THE BOOK OF THE MONKEYS

[JamesXCx]

Lore:
As long as this card is face-up on the field, all Life Points damage you take is reduced to zero (0).

[goodfusion]

At first, this card looks like a clone of Des Wombat, and it effectively is if you are just talking about its effect. However, there are a couple of things that might make it better than Des Wombat: Its Type, and its DEF.

 

Being a Psychic-Type, it can be searched by Emergency Teleport, which being a quick play Spell means you can chain it to effects and use it in your opponent's turn. This would be very handy in some situations, as you could chain it to a burn card such as Secret Barrel to negate that damage. It would also be very handy to chain to a Mystical Space Typhoon or a similar card that would destroy a Brain Research Lab you control that has a lot of counters on it, that way you can reduce a potentially game-ending amount of damage to nothing. It can also be searched by Overdrive Teleporter, although there are better things for that, such as Tuner monsters and Hushed Psychic Cleric for additional summoning.

 

Its DEF is nice as well, as 1900 is enough for you to set it and be confident in its ability to stay alive. Des Wombat has a pitiful 300 DEF, which isn't good enough for stalling unless you are desperate, and its 1600 ATK is OK, but still not good enough for you to want to leave it in Attack Position. Though, if you really want protection from attacks Hushed Psychic Cleric is better as it has 2100 DEF, and the ability to summon another monster if it leaves the Field, so I think this is better suited to blocking effect damage.