Battle Pack 2: War of the Giants released to great fanfare this past weekend! We’ll be focusing a lot on Battle Pack strategies this week, starting cards and combos that work well with your high-level monsters, and easy ways to Summon them. In a Sealed Deck centred around Summoning big monsters, you need to Summon monsters to Tribute quickly, and protect your strong monster once it’s in play. Here are some ways to easily Summon them, protect them, and mitigate the costs of Tribute Summoning!

Tribute monsters with effects you can use from the Graveyard!

One of the main strategies in Battle Pack 2: War of the Giants Sealed Play is to Tribute Summon a big monster and deal tons of damage with it. Normally the monsters you Tribute are just gone, but in War of the Giants there are a number of monsters that actually help you out if you Tribute them. Zolga is one of those monsters, boasting a decent ATK score, and granting you a 2000 Life Point bonus when you Tribute it.

There are also the 3 “Vylon” Tuners, Vylon Tetra, Vylon Stella, and Vylon Prism. If any of these 3 monsters are sent from the Monster Card Zone to the Graveyard, you can pay 500 Life Points to equip them to a monster. Since they’re “If… you can…” effects, if you Tribute them for a Tribute Summon, you can equip them to the monster you just Summoned! Each of them has a unique effect while Equipped that can protect your monster from being destroyed, auto-destroy enemy monsters it battles, or supercharge its ATK even further.

Monsters that have effects that activate in the Graveyard are also good choices to Tribute, since you can use their effects at your leisure. Necro Gardna and Bacon Saver are great at this, since they can negate an attack of your choice later in the Duel. This can help to protect your Life Points, or keep a monster on the field to Tribute on your next turn.

Tribute monsters that have already used their effects!

You want to get the most out of every monster before you Tribute it. This is important, since consolidating smaller monster into a large monster can sometimes leaves you with fewer monsters. Traditionally, Flip Effect (and similar) monsters are the best for this. Mecha Phantom Beast Hamstrat is one of the best cards for anyone hoping to Tribute Summon, as it Summons 2 Tokens when it’s flipped up. If you Flip Summon it after setting it on a previous turn, you can even Summon an Egyptian God with just Hamstrat and its Tokens! Monsters like Battle Fader and Magician of Faith make great Tribute fodder after they’ve been used as well.

Set up with Special Summons!

Since you only get 1 Normal Summon per turn, Tribute Summoning a Level 7 or higher monster will usually only happen on turn 3 or later. However, there are a number of things you can do in order to get a monster out even faster. Monsters that can be Special Summoned from your hand are extremely useful in this way, since you can get 2 monsters onto the field in one turn. Cyber Dragon, Solar Wind Jammer, and Photon Thrasher are especially good for this. There’s also Fiend’s Sanctuary, which Summons a Metal Fiend Token that you can then use for a Tribute Summon right away. Trap Monsters are fantastic for this purpose too – it’s great to defend for a turn with Metal Reflect Slime, and then Tribute it for a giant monster to start a quick counterattack!

Battle Pack 2: War of the Giants gives you lots of ways to Summon big monsters, and protect them while they’re on the field. But remember, just because you got to Summon your giant doesn’t mean that it’s safe forever! If you want to pit giant monsters against each other, grab some packs of Battle Pack 2: War of the Giants with some friends and see who’s the strongest!