card; change those face-down monsters to face-up Defense Position. You can only use each effect of “Matoran Translator Matoro” once per turn.
Bionicle: Challenge of the Rahi (v3.20.4)
His original ability to revive others by Tributing himself (based on, well, the obvious) remains pretty much unchanged, with the only difference being that it now also works if he was flipped face-up that turn, since Nuju flips your own monsters to clear the opponent’s field. This leads us straight to the second effect, which replaces the Tuner designation as the representation of his job as translator. Because if the monsters being flipped face-down is meant to be Nuju confusing his allies by speaking in bird language, then obviously Matoro clearing up the confusion would simply revert the flip.
In the new slot, we have Jaa, one of the scribes in charge of writing down Wall of Prophecy translations. Where did those prophecies even come from? Honestly I’m not sure, but it probably also doesn’t matter.
You can banish 1 Spell/Trap from your hand or field; Special Summon this card from your hand. If this card is sent to the GY: You can target 1 of your banished Spells/Traps; place it on top of your Deck, and if you do, Special Summon 1 WATER “Matoran” monster from your GY, except “Matoran Scribe Jaa”, but negate its effects, also you cannot Special Summon while you control that face-up monster. You can only use each effect of “Matoran Scribe Jaa” once per turn.
Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.21.6)
Jaa takes advantage of the large amount of Spells and Traps you run in a Ko-Koro deck (since you don’t want to use monster effects on the opponent’s turn) and uses them as fodder to put himself on the field, making him a useful on-Attribute search target for Kopeke. Later, when he hits the GY, he can put the card banished for his Summon back on top of the Deck (as if writing down a prophecy of your next draw) and simultaneously bring out another WATER Matoran from the GY. With the tiny drawback of getting locked out of all Special Summons. Which you can turn off by simply flipping the monster face-down to bounce something with Nuju. I think you get the idea. Do note that the Special Summon is mandatory, so activating the effect to get back a banished card may bite you in the ass – an intentional flaw to make sure he isn’t quite so easy to use as a generic Spell/Trap recycler.
Ko-Koro also got one little update to patch a somewhat fatal flaw. While it previously only negated the effects of your opponent’s Special Summoned monsters for a single turn, this negation is now permanent – as long as the other conditions of only controlling WATER monsters and not having activated monster effects that turn are fulfilled, of course.
While all face-up monsters you control (min. 1) are WATER, apply these effects. ●If you did not declare an attack during your last turn, monsters your opponent controls cannot attack the turn they are Summoned. ●If none of your opponent’s cards where destroyed or banished by your card effects since your last Standby Phase, monsters you control cannot be destroyed by your opponent’s card effects, also your opponent cannot target them with card effects. ●If you did not activate any monster effects this turn, negate the effects of face-up monsters that were Special Summoned this turn while your opponent controls them.
Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.16.6)
3.20.4
Ko-Koro, Village of Ice
Field Spell
While all face-up monsters you control (min. 1) are WATER, apply these effects. ●If you did not declare an attack during your last turn, monsters your opponent controls cannot attack the turn they are Summoned. ●If none of your opponent’s cards where destroyed or banished by your card effects since your last Standby Phase, monsters you control cannot be destroyed by your opponent’s card effects, also your opponent cannot target them with card effects. ●If you did not activate any monster effects this turn, negate the effects of face-up Special Summoned monsters while your opponent controls them.
Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.20.4)
This way you aren’t totally helpless against opponents who can bring out a monster during your End Phase or something like that, and I figure it’s still not all that terribly oppressive and unfun as far as lockdowns go, since you need to keep actively removing monsters anyway if you want to keep yourself safe from battle as well.
Most important to Le-Koro is the ability to recover and rebuild starting from minimal resources, and the first new piece of support for this is another Matoran/Rahi combo in the form of Kongu and the Kewa.
Once per turn: You can target 1 Beast or Winged Beast monster you control; equip that target to this card. (You can only equip 1 monster at a time to this card with this effect.) While equipped with a monster by this effect, this card can attack your opponent directly. When this card inflicts battle damage to your opponent: You can target 1 monster your opponent controls with DEF less than or equal to the ATK of the monster equipped to this card; destroy it. When this card is destroyed while equipped with a monster by its effect and sent to the GY: Special Summon that monster from the GY.
If this card is Normal or Special Summoned: You can send 1 Winged Beast “Rahi” monster from your hand or Deck to the GY, and if you do, this card can attack your opponent directly this turn. You can only use this effect of “Matoran Pilot Kongu” once per turn. When this card inflicts battle damage to your opponent: You can banish 1 WIND monster from your GY, then target 1 face-up monster your opponent controls with DEF less than or equal to that banished monster’s ATK; destroy it.
[ Pendulum Effect ] You can target 1 Spell/Trap on the field; send 1 Beast or Winged Beast “Rahi” monster from your hand or face-up Extra Deck to the GY, and if you do, destroy that target. 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 other Level 4 or lower WIND monster from your GY, but negate its effects. If this card is banished: You can add 1 Beast or Winged Beast “Rahi” monster from your GY or face-up Extra Deck to your hand, except “Kewa, Vulture Rahi”. You can only use 1 “Kewa, Vulture Rahi” effect per turn, and only once that turn.
Bionicle: Challenge of the Rahi (v4.7.3)
Replacing super gimmicky and overly complicated equip shenanigans is something that may feel familiar from the Onu-Koro section. Indeed, the Kewa is the same type of Rahi as the Ussal, and provides the same service when sent to the GY, just for WIND monsters. Kongu, meanwhile, is the way to get the birb there, symbolically allowing him to fly over the enemy lines and attack directly. Which you may not use if you’re instead using him and the monster revied by the Kewa as material, but if you do, there’s also the additional utility of destroying monsters with sufficiently low DEF after inflicting battle damage.
The final new card of the release is Makani, whom you may know from the famous Le-Koro Band. Or from the Elementsaber archetype. Turns out naming a wind guy after the Hawaiian word for “wind” isn’t the most unique idea.
If this card is Normal or Special Summoned from the hand: You can Special Summon 1 Level 4 or lower “Matoran” monster from your hand. If this card is in your GY, except the turn it was sent there: You can banish this card, then target 1 WIND Warrior monster in your GY, except “Matoran Musician Makani”; add it to your hand. You can only use each effect of “Matoran Musician Makani” once per turn.
Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.21.6)
Aside from being a Tuner (because music), Makani provides a very simple pair of effects: Bring out another Matoran on Summon – regardless of Attribute, since he plays music to welcome travellers as well – and recycling a WIND Warrior in your GY on later turns. This, as it turns out, is a much more potent combination than I had anticipated, and in testing Makani seriously feels like one of the most useful Matoran cards to date. Not sure if it’s actually to the point of requiring some kind of nerf, but he’s certainly good.
Something I should point out is that both Kongu and Makani having effects that trigger when they are Summoned reflects an important design element for Le-Koro, since it lets you chain them to the Field Spell’s search effect and get value before the negate from that hits.
Last but not least, the second effect of Matau received some changes.
2 monsters, including a WIND Warrior monster During your Main Phase: You can Special Summon 1 Level 4 or lower WIND monster from your hand in Attack Position, but its ATK becomes 0. If this card is sent from the field to the GY: You can target 1 other WIND monster in your GY; during the Standby Phase of your next turn, add that target to your hand, then, if your opponent controls more monsters than you do, draw 1 card. You can only use each effect of “Turaga Matau” once per turn.
2 monsters, including a WIND Warrior monster During your Main Phase: You can Special Summon 1 Level 4 or lower WIND monster from your hand in Attack Position, but its ATK becomes 0. If this card is sent from the field to the GY: You can activate this effect; during the Standby Phase of your next turn, add 1 other WIND monster from your GY to your hand, then, if your opponent controls more monsters than you do, you can make all monsters they currently control lose 700 ATK/DEF until the end of this turn. You can only use each effect of “Turaga Matau” once per turn.
Bionicle: Coming of the Toa (v3.20.4)
One thing is that it doesn’t target the monster to get back during the next Standby Phase at activation anymore, mostly because EDOPro didn’t really make that easy to keep track of. Instead you get to choose when it resolves, which I think might pose some issues with the requirement of “other WIND monster” (since Matau may have left and returned to the GY in the meantime) – if so, I’ll probably either remove the other or strengthen it to “except Matau”. The other change is that the bonus draw in case your opponent controls more monsters was replaced with a temporary ATK/DEF reduction for your opponent’s field, potentially making the board easier to break when you make your comeback. I think this is better because it incorporates the prankster aspect of Matau, and now you can get an extra card to your hand by simply having Makani in GY anyway.
This was long and I am very sorry for that. Respect to you if you actually read it all.
Did you know that it’s possible to plan development work ahead of time and then proceed along a fixed schedule, thus spotting potential problems well in advance? Sounds like witchcraft, but let’s try it. Just keep in mind that anything “planned” here is still subject to change for literally any reason whatsoever.
Pushing out an update every two months has proven to be a functional and sustainable pace, so using that as the basis:
February 2022: The Matoran Update – Polishing and extending the Koro strategies a bit more by taking another look at the Matoran cards in BCOT, BCOR, and BBTS … plus maybe also adding some new ones?
April 2022: Tale of the Toa – Final wave of Toa Mata support, and also final wave of reworked BCOT cards.
June 2022: Big refactoring run for BCOT scripts (and maybe the other expansions while I’m at it), first look at the Protodermic Evolution archetypes (Version 4.0 !).
August 2022:Energized Protodermis (1st Wave) First look at the Protodermic Evolution archetypes (Version 4.0 !)
October 2022:Toa Nuva (1st Wave) Energized Protodermis (1st Wave)
December 2022:Bohrok-Kal (1st Wave) Toa Nuva (1st Wave)
June August is an important milestone to watch out for, because the results of testing the first cards of BPEV will influence what their further support is like, which may change how much of it I have to make and in what order. So the plan for the second half of the year is more of an educated guess at this point, and the “(1st Wave)” notes don’t necessarily mean all of these things will get another wave next year.
(Updated 2022-04-28: Version 4.0 pushed back to August, following releases shifted accordingly)
