Yu-Gi-Oh's Elemental Hero's Disappointing Reputation

In the game of Yu-Gi-Oh we see many decks try to mimic those used in the show. Yuhi Moto's deck has been mimicked in the form of spell casters, and Seto Kaibas deck with his Blue Eyes White Dragons. One type of deck that has been played and supported recently would be Jaden Yukis' Elemental Hero deck. This type of deck is far from playable, but I have outlined in the past in a previous article how to build a competitive version of an Elemental Hero deck, but still they are a long way from being a dominating arch type.

With the release of a new Elemental Hero it was thought that maybe, just maybe these decks would become better. Well Elemental Hero Ocean is indeed a good card, but not even close to the miracle the Elemental Hero's need in order for them to work. Ocean's effect is as follows "Activate once per turn, during your Standby Phase. Return 1 "Elemental Hero" or "Destiny Hero" monster you control or in your Graveyard to its owner's hand". The problem lies with the cards low attack, at 1500 he's not going to be around for your next standby phase in order for his effect to activate.

This card is better then most, but still does not fill the void that is left by Elemental Hero support. This one single type of creatures has more support cards then any other type in the game, yet quantity does not equal quality. There are dozens of cards, monsters, magics, and traps that can help the Elemental Hero's but nothing to make them a viable tournament deck. Even in my build of the deck I had to incorporate so many other cards that the deck actually seems like a monster destruction beat down deck with a splash of Elemental Hero's throw in.

The problem lies within the structure that the Elemental Hero's have. All their monsters are weak; none have over 1800 attack without having to offer a tribute, making them all susceptible to any monster attack when an opponent goes on the offensive. Yes Skyscraper and Skyscraper 2 help in this aspect, but don't do enough to all them to survive. Skyscraper after all is only for when you go on the attack, the 1000 point bonus goes away while you're on defense.

Also because their only way of attacking is fusions your hand will become extremely slim right after the first time you fuse. If you have six cards in your hand with one elemental hero on the field you will lose almost all the cards in your hand in one turn. Summon a monster, your down to 5, play polymerization, that's 4, fuse the monster on the field with the one in your hand, now you have 3, and now lay down a trap or quick play magic card, you have 2 cards left. All that to summon a monster that is halfway decent, and will more then likely die in the next turn. It's really not worth it, Elemental Hero's really need more draw power more then anything. Even their counter parts, the Destiny Hero's got some draw power cards recently in the form of Destiny Draw, so now it should be the Elemental Hero's turn.

Monster involving the name Elemental Hero really don't have any game supporting effects either. Necroshade has a really good effect, and of course Ocean does if you can keep him alive. Wildheart is decent, and for the most part the others have no effect. There needs to be some searching or monster destruction effects added to the arsenal of Elemental Hero's in order for them to make something of themselves.

Like I said, there are a ton of support cards for the Elemental Hero's. Hero Signal, Spark Blaster, Clay Charge, Bubble Blaster, Bubble Illusion, Feather Shot, Feather Wind, Burst Return, Fake Hero, and much much more. You may ask yourself "How can none of that be good?" Well some of those support cards are decent, but there is just so much more that is better. Those cards listed support only certain Elemental Hero's, Burst Return works only when Burstinitrix is in play, Feather Wind for Avain, Clay Charge for Clay Man and so on. So all this support that the Elemental Hero's have are just way too conditional to be placed in any deck.

If Upperdeck ever wants to see the Elemental Hero's become a competitive deck then they really need to improve the support cards. Also they need better, more powerful monsters that can stand up to such monsters like Cyber dragon in the current meta. Elemental Hero's are a very fun and interesting deck to play, it just is not the most practical choice to take to any major event. Perhaps the release of Ocean is a good sign, a sign of better days ahead for the Elemental Hero's or perhaps he will be tossed aside like so many other useless support cards for this arch type, only time will tell, but we can hope.