Spirit Warriors gave us a bunch of new strategies, one of them were the Weather Painters; a group of monsters centered around the colors of the rainbow. In Extreme Force, we get another group of rainbow themed monsters, but while the Weather Painters are more focused around controlling the field and negating effects, these guys pack more of a punch. Here come the Mekk-Knights!

There are seven Mekk-Knights, each corresponding to a color of the Rainbow. Most of the Mekk-Knights are higher than Level 4, so you’ll need to either Tribute Summon them, or Summon them with the ability they all share: they can be Special Summoned from the hand if the column they’re being Summoned into contains 2 or more cards, and you can only Summon each name once per turn this way. If your opponent has two cards in the same column, you can simply Special Summon any of the Mekk-Knights across from those cards, or if the opponent has one card in a column, you can set a Spell/Trap directly across from it, giving the column 2 cards that you can use for a Mekk-Knight Summon.

Of all the Mekk-Knights, let’s look at the two that search out everything else. First there’s Mekk-Knight Purple Nightfall. As a Quick Effect, you can banish a Mekk-Knight you control until the Standby Phase of your next turn to add a Mekk-Knight monster except another copy of Mekk-Knight Purple Nightfall from your Deck to your hand. This means you can banish one Mekk-Knight during your turn, then banish another Mekk-Knight during your opponent’s turn (even itself), which searches for two more Mekk-Knights, then the 2 monsters you banished come back to the field during your Standby Phase in the Main Monster Zones of your choosing! This means you can keep the columns with 2 or more cards in them open to Special Summon even more Mekk-Knights, like Mekk-Knight Blue Sky!

When Mekk-Knight Blue Sky is Normal or Special Summoned, you can add a number of Mekk-Knights equal to the number of opponent’s card in this card’s column from Deck to hand. This can be 3 if your opponent placed a monster in the Extra Deck Zone, a monster in the Main Monster Zone directly below it, then a Spell/Trap directly below that.

World Legacy Scars is a Field Spell that boosts all Mekk-Knights ATK and DEF by 300. Once per turn, you can discard a Mekk-Knight monster or a World Legacy card to draw a card, and if you happen to get all 8 Mekk-Knights into the GY and/or on the field, you can banish them to send your opponent’s hand a Extra Deck to their GY, which could end the game right there depending on how much your opponent needs their Extra Deck to keep making plays.

The Continuous Trap World Legacy’s Secret acts as a Call of the Haunted for Mekk-Knights, Special Summoning a Level 5 or higher monster when it’s first active (which all of the Mekk-Knights are). As a bonus, however, the trap card will also negate an opponent’s monster effect if there’s a Mekk-Knight in the same column as it. World Legacy’s Secret is a nasty bit of negation that will force your opponent to consider where their cards are located. Putting a card on the field across from either or your cards or in the same column as another of their own cards will allow you to drop a Mekk-Knight, negate a monster effect and probably attack over the monster it was facing.

While the Mekk-Knights are all Level 5 and higher, this can actually be an advantage if properly utilized. An opponent with Contact “C” (also from Extreme Force) can give you a Contact “C” when you Special Summon a Mekk-Knight, but all of the Mekk-Knights can also be Normal Summoned, so you can Tribute Contact “C” for a Tribute Summon without worrying about the column restriction for their Special Summons or the disruptive capabilities of the Insect! In fact, because they can be Tribute Summoned, you can make a Mekk-Knight Deck without an Extra Deck and use cards like Domain of the True Monarchs and The Monarchs Erupt to further lock your opponent out of the Duel!

You can get the Mekk-Knights from Extreme Force, in stores now!