“I am Sirius. And don’t call me Shirley.” – Satellarknight Sirius, October 2014

With The New Challengers comes new Satellarknights! Today’s cards help to bring the whole Satellarknight strategy together in some great new ways. Each of the new Satellarknights works just like the past Satellarknights – they’re all Level 4 LIGHT Warriors and have effects that activate when Summoned, and can be used once per turn. Let’s jump right in with Satellarknight Sirius!

With Satellarknight Deneb and Satellarknight Unukalhai searching out your cards, while Satellarknight Altair and Satellarknight Vega put together your big Xyz combos, it’s easy to burn through every Satellarknight in your Deck pretty quickly. Satellarknight Sirius is perfectly poised to take advantage of that trait! When you Summon Sirius, you target five ‘tellarknights in your Graveyard. Return all five of them to the Deck, then draw a card! Sirius simultaneously reuses your spent knights and gives you a new card to work with. It works with all ‘tellarknights, so it can even return your Xyz Monsters like Stellarknight Delteros or the new Stellarknight Triverr (more on him in a moment). That’s always helpful when your 15-card Extra Deck is tight on space.

Basically, Sirius is a walking Pot of Avarice – but in some ways, even better. You draw one less card than Pot of Avarice, sure, but you make up for that with Sirius’s versatility. You can search out Sirius with Satellarknight Deneb, Stellarknight Delteros, and Reinforcement of the Army – something Pot of Avarice could only wish for. You can also use one Sirius to recycle a previous Sirius, looping them each back into the Deck until they’re needed again. Finally, Sirius isn’t unplayable if you aren’t ready for its effect, or rendered useless if its effect is countered by something like D.D. Crow. In those cases, it’s still a 1600 ATK body that’s good for some damage, an Xyz Summon, or to pay for Stellarnova Alpha.

Satellarknight Procyon gives you a new way to put your in-hand knights to use. When you Summon Procyon, you can send a ‘tellarknight monster from your hand to the Graveyard in order to draw a card. Make sure to carefully read Procyon: It is not a cost to ditch a ‘tellarknight. Thus, if Procyon is negated somehow, you lose nothing!

Of course, you probably would prefer its effect to be successful. That way you get to load your Graveyard for Satellarknight Altair, Sirius, and Call of the Haunted while getting a new card out of the deal.

Satellarknight Betelgeuse is a bit of an oddball, but he does have his place. When he’s Summoned, you can target a ‘tellarknight card in your Graveyard, then Betelgeuse will try to send himself to the Graveyard. If that works, you get to add that target back to your hand. It’s a bit rough losing your monster, but Betelgeuse makes up for this by retrieving any ‘tellarknight card from the Graveyard, be it a monster or the Spell Cards Stellarknight Alpha, Hexatellarknight or Satellarknight Skybridge. Betelgeuse also packs the highest DEF of all Satellarknights, at 1900.

The second of the Stellarknights, meet Stellarknight Triverr! Where Stellarknight Delteros is focused on handling one card at a time, Stellarknight Triverr is more of an all-or-nothing kind of guy. If you Xyz Summon Triverr, he’ll send every single other card on the field back to their owners’ hands! That leaves you free to make a direct shot for 2100 damage, and it also lets you reuse your own cards like Call of the Haunted. Keep in mind that Triverr is restricted to ‘tellarknights as his Xyz Materials, and you can only Special Summon ‘tellarknights the turn you play him… which, in practice, doesn’t matter at all because it leaves you free to make the same Satellarknight Vega and Satellarknight Altair combos you normally would!

Stellarknight Triverr has even more effects to put to use. Once per turn, you can detach an Xyz Material to send a random card from your opponent’s hand to the Graveyard! This kind of effect is always good, but it works even better after Triverr just bounced away their whole field.

Finally, since Triverr will be dismantling your opponent’s hand, and it has only 2100 ATK, it will definitely become a target for your opponent. That’s ok for you, since Triverr’s final effect activates if it goes to the Graveyard with an Xyz Material. You can target any ‘tellarknight in your Graveyard and Special Summon it! Bring back Deneb for a search, Altair for another Summon, Procyon or Sirius to draw a new card, or even Delteros for a 2500 ATK replacement! Even if Triverr is destroyed right away by something like Torrential Tribute, you will still have returned everything to the hand and gotten a new monster.

These new ‘tellarknights don’t revolutionize the way the strategy works. Rather, they help bolster an already robust Deck, giving it some new options and more longevity, making it even better at what it already does. Pick up your new ‘tellarknights in The New Challengers, starting with Sneak Peeks this weekend! The New Challengers launches on November 7^th.