Through troubles and time, this final batch of lore from the first half of 2003 brings us to the end of the Time of Troubles. Surely the island of Mata Nui will be safe and nothing bad will ever happen again from here on, right?
… right?
New Cards (and one update)
Deprived of their elemental powers and repeatedly outmaneuvered by the Bohrok-Kal, the Toa Nuva follow the trail of their adversaries deep beneath the ground, heading to a final confrontation where the sealed Bahrag yet slumber. But before reaching that far, they bear witness to the sight of … Exo-Toa moving on their own!?
Exo Autonomy
Spell
Special Summon 1 “Exo-Toa” from your hand or Deck, but it cannot activate its effects, also destroy it during the End Phase. During your End Phase: You can banish this card from your GY and shuffle 1 “Exo-Toa” from your GY or banishment into the Deck; add 1 “Toa” monster from your Deck to your hand, then you can Set 1 “Exo Armaments” from your Deck, GY, or banishment. You can only activate 1 “Exo Autonomy” per turn.
Bionicle: Protodermic Evolution (v4.8.3)
It’s a small scene, but the one comic page where these underutilized Aliens references move as autonomous battlebots to stop the intruding Bohrok-Kal grants me an opportunity to inject new life into the always kinda janky and at this point also outdated design of my Union Monster take on them. The basic idea of Exo Autonomy is to act as an independent (autonomous, you may say) engine starter that gives you all the pieces for powerful Exo-Toa plays.
Through a main effect that just puts a body on the field (2k ATK and Level 6 does have some utility by itself) and an End Phase effect that follows it up with some specific searches, we end up in a situation where a Toa is in hand, an Exo-Toa is in the Deck, and Exo Armaments – the complementary Trap that requires just these conditions – is Set and ready to go next turn. But because that alone didn’t yet work as envisioned, the Trap itself also gets a bit of a touch-up in this release.
Exo Armaments
Trap
Special Summon 1 “Toa” monster from your hand, then equip 1 “Exo-Toa” from your Deck or GY to it, but that Equip Card cannot activate its effects this turn. If you control “Exo-Toa”: You can banish this card from your GY, then activate 1 of these effects; ●This turn, if an “Exo-Toa” you control battles, your opponent cannot activate cards or effects until the end of the Damage Step. ●This turn, “Exo-Toa” you control cannot be destroyed by your opponent’s card effects, also your opponent cannot target them with card effects. ●Target 1 “Exo-Toa” you control; destroy 1 other card in the same column as that target. You can only use this effect of “Exo Armaments” once per turn.
Bionicle: Beware the Swarm (v4.8.3)
Specifically, the clause that banned all Special Summoning for the rest of the whole turn now just locks that specific Exo-Toa you put on the field from activating its standard Union effect to unequip. This preserves the original intent while not making the card a huge liability, though if I’m being honest it probably wouldn’t be a problem to drop this restriction entirely- it’s a Trap that summons from hand, putting two monsters on the field isn’t exactly crazy in that context. The other upgrade is that its GY effect, the actual “Armaments”, can now be activated the same turn it went to the GY, to suit the current speed of the game.
So, if all goes through, the final payoff from an activation of Exo Autonomy consists of whatever you used the Special Summoned Exo-Toa for, as well as a 4k+ vanilla sitting on the field with a Quick Effect in the GY to either pop a card in its column (or that of the Equip Card), protect it from effects, or isolate it while it battles. That’s decent enough to finally justify the inclusion of an Exo-Toa at least in decks that already use the Toa Mata – it might even be somewhat splashable in combation with last release’s Shadow Toa .
Anyway, after passing through that whole situation, the Toa Nuva finally catch up to the Bohrok-Kal, but the attempt to stop them in the final moments of their task is once again thwarted – by the sudden appearance of a Silver Shield.
Bohrok Silver Shield
Quick-Play Spell
Target 1 “Krana” monster you control or in your GY; return it to the hand or attach it to a “Bohrok” Xyz Monster you control as material. At the start of the Battle Phase: You can banish this card from your GY; until the end of this turn, “Bohrok” Xyz Monsters you control with a “Krana” Link Monster as material are unaffected by card effects, except their own. Neither player can activate cards or effects in response to this effect’s activation. You can only use each effect of “Bohrok Silver Shield” once per turn.
Bionicle: Protodermic Evolution (v4.8.3)
The Krana-Kal have turned to silver to promote a blind pack collectible gimmick project an impenetrable shield and prevent any outside interference! That’s precisely what this card does if if’s in the GY at the start of the Battle Phase, granting you free reign to resolve the effect granted to your Bohrok-Kal by a Krana Xa-Kal and thus awaken the Bahrag. But before that point, it acts as a way to recycle your Krana or attach them to the Kal without using a monster effect, which can come in handy for example if you’re staring down a monster negate and have a Krana Za-Kal at your disposal.
Out of options, Tahu resorts to one last trick up his sleeve to quite literally buy some time: He dons the Kanohi Vahi.
Legendary Kanohi Vahi, Mask of Time
Equip Spell
You can only control 1 “Vahi” Equip Spell. If another “Kanohi” Equip Spell becomes equipped to the equipped monster, destroy this card. The equipped monster cannot attack or activate its effects, also your opponent cannot target it with card effects. Once per turn, while this card is equipped to a “Toa” or “Makuta” monster you control: You can add 1 “Vahi” card from your Deck or GY to your hand, except an Equip Spell. If this card is destroyed or banished by your opponent’s card effect: Both players skip their next Battle Phase.
Bionicle: Protodermic Evolution (v4.8.3)
Vahi Freeze
Quick-Play Spell
Activate 1 of these effects; ●Add 1 “Vahi” Equip Spell from your Deck or GY to your hand. ●If you control a “Vahi” Equip Spell: Target 1 face-up card on the field; until the end of this turn, its effects are negated, also it cannot be destroyed, or banished, by card effects. If this card is sent from the field to the GY: You can draw 1 card, but skip your next Draw Phase. You can only use this effect of “Vahi Freeze” once per turn.
Bionicle: Protodermic Evolution (v4.8.3)
Now, Legendary Kanohi are something that will become a much bigger deal way down the line with the Ignika, so I approached this one as a bit of a test run. The idea in my head was that wearing the mask would render a monster incapable of doing anything but access the powers contained within, represented as an archetype of cards the Kanohi lets you search while equipped to a worthy user. Because the sole usage shown in the story by this point was temporarily freezing the Bohrok-Kal in time, there’s also only one search target introduced here: Vahi Freeze, which renders a targeted card equally impotent and immovable.
Attached to this basic idea comes some side utility: The Vahi’s shutdown of other functions isn’t limited like the search is, so it can be used against the opponent’s monsters as well, it also grants targeting protection (they can’t penetrate the timey-wimey stuff I guess), and Vahi Freeze lets you add the Kanohi to your hand so it doesn’t matter in which order you open the pieces.
All of this still didn’t quite feel like enough time fuckery to me, so I engineered another neat little thing onto Freeze: If sent from the field to the GY – primarily after activating it, so it acts as a bonus effect for both of the available options – you get a draw at the cost of “freezing” your next Draw Phase. This helps you access resources before your opponent has a chance to stop you, and actually generates real positive card advantage if you manage to do it on both your own and your opponent’s turn. In a way, it’s a built-in miniature version of Runick Fountain with a drawback that appropriately messes with the flow and timing of gameplay.
The Vahi itself also has a slight drawback in that it skips the next Battle Phases if your opponent destroys or banishes it, to represent the part of the lore where breaking it would also break time within the Matoran Universe. This is set up in a way that hopefully makes it get in the way as little as possible, but I still see some cases where it can be annoying as hell (imagine a Runick banishing this from the Deck). May need some more refinement.
… which can be said for both of these cards in general, honestly. I’m not yet convinced this experiment can be called a successful one. In theory, being able to search a negate turn 1, use it turn 2, and add it back to use again turn 3 while going +1 along the way seems decent enough, but in testing I experienced various situations where the math doesn’t math that well. Like, what happens if you use the Freeze on turn 3 but then you need to keep grinding? You can’t add it back a second time right away, so you’re missing your negate for a turn and also skipping your Draw Phase after that – a perfect opportunity for the game to slip away. Similar issues crop up going second. While these are fairly reasonable weaknesses, they feel somewhat frustrating given that the Kanohi Vahi itself already forces various handicaps onto you; you need to bring out a Toa or Makuta (neither of which is super easy) only to pretty much sacrifice all benefits of having it on the field by locking it under the Vahi, and well-timed backrow removal from your opponent can really screw you over.
A major reason this felt so bad in testing is that the deck I built for super consistent Vahi access just kind of lacked the ability to do much else at all, and particularly couldn’t do much to recover from suboptimal situations. So it may just be a matter of figuring out a better strategy, or maybe the Vahi’s built-in drawbacks need to be toned down a bit. But if an actual redesign is needed, one funny idea I had is that the search could be implemented as something that replaces the equipped monster’s effect (instead of just locking its activation), which would let it be a Quick Effect and thus immediately resolve the math issues. A bit more mechanically weird than I’d usually like to be, but on the other hand it would be a suitably unique thing to establish as the gimmick for Legendary Kanohi.
Well, enough of that, let’s get on with the story. Their little time-out lets the Toa Nuva figure out that they may just be able to take down the Bohrok-Kal by channeling their elemental powers through the Nuva Symbols still held by the creatures, which leads the Kal to lose control of their own powers and self-destruct because they were only protected from outside harm.
Nuva Overcharge
Counter Trap
If your opponent activates a monster effect on the field while you control a “Toa Nuva” monster, and there is a “Nuva” Continuous Spell/Trap on your field or in your GY: That effect becomes “banish this card”. During the End Phase, if this card is in your GY and you control a “Toa Nuva” monster: You can Set this card, but banish it when it leaves the field. You can only use each effect of “Nuva Overcharge” once per turn.
Bionicle: Protodermic Evolution (v4.8.3)
That’s the idea of Nuva Overcharge, our searchable Counter Trap that functionally negates monster effects with a rewrite into “banish yourself NOW”. Since it’s a Counter Trap, this works even during the Damage Step, and because the banishing is done by the monster’s own effect, it correctly penetrates the Silver Shield we saw above (yes, rewrites work against unaffected monsters, I’ve seen it happen in MD with Gossip Shadow vs Crystal Clear Wing). No Krana-Kal will be resolved to awaken the Bahrag in this card’s presence. To stay in the realm of reasonable balance, this only hits one monster rather than destroying all the Bohrok-Kal at once like in canon, but you can slightly emulate the use against multiple targets by resetting it from the GY once – which also makes it an efficient search target if you get two Toa Nuva effects in a turn or just aren’t playing any Kanohi Nuva.
With the threat vanquished, the Time of Troubles was finally considered over, and the Turaga called together the Matoran to celebrate and avoid legal issues honor great achievements in the grand festival of Naming Day.
Naming Day
Spell
Target 1 Warrior monster you control; Tribute it, and if you do, Special Summon 1 Level 4 or lower Warrior monster from your hand or Deck, with the same original Attribute, but a different original name and a higher original Level than the Tributed monster. You can banish this card and 1 Warrior monster from your GY, then target 1 face-up monster you control; its name is treated as the banished monster’s, until the end of your opponent’s turn. You can only activate 1 “Naming Day” per turn.
Bionicle: Protodermic Evolution (v4.8.3)
A slightly unusual card for this expansion: It’s generic Warrior support! With a somewhat narrow focus of swapping a low-Level Warrior you control for a slightly higher-Level one of the same Attribute. How truly odd that this doesn’t seem to have any application with the Matoran made so far, those are all Level 2. Oh well, at least we can turn Takua into Gen or Ken. Or Jala into Razen. Or Taipu into Morning Star. Those are all pretty amusing.
Taipu is also a good use case for the GY effect, which is a more literal take on the spirit of the name-changing holiday. Simply do a C.C. Matoran combo into a big boss monster, and then dub it a C.C. Matoran to bypass the attack restriction on Taipu’s Special Summon procedure. Though to be completely clear, this effect was written entirely under the vague idea of “surely you can do something cool with this”, with nothing more specific in mind.
Also, the art for this one was unexpectedly annoying to make, because the close-up of rebuilt Jaller and Takua from the animation wasn’t tall enough to fill a square image frame, and the more zoomed-out shot was completely different in terms of distances between the Turaga and such. AI was able to convincingly add the top half of the sun to the close-up, but also insisted on having the sky fade to an ugly gray, so I had to mask it with the specters of the two Matoran’s diminished forms floating above. Came out well enough in the end, I’d say.
And that’s all for now! See you again for the final BPEV release and a bunch of Theme Guides to come in the near-ish future. Then, finally, we can move on to the next stage – where a hidden mask shall spark a great quest …
New/Changed Sample Decks
Just a quick summary for the sake of documentation, without going in too much detail:
The Tearlament build of Mata-less Nuva got Nuva Overcharge added (you can use it if you mill it!)
The “Awake” build of Bohrok-Kal got Bohrok Silver Shield added (lore-accurate unstoppable Bahrag awakening plays!)
New “Vahi Pile” deck centered on a cute combo that goes from Psi-Reflector via Power Tool Braver Dragon into Onua Nuva with Vahi access; also featuring Exo Autonomy and Naming Day
A deck called “Exo Shadow Toa” that’s actually Centur-Ion and Fiendsmith with Exo Autonomy and Shadow Toa splashed in. Makes both high-Level Synchros and Rank 6 Xyz, but of the latter there aren’t many good options (we archetype-locked the Toa Mata ones …)
Featuring Xyz made from Fusions, Fusions made from Xyz, a Rank-Up (that also goes down?) and … Mata-less Nuva?
In the spirit of evolution, we have also evolved past the need for download links – the expansion is now available as a repository integrated with EDOPro, automatically updating in the background whenever you open the game!
To set that up, all you need is a simple edit to a config file – see here.
The one thing that doesn’t include is decks, which you can instead get from this archive. This update brings a whopping 5 new ones, so we’ll cover that in addition to the usual notes.
New Cards
Let’s start with the odd one out, the one that doesn’t relate to the overall Kaita theme of the release. A new “Nuva” Continuous Spell called Tales of the Nuva.
Tales of the Nuva
Continuous Spell
When this card is activated: You can add 1 “Energized Protodermis” card from your Deck to your hand. If a “Nuva” Spell/Trap(s) is sent from the hand and/or Deck to your GY: You can target 1 of them; Set it to your field. If your opponent activates a monster effect: You can send this card to the GY, then target 1 “Toa Nuva” monster you control or in your GY; shuffle it into the Deck, and if you do, you can Special Summon 1 “Toa Nuva” Fusion Monster with a different name from your Extra Deck. You can only use each effect of “Tales of the Nuva” once per turn.
Bionicle: Protodermic Evolution (v4.6.5)
The name and image on this one borrow from Tales of the Masks, the fourth book in the Bionicle Chronicles series, in which the Turaga tell each other stories of the Toa Nuva’s exploits while dropping Metru Nui foreshadowing left and right because it was already late 2003. We aren’t quite that far yet, however, so rather than foreshadowing, this card is motivated by two other specific aims:
Providing a Continuous Spell that isn’t a Nuva Symbol . While I do quite like the shared structure of search + major benefit + punish I put together for those, it’s proven to be a bit of an annoyance in deckbuilding – the search part makes it feel like you’re missing out if you’re not also playing the matching Toa Mata (i.e., a Level 6 Main Deck Brick), while the lore-relevant punish gives your deck a whole new weakness you really might rather avoid. But if you then decide not to play the Nuva Symbols, the half of the Kanohi Nuva that searches Continuous Spells becomes useless, which also doesn’t sit right with me. Thus the conclusion: We need a “Nuva” Continuous Spell that is not a Nuva Symbol, doesn’t require playing a Toa Mata, and doesn’t risk accidentally losing you the game!
Dabbling in designing a “custom card”, in the meaning of the term used when talking about actual Konami-published Yugioh product. That is, a support card printed a wave or two after the core of its archetype, featuring a patently ridiculous lineup of effects that resolve a bunch of outstanding issues and make a flawed deck seriously playable overnight. I figured a boost like this might be needed after the Isolde ban kneecapped my previous Toa Mata/Nuva builds (Warriors and Equip Spells!), and thematically it fits this particular card because the book it’s based on was also a late addition to the Toa Nuva vs Bohrok-Kal part of the story.
So what issues does this actually resolve? Well, on activation it searches you an Energized Protodermis card , giving you a bridge from our numerous Nuva Spell/Trap searchers into our fusion enablers – one that doesn’t need a specific Toa Mata in hand to work. While on the field, it lets you Set a Nuva Spell/Trap that was sent from the hand or Deck to the GY, offsetting the discard required by the aforementioned searches in situations where you can’t do so with a Kanohi Nuva. Finally, when your opponent does stuff, it can send itself to the GY to swap a Toa Nuva into a different one, allowing you to make better use of the toolbox offered by their various effects. And because this can also target a monster in the GY, it doubles as a way to recover after the front row of your board is broken.
Overall, the structure here is search + minor benefit + major benefit, so just from that you can tell this card is deliberately set up to be a bit ahead of the curve balance-wise. However, to keep things somewhat fair, it does have a few drawbacks the Nuva Symbols don’t suffer from: The search only works on activation, meaning you can’t get it if it’s placed via a Kanohi Nuva, and it has to remove itself to activate its major benefit, so you can’t use it turn after turn. Remember, the Toa Nuva only search when properly Fusion Summoned, so swapping them in with this won’t help you get to another copy that would let you do it again!
In those decks I tested that played both this and the Nuva Symbols, it definitely did feel like the latter were still more powerful options in many situations, so I do think I managed to hit about the powerlevel I was aiming for. The card is crazy, but not in such an all-encompassing way that it totally eclipses the other members of its design space.
One small thing of note is that the swap actually lets you target any Toa Nuva, not just Fusions. This paves the way for distant-future synergy with Phantoka and Mistika, but more immediately works with our freshly introduced Xyz Monsters: The Toa Nuva Kaita.
3 Level 8 monsters After this card was Xyz Summoned during your turn using a “Toa” monster as material, your opponent cannot activate cards or effects for the rest of that turn, except during the Main Phase 2 and End Phase. You can detach 1 material from this card; add 1 “Nuva” Spell/Trap from your Deck or GY to your hand. You can only use this effect of “Akamai, Toa Nuva Kaita of Valor” once per turn.
Bionicle: Protodermic Evolution (v4.6.5)
Great Kanohi Aki Nuva
Equip Spell
If another “Kanohi” Equip Spell becomes equipped to the equipped monster, destroy this card. If the equipped monster is a “Toa Nuva” Xyz 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. While this card is equipped to a monster: You can reveal 1 “Toa” monster in your Deck or Extra Deck, then target 1 monster you control with a Level; its Level and name become the same as the revealed monster (until the end of this turn), then destroy this card.
3 Level 8 monsters When your opponent activates a card or effect while this card has a “Toa” monster as material (Quick Effect): You can detach 1 material from this card; negate the activation, and if you do, you can banish both that card and the top card of either player’s Deck. Then, if you banished 2 different card types (Monster, Spell, Trap), draw 1 card. You can detach 1 material from this card; add 1 “Nuva” Spell/Trap from your Deck or GY to your hand. You can only use 1 “Wairuha, Toa Nuva Kaita of Wisdom” effect per turn, and only once that turn.
Bionicle: Protodermic Evolution (v4.6.5)
Great Kanohi Rua Nuva
Equip Spell
If another “Kanohi” Equip Spell becomes equipped to the equipped monster, destroy this card. If the equipped monster is a “Toa Nuva” Xyz Monster, it is unaffected by your opponent’s card effects, also your opponent must keep their hand revealed. While this card is equipped to a monster: You can add 1 “Nuva” Normal or Quick-Play Spell from your Deck to your hand, then destroy this card. You can only use this effect of “Great Kanohi Rua Nuva” once per turn.
Bionicle: Protodermic Evolution (v4.6.5)
Like all the other Toa Nuva, both of these guys share a Nuva Spell/Trap search effect – but through the power of three combined, they can even do it without discarding. Their other effects are more or less direct upgrades from their Mata counterparts, so let’s take them one at a time.
Akamai is still an OTK enabler that locks your opponent out of doing stuff in the Battle Phase, be it responding to attacks or triggering floaters. However, the Nuva incarnation covers its bases even further and applies the lock from the instant of its summon to when you’ve finished your one-sided beatdown. That means there’s no risk of getting outed before going to battle, and you can even safely make additional plays to get enough damage on board. That last part is a bit worrying because you can also do it going first and then still go for a degenerate combo that is now impossible to interrupt, but I did not manage to figure out a restriction that would prevent that without harming the intended use cases and/or being an unreadable word salad. So I’m just banking on there not being a way to make this turn 1 while still retaining resources and without offering ample opportunity for disruption before you get to that point, which seems to be true so far. Do correct me in the comments if you have a different idea, though!
Besides that, Akamai Nuva does … nothing. While his previous form also made sure to negate continuous effects of what he battles and burned upon victory, I ended up cutting these features here to stay at a nice compact 2 effects. Being able to search already offers plenty of OTK help in and of itself, because one of the targets is the Kanohi Aki Nuva, granting exclusively Toa Nuva Xyz Monsters the same benefits its base form gave to the base Kaita – more ATK, more attacks, piercing, and battle protection. And for secondary utility, it lets you disguise a monster as a Toa to help with Xyz plays.
Wairuha, meanwhile, retains his role as an omni-negate for turn 1 setup. Where the original version had its “Wisdom” component implemented as a little guessing game on a separate effect, the Nuva incarnation already gives you (a less versatile form of) the banishing reward for free with the negate, and then also a draw on the same effect if you wisely choose between the players’ decks.
Now the reason I originally split the game from the negate was that the game, by virtue of involving a draw, is vulnerable to Ash Blossom. That isn’t a weakness you typically want on a disruptive effect, but for Wairuha Nuva I found it acceptable because it’s in some way offset by the search effect. If that already eats an Ash, that’s one thing less to worry about with the negate, and if it doesn’t, it just adds the Kanohi Rua Nuva, which makes him immune to all effects including those that would negate the negate. This specific interaction is why I made the effects share a HOPT clause here, because otherwise you either let the search go through and have to deal with an omninegate Towers … or you try to stop the search, get negated, and still have to deal with an omninegate Towers. That felt like an unfun kind of interaction, so I wanted to prevent that. Might still soften that to only forbid using them in the same Chain though, or walk this back entirely – not sure yet if it makes sense to put an Xyz with a Fusion as material under the same scrutiny as famous 1-card Synchro Chixiao.
Anyway, the Rua Nuva also lets you see if anything threatening is in the hand. And for utility, it searches those Nuva cards none of the other Kanohi get and then blows itself up. Can you tell I’ve been playing Infernoble?
In general, despite being two Ranks higher, these cards are not strictly stronger than their predecessors – in fact, they do lack some specific features those had. That is because their most significant upgrade is instead in the materials line, which just says “3 Level 8 monsters” – they’re generic, though with the big caveat that their true boss effects only work with a Toa as material. Putting out 3 Toa Nuva just did not seem realistic, and if you look at actual card releases, almost all Xyz Monsters have been generic for ages. Once in a while there’s a Type restriction, but archetype ones are basically unheard of nowadays.
The implication of this is that something like a Horus deck that can easily make a Rank 8 before breakfast is now able to access the Nuva Spell/Trap lineup, and if you throw some actual Toa Nuva into the mix, even gets a nice big boss monster on top. One of our new decks covered below takes advantage of exactly this.
In those last few paragraphs, several things were casually brought up that do not fully make sense relative to the cards shown so far. Why does Akamai Nuva specify it only locks if Summoned during your turn? What does the Rua Nuva actually search if there aren’t any Nuva Normal/Quick-Play Spells? And why do the Kaita work with any Toa as material even though the Toa Nuva are the only Level 8s?
The answer to all those questions lies in the cover card of this release and the namesake of this part of the expansion: Nuva Rank-Up-Magic Protodermic Evolution.
Nuva Rank-Up-Magic Protodermic Evolution
Quick-Play Spell
During the Main Phase: Target 1 Warrior monster you control with “Toa” in its original name; Special Summon, from your Extra Deck, 1 Warrior Xyz Monster whose Rank is 2 higher than that target’s Rank or 2 lower than that target’s Level, by using it as material, and if you do, you can attach 1 other card from your hand or face-up field to the Summoned monster as material, except this card. (This is treated as an Xyz Summon. Transfer its materials to the Summoned monster.)
Bionicle: Protodermic Evolution (v4.6.5)
From the very moment I settled on the set name “Protodermic Evolution”, I was thinking “that sounds like a RUM“. And here it is, the so far one and only Nuva Quick-Play Spell, allowing you to flex your Toa into all kinds of Warrior Xyz above their Rank or below their Level. Specific use cases include:
L6 Toa Mata -> King Dempsey for a FIRE Warrior search
R8 Toa Nuva Kaita -> Utopic Dark Infinity (I don’t know why you would … but you can)
However, with apologies to the Dark Infinity stans in the audience, I may yet end up futureproofing this to only summon up to Rank 8. Just because there isn’t a crazy R10 Warrior yet doesn’t mean there’ll never be, and at that point this would be searchable access in any deck that can make 3 Level 8s.
And let’s not forget about the other side of the conflict. The Bohrok-Kal only have two cards here, but that’s enough to get them all geared up and ready to fight a Kaita battle.
“Bohrok Tahnok-Kal” + “Bohrok Nuhvok-Kal” + “Bohrok Pahrak-Kal” Must first be Fusion Summoned, or Special Summoned by Tributing the above cards you control. You can banish up to 3 “Bohrok” cards from your GY; until the end of this turn, this card gains 1000 ATK for each, also it can make up to that many attacks on monsters during each Battle Phase this turn. If this card is sent to the GY: You can target 1 “Bohrok” Xyz Monster in your GY; Special Summon it, and if you do, attach this card to it as material. You can only use each effect of “Bohrok-Kal Kaita Za” once per turn.
“Bohrok Gahlok-Kal” + “Bohrok Kohrak-Kal” + “Bohrok Lehvak-Kal” Must first be Fusion Summoned, or Special Summoned by Tributing the above cards you control. (Quick Effect): You can banish up to 3 “Bohrok” cards from your GY, then target 1 monster in either GY, or if you banished 2 or more, you can target 1 monster on the field instead; equip it to this card. If you banished 3 cards to activate this effect, your opponent cannot activate cards or effects in response. If this card is sent to the GY: You can target 1 “Bohrok” Xyz Monster in your GY; Special Summon it, and if you do, attach this card to it as material. You can only use each effect of “Bohrok-Kal Kaita Ja” once per turn.
Bionicle: Protodermic Evolution (v4.6.5)
Like their non-Kal counterparts, these are meant to deal specifically with situations that their components alone cannot handle, and use banishing from the GY as cost to go with the Fusion Spell .
Kal Kaita Za is for when all effect removal fails and you must simply unga the bunga, either to hit over something specific or to deal massive damage. Rising up to 6000 ATK, it gets even bigger than the original Kaita Za, and while it lacks the protection at full tilt, it instead doubles, nay, triples down on offense by also gaining additional attacks. I think this effect remained unchanged from the very first draft, because it arrived fully formed in my head the moment I actually built the combiner. Seriously, what else could fit “Tahnok-Kal with beefy arms” better than dealing three big hits to the face? Except I allowed the extra hits to be on monsters only, because 18k direct damage seemed just a tad too extreme.
Kal Kaita Ja has the, among Kaita, rare privilege of having its effects based on something it actually did in the story: Showing up for a few comic panels so Wairuha Nuva can job hard enough to completely erase the concept of Toa Kaita from all following installments. Accordingly, its effect is basically a combination of Gahlok- , Kohrak- , and Lehvak-Kal tuned to beat specifically Wairuha Nuva, as well as other negates and disruptive monsters. The whole thing is tied into a neat, yet still somehow really wordy modular package that lets you access more of the effect depending on how much you banish for cost. For 1, it’s GY disruption, for 2 it can also be removal, and for 3 your opponent can’t even do anything about it.
A point of distinction from the original Bohrok Kaita is that the costs on these let you banish any Bohrok card, not just monsters. This is partially to expand the recycling capabilities of Bohrok Swarm Fusion , and partially because being forced to banish your own Bohrok-Kal with these would really, really suck. You see, in addition to their situational effects on the field, the Bohrok-Kal Kaita have a floating effect that massively boosts your recursion once you get them into rotation: When sent to the GY, they bring back a Bohrok Xyz from there (not the banishment!) and attach to it as material. Now if that material gets detached, it returns to the Extra Deck, but if the Xyz as a whole leaves the field with it attached, that means the Kaita is sent to the GY and triggers again! If it’s not the same turn, anyway. I did have the presence of mind to put a HOPT on these.
I feel like I also need to say something about the fusion materials, because didn’t I mention before that getting out 3 Toa Nuva was unrealistic? Yet now we are demanding not just 3 Bohrok-Kal, but even specifically named ones? Even with a contact fusion clause, that seems quite hard to achieve, no?
Well yes, kinda. The reason we can’t make these anymore generic is that a) Fusions don’t really do generic materials (for obvious reasons) and b) Bohrok have an in-archetype fusion substitute “monster” , so not having a specific name in the materials would have been anti-synergistic. The most that could be justified is something like “X-Kal”, “Y-Kal”, or “Z-Kal” + 2 “Bohrok” Xyz Monsters, but even that’s extremely questionable.
Also, funnily enough, between contact fusions not working with substitute materials and Bohrok-Kal Strategy providing plenty of searching for the Fusion Spell while you set up your Xyz, it actually seems to be easier to make these by fusing the normal way. A surprise, but a pleasant one, because that means you can also get an extra draw while you’re at it.
Updated
A sweeping change that barely affects anything is that cards which previously said “Nuva” Fusion Monster now say “Toa Nuva” monster so as to also include the Toa Nuva Kaita. That means all the Kanohi Nuva, all the Nuva Symbols, and also Nuva Emergence for consistency (still only lets you Fusion Summon Fusion Monsters though – shocking, I know). I’m only putting up one representative for each category here, surely nobody needs more to get the idea.
If another “Kanohi” Equip Spell becomes equipped to the equipped monster, destroy this card. If the equipped monster is a “Toa Nuva” monster, it gains 1000 ATK, also if it attacks a Defense Position monster, inflict piercing battle damage. If this card is sent to the GY, and you have not activated any “Kanohi” Equip Spell effects in the GY this turn: You can banish 1 monster from your GY; place 1 “Nuva” Continuous Spell from your Deck face-up in your Spell & Trap Zone, also if you control a “Toa Nuva” monster, all monsters you currently control gain 600 ATK until the end of your opponent’s turn.
Bionicle: Protodermic Evolution (v4.6.5)
Nuva Symbol
Nuva Symbol of Burning Courage
Continuous Spell
You can shuffle this card you control into the Deck; add 1 “Toa Mata Tahu” from your Deck to your hand, or reveal it in your hand and add 1 “Energized Protodermis” card instead. You can only use this effect of “Nuva Symbol of Burning Courage” once per turn. If your “Toa Nuva” monster battles, your opponent cannot activate cards or effects until the end of the Damage Step. If this card leaves the field: Target 1 “Toa Nuva” monster you control; negate its effects, and if you do, skip the Battle Phase of your next turn.
Bionicle: Protodermic Evolution (v4.6.5)
Nuva Emergence
Nuva Emergence
Trap
Fusion Summon 1 “Toa Nuva” Fusion Monster from your Extra Deck, by shuffling the Fusion Materials listed on it into the Deck, from among your hand, GY and/or face-up banished cards. If your opponent controls a monster, you can also banish 1 monster from your Deck as Fusion Material. During the Main Phase, except the turn this card was sent to the GY: You can banish this card from your GY; add 1 “Nuva” Spell/Trap from your Deck or GY to your hand, except “Nuva Emergence”, then discard 1 card. You can only use each effect of “Nuva Emergence” once per turn.
Bionicle: Protodermic Evolution (v4.6.5)
And balanced as all things should be, the Bohrok-Kal also get a little tweak, this one just consisting of me finally finding the right wording for what I wanted the effect to do all along. Bohrok-Kal Strategy now only lets you trigger both effects at once if you do an actual proper Xyz Summon, courtesy of Progression Playoffs staple Dimension Slice.
Bohrok-Kal Strategy
Continuous Spell
When this card is activated: You can Special Summon 1 “Bohrok” monster from your hand. If a “Bohrok” monster(s) is Special Summoned to your field (except during the Damage Step): You can activate 1 of these effects, or, if the Summon is an Xyz Summon, you can activate both, in sequence; ●Target 1 other Spell/Trap on the field; destroy it. ●Add 1 “Bohrok” Spell/Trap from your Deck to your hand, except “Bohrok-Kal Strategy”. You can only use this effect of “Bohrok-Kal Strategy” once per turn.
Bionicle: Protodermic Evolution (v4.6.5)
Ever since Kalifornication got added, it bothered me a bit that I could just throw out a Bohrok-Kal on both my and the opponent’s turn to simultaneously remove backrow and search cards, even if the monster itself didn’t do anything before going back. Not to mention that Special Summoning even a poopy little Bohrok Va in the presence of a Kal would get the same crazy benefit.
Now, however, all has become as it should be. Cheating with Kalifornication only gets you one of the effects, merely summoning stuff while you have an established Bohrok-Kal only gets you one of the effects. Only good, proper overlaying of two Level 4 monsters as Astral intended gives you access to the glorious “Both” option. Or doing it with a Krana-Kal , we’re not that picky.
Not much different from previous Kal builds, except you spend two spots in the Extra Deck on the Kaita and one in the Main Deck on Bohrok Swarm Fusion . If you ever find yourself in a spot where you have two appropriate Bohrok-Kal and Strategy on the field, simply bring back a Beacon from your GY to search the Fusion Spell, and you get to enjoy all the benefits of a Kaita. Granted, in those spots you’re already winning anyway most of the time, but might as well be fancy about it.
A detail worth mentioning is that the specially tight ED space forced me to put the twoRegulus enablers as well as the King himself into the side deck this time. Going first, you can make room by taking out the Bahrag, since they only serve to accelerate your Kalifornication into established boards.
Also, regarding Kalifornication, I somehow only recently noticed a trick with it that always existed: use the effect to bring out a Bohrok-Kal, have it attach the Krana Vu-Kal , use the gained effect to banish until the End Phase … and just like magic, the part of the effect that would return it to the Extra Deck in your opponent’s End Phase fails to apply. Certainly helps with getting those Kaita materials ready.
A new possibility that opened up thanks to Tales of the Nuva alleviating the Toa Mata dependency is “Mata-less Nuva” – Toa Nuva builds that use fusion substitute monsters to stand in for all the different named materials you’d normally need. The advantage, other than removing bricky Level 6 monsters from the decklist, is that you can use the same substitute for any of the 6 Toa Nuva, so you have more freedom to choose between the options in your toolbox for a given situation. The downside is that these faux materials don’t work while in the Deck or banished, so Nuva Emergence specifically loses some versatility.
Now obviously, “put in random substitutes and hope you draw them” isn’t exactly a better use of deck space than just playing the Toa Mata, so instead I looked for a strategy that actually makes good use of those monsters already. Which of course brings us straight to notorious meta kingpin Tearlaments, where King of the Swamp has seen play quite unironically as a way to pretend Kitkallos isn’t banned. Other than that, the main synergy points are that the Toa Nuva’s on-summon searches discard as part of the effect so you can trigger Tear cards, and that milling a Kanohi Nuva, or any Nuva Spell/Trap while Tales is active, gets you something for your backrow.
Strategy-wise, the deck primarily aims for the very funny combo line where you overlay Kashtira Fenrir and Tearlaments Kashtira to get Dracossack, link the Tokens it makes into Cherubini to send King of the Swamp, link the Cherubini and something else into Sprind to send Merrli, and Fusion Summon to your heart’s content, usually for a Rulkallos. If the Dracossack stays around, Sprind doubles as an additional disruption, and if anywhere in your opening hand or many, many mills you found an extra King of the Swamp and access to Nuva Emergence, that’s all you need to also have full access to the custom half of the Extra Deck.
Now if Kitkallos actually was still around, the Energized Protodermis cards would go super crazy in here due to being hybrid Fusion Spells and materials that are also Aqua, and fusing them with a Tearlaments monster puts the the latter into the GY where it immediately triggers to fuse again. But sadly LIGHT Aqua + Tearlament does not actually make anything currently legal, and so I appear to have missed that window of opportunity. Unless there’s progress on Master Duel modding …
For a different take on the concept, I remembered that around the time Branded Fusion was first revealed, people quickly came up with the idea of sending the LIGHT and DARK Hex-Sealed Fusions as material for Albion or Lubellion, then proceeding to reuse them with those cards’ own fusion effects to make stuff like Red-Eyes Dark Dragoon. Now there’s an issue here for our purposes: Thanks to fusion substitution not working in the Deck, as well as a Konami-said-so ruling declaring that “Fallen of Albaz” cannot be impersonated when using Branded Fusion, we can’t actually get both substitutes into the GY off a single activation. But doing fancy Dragoon plays obviously removes whichever one we sent from the GY, and then it won’t substitute anymore …
So instead, you either make Mirrorjade and leave the substitute around for later, or spend it on a Granguignol that sends Muddy Mudragon to replace it. Of course, if you factor in the cards in your hand that aren’t Branded Fusion, it’s perfectly possible to also make both of those together, or one of them plus Dragoon, or maybe all three plus Nuva access – it really depends on the materials available in the specific situation.
Ultimately, to make a Toa Nuva you need both a substitute you aren’t using for anything else and some access to either Nuva Emergence or an Energized Protodermis card. Branded Fusion can provide one or the other, but for the second piece of the puzzle you’re just kind of reliant on luck, and without the ability to go through a good chunk of your Deck like the Tear build does, that means you can expect to just be playing plain old Branded a decent chunk of the time. For this reason, I consider this variant the less successful one of the two, but still, when it works it works. Finding a way to play less than 48 cards may help as well, despite what they say about 50-card Branded being “optimal”.
Some test footage of both variants can be seen in this video:
Now for the big shiny Rank-Up of the release, the first deck I attempted to put together was … this. It’s not very good, sadly. The idea was to just skip out on the Toa Nuva entirely and play classic Toa Mata, leveraging Protodermic Evolution to either access Rank 4s from a single Main Deck Toa, or the Nuva Kaita themselves from a Toa Mata Combination. In the former case, your options would be King Dempsey to get a little Warrior/FIRE Link climb going, or Raider’s Knight for big damage on turn 2 and beyond.
Unfortunately I appear to have underestimated just how little this archetype actually does without “Isolde send 6” holding it together. Or maybe I’m just still too stuck on the plays and combos I remember from back when that was allowed, even though something completely different would be needed in this new era – perhaps a blind second board-breaking approach could work?
Will have to investigate this some more before I decide what, if anything, should be done to fix the issues. In the meantime, if you have an opinion or idea, do speak up – additional viewpoints certainly don’t hurt.
So after mostly giving up on R6->R8, I started looking into the other way to reach the Nuva Kaita: Hard making them with three Level 8s. Conveniently, recent set releases have given us some dudes who easily provide the required bodies: The Horus monsters. Of them, we’re playing just enough names to overlay into what we need, a trio consisting of Imsety (of course), Hapi, and … Gesundheit. Add the King’s Sarcophagus, and surprisingly we find ourselves left with more than enough space to play a fat Nuva package of actual Toa Mata, Nuva Symbols, and even the coveted Cube . Which in turn makes our Kaita quite powerful even when made with only Horus materials, because the search then gives us whatever we were missing to enable Fusion Summons. Even better, Horus combos don’t require the Normal Summon, so if necessary we have the option to spend that on an Energized Protodermis Chamber , or bring out a Toa Mata to fuse away with Destiny .
The Rank-Up still appears in this list, and has some reasonable utility here and there. While you won’t ever Summon two Toa Mata to get into a Rank 6 you can turn into a Rank 8, what you can do is turning a lone Toa Nuva into a Rank 6, either the base Kaita or specifically Toa Mata Combination – Storm , actually still a pretty nice tool to throw a specific Toa Mata on the board in the very instant the condition for its trigger effect would be met. Better yet, the lock preventing those free monsters from being used as material just so happens to omit Fusion Summoning, so an activation of Energized Protodermis Destiny takes you straight into your next Toa Nuva. This is far from your main play, but does come up and feels quite good to pull off.
Overall, I’m super happy with how this one turned out. It lets the Nuva Kaita fully utilize their dual role as Extra Deck search cards that can also on rarer occasions act as crazy boss monsters. Usually your very consistent access to Toa Nuva, which can still very much be considered bosses in their own right, is the foremost way you take control of the game, but every once in a while you can also enjoy Wairuha as a beefy negate or Akamai as an OTK enabler, giving you a nice cherry on top of an already functional strategy.
Speaking of functional, now begins the countdown of a few months until I hope to roll up with properly functional Rahi designs. O joy.
Welcome to the final release of 2023, and the best named one to date (your mileage may vary). In addition to a series of test footage videos uploaded along the way, you can watch the latest additions as part of a (p)review video I put together to welcome the new year. It’s pretty long and contains a bunch of other stuff as well, but please do take a look if you have a few minutes to spare – it took a fair bit of time and effort to get this one out of my head into reality.
And from here, on to the design notes.
New Cards
Bohrok Kalifornication
Continuous Trap
If your opponent controls a face-up card, you can activate this card the turn it was Set, by banishing 2 “Bahrag” monsters with different names from your Extra Deck. During the Main Phase: You can send 1 “Bohrok” or “Krana” card from your hand or face-up field to the GY, then target up to 2 “Bohrok” monsters in your GY; Special Summon 1 “Bohrok” Xyz Monster from your Extra Deck, and if you do, attach the targeted monster(s) to it as material, but return it to the Extra Deck during your opponent’s End Phase. You can only use this effect of “Bohrok Kalifornication” once per turn.
Bionicle: Protodermic Evolution (v4.5.6)
Much like the previous release, this one is also themed around a Trap Card that helps the evolved forms make an appearance. For the Bohrok-Kal, it’s the Continuous Trap Bohrok Kalifornication (“Kalifornication, noun: The process of transforming a Bohrok into a Bohrok-Kal”; it’s right there in the latest version of The Dictionary, maybe they haven’t shipped it in your area yet?).
In theory, it lets you bypass the regular procedure and get an Xyz Monster every turn, though with an expiration date attached. In practice, there are two preconditions: You need an archetypal card to send as cost (including Kalifornication itself, making this the easier condition), and at least one “Bohrok” monster in the GY before paying the cost – which can be surprisingly tricky because Bohrok love going back to the Deck so much. This second condition is partially based on the idea that the Kal are released after the regular swarms have been defeated, as is the fast-track activation condition for going second that banishes Bahrag to set up a situation where they can later be awakened again. Also you can use it to dodge Imperm going first, so that’s funny.
Krana Ca-Kal, Seeker
Link Effect MonsterLink-1 [↙] | DARK Zombie | ATK 0
1 “Bohrok” or “Krana” monster Cannot be used as Link Material. Once per turn: You can target 1 Level 4 “Bohrok” monster this card points to; Special Summon from your Extra Deck 1 “Bohrok” Xyz Monster using that target as material. (This is treated as an Xyz Summon.) A “Bohrok” Xyz Monster that has this card as material gains these effects depending on the number of your “Bahrag” Monster Cards with different names that are banished or on the field. ●1+: Cannot be destroyed by battle. ●2+: Once per turn: You can draw 1 card, then discard 1 card.
Bionicle: Protodermic Evolution (v4.5.6)
I’ll get straight to the point and reveal that the aforementioned situation where the Bahrag are banished (perhaps due to a Toa Seal ?) is not just lore fluff, but actually serves a gameplay purpose. Some Krana-Kal only show their powers in the presence of sealed Bahrag, such as the Ca-Kal that serves to contact and locate them. If one of the queens has been found, the Seeker on their track can no longer be defeated through simple battle (in reference to the base Krana Ca ), and once in contact with both, it will be able to help you dig into your Deck for resources needed to complete the mission.
Krana Xa-Kal, Liberator
Link Effect MonsterLink-1 [▼] | DARK Zombie | ATK 0
1 “Bohrok” or “Krana” monster Cannot be used as Link Material. Once per turn: You can target 1 Level 4 “Bohrok” monster this card points to; Special Summon from your Extra Deck 1 “Bohrok” Xyz Monster using that target as material. (This is treated as an Xyz Summon.) A “Bohrok” Xyz Monster that has this card as material gains this effect. ●If this card inflicts battle damage to your opponent: You can place up to 2 of your banished “Bahrag” Pendulum Monsters in your Pendulum Zone(s), then you can add 1 “As It Was in the Before-Time” from your Deck or GY to your hand.
Bionicle: Protodermic Evolution (v4.5.6)
To do that, the Krana Xa-Kal must make contact with the frozen queens, making it the win condition of this particular gimmick. “Contact” is here defined as battle damage, and the “awakening” consists of placing them in the Pendulum Zones (because that works even if Kalifornication banished them directly from the Extra Deck). And to get some immediate benefit, you get to add a little Quick-Play from BBTS that, assuming you properly placed both Bahrag, either draws 2 cards or sends the entire non-Bohrok field to the GY.
As It Was in the Before-Time
Quick-Play Spell
Activate 1 of these effects; ●Target any number of “Bahrag” cards you control; destroy them, then draw 1 card for each card destroyed. ●Shuffle 2 “Bahrag” cards you control with different names into the Extra Deck; send all cards on the field to the GY, except “Bohrok” and “Krana” cards.
Bionicle: Beware the Swarm (v3.15.5)
Both of these Krana-Kal have the Xyz shortcut effect previously seen on the Vu-Kal , because that is in my opinion the strongest of the Krana-Kal utility effects and so balances the granted effects not working without a Bahrag setup. The other two types of utility effects get a new card each, too.
Krana Yo-Kal, Excavator
Link Effect MonsterLink-1 [↖] | DARK Zombie | ATK 0
1 “Bohrok” or “Krana” monster Cannot be used as Link Material. If an opponent’s monster this card points to battles a “Bohrok” monster, that opponent’s monster’s ATK/DEF become 0 during the Damage Step only. A “Bohrok” Xyz Monster that has this card as material gains this effect. ●This card can attack directly, also if it attacks, your opponent cannot activate cards or effects until the end of the Damage Step.
Bionicle: Protodermic Evolution (v4.5.6)
The Yo-Kal is the brainwashing type, which I consider the weakest because it never helps you combo. Accordingly, as material it gives a very powerful effect that lets an attacking Bohrok-Kal tunnel straight past any monsters or responses your opponent may have. If you ever get to a point where you have two Krana-Kal attached (the lore weeps), this can make for an easy way to trigger the Xa-Kal, but more realistically it’s just solid help in getting in possibly lethal damage.
Krana Bo-Kal, Visionary
Link Effect MonsterLink-1 [▶] | DARK Zombie | ATK 0
1 “Bohrok” or “Krana” monster Cannot be used as Link Material. You can Tribute this card; Special Summon 1 Level 4 “Bohrok” monster from your hand or GY in face-up or face-down Defense Position, but shuffle it into the Deck if it leaves the field. A “Bohrok” Xyz Monster that has this card as material gains this effect. ●Once per turn: You can look at all Set cards your opponent controls, also look at as many random cards in their hand as possible, up to the number of “Bohrok” monsters you control.
Bionicle: Protodermic Evolution (v4.5.6)
Finally, the Bo-Kal represents the third type previously seen only on the Ja-Kal , trading itself for a Defense Position Bohrok. This is the “mid-tier” effect that has no single massive payoff but broad utility, from flexing a face-up setup into a face-down one to recycling a Bohrok’s removal effect, or just simply getting extra material. When attached itself, it just does its Night Vision and X-Ray combination thingy to look at face-down cards and hand alike. The latter is limited by how many Bohrok are in attendance since hand knowledge is so powerful, but I’ve worded it in a slightly novel way so it automatically looks at the maximum number possible without needing two confirmation prompts on the way. You’re welcome.
Another general thing to say about Krana-Kal is that their Link-1 nature provides a fairly reliable way to set up a Kalifornication summon, since Krana on the field can be used to pay the cost as well. So any Bohrok turning into any Krana-Kal and going to the GY immediately fulfills the preconditions.
Finally, the stars of the show, the remaining three Bohrok-Kal.
2 Level 4 “Bohrok” monsters Place materials detached from this card on the bottom of the Deck, instead of sending them to the GY. Once per turn: You can attach 1 “Krana” monster from your hand, field, or GY to this card as material. At the start of the Damage Step, if this card battles: You can detach 1 material from this card, then target 1 monster your opponent controls; banish all cards they control in its column. Then, if this effect banished exactly 1 card, inflict 1200 damage to your opponent. You can only use this effect of “Bohrok Pahrak-Kal” once per turn.
Bionicle: Protodermic Evolution (v4.5.6)
Pahrak-Kal, wielder of plasma, takes until battle to fire its effect, but once it does, there goes an entire column, banished to smithereens. And if that column didn’t have much in it? Then we have enough plasma left to burn the opponent’s LP as well. Advantages on the side are that it only costs one material despite potential multi-removal (because the timing is so inconvenient) and it all happens in the Damage Step, so a wide variety of effects that may stop it simply cannot be chained at that point. None at all, in fact, if you have a Yo-Kal attached – Pahrak-Kal is on that card art for a reason.
2 Level 4 “Bohrok” monsters Place materials detached from this card on the bottom of the Deck, instead of sending them to the GY. Once per turn: You can attach 1 “Krana” monster from your hand, field, or GY to this card as material. During the Main Phase (Quick Effect): You can detach 2 materials from this card; change all other monsters on the field to Defense Position, also negate their effects until the end of this turn. You can only use this effect of “Bohrok Kohrak-Kal” once per turn.
Bionicle: Protodermic Evolution (v4.5.6)
Kohrak-Kal, certified noise machine, gives you another way to disrupt on the opponent’s turn, by unleashing a blast of sound that forces all other monsters to abandon their effects and go to defense. All monsters including your own, however, so it’s not exactly a team player. This card is actually at its strongest when you manage to make it alone against an established board that has exhausted its relevant disruptions, because then you can detach 2 to shut everything else down, attack over or into something (Defense Position means Kohrak-Kal survives no matter what), and then attach a Krana before stacking up into a Zeus that clears the field. Puts you in a pretty good position as long as you have some kind of followup.
As a brief experiment, I also took the once per turn away from this effect entirely in an intermediate version; the idea being that, should you ever stack up enough materials, being able to negate even through a response seems like a nice ability to have. This was reverted not because it turned out to be broken, but because it never actually came up within the archetype – the only fringe line that ever gets you 4 materials involves Bohrok Counterattack , which already takes care of responses by itself. So the only ones to possibly benefit would have been unrelated Rank-Up strategies or something like that, and I didn’t want to specifically support those.
2 Level 4 “Bohrok” monsters Place materials detached from this card on the bottom of the Deck, instead of sending them to the GY. (Quick Effect): You can target 1 other card you control or in either GY; attach it to this card as material. If this card has 5 or more materials: You can detach all of this card’s materials, and if you do, destroy up to that many cards your opponent controls, then you can attach 1 of those destroyed cards to this card as material. You can only use each effect of “Bohrok Lehvak-Kal” once per turn.
Bionicle: Protodermic Evolution (v4.5.6)
And finally, Lehvak-Kal … breaks the pattern. Yes, the effect to attach a Krana is here replaced by a more generic vacuum-sucking Quick Effect that works on anything on your field, or in either GY. That can be wielded as disruption against cards that like to be in the GY (and if detached, you don’t even need to put them back), to save your other monsters from targeting effects, or simply to flexibly get something like a Su-Kal in response to a destruction effect. In exchange for such a wide range of applications, the effect that actually does something to the field – the massive vacuum blast blowing away all that stands in its path – is firmly locked behind a minimum of 5 materials. That means in absence of external help, a Lehvak-Kal needs to survive a full turn cycle to actually start destroying cards, but once it does, you get to immediately start the process again by attaching one of those destroyed cards (possibly keeping something like Waking the Dragon from triggering, too).
Updated
Two simple updates on the Bohrok side.
Bohrok-Kal Strategy
Continuous Spell
When this card is activated: You can Special Summon 1 “Bohrok” monster from your hand. If a “Bohrok” monster(s) is Special Summoned to your field (except during the Damage Step): You can activate 1 of these effects, or, if you control a “Bohrok” Xyz Monster, you can activate both, in sequence; ●Target 1 other Spell/Trap on the field; destroy it. ●Add 1 “Bohrok” Spell/Trap from your Deck to your hand, except “Bohrok-Kal Strategy”. You can only use this effect of “Bohrok-Kal Strategy” once per turn.
Bionicle: Protodermic Evolution (v4.5.6)
Bohrok-Kal Strategy previously was intentionally designed so you could only activate 1 copy per turn, but use the effects of as many as you want once you have them. The addition of an additional good search target that also lets you Xyz Summon on the opponent’s turn made it quite apparent that this has potential to get horrendously out of hand, so now it’s a regular old HOPT. The flipside is that the activation limit has been lifted, so you can get multiple Bohrok out of (your) hand in a turn instead. Solves some specific bricks that can theoretically happen.
FLIP: Special Summon 1 Level 4 “Bohrok” monster from your Deck in face-down Defense Position, except “Bohrok Gahlok”. Once per turn: You can activate the following effect, based on the type of card on top of your opponent’s GY. During the End Phase of the turn you activated this effect, shuffle this face-up card into the Deck. ●Monster: Target 1 card your opponent controls; destroy that target. ●Spell: Negate the effects of 1 face-up monster your opponent controls, until the end of this turn. ●Trap: Banish 1 random card from your opponent’s hand, until the End Phase.
Bionicle: Beware the Swarm (v4.5.6)
The base Gahlok has been a thorn in my eye since I made the first Bohrok-Kal deck and realized the Bohrok with delayed shuffling cost on their effects are really convenient because you can use them as material after firing them. Their weaker removal effects generally balanced this out, except for the Gahlok: Its drawback should be that it only gets to destroy when a monster is on top of the opponent’s GY and does other things otherwise, but those “other things” were so overtuned that it was generally the best Bohrok effect in almost any situation. Now the Spell option only negates a monster’s effects but doesn’t take away its ATK (we have Krana for that anyway), and the Trap option doesn’t permanently handrip (with actual handtraps in the game, it was possible to do this turn 1 and its a soft once per turn, so obviously a big no-no).
I believe with these changes, all the Bohrok are finally properly balanced for their respective type of cost. Even in the material-hungry Kal builds, something like a Lehvak now feels like a justifiable inclusion for the reliable removal it offers, which is about where I want to be.
And for my closing words, I will note that the roadmap for the coming year has been released – mostly covering the same things as the new video (but in much less detail and special effects, seriously, watch it).
After the Toa, it is now the Bohrok Swarms’ turn to undergo their (non-)Protodermic Evolution. Presenting the first wave of Bohrok-Kal, plus some related support cards.
As a reminder, the Bohrok were introduced in BBTS as an archetype of Flip monsters with massive potential for swarming and removal, mainly shackled by the fact that there’s inherently a turn of delay in starting a Flip-based engine. The Kal extension tries to cover for this weakness by providing an alternative gameplan to establish turn 1 disruption or deal with established boards turn 2, by means of Rank 4 Bohrok-Kal and Link-1 Krana-Kal.
But before we get into the additions to those Extra Deck groups, here are some new Main Deck cards to help as well.
Bohrok-Kal Strategy
Continuous Spell
When this card is activated: You can Special Summon 1 “Bohrok” monster from your hand. Once per turn, if a “Bohrok” monster(s) is Special Summoned to your field (except during the Damage Step): You can activate 1 of these effects, or, if you control a “Bohrok” Xyz Monster, you can activate both, in sequence; ●Target 1 other Spell/Trap on the field; destroy it. ●Add 1 “Bohrok” Spell/Trap from your Deck to your hand, except “Bohrok-Kal Strategy”. You can only activate 1 “Bohrok-Kal Strategy” per turn.
Bionicle: Protodermic Evolution (v4.3.3)
Bohrok-Kal Strategy is perhaps the key piece for consistent combos on your first turn, bringing out a Bohrok from hand when first activated and then immediately triggering off that Summon to either destroy a Spell/Trap or search an archetypal one – or both if you have a Bohrok-Kal out. The first of these options is purely lore, referencing the Kal’s theft of the Nuva Symbols (which are here Continuous Spells with negative effects when destroyed), while the latter is purely utility, letting you find essential Bohrok support cards without spending too much deck space that they really need for monsters.
One of the best search targets is the newly added Counter Trap, Bohrok Counterattack (yes, the new Battlin’ Boxer card can technically search this too).
Bohrok Counterattack
Counter Trap
When your opponent activates a Spell/Trap Card, or monster effect, while you control a “Bohrok” monster or only face-down monsters (min. 1): Send 1 “Krana” monster from your Deck or Extra Deck to the GY; negate the activation, and if you do, you can attach that card to 1 “Bohrok” Xyz Monster you control as material.
Bionicle: Protodermic Evolution (v4.3.3)
This one represents the most straightforward form of the turn 1 disruption I’m trying to add – just a classic omni-negate that can be used both to protect your dormant Bohrok waiting to flip and to back up the swarms in action. Note that it does not destroy what it negates, so unless you have a Bohrok-Kal to attach to, this will let your opponent keep their monsters and continuous cards. Would be a bit too good otherwise, given its fairly low requirements and lack of HOPT.
Now for the stars of the show: Two more Bohrok-Kal join Gahlok-Kal to complete half of the team already.
2 Level 4 “Bohrok” monsters Place materials detached from this card on the bottom of the Deck, instead of sending them to the GY. Once per turn: You can attach 1 “Krana” monster from your hand, field, or GY to this card as material. (Quick Effect): You can detach 1 material from this card, then target 1 face-up monster your opponent controls; it cannot attack or activate its effects this turn, also you can detach 1 more material from this card, and if you do, destroy all monsters your opponent controls with less than 2000 ATK. You can only use this effect of “Bohrok Tahnok-Kal” once per turn.
Bionicle: Protodermic Evolution (v4.3.3)
Tahnok-Kal, just like its base form, offers monster destruction as a Quick Effect, but looking at official media makes it quite clear that its electric powers were actually not really used for destructive purposes as much as to stun its enemies. At the same time, I can’t in good conscience make the Lightning Bohrok-Kal not have some kind of built-in Raigeki, so here’s the compromise I ended up with: Detach 1 to stun a target monster for the turn, and then on resolution, you can detach another to blow up all of your opponent’s monsters below the 2000 ATK “Toa threshold”. This is also an extra balancing factor on this very powerful effect for a Rank 4, since it means removing it from the field before it resolves will stop the destruction.
2 Level 4 “Bohrok” monsters Place materials detached from this card on the bottom of the Deck, instead of sending them to the GY. Once per turn: You can attach 1 “Krana” monster from your hand, field, or GY to this card as material. You can detach 2 or more materials from this card, then choose that many Main Monster Zones and/or Spell & Trap Zones on the field; return as many cards in those zones to the hand as possible, also those unused zones cannot be used until your next Standby Phase. You can only use this effect of “Bohrok Nuhvok-Kal” once per turn.
Bionicle: Protodermic Evolution (v4.3.3)
Nuhvok-Kal, in contrast, is slow, but armed with Gravity powers that are hard to resist and cover a wide range. I thought through a few concepts for this, but the one that won out is just a mass bounce (“floating” cards up off the field) limited only by material count that also locks zones in reference to base Nuhvok (“crushing” the land with supergravity). I kind of wanted to have something with flipping face-down in there as well, but couldn’t quite make it worthwile on a “slow” ignition effect. Fun Fact: This one can be really rude against Pendulum decks in particular.
Test footage of these two new bosses can be found in the below demo videos I posted earlier this month.
Thunderbolt and Lightning
Gravitation
The Krana-Kal have also been brought up to half-completion, but in their case that means 3 rather than 2 new ones, for a total of 4 (out of 8).
Krana Vu-Kal, Transporter
Link Effect MonsterLink-1 [↘] | DARK Zombie | ATK 0
1 “Bohrok” or “Krana” monster Cannot be used as Link Material. Once per turn: You can target 1 Level 4 “Bohrok” monster this card points to; Special Summon from your Extra Deck 1 “Bohrok” Xyz Monster using that target as material. (This is treated as an Xyz Summon.) A “Bohrok” Xyz Monster that has this card as material gains this effect. ●Once per turn (Quick Effect): You can banish this card until the End Phase, and if you do, you can add 1 “Bohrok” card from your GY to your hand.
Bionicle: Protodermic Evolution (v4.3.3)
The Vu-Kal grants flight like its base version, but also enhanced speed, so rather than “dodge” things with targeting protection, it more literally lets its Bohrok-Kal dodge instantly off the field, optionally recycling a card in the process to live up to its name of “Transporter”. As a downwards-pointing Krana-Kal, its utility effect provides a way to Xyz Summon with only a single Level 4 Bohrok, which can then attach the Link Monster as its second material. This card is part of my current preferred turn 1 play, where I use it to make a Tahnok-Kal that can, on the opponent’s turn, activate the banish effect in chain before its own Quick Effect, letting you detach both materials to blow up the field while still getting a card back with the effect granted by the Vu-Kal.
Krana Su-Kal, Demolisher
Link Effect MonsterLink-1 [▲] | DARK Zombie | ATK 0
1 “Bohrok” or “Krana” monster Cannot be used as Link Material. If an opponent’s monster this card points to battles a “Bohrok” monster, that opponent’s monster’s ATK/DEF become 0 during the Damage Step only. A “Bohrok” Xyz Monster that has this card as material gains this effect. ●This card gains 800 ATK/DEF and cannot be destroyed by card effects.
Bionicle: Protodermic Evolution (v4.3.3)
The upwards-pointing Krana-Kal, such as the Su-Kal, bring back a possibly familiar effect previously seen on the Servants of the Swarm, some technically-not-Bohrok (and thus kind of unplayable) cards from BBTS. A monster they point to will be brainwashed into voluntarily surrendering to the Bohrok in battle, setting its stats to 0 so it can easily be hit over. All of this is continuous, so it can out a gargantuan range of threats, assuming you can safely get it and a Bohrok to the Battle Phase. The actual power granted to a Bohrok-Kal using this Krana-Kal is as simple as it gets: Super strength (+800 ATK/DEF) and resistance to heat and cold (effect destruction protection).
Krana Za-Kal, Overseer
Link Effect MonsterLink-1 [↗] | DARK Zombie | ATK 0
1 “Bohrok” or “Krana” monster Cannot be used as Link Material. If an opponent’s monster this card points to battles a “Bohrok” monster, that opponent’s monster’s ATK/DEF become 0 during the Damage Step only. A “Bohrok” Xyz Monster that has this card as material gains this effect. ●Once per turn, when a card or effect is activated that would destroy a “Bohrok” card(s) you control (Quick Effect): You can detach 1 material from this card; negate the activation, and if you do, destroy that card.
Bionicle: Protodermic Evolution (v4.3.3)
The Za-Kal has the same on-field utility effect and grants the power of telepathy, which turns Bohrok-Kal into budget Stardust Dragons. Sounds strange, but the background to that is that the original Krana Za allowed you to protect a Bohrok from destruction by shuffling back another monster, to represent the squad coordination it enables. Now plain old protection would have been redundant when the Su-Kal does that and more, so instead it shuts down destructive effects against all your Bohrok by detaching (and thereby shuffling back) an Xyz Material. This is a little less convenient than it sounds because it requires the effect to be one that would destroy a card from the archetype, so you won’t be able to chain it to anything that could theoretically be resolved in such a way that it only destroys unrelated cards (e.g. the average DPE activation).
Updated
The updates this time are simple, just refining the first drafts of the Bohrok support a bit now that I’ve worked my way deeper into it.
2 Level 4 “Bohrok” monsters Place materials detached from this card on the bottom of the Deck, instead of sending them to the GY. Once per turn: You can attach 1 “Krana” monster from your hand, field, or GY to this card as material. At the start of the Battle Phase: You can detach 1 material from this card, then target 1 face-up monster on the field; that target cannot attack until the end of the next turn, also you can equip 1 other monster on the field to it. You can only use this effect of “Bohrok Gahlok-Kal” once per turn.
2 Level 4 “Bohrok” monsters Place materials detached from this card on the bottom of the Deck, instead of sending them to the GY. Once per turn: You can attach 1 “Krana” monster from your hand, field, or GY to this card as material. At the start of the Battle Phase: You can detach 1 material from this card, then target 1 face-up monster on the field; that target cannot attack until the end of your turn, also you can equip 1 monster adjacent to it or in its column to it. You can only use this effect of “Bohrok Gahlok-Kal” once per turn.
Bionicle: Protodermic Evolution (v4.3.3)
As I said the moment it was first released, it’s just thematically super neat to have the range of Gahlok-Kal‘s “magnetism” limited to adjacent zones or the same column, so I ended up doing just that. And sure enough, it made zero difference in testing, partially because AI doesn’t understand how to play around things and partially because I can always just put a monster in the column myself. Oh yeah, and the attack restriction now always lasts until your End Phase only, so you can’t block an opponent’s monster by targeting it on your turn. This way it’s more of a downside to targeting something on your own field than additional benefit for an already powerful removal effect.
Link Effect MonsterLink-1 [◀] | DARK Zombie | ATK 0
1 “Bohrok” or “Krana” monster Cannot be used as Link Material. You can Tribute this card; Special Summon 1 Level 4 “Bohrok” monster from your hand or GY, but shuffle it into the Deck if it leaves the field. A “Bohrok” Xyz Monster that has this card as material gains this effect. ●Once per turn: You can detach 1 material from this card, then declare 1 card name; your opponent cannot activate cards, or the effects of cards, with that original name, until the end of their turn.
Bionicle: Protodermic Evolution (v4.0.4)
4.3.3
Krana Ja-Kal, Tracker
Link Effect MonsterLink-1 [◀] | DARK Zombie | ATK 0
1 “Bohrok” or “Krana” monster Cannot be used as Link Material. You can Tribute this card; Special Summon 1 Level 4 “Bohrok” monster from your hand or GY in face-up or face-down Defense Position, but shuffle it into the Deck if it leaves the field. A “Bohrok” Xyz Monster that has this card as material gains this effect. ●Once per turn: You can declare 1 card name; until the end of your opponent’s turn, “Bohrok” cards and Set cards you control are unaffected by the effects of cards with that original name.
Bionicle: Protodermic Evolution (v4.3.3)
For the Ja-Kal, both effects got some significant changes. First, the tag-out was buffed to also allow Special Summoning in face-down Defense Position, so you can use it as a way to prepare the Flip engine without needing to commit an actual Set action to it. This is, for example, relevant when using Bohrok-Kal Strategy, since activating it, Special Summoning a Bohrok, searching a Spell/Trap, and then using Ja-Kal to put that Bohrok face-down leaves you in a significantly better spot than just setting the monster right away.
The effect to block a card by declaring its name did always feel a bit too oppressive, so I ended up nerfing that part by bringing it more in line with the original Krana Ja and just granting your Bohrok (and face-down) cards immunity to the declared name instead. In exchange, it’s now free, so you can keep the materials attached for more important purposes.
A deck update, rather than a card update, was forced from me by Konami’s ruthless (but honestly deserved) banning of Spright Elf, thus rendering the last version’s Toa Nuva deck illegal. Due to the strict collective HOPT on all the Kanohi Nuva, conducting a Fusion Summon on the opponent’s turn is kind of super important if you want to use your resources optimally, so I needed something that could replace Elf’s role in setting that up. A card that can bring back Energized Protodermis Chamber as a Quick Effect, while also being consistently accessible through the basic Isolde combo. And I can proudly report that I have found it.
https://www.duelingbook.com/deck?id=12178919
In fact, it wasn’t very far from the Elf-shaped hole in the decklist at all: Within the same archetype, there’s Spright Double Cross, a Trap with multiple effects including GY revival, searchable by Spright Jet and therefore via Gigantic Spright, which can be made in the standard combo line after the first Toa Nuva by overlaying Isolde with a leftover C.C. Matoran (we play Hafu now to ensure the latter is available). Gigantic Summons Jet and Jet adds Double Cross, and if you further link those two into I:P Masquerena, you even get an additional way to interact for your trouble.
Now of course, with Hafu, Jet and Double Cross, that means three extra bricks we need to run, and after all is said and done this only works once, unlike Elf’s infinite revival forever and ever. The deck’s definitely worse now that it has lost one of its central pieces, but I’m also kind of glad it happened because it reminded me that it probably isn’t a good idea to make all the recursion dependent on some external card. That’s why the next update will contain, in addition to the remaining Toa Nuva, a card that provides this functionality in-archetype. Probably. More or less. We’ll see how it turns out.
For the first time in the history of this site, we are entering a fresh new expansion, and that means a whole lot of new cards and archetypes to explore! As the first step, here’s a bit of everything, to give you an idea what’s in store.
If only your opponent controls a monster, you can Special Summon this card (from your hand). If this card is Normal or Special Summoned (except during the Damage Step): You can Fusion Summon 1 Fusion Monster from your Extra Deck using this card and 1 monster in your hand as material. If this card is used as material for a Fusion Summon, except by its own effect: Target 1 monster on the field; send it to the GY. You can only use this effect of “Energized Protodermis Chamber” once per turn.
Bionicle: Protodermic Evolution (v4.0.4)
First off, we have the substance that gives the expansion its name: Energized Protodermis. Contact with this sapient liquid transforms those who are destined to, and destroys those who are not. Similarly, its first representation as a card is a monster that acts as Fusion Spell and material in one, but will exhibit potent destructive properties when used for a Fusion by any other effect. That second part is mandatory and thus cannot be avoided, but since you can choose to aim it at any monster on the field, it might just end up beneficial anyway. On top of all that, you can bring this out without spending your Normal Summon if only your opponent controls a monster, because to be quite honest the playability of the entire Toa Nuva archetype hinges on this card and I really need it to be as convenient as possible.
For the broader Energized Protodermis archetype, which will be the focus of the next release, I have the following things in mind – spread across some number of cards:
A search spell (that maybe Special Summons from Deck directly at some significant cost?)
A way to fuse with a monster on the field rather than one in hand
A way to fuse with monsters in the GY (maybe)
A Fusion of 2 “Energized Protodermis” monsters that does something valuable on turn 1 when sent from field to GY, so you have another way to weaponize the drawback in a “pure” Energized Protodermis strategy
“Toa Mata Onua” + 1 “Energized Protodermis” monster If this card is Fusion Summoned: You can add 1 “Nuva” Spell/Trap from your Deck or GY to your hand, then discard 1 card. During the Main Phase (Quick Effect): You can target 1 card in either GY; place it on the top or bottom of the Deck, then gain 1000 LP. You can only use each effect of “Toa Nuva Onua” once per turn.
Bionicle: Protodermic Evolution (v4.0.4)
The primary output of transformations induced by Energized Protodermis are the Toa Nuva, the evolution of the Toa Mata from BCOT. Simply enough, they are Fusions of a specific Toa Mata each and some Energized Protodermis, and their main effects are more or less the same thing they had in their previous forms – for Onua, that means simply returning a card from either GY to the Deck and gaining some LP. However, while the Toa Mata had the intentional inconvenience of only being able to use their effects when specific events happen, the Toa Nuva can do so freely on either player’s turn, allowing you to get a whole lot more value.
Separate from that, they are also planned to all share the effect where they can search a “Nuva” Spell/Trap on Fusion Summon (and then discard a card so you don’t go +1, because even with HOPT there’s going to be six of these available!). This serves to ensure consistent access to some major cards that further power up the Toa from the backrow, first and foremost the Nuva Symbols containing their elemental powers.
Nuva Symbol of Deep Wisdom
Continuous Spell
You can only control 1 “Nuva Symbol of Deep Wisdom”. You can place this card you control on the bottom of the Deck; add 1 “Energized Protodermis” card or “Toa Mata Onua” from your Deck to your hand. You can only use this effect of “Nuva Symbol of Deep Wisdom” once per turn. Once per turn, if a “Nuva” Fusion Monster you control activates its effect while you control “Toa Nuva Onua”: You can pay 1000 LP; draw 1 card. If this card leaves the field: Target 1 “Toa Nuva Onua” you control; negate its effects, and if you do, banish 1 card from your hand face-down.
Bionicle: Protodermic Evolution (v4.0.4)
Each Toa Nuva has one of these, and they all follow a simple structure of three effects:
Return it to the Deck to search one of the corresponding Toa Nuva’s materials, for when you’re still setting up. Once again, there are going to be six of these when all is said and done, so I’m not sure allowing the search targets to freely include any “Energized Protodermis” card is really the best idea – I just haven’t come up with a good limitation that fits inside a reasonable wordcount yet.
Provides some additional benefit to all your Toa Nuva if you control the right one. In this case, controlling Onua Nuva lets you pay LP (the exact amount you get from his own effect, by the way) for a draw, which means putting any card from your GY on top of your Deck becomes adding that card to your hand.
If it leaves the field, the matching Toa Nuva’s powers will also be lost entirely, and if that happens, you suffer a punishment opposite the benefit you gain from the Symbol, in this case losing a card in your hand.
Now #3 has some interesting mechanical details to consider. First of all, the latest ruling is that “leaves the field” effects do not trigger if the card returns to the Deck, which means you could theoretically take advantage of the cost of #1 to remove the Nuva Symbol from the field before it becomes a liability. Also, the effect targets the Toa Nuva whose powers are about to be lost and will only reach the “punishment” part if that exact target actually has its effects negated, so if something were to remove it from the field before resolution, you’d dodge the drawback entirely. Even better if that something would then return the Toa Nuva to the field, and hell, why not add the Nuva Symbol back to your hand as well while we’re at it? Yes, if only something like that existed.
The End of the Swarm
Quick-Play Spell
If you control a “Toa” monster: Activate 1 of these effects; ●Target 1 Level 8 or higher monster you control; banish that target. During the End Phase of this turn, return that banished monster to the field, and if you do, you can add 1 Continuous Spell Card from your GY to your hand. ●Change face-up monsters your opponent controls to face-down Defense Position, up to the number of Level 8 or higher monsters you control. A monster changed to face-down Defense Position by this effect cannot change its battle position, also, if it is attacked, send it to the GY at the start of the Damage Step, then inflict 1000 damage to your opponent.
Bionicle: Beware the Swarm (v3.15.5)
Anyway, having followed up on that bit of foreshadowing from 2.5 years ago, time to move on to the next group of “Nuva” Spell/Traps: The Kanohi Nuva.
Great Kanohi Pakari Nuva
Equip Spell
If another “Kanohi” Equip Spell becomes equipped to the equipped monster, destroy this card. If this card is sent to the GY: You can banish 1 monster from your GY; place 1 “Nuva” Continuous Spell from your Deck face-up in your Spell & Trap Zone. You can only use this effect of “Great Kanohi Pakari Nuva” once per turn. While equipped to a “Nuva” Fusion Monster, this card gains these effects. ●The equipped monster gains 1000 ATK, also if it attacks a Defense Position monster, inflict piercing battle damage. ●Once per turn: You can make all monsters you currently control gain 500 ATK, until the end of your opponent’s turn.
Bionicle: Protodermic Evolution (v4.0.4)
Just like the Toa Mata evolved, so did their masks, and while their powers are now usable only by the Toa Nuva, they also come with the fantastic ability to share those powers with allies, including those that cannot use Kanohi at all. So the Pakari Nuva does what the Pakari did, but on top of that lets you grant a similar buff to your whole field for a limited time. It also retains the part where it can banish a monster from your GY to search something when sent there, but instead of a specific Toa Mata it lets you get a Nuva Symbol … which can then search a specific Toa Mata, so from a consistency perspective the Kanohi Nuva do decently well replacing regular Kanohi in a Toa Mata/Nuva deck. They also fall under the category of “Nuva” Spells/Traps, so if you use a Toa Nuva’s on-summon effect to search a Kanohi Nuva and then discard it, you can get the Nuva Symbol at the cost of your GY instead of your hand.
One aspect I’m a bit unsure about, and this applies to the Nuva Symbols as well, is identifying the Toa Nuva as “Nuva” Fusion Monsters. I kind of want to avoid making “Toa Nuva” a proper archetype because that’s awkward to implement when both “Toa” and “Nuva” are independent archetypes as well, but I foresee the current solution causing some false positives down the line. For one thing, just “Nuva” monsters in general is right out because Takanuva is also around the corner, and despite the name that guy sure shouldn’t be able to use Kanohi Nuva. And even with the extra requirement of being Fusions, there’s still Takutanuva, a result of Energized Protodermis transformation and literal Fusion of two beings that most certainly does have “nuva” in the name despite not being a Toa Nuva. So yeah, this part is probably just going to change to “Toa Nuva” unless I find a more elegant trick to use.
The most interesting application of Energized Protodermis and Toa Nuva (in so far they already exist) I’ve thought up at this point is a little pile deck I have chosen to dub Protodermically Energized Nuva Invoked Shaddoll, for … reasons.
I’ll wait until the Toa Nuva have more than one member to make a full theory post on this one, but the basic idea is that Shaddoll Fusion can potentially use Energized Protodermis Chamber in the Deck as material for El Shaddoll Construct, while Invocation can use it in the GY to make Invoked Mechaba. In both cases, you trigger the effect that sends a monster from the field to the GY while not actually spending much of your own resources, so it’s an extremely strong play going second. Oh, and sometimes you draw Onua and can make Onua Nuva as an alternate form of interaction.
2 Level 4 “Bohrok” monsters Place materials detached from this card on the bottom of the Deck, instead of sending them to the GY. Once per turn: You can attach 1 “Krana” monster from your hand, field, or GY to this card as material. At the start of the Battle Phase: You can detach 1 material from this card, then target 1 face-up monster on the field; that target cannot attack until the end of the next turn, also you can equip 1 other monster on the field to it. You can only use this effect of “Bohrok Gahlok-Kal” once per turn.
Bionicle: Protodermic Evolution (v4.0.4)
Meanwhile, on the other end of the conflict, the Bohrok swarms send their own evolved forces into the fray, in the form of the six Bohrok-Kal. These elite units introduce Xyz to the colorful Extra Deck options available to the swarms, and befitting their role as a last resort released after the invasion is stopped, their effects are meant to improve the deck’s performance against established boards. A peculiar design element they have in common is that their detached materials return to the Deck, which keeps the infinite recursion of the Bohrok fueled. It also ensures that the second shared effect, using Krana from almost anywhere including the GY as additional materials, does not get too out of hand, since detaching the Krana will take it out of circulation this way.
Their first implemented member, Gahlok-Kal, boasts magnetic powers that can root other beings to the ground or make them stick to each other to take them out of the fight. This translates to an extremely versatile effect that can not only stop a monster from attacking, but also serve as unique and powerful removal by non-targetingly equipping any other monster on the field to its initial target. This is a lot of power to get out of just one material and is therefore limited to the start of the Battle Phase, but I’m also considering making it so you can only equip monsters in the zones adjacent to or in the same column as the target. That would serve as a pretty neat representation of limited magnetism range, encourage clever counterplay through zone management, and wouldn’t actually restrict your removal options all that much since you can always put your own monster in the right column if needed (though it won’t be able to attack, which is a fair tradeoff).
Elite Bohrok require elite Krana, and so we get to the other new Extra Deck lineup, the Krana-Kal.
Krana Ja-Kal, Tracker
Link Effect MonsterLink-1 [◀] | DARK Zombie | ATK 0
1 “Bohrok” or “Krana” monster Cannot be used as Link Material. You can Tribute this card; Special Summon 1 Level 4 “Bohrok” monster from your hand or GY, but shuffle it into the Deck if it leaves the field. A “Bohrok” Xyz Monster that has this card as material gains this effect. ●Once per turn: You can detach 1 material from this card, then declare 1 card name; your opponent cannot activate cards, or the effects of cards, with that original name, until the end of their turn.
Bionicle: Protodermic Evolution (v4.0.4)
These Link-1 monsters come in the same 8 flavours as the regular Krana and can be made not only with those, but also with any Bohrok monster – though they themselves cannot be Link Material, so no switching from one Krana-Kal into another. Their first effect varies depending on where the arrow is pointing, with the one on the left-pointing Ja-Kal allowing you to tag it out for any Level 4 Bohrok in your hand or GY. This has no once per turn at all, and combined with the non-HOPT removal effects on the Bohrok that also leave them on the field in some cases, it may be very, very abusable. But if it is, I’d really like to see it because it sounds fun, so for now I’ll keep it this way. Making a loop here is at least not entirely trivial, since shuffling the monster back when it leaves the field means the line Ja-Kal -> Bohrok -> Ja-Kal already leaves one less Bohrok in your hand or GY. Maybe the shuffle should even be a banish, since returning Bohrok to Deck does refuel the engine and can be seen as kinda beneficial.
The actual Krana powers are represented by effects granted to Bohrok Xyz Monsters (i.e., Bohrok-Kal) while attached as material. The Ja-Kal offers sensory powers similar to the plain Krana Ja, which had the ability to neutralize visible threats during the turn following its activation. In its enhanced Kal form, it can even “sniff out” threats that are not yet directly visible and shuts them off from the moment it resolves until the end of the next turn, though it’s limited to focusing on a single target since it’s a “Tracker”. Sometimes in testing it does feel like in-archetype Psi-Blocker is a bit broken, but my testing is also against AI that is both predictable and has no concept of playing around locks on specific combo pieces, so I’m guessing it would be fine in a more realistic setting.
Since both new cards for the Bohrok live in the Extra Deck, you can pretty much play them as before, just with some additional options, as seen in the following short video.
Gahlok-Kal demo
Also notable is the use of a Special Summoned Bohrok Va to get a second Level 4 Bohrok via the Krana Ja-Kal, which is how you can make Xyz plays quickly without needing to wait for Flip effects to go off.
Updated
For the updates, I decided to improve the Bohrok’s general playability by fixing two frustrating restrictions found on cards from BBTS.
Once per turn (Quick Effect): You can target 1 Level 4 or higher “Bohrok” monster you control; equip this card from your hand to that target. While this card is equipped to a “Bohrok” monster, the first time a “Bohrok” monster you control would be destroyed by battle each turn, it is not destroyed. During your Main Phase 1: You can return this card you control to the hand; Special Summon 1 Level 4 “Bohrok” monster from your Deck in face-up Attack Position, then it becomes the End Phase of this turn.
Once per turn (Quick Effect): You can target 1 Level 4 or higher “Bohrok” monster you control; equip this card from your hand to that target. While this card is equipped to a “Bohrok” monster, the first time a “Bohrok” monster you control would be destroyed by battle each turn, it is not destroyed. You can return this Normal Summoned/Set card to the hand; Special Summon 1 Level 4 “Bohrok” monster from your Deck in face-up Attack Position, but it cannot attack or activate its effects this turn.
Bionicle: Beware the Swarm (v4.0.4)
First is the shared last effect of the Krana Xa, Yo, Ca, and Ja – here represented by the Ca because it’s probably the simplest. Previously, these cards operated like Cardcar D in that they would replace themselves with a Bohrok from your Deck and then immediately end your turn, ensuring that you could neither use the summon from Deck for any crazy combos nor somehow abuse the lack of OPT to spam infinite Bohrok. The general idea behind the effect was that it should help consistency by giving you access to a Bohrok even if you drew too many Krana, but in practice, doing that and then ending the turn was basically no better than doing nothing at all.
Under the new restrictions, the turn continues, but the Bohrok you bring out is mostly unable to do anything for its duration – except be used as material, which opens up at least some lines of play, especially factoring in the new Krana-Kal and Bohrok-Kal. Additionally, the Krana now cannot access this effect if it was Special Summoned itself, which should quite effectively limit it to something you can do only once or maybe twice per turn, outside scenarios where you can somehow perform an obscene amount of Normal Summons (in which case there’s way more broken stuff you could do anyway).
Target 1 face-down Defense Position monster you control; change that target to face-up Attack Position. If there are no face-up monsters on the field, you can activate this card from your hand. During your Main Phase, except the turn this card was sent to the GY: You can Special Summon this card from your GY as an Effect Monster (Machine/DARK/Level 4/ATK 1400/DEF 1400), but banish it when it leaves the field. (This card is NOT treated as a Trap.) If Summoned this way, this card can be used as a substitute for any 1 Fusion Material whose name is specifically listed on a “Bohrok” Fusion Monster, but the other Fusion Material(s) must be correct. You can only use this effect of “Premature Bohrok Beacon” once per turn.
Bionicle: Beware the Swarm (v3.15.5)
4.0.4
Premature Bohrok Beacon
Trap
Target 1 face-down Defense Position monster you control; change that target to face-up Attack Position. If you control no face-up monsters, you can activate this card from your hand. During your Main Phase, except the turn this card was sent to the GY: You can Special Summon this card from your GY as an Effect Monster (Machine/DARK/Level 4/ATK 1400/DEF 1400), but banish it when it leaves the field. (This card is NOT treated as a Trap.) If Summoned this way, this card can be used as a substitute for any 1 Fusion Material whose name is specifically listed on a “Bohrok” Fusion Monster, but the other Fusion Material(s) must be correct. You can only use this effect of “Premature Bohrok Beacon” once per turn.
Bionicle: Beware the Swarm (v4.0.4)
The other change is to Premature Bohrok Beacon, and it’s really quite simple: Instead of being able to activate it from hand “If there are no face-up monsters on the field”, you can now do so “If you control no face-up monsters”. Because being mostly unusable when you go second was a really annoying weakness in an archetype that already struggles in that scenario, being composed of Flip Monsters and all. I originally did it that way because I was worried there might be something broken about just having a fast effect you can activate from hand to flip any face-down monster, not just Bohrok, face-up, but now we have Sol and Luna, which is just that exact effect with upsides specifically when your opponent controls face-up monsters. So clearly there’s no need to hold back after all.
Site Updates
Really minor thing, but we have a Card of the Day visible in the sidebar and on the linked page now. It automatically switches to a different random card each day (using a hash of the date modulo the number of cards, if anyone cares), so now there’s some dynamic content between the occasional updates.
