Sometimes, Dueling is all about sweet effects, cool combos, and thinking on your feet to outwit your opponent.  Other times, it’s just about smacking the other guy as hard as you can.  Which one is Hammer Bounzer good for?  Here’s a hint: he’s got giant hammers instead of hands.

WAHHHGHTHGHGHRHRRRRHGHGHG

If your opponent controls a card and you control no cards, you can Normal Summon this card without Tributing. If this card attacks an opponent’s monster, as long as you control no Spell/Trap Cards, your opponent cannot activate any Spell/Trap Cards until the end of the Damage Step.

Normally, the biggest monster you can Normal Summon is something like Alexandrite Dragon, a Normal Monster with 2000 ATK and no effect.  Even popular one-card Special Summons like Cyber Dragon tend to top out at 2100 ATK, and anything bigger usually has a cost or a drawback.  Hammer Bounzer is raising the bar, with a whopping 2300 ATK.  How serious is he about attacking?  So serious that if you control no Spell or Trap Cards, his effect will keep your opponent from activating Spells or Traps to stop him.

These are just three of the popular cards your opponent won’t be able to activate when Hammer Bounzer’s effect is active.  Mirror Force can’t destroy him; Forbidden Lance won’t shrink his ATK by surprise; and Dimensional Prison won’t banish him.  There’s not much you can do to keep this thing from beating on your monsters. Just be careful – Hammer Bounzer doesn’t protect other monsters with his ability.  He’s pretty good at protecting you from attacks though, since it’s tough to get over his 2300 ATK.

Being able to take off more than a quarter of your opponent’s starting Life Points with each attack is great, but the real strength of Hammer Bounzer lies in his ability to take out troublesome monsters on your opponent’s side of the field without opposition!  If Thunder King Rai-Oh’s effect is keeping you from activating cards like Pot of Duality or Reinforcement of the Army, Hammer Bounzer can attack to destroy it.  While your opponent could ditch Thunder King to negate the Special Summon of a monster like Cyber Dragon, that effect can’t touch Hammer Bounzer, because you Normal Summon him without Tributing.  You’d have to give up Cyber Dragon to eliminate Thunder King, but with Hammer Bounzer, you dominate in battle instead.

There are lots of other big monsters that can put pressure on you just by being on the field.  Evolzar Dolkka can lock you down by threatening to negate your monster effects and destroy your monsters in the process.  Chaos Sorcerer can banish one of your monsters every turn, making it really tough to keep cards on the field.  Since Dolkka and Sorcerer both have 2300 ATK, you can attack either with Hammer Bounzer and just trade off in battle, ridding the field of the monster that was keeping you from making more important moves.  2300 ATK on a monster you can Normal Summon sure does solve a lot of problems.

Don’t forget, Hammer Bounzer isn’t just a beatstick.  It’s also a Level 6 that’s incredibly easy to get to the field, which means it’s a prime Material for Synchro and Xyz Summons.  Pair it with another Level 6, and you can Summon powerful Xyz Monsters like the new Photon Strike Bounzer, or Number 25: Force Focus.  Or, tune it to Plaguespreader Zombie to Synchro Summon something like Stardust Dragon, Scrap Dragon, or even Void Ogre Dragon.

Sometimes, a little aggression goes a long way!  You can play Hammer Bounzer in almost any Deck, adding a little more “oompf” to your strategy, and chasing away pesky monsters that might pin you down otherwise.