So I was driving home to work today, and my mind wandered to Yu-Gi-Oh. I was thinking about some of the recent changes I made to one of my decks. I had been trying to fit Sinister Serpent into the deck for a while, but just couldn't seem to make the room. The other day I traded for a second Slate Warrior which I had decided was going to get a try out in my deck.

I started thinking of other changes to make to the deck. In the middle of brain storming a light bulb went off in my head. If I was going to add Slate Warrior to my deck why not add in two Night Assailant's to help with discard costs? This way even if I don't have another Night Assailant to bring back, I could grab Slate Warrior.

So my thought today was this; in today's metagame is Night Assailant more beneficial than Sinister Serpent?

Taking a quick glance at each we see:

So the good things about Sinister Serpent are that it doesn't need another monster in the graveyard to fuel it's effect, and that it is a Level 1 monster so it can be Metamorphosis-ed into Thousand Eyes Restrict a very popular little critter these days. It can be searched out with Sangan, Last Will, and Mother Grizzly.

Night Assailant can be useful when set, as it can be a form of monster removal. It can be searched out with Sangan, Last Will, and Mystic Tomato. It can be Book of Moon-ed or Tsukuyomi-ed to reuse it's effect over and over again. When discarded it can be used to get back Magician of Faith, Slate Warrior, Cyber Jar, Morphing Jar and a host of other monsters. Also the little Fiend is a Dark monster, so it can help fuel the dreaded Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning.

In my opinion Night Assailant fits better into today's metagame. I'd much rather discard a Night Assailant and get back a Magician of Faith or Morphing Jar than get Sinister Serpent back, all of these monsters offer even more options.

What does everyone else think? Is Sinister Serpent the best option for you to discard or can Night Assailant do the job better?

If your opponent Noblemans your Night Assailant when f/d though and the other is still in your deck, they're both kaput.

Both have their ups and downs..

Night Assailant can be useful for stuff that you may have to continuously discard for like Tribe-Infecting Virus and Dark Paladin and other similar effects. Other ways is stuff like Graceful Charity. If you have 2 in your hand, discard them both with Graceful and then get them both back through the other's effect and you basically got a 3 card draw for 1 card.

Downside being that to get this loop, you need 1 in your hand and 1 in your graveyard to get the "infinite" loop off really and you can't retrieve the exact same Night Assailant you or your opponent just sent from your hand to the graveyard with its own effect.

Sinister Serpent's upside is that it will, almost, always come back to your hand and is usually good in a pinch.

Downside is, it's mainly a 1 time per turn use since it won't come back until next standby phase and since retrieving back next standby phase is optional, you have to keep remembering to take it back.

It really depends.

MY preference in Night Assailant, however, if I don't have a Night Assailant in the hand or Graveyard, I ussually use Sangan to search for Serpent than the first Night Assailant.

There are certain situations where discarding a NA to retrieve another NA is better than to discard Sinister. XYZ Dragon Cannon and Dark Paladin are both good examples of this. Discarding Serpent allows you ONCE "free" use of these discarding effects. While discarding a NA to retrieve a NA will get you infinite uses of that same effect.

And while Sinister Serpent makes Graceful Charity a single discard, Night Assailant BREAKS it.



Waldo10032 – The Fiendish Duelist says:
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"Everything I know, I learned from Novastar, VenomLord, Magicien_Noir, KrazyKillRoy, Pyrofire14, Nataku, Jeff_Mop, Tamahome, mortals, KenjiBlade, Agentmage2012 and Tyloki. So praise me for learning so well when I'm right and blame THEM for screwing up when I'm wrong. (More people will be added to this list as needed) "

This doesn't fit in my Sig --> http://www.yugiohrealms.com/forum/sh....php?p=3510793

But Night Assailant is two resources. If I were to use Tribe's effect or Abyss Soldier's effect (especially), all I need is a Sinister Serpent.

But Night Assailant can prove infinitely better in other situations. I'd say they both are great depending on the deck type, but Sinister Serpent works in more decks than Night Assailant. But Night Assailant more fits today's meta. Conflict occurs...

What to choose...I'll get back to you on that.

Personally I prefer the Snake, simply becuase of his playability in the hand, but also on the field.


I love metamorphosis-ing a serpent into that deadly Thousand Eyes Restrict.

Creature Swap is also a killer for it.

Offering for a monster? Tribute the Serpent and get it back to use it again!

Not to mention its a great topdeck most of the time.

Night assailants... yes, they replenish the hand..... and they allow for continuous hand discarding..... but I would rather have a card that can be run in less copies and do a lot more in different places.

i will have to agree with ultimate death... with everyone running 2 NOC night assilants can be NOC or other flip effects you might want to get back.. although they have the nice effect of killing a monster...

So Nobleman of Crossout doesn't work on Sinister Serpent?



Waldo10032 – The Fiendish Duelist says:
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"Everything I know, I learned from Novastar, VenomLord, Magicien_Noir, KrazyKillRoy, Pyrofire14, Nataku, Jeff_Mop, Tamahome, mortals, KenjiBlade, Agentmage2012 and Tyloki. So praise me for learning so well when I'm right and blame THEM for screwing up when I'm wrong. (More people will be added to this list as needed) "

This doesn't fit in my Sig --> http://www.yugiohrealms.com/forum/sh....php?p=3510793

So you should use Sinister Serpent to help lure out Nobleman of Crossout? If that's what your saying it really doesn't seem like the best use for Sinister Serpent since it won't end up in the graveyard so you won't be able to use it's effect.

Nobleman of Crossout is obviously the number one enemy of Night Assailant. It can shut Night Assailant down before it gets set up.

I really do think both cards are great. I just like the access that Night Assailant provides to Magician of Faith more than anything else. The infinite discarding loop to power XYZ-Dragon Cannon is also very interesting.

Most of the times Sinister Serpent will be better since it's easier to use. But when you run a deck that depends a lot on discarding, Night Assailant is the better choice.

I think assaillant is better in dealings with the hand, but when it comes to actually having it on the field, i'd rather use sinister. If they don't have the tsukiyomi lock going, a sinister can shut down a TER indeffinately. Since it can only attack once per turn..not a whole lot they can do. Also as said before, it's nice to use it as tribue fodder and not waste an actual good monster.

Either way, I play all 3 of them so it doesn't matter to me.