Spotlight: Earthquake

(Shining the light on the hidden gems within the game)

Spotlight Segment:

Uni-Metagame will be offering spotlights of different cards as time goes on.
We will be providing analysis into the metagame in a much deeper way by going into specific cards that haven't been touched on in the current phase of gameplay.

By just following the spotlight segments, you'll be able to use cards that are underrated, to turn the tide in your battles in yugioh.

We'll discuss popular cards from time to time, but our focus will remain with the unique ones that no one wants to talk about. The cards that slowly turn the metagame while no one is watching. The cards that pounce and make everyone adjust their play style.

You'll be watching the metagame shift, and you'll be able to track those shifts, with our spotlights, before any other site EVER see's it coming.

While they react to the changes, we'll show you what happens ahead of time.

This is your proactive approach to the metagame. These spotlights will give you the advantage everyone wants, but no one can find.

Enjoy them as they come, as they touch upon the popular cards, but focus on the hidden ones.

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Earthquake
(Click the pictures to see bigger cards and read the text easier)

So why is this card special? Isn't there already a card with this effect?
Why are we spot lighting it then?

It's simple, Windstorm of Etaqua has to be set, and isn't used as an offensive tool, as it should be. It's used more as a defensive tool, and that's where it fails. That's why it gets kicked out of people's decks, because there are better defensive card choices.

Some popular defensive card choices include compulsory, sukurestu armor, phoenix wing wind blast, torrential, and a treasure trove of other cards.

So why was Windstorm being spoken about, and why is it even put in some decks nowadays? Simply because, it allowed you to take down strong monsters that had been summoned or attacked that turn because of their weak defense. It was the perfect offensive tool.

That is where the power lies, in the offense.

Earthquake lets you come back from tight situations where you have monsters, or you can get out strong monsters, but they just arn't strong enough for you to gain field control. And lets face it, if your slow gaining field control in this metagame, you'll get wiped out, and fast. (Check out metagame's "Magic numbers" article, if you don't stop your opponents tempo, you'll get run over fast.)


Fake downsides:

1) Switching your monsters to defense hurts you:
No it doesn't. Even if you have a strong monster on the field, and it does get switched to defense, you can switch it back to offense. Remember the only things that prevent you from manually switching it are if it was

• Summoned

Or

• If it declared an attack

You obviously didn't declare an attack because you're playing this card in your Main phase 1, setting you up from an earth shattering assault.

2) What if i summoned a monster first?
Then you made a bad move. You should have played earthquake first and then summoned.
That way earthquake wouldn't have affected you.
There are lots of bad moves in yugioh, here is another one. Try to avoid it.
If you can't avoid it... I'm sorry for you.


Upsides:

1) It doesn't have to be set
This one reason alone is why people play more spell cards than trap cards in this game(Usually at least twice as many more). Spells go off instantly and the risk for negation or destruction is much lower than traps. They allow you to move the flow of the game instantly. Earthquake gets a huge boost because of this, just simply being a spell.

2) It lets you bring down the house
Whatever numbers of monsters your opponent seems to have summoned are now at risk. Defense is something a lot of monsters lack and it's that weakness that we're exploiting.
Can't get over the attack power... we'll just switch it to defense then.

3) It makes many monsters vulnerable not just 1

Every opponents monster becomes weaker, that's the key.

Fissure, at most, affects 1 monster. The same goes with smashing ground, creature swap, and a number of other choices.

Earthquake on the other hand makes all of their monsters defense a vulnerability to exploit.

Lets face it, in this metagame, summoning once, is a weak move, and on most turns, you'll usually be special summoning at least 1 monster. If you can't do this, you'll never keep up with lightsworn, Teledad, or glads.

So imagine playing zombies, bringing out 2 monsters, and attacking into their vulnerable 2.
If you only had smashing or fissure, you couldn't deal with 2 big monsters, but now you can deal with every monster your opponent has!

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Simply put, this card lets you deal with many threats coming at you at once.
We don't simply have 1 strong monster hitting the field anymore, we have many, and because of that we need to adjust. Earthquake lets us do that with NO COST at all.

Next time you see a Stardust(2000 Defense), a Thought ruler(2300), or a Goyo Guardian(2000) don't be worried. A simple 2400 paired with earthquake takes all three of them down.

Imagine that, the 3 strongest Syncros in the game, taken down with a single card, that doesn't have to be set(Sorry compulsory).

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So why isn't anyone talking about this card? Why isn't it even being mentioned? Why haven't you heard of it?

It's simple, creativity has been stemmed in this metagame, and old gems like this are hidden away.

If you want to find more treasures like this, keep coming back to Uni-Metagame.
We'll supply you with secret ammo to shock your opponents into submission.
Earthquake is our first bullet and the Metagame has felt the first shot, fired from Uni-Metagame's arsenal.