Konami has gone back to drip feeding us news for the upcoming Doom of Dimensions set coming to the Yu-Gi-Oh! Trading Card Game (TCG) this September.
Onomatokage
Level 4 DARK Reptile Effect Monster
This card is always treated as a “Zubaba”, “Gagaga”, “Gogogo”, and “Dododo” card. You can only use the (1)st and (2)nd effect of this card's name each once per turn.
(1) If you control a “Zubaba”, “Gagaga”, “Gogogo”, and/or “Dododo” monster and this card is in your hand or GY: You can Special Summon this card, but banish it when it leaves the field.
(2) You can banish this card from your GY; return up to 2 Xyz Monsters from your GY to the Extra Deck.
It looks like Konami isn’t done yet with the Onomat archetype. Onomatokage is a retrain of the original Kagetokage used by Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal protagonist, Yuma Tsukumo.
In its original form, Kagetokage was a simple tool to push for XYZ summoning. At the time, XYZ monsters were the latest of Yu-Gi-Oh’s extra deck features.
With the modern retrains of other Onomat cards released in Duelist’s Advance, Onomatokage retains part of its original design philosophy. It’s an extra body that can be brought out by one of the in-archetype monsters to fuel extra deck plays.
As a modern version, Onomatokage lacks the distinct clause of locking it out from being used as fodder for any of the extra deck summons. It even has some better quality of life improvements that present-day decks are looking for.
For one, it now has an expanded special summon location; it can be brought back from the graveyard as well. Though this effect does come with a caveat of Onomatokage being banished once it leaves the field.
This card’s biggest value is that it can recur XYZ bodies from the graveyard back to the extra deck.
Most modern XYZ decks usually run a single copy of their best tools unless it’s their deck’s win condition. So, having a monster that can double this mileage is quite the boon.
There’s also the fact that Ryzeal Detonator, one of the strongest XYZ monsters in the current competitive format, is currently limited to a single copy. Players in the TCG may end up running an Onomat engine alongside Ryzeal just to recur Detonator.
Infernal Punisher
Normal Spell Card
(1) Activate 1 of these effects (but you can only use each of these effects of this card's name once per turn);
● Add 1 WATER Dinosaur monster from your Deck to your hand, then, if your opponent controls a monster, you can Special Summon the added monster.
● Tribute 1 monster; Special Summon 1 Level 6 or higher FIRE monster from your hand, Deck, or GY, but its effects are negated unless it is Fiend monster.
This is one of those cards whose addition to the card pool is dependent on your outlook.
A more cynical view would see this as nothing more than pack filler. None of the targets for Infernal Punisher’s search function provides much progress for a deck’s win condition.
A more optimistic view could see this card as occupying the same space that Chaotic Elements once did. A card before its time because we don’t have a competitive archetype that can make use of it yet.
For now, Infernal Punisher is clearly suffering from the first view.
Its first effect is basically an Emergency Teleport going second. Going first, there’s a pretty small pool of Water Dinosaurs available you’d even want to get into your hand with.
Maybe this might be a sign for a new archetype that will be introduced in the future.
You could put up an argument that a player could search one of the Normal monsters to use in a Primite engine.
The vision may be a little hazy, but Primite does an excellent job of elevating decks to become a little more competitive than they normally would be.
As for its second effect, it’s also an Emergency Teleport, but this time for the Fire attribute. It has its own set of parameters to follow, but this second effect would probably see more use depending on the deck.
The problem is the clause of negating effects if a non-Fiend-type monster is summoned, which could be a deal breaker. Most decks that would benefit from such a search effect, like Fire Kings, would have better or more efficient options to use.
The other probable target for Infernal Punisher’s second search effect is Unchained Soul of Sharvara, which is currently semi-limited in the TCG.
With D/D/D Wave High King Caesar still on the roster, maybe having an extra card to get Sharvara onto the field faster may be worth considering.