For thousands of years I laid dormant, who has disturbed my slumber?!

So Konami has in fact made the rumored Noble Knight link monster.

<LORE>

This card has two ladies on it. Shocking. No Isolde isn’t just the girl on the left and Gwen is the girl on the right… They’re both Isolde!

See left is Isolde of the White Hands (which makes her mono-chromatic outfit very suitable) and the one on the left is Isolde, Princess of Ireland. And if you look up Isolde of Ireland you’ll see she’s a dead ringer for our lady on the right. Also, the fluffy white spotted fur on her cloak is a classic “royalty” accent. So you know she’s not just any Noble-lady.

You see, our buddy Drystan (long story) was in love with the chick on the right – who had a husband, who was a King (Mark) – and Drystan got ran outta town (or mortally wounded, depends on the version). He settled down and married another Isolde (the one on the left) but there was never the same passion.

In one story Drystan is poisoned, Isolde of Ireland is the only one who can save him (she’s a wiz-kid with medicine, conveniently), Isolde of White lies to him about Isolde of Ireland not coming to aid him, and he gives up and dies in grief. Isolde of Ireland finds him and dies of grief also. Pleasant. This could also account for Isolde (left) wearing black.

These are heavily abridged versions so you should read the stories, but that’s who these ladies are. And also maybe why Isolde of the White Hands looks kinda grumpy..

</LORE>

Initial reactions (at least those I’ve seen/heard/read) are skeptical at best and hostile at worst, with a large contingent of “why bother running this”.

Dare I say, this Link isn’t that great in terms of how Noble Knights have typically been played. Knights have seen two distinct versions: a purer, slower build and faster (would be) turbo builds. But let’s see the card.

LIGHT/Warrior – Link – Effect/1600/LINK-2

2 Warrior Monsters

You can only use both effects once per turn.

If this card is Link Summoned: you can add 1 Warrior monster from your Deck to your hand. You cannot Normal Summon or Special Summon the monster added to the hand by this effect or monsters with the same name, or activate that monster’s effect, during this turn.

You can send any number of Equip Spell Cards with different names from your Deck to your Graveyard; Special Summon a Warrior monster from your Deck whose Level equals the number of cards that were sent to the Graveyard this way.

So we’re continuing along this line of “two generic monsters” for material, Link-2 and 1600 ATK. Konami’s used this formula thus far with a few different Links. Personally I do take some issue with it considering that Noble Knights are a slower, battle-oriented archetype. 1600 just isn’t that relevant and these aren’t D/D/Ds or Burning Abyss that can just use it and then go into another summon or combo with it.

It’s a “Noble Knight” card by name so it’s compatible with the Noble Arms equips, but even the degenerative Gallatin only gets Isolde to 2600 before she starts bleeding out.

So her stats are something of an issue. 2 generic warriors is decent and not overly difficult to accomplish. This is where you would look to perhaps some outside support (Photon Thrasher or Photon Lead maybe).

But let’s get into the nuts and bolts of what she brings to the table (eh??).

First she opens with a stipulation that both of her effects are hard once per turns. For her second effect, I guess so, but given how strict the first effect is, it seems overkill on the surface.

So, her first effect is when she’s link summoned – add a warrior from your deck to your hand.

It goes on to say that you can’t summon it (period) this turn, or any monster with its name, or activate those monsters’ effects. Again, hard once per turn.

Seems awfully strict. Can I point out that this is ROTA without a level cap? That’s pretty goddamn ferocious. Add any warrior regardless of level, name, or effect? Konami wasn’t wrong putting this on a short leash – like it or not. While Noble Knights might not break an effect like that – there are decks that could. So let’s say you Medraut into Laundsallyn or Eachtar for this card – add BLS to your hand – oopsy! and now he’s on the field! While that’s not “devastating” I make the example to point out how silly it is. And I’ve already seen players scheming about Honesty Neos and running this in a HERO deck.

Fact is Konami gave this card a crazy powerful effect but immediately had to knee-cap it, which is kinda sad. See kids? This is why we can’t have nice things. Many players feel like this could’ve been better served with a more immediate effect as opposed to a set up play.

You could use this to add warriors like Swordsman of Revealing Light or Parry Knights who you can then play hand trap style on your opponent’s turn. Or by stockpiling a Noble Knight for next time around. Unfortunately you can’t really get around the embargo even with Table as executing during the End Phase is still occurring within the same turn as Isolde’s effect.

The next effect allows you to mill unique equips from your deck and summon a warrior from your deck of a level equal to the number of equips you milled.

This right here? This we can work with. Play a Noble Knight – any – and then mill 4 of your Noble Arms, grab whoever and BAM! You’ve got a Rank 4 King with plenty of set up.

Heck, use a “normal” Knight, special Laundsallyn, mill 5 swords, grab Eachtar and go Big King with 5 Arms available and Eachtar guarantees a soft landing.

This will see much more use, once per turn is fine, and you might see more play from Brothers to recycle some Arms into the deck or dead kings back to the extra deck for re-use.

Now again, it’s not exclusive to Noble Arms equips, it can be any equips. But I think Noble Arms with Brothers for obvious reasons. In fact, it may prove tempting to actually (dare I say?) run a 40+ card deck for Noble Knights!? (gasp) Seems crazy when you think “I need to get to my resources” but when you look at what this card is doing — you’re dumping 4-5 cards (avg) to special a monster out of your deck. So you’re potentially thinning 5-6 cards per turn, that is a lot of cards. So that’s why you might need some Brothers to do a little restocking.

Only play will really prove this out, with a paltry 1600 ATK, keeping her on the board could be tricky. Of course, Drystan manipulates attack targeting (how fitting), and you’ve got some other shenanigans to try and keep her around. But it could be disappointing to spend resources just to lose her on the next turn.

But of course, if you actually ran multiple vanilla Artorigus, she’s just a Rescue Rabbit away.. okay, I wouldn’t advise that necessarily (although it could be useful for other Rank 4 plays, just saying). Say you’ve got an empty field with some GY and draw into a Last Chapter:

Last Chapter into Medraut or Gwalchavad

Medraut effect to special or Gwalch effect into a normal summon

Link into Isolde – add a warrior

Isolde effect – mill some equips, summon a Knight

At this point we should take stock of where we are. If you have Round Table in play (which, bite me – I would) we need to count cards. Chapter, Table, Medraut/Gwalch, their target*, Isolde, and whoever she summons. That’s six right off the top. Not a stretch to think you could have more than that available in your GY additionally. A 7th would be in your hand (from Isolde’s 1st effect), but you can’t count that one.

So you have Table ready to:

(3) Send a Noble Knight from your Deck to GY

(6) Special Summon a Noble Knight from your hand and equip it with a Noble Arms from your hand

(9) Target a Noble Knight monster in your GY and add it to your hand (possibly*)

Again, this is a very generic set up. And perhaps you have other plays to go into – if that monster you summoned (from Isolde) is a Lv. 5 Dark (or acting as one) and there’s a Lady in the GY, maybe you Synchro. Maybe if it’s a vanilla (or acting as one) you use Gawayn and go Rank 4. Or Laundsallyn is in GY and you bring him out or Eachtar (it’ll hurt your count, but if you need him who cares?) and then into something.

I’m hard pressed to say that she’s going to “extend” plays, but she does make plays available, and she does give you options. I’m disappointed that people are so disappointed. Link Vrains Pack to me is about showing some nostalgia love to old archetypes to allow them to properly function in the new format – I never got the impression it was to catapult all of these old archetypes into meta-relevance.

Speaking to the card itself – the artwork (like the rest of the archetype) is gorgeous! I love the Noble Knight artworks, they’re so elegant, they are excellent pieces that while nuanced, they never appear crowded or busy. Isolde is no exception at all and even if you don’t play Noble Knights you might just want this for your collection regardless.

<LORE>

In one tale of Drystan/Isolde(s), Drystan is killed by King Mark (he threw a poisoned spear at him) while he (Drystan) is playing the harp for Isolde. And what pray-tell is Drystan doing in his artwork? Playing a harp. Which just adds another angle where Isolde (left) could be wearing funeral garb.

</LORE>

Oh man I love Noble Knights… I may not like that Konami (in my own personal opinion) mishandled their staggered releases and (in turn) prevented the deck the chance to really shine competitively, but they absolutely did their homework in terms of design and the storytelling behind the cards themselves. Duel Terminal isn’t this good. Even her name – Two Tales? The woman Drystan loved and the woman he never could? The one who would save him and the one who would let him die??Amazing!!

But don’t lose all hope, Knights! With Glory and Isolde, the archetype is still seeing support. Perhaps you’ll still get that tier 0 card someday.