After its errata, Crush Card Virus has returned to the scene and is seeing a lot of play in any strategy that can manage to pay its cost. It can completely devastate a strategy that uses a lot of high ATK Monsters such as Nekroz or Qliphorts, but some Duelists have made adjustments in order to try to take advantage of the new text on Crush Card Virus, specifically the optional part of destroying Monsters from their Deck. So how they’re taking advantage of this?

Fire Hand

The biggest way has been Fire Hand! Because you possess cards in your Deck, you can destroy the Fire Hand in order to trigger its effect to destroy a Monster and then Special Summon Ice Hand. If you have two copies of Fire Hand you can do the same thing but trigger both, giving you two Ice Hands which is ideal if you want to use them as Xyz Materials for a Rank 4.

What makes this especially effective is that Shaddoll is currently the most well represented strategy that uses Crush Card Virus, meaning that you are most likely to get hit by the Virus in this matchup. A very popular Side Deck plan against Shaddoll from the Nekroz side has been using Fire Hand and Ice Hand to deal with El Shaddoll Anoyatyllis and Mistake in the most efficient way possible, so suddenly Fire Hand has additional utility.

Light and Darkness Dragon

A much more outlandish strategy has been to incorporate Light and Darkness Dragon in order to use its effect to destroy your Field and Special Summon a Monster from your Graveyard, which will most likely be one you just sent. If your Deck already used a card such as Light and Darkness Dragon or a big Monster that you can send, such as Archlord Kristya, you can destroy both from your Deck because of Crush Card Virus!

So Light and Darkness Dragon will be able to Special Summon any big Monster you want, whether it be the specific boss Monster for your Deck or something else you Side Decked in to try to stifle your opponent such as Archlord Kristya. However, trying to jam too many cards into your strategy that may not be the most synergistic probably isn’t the best, so take caution when trying this at home.

Shaddolls

You never want to resolve a Crush Card Virus against Shaddoll because they can send a bunch of Monsters to the Graveyard to activate a bunch of effects, but other strategies have been taking advantage of Shaddoll Monsters as well! The new Zefra theme is super flexible and can utilize Shaddoll Monsters in various ways; some Duelists are also blending Nekroz and Shaddoll because of synergies involving easily Summoning El Shaddoll Anoyatyllis or tributing away Shaddolls with Nekroz of Valkyrus to trigger their effects.

So if you’re using one of these strategies that can fit a few Shaddolls, you can destroy cards like Shaddoll Beast or Shaddoll Dragon from your Deck when your opponent resolves Crush Card Virus to draw an extra card or destroy a back row or whatever you want! If you’re going as far as using Shaddoll Squamata, you can even send Shaddoll Hedgehog or Shaddoll Core for even more value. Even if you’re using a single copy of Shaddoll Dragon along with your Armageddon Knight in Nekroz, you can send it away to blow away stuff as problematic as Mistake!

Crush Card Virus is devastatingly powerful and if you’re not prepared you could easily let a game slip between your fingers. Preparing by adjusting your strategy minimally to take advantage of the new text on Crush Card Virus is the best way to beat the card, simply because you don’t need to rely on drawing your answers.