Reactors - WWII planes strikes back

[Arkars]

Ok, so I was recently rewatching the legacy of the worthless series of RANK10ygo on youtube, and the episode on reactors inspired me. to summarize, Reactors have a really cool design and an interesting mechanic, but they are wasted on crappy effects that are the monster equivalent of "MST negates" and neglectable burn damage, with their boss monster being Valkyrion 2.0 in terms of how difficult it is to summon in the archetype. They also have a total of six cards, including a synchro,but no archetypal tuner to summon it.

So I decided to design a bit of legacy support, here are the cards.

 

[spoiler=monster]

 

Prototype Reactor ● SF

WIND Machine Level 4 Tuner

0/800

Effect: Cannot Synchro Summon using this card as a Material unless the other Material(s) are DARK Machine "Reactor" monsters, in which case this card is treated as DARK. Once per turn; You can increase or reduce this card's Level by 1. If you control no monster, or if you control a DARK Machine "Reactor" monster, you can Special Summon this card (from your hand). You can only Special Summon “Prototype Reactor ● SF” once per turn this way. You can Tribute this card: Special Summon 1 DARK Machine "Reactor" monster from your Deck, also, you cannot Special Summon monsters from the Extra Deck for the rest of this turn, except DARK Machine Synchro monsters. You can only use this effect of "Prototype Reactor ● SF" once per turn. If this card is Special Summoned from the GY: Banish it when it leaves the field.

 

 

Aaand let's start with a tuner. The level change allows you to go for Dark Flattop with any reactor, and it summons itself if you have another reactor for an easy synchro. the restrictions on the materials are there to prevent link/synchro abuse of a level 3 to 5 tuner that special summon itself and can fetch any reactor from the deck. Idem for the banishing clause, to avoid multiple reuses with Dark Flattop. I thought about giving it also an effect that special summoned itself from the GY by discarding a card, but I decided it would have been too much. Overall it should help with consistency and swarming, and having it and another low level reactor in hand is a two card combo that ends with either two reactors, or Dark Flattop and any reactor.

 

 

[spoiler=Spells]

 

Reactor Blueprint

Normal Spell Card

Effect: Add 1 of the following cards from your Deck to your hand.
● WIND Machine effect monster that lists "Reactor" card(s) in its text.
● Spell/Trap that lists "Reactor" card(s)  in its text, except "Reactor Blueprint".
If this card is in your GY: You can banish it; Send 1 DARK Machine "Reactor" monster from your Deck to the GY.
You can only activate 1 "Reactor Blueprint" per turn.

 

A semi-ROTA for the archetype. it fetches either the tuner or the boss monster, or a support Spell/Trap card. Doesn't search the original reactors, there is the field spell for them, but it mills them for combos or to revive with Dark Flattop.

 

 

 

 

Aircraft Hangar - Haven

Field Spell Card

Effect: Once per turn: You can discard 1 card, and if you do, add 1 "Reactor" monster from your Deck to your hand. You can choose in response to which Summon activate the effect of "Summon Reactor ● SK" you control. If the effect of a "Reactor" monster you control would activate in response to an opponent's Spell/Trap card activation or monster(s) Summon, it can also negate the effect(s) of the card until the End Phase (if in response to a Spell or Trap card) or destroy it (if in response to a Monster(s) Summon). You can activate this effect of "Aircraft Hangar - Haven" once per card type (Monster, Spell or Trap) per turn. The first time a "Flying Fortress SKY FIRE" monster(s) you control would be destroyed each turn, it is not destroyed. You can banish this card from the GY: Shuffle into the Deck, from your hand, field or GY, 3 DARK Machine "Reactor" monsters with different names, then Special Summon 1 "Flying Fortress SKY FIRE" from your hand or GY, ignoring its Summoning conditions (it is treated as being properly Special Summoned by the effect of "Summon Reactor ● SK").

 

Oh, you can see the support. A big, beefy field spell with a ton of effects, I'm getting B.E.F. Zelos and Cyberdark Inferno flashbacks. And I actually had to pick to avoid writing a poem, but with five effects it should be more than fine.

The first is the searching effect. Plain and simple, it boosts consistency. I thought about making it search only the original Reactors, or to make it a Lightstage-like search-on-activation or to shuffle and search instead of discard. In the end I settled for a Diagram like effect, because you really need that tuner as fast as possible and to keep searching. No hard OPT, you are already getting minus and none of your stuff floats immediately (unless you are teching in Dark Worlds for some reason).

The second lets you get around that asinine restriction on Summon reactor that force you to activate its effect on the first summon instead of choosing like the others.

The third is the most important, its a continuous effect that bestow OPT negation on your spell and trap reactor and transform the summon one into a trap hole, so that they actually do something other than mild burn. If you have two of the same reactor you can still activate their effects, but you can give negation to only one of them

Continuing the trend of copying Diagram, the fourth effect makes so that your boss monster doesn't go down like an anvil because your opponent has blown on it.

And the last is a GY miracle fusion that restrict the places from where you can summon but gives you more range to take the materials from. Also recycling.

 

 

[spoiler=Trap]

 

Engine Overheat

Continuous Trap Card

Effect: You can only control 1 face-up "Engine Overheat". Your opponent cannot target "Aircraft Hangar - Haven" you control with card effects. As long as you control "Aircraft Hangar - Haven", Machine-Type monsters you control cannot be put face-down or returned to the hand by your opponent's card effects. Each time the effect of a Machine-Type monster you control that would inflict 800 damage to your opponent activates, have that monster gain 800 ATK instead of inflicting damage (even if this card leaves the field). If "Flying Fortress SKY FIRE" you control leaves the field: You can banish this card from the GY and target 1 DARK Machine "Reactor" monster in your GY; Special Summon that target.

 

And here's the last piece of support. you WANT the field spell to not be wrecked by your opponent, so it protects it in a give-take fashion, where if it has a field spell to protect it also bestow a bit of protection on your monsters to prevent the boosts granted by the next effect to go waste. Speaking of which, nobody likes burn, and reactors don't burn nearly enough to win the game before being run over by bigger monsters. so this card transforms the damage in ATK value transforming your monsters in ever-growing beaters. Also when it is in the graveyard makes so that your boss monster can float into something upon destruction Berserkion-like style.

 

[Arkars]

Added the field spell and the trap.

[Flash Flyer - Sakura]

Alright, let's see.
 
Reactor SF: The Special Summoning and Level modulation effect is alright, but the monsters it's supposed to work with are really not going to see play even with this thing buffing them. Flattop isn't particularly great either, even if it does revive SKY FIRE and whatnot. So yeah, support card is fine, but what it's supposed to be helping is still bad.
 

Makes SK easier to summon without Tributing, but that isn't saying much.

Blueprint: You're not searching SKY FIRE with this as it's not worth it over Reactor SF. The support cards are acceptable for searching. Dumping stuff is okay if you want to combo it with Flattop, but that requires you to actually SUMMON said Flattop in first place. 
 
Aircraft Hangar - Haven: Just a sidenote that most cards in this game do not have more than 3+ effects, and well, most Fields tend to limit the amount of stuff they do. Right now, this is basically amounting to a Swiss army knife (if you know where I'm going with this), even if Reactors legitimately suck right now.
 

Once per turn: You can discard 1 card, and if you do, add 1 "Reactor" monster from your Deck to your hand.

 

This is okay, considering their lack of searching power. Though, recall that Greiger.dek (well, you know Reactors are his stuff, right?) was made in an era where every Deck did not have access to their equivalent of Stratos.

 

You can choose in response to which Summon to activate the effect of "Summon Reactor ● SK" you control.

 

As far as the current game goes, 800 burn is nothing. Most this does is just prevent the opponent from playing a bait monster to force the activation and destroy it with negation (see Strike). It's nice to have control over it, but in the long run, won't accomplish too much.

 

If the effect of a "Reactor" monster you control would activate in response to an opponent's Spell/Trap card activation or monster(s) Summon, it can also negate the effect(s) of the card until the End Phase (if in response to a Spell or Trap card) or destroy it (if in response to a Monster(s) Summon). You can activate this effect of "Aircraft Hangar - Haven" once per card type (Monster, Spell or Trap) per turn.

 

Should be alright for the most part, as destroying the S/T card doesn't stop them from activating (barring Continuous stuff and Pendulums for most part). With monsters off SK, it does amount to a slower but costless version of Strike/Warning. Also ties into the first effect, which is okay.

 

The first time a "Flying Fortress SKY FIRE" monster(s) you control would be destroyed each turn, it is not destroyed.

Protection is always welcome for boss monsters (most of the time), so yeah. 

 

You can banish this card from the GY: Shuffle into the Deck, from your hand, field or GY, 3 DARK Machine "Reactor" monsters with different names, then Special Summon 1 "Flying Fortress SKY FIRE" from your hand or GY, ignoring its Summoning conditions (it is treated as being properly Special Summoned by the effect of "Summon Reactor ● SK").

 

Major issue that you need to consider here is that you still need to actually HAVE the 3 original Reactors to summon SKY FIRE because the Tuner you made doesn't count as such. If we had more of them, then might make it easier to get out. Yes, Blueprint can dump one of them into the GY for stuff, but it isn't saying much.

 

Engine Overheat: You're essentially playing "protect the castle" at this point with the Field (considering what it's doing). To be honest though, no one really runs BoM [probably due to Links being more prevalent / cannot be flipped face-down] and hand bouncing seems to be generally rare (unless people start teching Compulsory in multiples again). The last two effects aren't particularly useful right now; well, least the damage halving thing. Like I mentioned earlier, 800 burn isn't really much and cutting down isn't helping. The added ATK is nice, but you won't be running over common monsters with it too much. Last effect would be nice if Flattop actually counted as a Reactor (or you had more than the original 3 that are actually workable in Link format) so you could get better mileage out of it except for ones that are bad. 

 

---

 

Put bluntly, the support is generally fine but again, the Reactors themselves are still terrible due to lack of Main Deck monsters to really benefit off of these cards and no real cohesive strategy except "burn the opponent when they do stuff". Yes, you gave them a way to better access Flattop via the Tuner, but it doesn't help their summon speed into getting it (unless you draw it).

 

Another idea would've been to go the Magnet Warrior route and design a whole new class of Reactors + Main Deck boss (not that it resulted in the original 3 and Valkyrion being run, but it was more efficient at doing what it needed to do).

[Arkars]

Thanks for the rewiew! Let's see

Reactor SF: The Special Summoning and Level modulation effect is alright, but the monsters it's supposed to work with are really not going to see play even with this thing buffing them. Flattop isn't particularly great either, even if it does revive SKY FIRE and whatnot. So yeah, support card is fine, but what it's supposed to be helping is still bad.

 

Makes SK easier to summon without Tributing, but that isn't saying much.

Fine enough, after all one of my first draft had it named "Carrier" instead of "Prototype" because it is what it was supposed to do for the entire deck.

Blueprint: You're not searching SKY FIRE with this as it's not worth it over Reactor SF. The support cards are acceptable for searching. Dumping stuff is okay if you want to combo it with Flattop, but that requires you to actually SUMMON said Flattop in first place.

I agree, its mostly there for versatility, I don't know, maybe trade-in shenanigans or something. On the other hand I had already made the tuner a WIND, so might as well capitalize on it. The only use I can think of is the off chance that you want to summon the boss with the GY effect of the field spell but you don't have it in the hand or GY already. Same for the mill, either the random flattop summon or get the last piece for the field spell summon.

 

Yeah, the field spell is pretty bloated. I mean, having it on the field is basically your win-con so I couldn't afford to make just a fancy tenki

Once per turn: You can discard 1 card, and if you do, add 1 "Reactor" monster from your Deck to your hand.

 

This is okay, considering their lack of searching power. Though, recall that Greiger.dek (well, you know Reactors are his stuff, right?) was made in an era where every Deck did not have access to their equivalent of Stratos.

 

Speaking of who just got unbanned. Given that there are a grand total of 12 reactors maximum if we include my tuner I couldn't rely only on blueprint for the search so instead of a bunch of monsters I decided to go the HERO route: still few monsters but a bunch of searcher cards.

You can choose in response to which Summon to activate the effect of "Summon Reactor ● SK" you control.

 

As far as the current game goes, 800 burn is nothing. Most this does is just prevent the opponent from playing a bait monster to force the activation and destroy it with negation (see Strike). It's nice to have control over it, but in the long run, won't accomplish too much.

I know right? Initially I didn't even notice it, guess it dind't matter if it was just about getting the burn damage. It's really only there to give you control over the destruction.

If the effect of a "Reactor" monster you control would activate in response to an opponent's Spell/Trap card activation or monster(s) Summon, it can also negate the effect(s) of the card until the End Phase (if in response to a Spell or Trap card) or destroy it (if in response to a Monster(s) Summon). You can activate this effect of "Aircraft Hangar - Haven" once per card type (Monster, Spell or Trap) per turn.

 

Should be alright for the most part, as destroying the S/T card doesn't stop them from activating (barring Continuous stuff and Pendulums for most part). With monsters off SK, it does amount to a slower but costless version of Strike/Warning. Also ties into the first effect, which is okay.

Ah, the bulk of the field spell. Nothing to say except that the summon reactor destroys the monster but doesen't actually negate the summon, so its not exactly at solemn level.

The first time a "Flying Fortress SKY FIRE" monster(s) you control would be destroyed each turn, it is not destroyed.

Protection is always welcome for boss monsters (most of the time), so yeah.

As RANK10ygo said it: "The definition of an anime boss monster: Big! Strong! Burn damage! and no protection whatsoever"

I maybe could've made it a OPT individual protection for each copy of SKY FIRE like diagram instead of once per turn in total, but given it also protects from effect destruction and the field spell already has a lot of stuff going on for it...

You can banish this card from the GY: Shuffle into the Deck, from your hand, field or GY, 3 DARK Machine "Reactor" monsters with different names, then Special Summon 1 "Flying Fortress SKY FIRE" from your hand or GY, ignoring its Summoning conditions (it is treated as being properly Special Summoned by the effect of "Summon Reactor ● SK").

 

Major issue that you need to consider here is that you still need to actually HAVE the 3 original Reactors to summon SKY FIRE because the Tuner you made doesn't count as such. If we had more of them, then might make it easier to get out. Yes, Blueprint can dump one of them into the GY for stuff, but it isn't saying much.

Same as before. Not exactly game breaking but at least it should make SKY FIRE somewhat viable.

Engine Overheat: You're essentially playing "protect the castle" at this point with the Field (considering what it's doing). To be honest though, no one really runs BoM [probably due to Links being more prevalent / cannot be flipped face-down] and hand bouncing seems to be generally rare (unless people start teching Compulsory in multiples again). The last two effects aren't particularly useful right now; well, least the damage halving thing. Like I mentioned earlier, 800 burn isn't really much and cutting down isn't helping. The added ATK is nice, but you won't be running over common monsters with it too much. Last effect would be nice if Flattop actually counted as a Reactor (or you had more than the original 3 that are actually workable in Link format) so you could get better mileage out of it except for ones that are bad.

I have this weird mental image of  the field spell being the spiritual successor of bujin yamato now. I tried to not make the card too overblown since it is a searchable protection for the field spell, which makes it slightly better by proxy i think. The protection for the monsters is there most as a bonus than anything, since as much as I want to improve Reactors I surely don't want them to become the next SPYral Sleeper-Last Resort-Resort lock. The GY effect is because SKY FIRE is one of those monster that should have some way to float into its materials. The attack boost best use is probably just powering up SKY FIRE or at worst SK, since even a single activation of SKY FIRE's effect puts him above most boss monsters in terms of attack, but maybe its still too low. Should I change it to completely convert the 800 damage in ATK value?

Put bluntly, the support is generally fine but again, the Reactors themselves are still terrible due to lack of Main Deck monsters to really benefit off of these cards and no real cohesive strategy except "burn the opponent when they do stuff". Yes, you gave them a way to better access Flattop via the Tuner, but it doesn't help their summon speed into getting it (unless you draw it).

 

Another idea would've been to go the Magnet Warrior route and design a whole new class of Reactors + Main Deck boss (not that it resulted in the original 3 and Valkyrion being run, but it was more efficient at doing what it needed to do).

That's actually my greatest fear about this. Making a complete retrain of the original cards that are supposed to work with the older ones... and end up with the ABC and Electromagnet warrior problem, where the deck is just better off without the older cards. So I preferred to try to cook up some ways make the originals less shitty instead of scraping them altogether, while leaving space for other engines and tech choices instead of filling the space with new monsters.

[Flash Flyer - Sakura]

You could probably get away with converting the entire burn thing to ATK boosting, but ultimately, it's your design.

 

As for the last part, yeah, ABC / Electromagnets did make the originals useless (unless you really wanted to go crazy and make the 40/40 bosses). You could try to make more Main Decks that could enable them (or even treat themselves as the originals, but this one essentially means "don't bother running the older ones except for fun.") Granted, SF does have other targets to Synchro with except the original Reactors, but given the restrictions, you're not running it elsewhere.

 

===

You can try to make stuff that can at least incorporate the originals, however you do have to consider how much the game changed since their release and what they can do to be good. Sometimes, that does require that you overhaul the design and rebuild from scratch. (Or you could remake the originals so they're functional, which is permitted in this section.)