Before you know it, February 12th will be here and so will Wing Raiders! After Ritual Monsters in The Secret Forces and Synchro Monsters in High-Speed Riders, it’s time for Xyz Monsters to get a turn in the spotlight with their own dedicated booster! One of the most popular things about Xyz Monsters is that you can make them out of pretty much any 2 monsters as long as their Levels match. Rank 4 monsters have been the most popular for a while, but you’ll have to take a really close look at Rank 3 monsters when you see The Phantom Knights of Break Sword!

Not only is The Phantom Knights of Break Sword an awesome headless horseman looking monster, it’s extremely powerful too. At 2000 ATK, it matches the ATK of the extremely popular Castel the Skyblaster Musketeer, but more closely resembles Scrap Dragon than any Xyz Monster. Once per turn you can detach 1 Xyz Material to target 1 card on each side of the field and destroy them!

For Decks that can crank out Rank 3 monsters, like Burning Abyss, that means you’ll no longer have to rely on Ghostrick Alucard as your sole source of Xyz-based removal! Alucard is great because it can stick around for multiple turns, but it only destroys set cards – something in short supply these days. The Phantom Knights of Break Sword can hit anything, triggering the effects of your own cards while destroying your opponent’s cards.

And that’s not all! The classic “Destroy your own Scrap Dragon/Diamond Dire Wolf” trick also works with this card making it easy to clear your own field if you need to, but unlike Scrap Dragon, if you’re playing a Phantom Knights Deck, you’ll get a Special Summon for your troubles when you do! If your Xyz Summoned The Phantom Knights of Break Sword is destroyed, you can bring back 2 “The Phantom Knights” monsters from your Graveyard with the same Level, and then bump their Level up by 1. You can only Summon DARK monsters for the rest of the turn you do this, but if it happens during your opponent’s turn that restriction won’t even affect you. And if it happens during your own turn, perhaps because you targeted Break Sword with its own ability, then there are still plenty of things you can Summon with those monsters!

But first, a note on what exactly “The Phantom Knights” monsters are! Most of them are Level 3 DARK Warrior-Type monsters, though there are a couple of Level 4’s. Here are The Phantom Knights of Ragged Gloves and The Phantom Knights of Silent Boots.



Silent Boots can be Special Summoned from your hand if you control a “The Phantom Knights” monster, and the first time you Xyz Summon a DARK monster with Ragged Gloves each turn, it gets an ability that grants it 1000 extra ATK. So what you want to do is Summon both monsters, Xyz Summon The Phantom Knights of Break Sword, which will go up to 3000 ATK, destroy something and attack, and then on your next turn, destroy something else and Break Sword itself to Summon back Silent Boots and Ragged Gloves as Level 4 monsters. What can you Xyz Summon from there?



There are actually a lot of good choices. An Evilswarm Thanatos 1000 extra ATK is nothing to sneeze at. Virtually no Spell/Trap based monster removal is used these days, and there’s a very low chance of a 3350 ATK monster showing up to fight Thanatos, though it has been known to happen in our internal league. Master Key Beetle is another good choice. Phantom Knights Decks use a lot of Continuous Trap Cards with lockdown capabilities, and having a 3500 ATK Master Key Beetle protecting something like Vanity’s Emptiness is hard to beat. Finally, if you’re looking for a finisher, you can go with Number 86: Heroic Champion – Rhongomyniad! Obviously you’re not going to want to Summon it with only 2 Materials, and we’ll talk about where to find the extra 2 or 3 Level 4 Warriors you’ll need to make sure Rhongomyniad ends the Duel, but much like Heroic Challenger – Extra Sword, The Phantom Knights of Ragged Gloves adds a new effect to Rhongomyniad itself, allowing it to reach 4000 ATK!

Armored apparitions, ravenous ravens, super robots that combine into giant super robots, and more await in Wing Raiders, coming in less than two weeks!