The Wind-Up monsters were among the first to spring into the Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG when Xyz Monsters arrived on the scene in 2011, and for a while Duelists were taking down Regional Qualifiers and YCS events using Wind-Ups to full effect. Now in 2018, the Wind-Up arsenal gets a new toy to play with. Introducing the Wind-Up Link Monster, Wind-Up Zenmaintenance!





Wind-Up Zenmaintenance is a Link 2 LIGHT-Attribute Machine with 1800 ATK. As you’d expect, you need 2 Wind-Up monsters to Link Summon it and has Link Arrows pointing down-left and down-right, perfect for your Extra Monster Zone. Wind-Up Zenmaintenance has two on-field effects: first, when you Link Summon Zenmaintenance, you can add any Wind-Up card from your Deck to your hand. You can search for any of the Wind-Up monsters or you can add the Continuous Spell Wind-Up Factory which includes an effect that adds a Wind-Up monster from your Deck to your hand once per turn! Zenmaintenance’s other effect lets you banish a face-up Wind-Up monster you control face-down to Special Summon a monster from your Deck that has the same name as the monster you banished. Since all of the Wind-Up monsters have effects that can only activate once while they’re on the field, using Wind-Up Zenmaintenance’s effect lets you sneak in a second effect activation for the monster of your choosing. For example, you can use Wind-Up Rat’s effect to Special Summon a Wind-Up monster from the Graveyard, then use Zenmaintenance to banish one Rat for a second Rat, then activate the second Rat’s effect to Special Summon another Wind-Up monster from the Graveyard! That gives you 3 monsters plus Wind-Up Zenmaintenance, perfect for Link Summoning powerful Link Monsters like Decode Talker or Saryuja Skull Dread!

In addition to its on-field effects, Wind-Up Zenmaintenance can also attach itself as a material to a Wind-Up Xyz Monster when Zenmaintenance is destroyed and sent to the Graveyard. This is good for refueling strong effects like Wind-Up Arsenal Zenmaioh’s ability to destroy 2 Set cards, or giving Wind-Up Zenmaines even more chances to protect itself from destruction.

Summoning the required 2 Wind-Up monsters to Link Summon Wind-Up Zenmaintenance is easy thanks to all of the Wind-Up monsters’ effects that do just that. Wind-Up Magician can Special Summon another Wind-Up monster from the Deck if another Wind-Up effect besides Wind-Up Magician’s effect activates. Wind-Up Shark has three different activated effects: one to Special Summon itself from the hand, one to increase its Level by 1, and another to decrease its Level by 1. Using both Magician and Shark together, you can Special Summon another Wind-Up monster from the Deck, giving you 3 monsters in total to Xyz or Link Summon with!

You can get Wind-Up Zenmaintenance from Flames of Destruction Sneak Peek in stores this Friday!