Silent Swordsman from Duelist Pack: Rivals of the Pharaoh is a new twist on a classic card from the final Duel of the original Yu-Gi-Oh! series. It was originally an “LV” monster but has since discarded that label and is now a threat that just about any strategy with easy access to Warriors can use. Silent Swordsman can’t hit the table unless you tribute a Warrior to Special Summon it, and while it might not have the highest set of stats, it definitely packs a punch with its effects.

Any type of negation is good to have access to. If you can halt your opponent from using one of their key cards, you can take over a Duel on the spot. Silent Swordsman helps you do exactly that by stopping a single Spell Card during each player’s turn! A lot of strategies rely heavily on spells to get them closer to winning the Duel, and some of these spells even have a hefty cost attached to them. Blue-Eyes for example really need to resolve stuff like The Melody of Awakening Dragon or Trade-In to make sure they find their most powerful threats, so having them negated is a huge loss. Even stopping the very popular Pot of Desires from being activated and locking a dead card in your opponent’s hand is a good deal.

Silent Swordsman can do more than just stop Spells though, and while he may seem weak at first, his ATK will increase during every Standby Phase. That means once you summon it, as soon as it’s your opponent’s turn, your Silent Swordsman will already be getting stronger. Even if your opponent manages to destroy your Silent Swordsman, it can Special Summon a “Silent Swordsman” monster from your hand or Deck, other than itself, ignoring its Summoning conditions! So if your opponent is foolish enough to think they can finish off your Warrior that easily, Silent Swordsman LV7 can come down and really devastate them by negating ALL Spells instead of just one per turn. This forces your opponent to find a way to get rid of your Silent Swordsman without destroying it.

However, even if they do find a way, that doesn’t mean you have to let it happen. Thanks to Silent Swordsman’s signature move Silent Sword Slash, you can easily protect it! Silent Sword Slash will permanently pump up your Silent Swordsman by 1500 ATK and DEF, but more importantly it will stop your Silent Swordsman from being affected by your opponent’s cards until the end of the turn! You can strike down whatever they are trying to get rid of your Silent Swordsman with, win at least one battle thanks to the stat boost, and Silent Sword Slash can’t even be negated. You can also banish it from the Graveyard to add a “Silent Swordsman” monster from your Deck to the hand, so trading for a card and replacing itself is a great deal.

Any Warrior based strategy can fit a small Silent Swordsman engine, but out of the most competitively popular, Phantom Knights definitely does it best. Not only do they have an abundance of Warriors that you don’t mind tributing, but you even get access to Dante, Traveler of the Burning Abyss as a way to accelerate your Silent Sword Slash into the Graveyard so you can banish it to find a Silent Swordsman! Even if you draw the Spell without a matching monster, you can just discard it to something like Phoenix Wing Wind Blast to make sure you always get a Silent Swordsman online.

Make sure to check out Duelist Pack: Rivals of the Pharaoh where you can get Silent Swordsman, Silent Sword Slash, and other awesome new cards when it hits shelves on September 16th!