Syzygy, the Black Sun Dragon

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Syzygy, the Black Sun Dragon

Stats: Rank 0 / DARK / Dragon / Xyz / Effect / 3000 ATK / 3000 DEF

Materials: 1 LIGHT Dragon Xyz Monster

Effects: (This card's original Rank is always treated as 8.) Must be Xyz Summoned with the above material. (Transfer its materials to this card.) You can only control 1 "Syzygy, the Black Sun Dragon". Once per turn, if an opponent's card or effect is activated that targets this card, or if this card battles a monster (Quick Effect): Inflict 1000 damage to your opponent. During the End Phase: Return this card to the Extra Deck, and if you do, Special Summon 1 LIGHT Dragon Xyz Monster attached to this card. (Transfer this card's materials to the Summoned monster.)

Balance Notes: Syzygy is intended to be at an acceptable power-level for anywhere in the 2013 to 2016 TCG metagames. As such, if it's a bit underpowered for today's meta, I'm not too bothered. However, if it's too strong for 2016 Yu-Gi-Oh!, then I'll want to make some tweaks. Please keep that in mind when providing feedback on how strong it is, and if that means it needs to go into the casual cards section, I'm happy to move it.

General Design Notes: Over the weekend, I was watching a YouTube video about the recent solar eclipse in America. While I was doing stuff after watching the eclipse video, my brain started thinking about how to represent an eclipse as a card, and it quickly settled on "well, the moon covers and uncovers the sun, so an Xyz Monster, which covers up its materials, that then leaves the field and uncovers said materials would be a perfect fit". So immediately the card being an Xyz Monster and returning to the Extra Deck and Special Summoning the material it used was locked in. To best fit that, having a single Xyz Monster as material rather than non-Xyz Monsters with an alternate summoning condition seemed the most suitable for the eclipse flavour. As for why LIGHT Dragon Xyz Monsters, an eclipse is basically a LIGHT object being covered up by something to create a DARK phenomenon, and the ring of light visible around the moon during the eclipse could (and I wouldn't be surprised if it has somewhere in history or mythology) be interpreted as a dragon of fire encircling the moon and the sun. Additionally, the ranks of LIGHT Dragon Xyz Monsters are mostly comprised of the Hieratic monsters (i.e. dragons embodying the sun) and Galaxy, Photon, and Galaxy-Eyes monsters (i.e. dragons embodying galaxies of stars, or the light that comes from them), which was a perfect fit. Since Syzygy only used Xyz Monsters as materials, that opened the possibility of making Syzygy Rank 0, which I stuck with since that would give the card more visual similarity with an eclipse due to the black gap where the Rank stars (i.e. the sun) would normally be. As for its level condition, I opted to make it Rank 8 since the number 8 looks similar to how an artists rendition of how the start or end of an eclipse or a partial eclipse might look, with the sun and moon overlapping to form an 8. For the damage effect, my intention there was to capture how you should not look directly at an eclipse without the appropriate glasses or telescope filter because it will damage your eyesight, so if you so much as look at Syzygy (with a card or effect) or it makes you look at it, it will damage your life points. Lastly, the name contains a couple of references to other media properties. First, while "syzygy" is a scientific term for three celestial bodies configured in a straight line, the only reason I know it is because it is also the name of a track on the Destiny 2: Lightfall soundtrack that plays during a raid encounter where you are interacting with planets, i.e. creating a syzygy. Second, "Black Sun" is a reference to the Avatar: The Last Airbender episodes "The Day of Black Sun" parts 1 and 2, which feature a solar eclipse as a central plot point.

Artwork: I created Syzygy's art in GIMP using free stock images provided by Jongsun Lee (the eclipse in the background) and Ricardo Gomez Angel (Syzygy's flame texture) on unsplash.com, and provided by OpenClipart-Vectors (the dragon design used as a layer mask over the flame texture) on pixabay.com, and as such I do not own those separate assets.