Return of the Duelist brought the Heroic monsters and one of the strongest Xyz Monsters to date – Heroic Champion – Excalibur. By detaching both of its Xyz Materials, its ATK climbs to a whopping 4000 points, allowing it to tear through anything that stands in its way. Abyss Rising brings even more Heroic Champions to your Deck, allowing you to strengthen whatever kind of Warrior Deck you play. On top of that, there’s even a World Premiere Noble Arms card that works with all of your Warriors as well! Are you ready to join the league of Heroic Champions?

The Heroic Champions are Rank 4 Warrior-type Xyz Monsters that require Warrior-type monsters as Xyz Material. Heroic Champion – Excalibur (from Return of the Duelist) has a tendency to become very powerful, very quickly, but the 2 new Heroic Champions work in much different ways. These 2 don’t focus on having high ATK. Instead, they help you out, by dictating what cards your opponent is allowed to play. Heroic Champion – Gandiva (Xyz Summoned with 2 Warriors) can destroy Special Summoned monsters, and Heroic Champion – Kusanagi (Xyz Summoned with 3 Warriors) can negate Trap Cards and boost his ATK.

Getting 2 or 3 Level 4 Warriors to use as Xyz Material is way easier than you might think! Heroic Challenger – Double Lance makes it easy to get 2, since he Summons a copy of himself when you Normal Summon 1. Samurai Duelists can use Legendary Six Samurai – Kizan, Legendary Six Samurai – Enishi, and The Six Samurai – Zanji to bring them out. Using the effect of Silver Sentinel makes Summoning the Heroic Champions extremely easy too (especially Kusanagi). You can even re-use all of these cards after you’ve detached them from your new Champion by playing The Warrior Returning Alive. It’s especially good with Double Lance, allowing repeated Tour Guide-esque plays of incredible Xyz Monsters!

A Shot in the Dark

Heroic Champion – Gandiva takes care of little Special Summons before they become massive headaches. When your opponent Special Summons Level 4 or lower monster(s), you can detach 1 Xyz Material from Gandiva to destroy them. Gandiva is great for stopping your opponent’s swarm tactics that would prepare them for a Synchro or Xyz Summon, and really puts the hurt on Xyz combo driven Decks like Dino-Rabbit and Wind-Up. Gandiva can slice through both of the monsters Special Summoned by Rescue Rabbit with just 1 Xyz Material, destroy any Sea Serpent Summoned by Deep Sea Diva, and can even throw a spanner in the works of just about any Wind-Up combo around.

Heroic Champion – Kusanagi is the other new Heroic Champion, and while he’s a little tougher to bring out, once you have him, your opponent is unlikely to play any more Traps during this Duel. Once per turn, when a Trap Card is activated, you can detach 1 Xyz Material from Kusanagi to negate it, destroy it, and then boost Kusanagi by 500 ATK points! Even using this ability once turn Kusanagi into a 3000 ATK powerhouse, and using it 3 times will make him as big as Excalibur himself! Since it can be used at any time, you can use it on anything from Torrential Tribute to Mirror Force. Even if your opponent plays a card like Bottomless Trap Hole as soon as Kusanagi hits the field, he can just detach a Xyz Material and send the Trap packing.

So Gandiva can destroy monsters as soon as they appear, and Kusanagi can negate Trap Cards when your opponent tries to fight back. But how can you ensure they reach the field and do their jobs in a world where Traps are everywhere and Geargiarmor and Snowman Eater see a lot of play? The answer: Noble Arms – Arfeudutyr!

Arfeudutyr is most at home with the Noble Knights, but you can Equip it to any Warrior-type monster you want. While it’s equipped, you can lower the equipped monster’s ATK by 500 to destroy any Set card your opponent controls. Equip it to a monster you want to Xyz Summon with, clear out an opposing card, then Xyz Summon! And if you’re playing with Noble Knights, one of your Knights can pick the sword back up and take out another card. So much for “Set 1 monster and 1 Spell or Trap Card”!

There are a lot of great cards for all kinds of Decks in Abyss Rising, and Warriors are one of the Decks that gets a big boost. Join the league of the Heroic Champions, and gain the power to triumph over your enemies!