Team

Since I officially have nothing but free time on my hands these days, I'm gonna start doing this moar often. So here we go with
 
PLIME MATELIAR DLAGON

A neat newish card with 2 potent effects and some solid stats to back it up.

It's first effect to prevent burn damage is always a plus; you won't see use for it very often, but its certainly good to have. On the off chance you see a burn deck at a regional or something, you'll be glad you have this dude in your deck. And that's the beauty of him, is that he's entirely splashable in most main decks and almost all side decks. At just 1 sac for 2400, he's a good pick in any case. The reason to run him though isn't that he can prevent burn, its his second effect, which lets you pitch a card to negate and destroy a card that would destroy a monster. This is incredibly potent against a lot of decks, and none moreso than Gladiator Beasts. If you can get him on the field with a few hand cards to spare, most GB decks are gonna have a tough time getting around him without at least some side decking, and even then, if you back him up with solemns, you'll find yourself in a very advantageous situation.

Expect to see this guy as long as GBs reign, and it might not be a bad idea to get a couple for yourself.

Rating : 8.5/10

Welcome to the new card of the week, everyone! Yeah, we're trying this again. Let's see how this goes. As you know, I'm somewhat behind on the meta (this is FF btw), but we'll see how I do, and you can always gimme some feedback on the forums or on aim.

So the first cotw of 2008 is...
Light and Darkness Dragon!

If your computer is too shitty to load the png, (and you fell off the earth for the last few months,) here's it's effect:
LIGHT/Dragon 8*
2800/2400
This card cannot be Special Summoned. While this card is face-up on the field its Attribute is also treated as DARK. When a Spell or Trap Card is activated, or the effect of an Effect Monster is activated, that activation is negated and this card loses 500 ATK and DEF. When this card is destroyed and sent to the Graveyard, select 1 monster in your Graveyard. Then destroy all cards you control, and Special Summon that monster.

Dayum, that's just nuts. I personally got to test with it for the first time a couple of weeks ago (in my monarch deck,) and it was pretty nuts.
First, I'll clear up a few things.
It can activate it's effect 4 times and 4 times only while it's on the field (unless its ATK and or DEF are raised somehow), and once its down to an 800/400, it will try to activate its effect every time a card effect goes off, but the card won't be negated because LADD can't lose another 500.
When its 3rd effect activates, it destroys only your field cards, not hand cards (they kinda phrased this one wierd.)
Any other questions I'm sure yugioh-card.com will answer for you.

So how does it play out?
Well, the key part of running a LADD is knowing exactly when its good to play. You're not gonna want to waste a bunch of resources to throw this out in the first few turns, odds are they're gonna have enough cards to weaken it to the point where they can run it down with a CyDra or even a Breaker. You wanna do this when your opponent has only a few cards left, so that even if they can weaken it a lot, odds are they'll be out of resources to kill it once its ATK is low. Its sort of like Solemn Judgment, its a heavy cost to play but it can mean the difference between sealing your opponent's fate and letting them come back and possibly win. So if you play it smart, this thing will win you games. And don't feel bad about sacking that monarch or Marshmallon for it, it'll be worth the power lost.
By the way, I don't need to tell you to NEVER play it when a frog is in your opponent's grave, if you do you may as well just drop out of the tournament. Which reminds me, if you run this, you're gonna wanna have Crows on hand, side or main, its up to you.

How to hate on LADD:
Obviously Frog is an insane counter to the dragon, just clear your back field and go to town. Also, Asura Priest (or any spirit) will do the job, it'll keep trying to return to the hand again and again until LADD is a worthless pile of shit that you can run over next turn. Only problem is since its at the end of turn, your opponent may well sac up the dragon next turn, so be careful how you do this.

It's 3rd effect:
This seems like a big hindrance in most cases, but again, if you play it smart, this can work to your advantage. Basically, a good way to drop this thing is to sac for it when you have 2 monsters (you can have more on field if you don't care if they die (i.e. Troop, Sangan, etc.). This way if it blows, you won't lose much. Also, you wanna keep a backup trap down like Prison, incase it doesn't blow up and you need to fend off your opponent for a turn. Other than that, KEEP YOUR CARDS. Setting/playing anything else usually can't end well. LADD is all about playing it safe and smart, so think about what you're gonna do before you do it, and crunch a few numbers first too.

So in conclusion, LADD is a sick and versatile card, you just need to make sure you use it right. Practice up with it in WCT08 and you'll see why it made such a big impact at the last Shonen.
4/5

Yeah, we missed a week or two. Oh well. Rolling along...
Today's cotw is the ever popular Shrink.

Quick Play Spell
Select 1 face-up monster on the field. The original ATK of that monster is halved until the end of the turn.

Simple, no?
So here's the skinny. Shrink is often compared to sak armor, because primarily, it's used to destroy attacking monsters. So i'll give you the pro's of each:

Sak Armor:
Works even if you have no monsters
Good topdeck (usually)
... so yeah.

Shrink:
Much less likely to be negated
Can be done in damage step
Chainable
Does some damage 99% of the time

So while shrink seems a lot better, it really all comes down to how many monsters you run. Most mainstream decks will use one or the other, some will use both, and a few use neither. Either way, since most decks use a lot of monsters, Shrink is highly splashable, and overall a good pick for basic monster destruction.

Final: 4/5

Here it is, back by popular demand, the Team Funch card of the week section!!! We're gonna kick it off with one of my personal favorites, that I happen to have three of... Yeah, you know what it is... CARD TROOPER!

Card Trooper
EARTH/Machine/Effect ***
ATK/ 400 DEF/ 400
Once per turn, you can send up to three cards from the top of your deck to your graveyard. This card gains 500 ATK for each card sent to the graveyard in this way, until the end of this turn. When this card on your side of the field is destroyed and sent to your graveyard, draw 1 card.

Well this little chap is certainly useful. Everyone knows how great this card is. So let's explore why, one aspect of awesomeness at a time.

EARTH - Rattable, simply. This card is great for ratbox, no reason not to run it.

Draw effect - there will be very few times when this wont work, mainly if it's sacked. Odds are, you will get a free card though, and if your opponent has to use a card to kill it, you get a +1. Want a cool combo? Open with a trooper, use its effect, and set torrential. Then, when your opponent summons something, boom it and get the draw. Easy as pie.

Dumping ability - This is useful in many ways, mainly to put cards in the grave. Food for Strike, Pot, Bazoo, Premature, Call, Freed, Skull Lair... hell, even gigantes benefits from this sucker, not to mention dumping treefrog. You can't go wrong with this. And as if that werent great enough, he gets up to a fat 1900, killing nearly every competitive 4 star monster in battle.

3 Stars - Gets under Gbind and llab, so as to shut down burn

Machine - This is where this guy really shines. Aside of the obvious with limiter removal, it's also pretty common knowledge that you can machine dupe him for an insta-+2. Best type out there, really

Yes, in the right deck, this card is a beast. If you run a deck that uses the grave a lot, or just like fat atk and drawing, get a hold of 3 of these. They sell like hotcakes!

Final Rating: 9.4/10