Fossil Machine Skull Wagon, a card you can banish from the Graveyard to destroy a Spell/Trap on the field.
In practice, it fills a role similar to Elder Entity N'tss. The difference is timing: N'tss triggers when it's sent to the GY, miss that timing and you don't get the pop, whereas Skull Wagon can be fired off later, any time it's sitting in the GY.
Of course, there's a "cost": Skull Wagon can only hit Spells/Traps. N'tss has broader coverage, while Wagon gives you a choice of timing. For Hikaru, both lines have pros and cons, more importantly, they add another option.
Sometimes, choice matters more than effort.
Sometimes, the right choice flips the whole game.
For Hikaru, one more option is always a good thing.
After noting Fossil Machine Skull Wagon, Hikaru kept combing through his Deck.
With his current level of "alchemy," his ever-tighter control over Super Polymerization, and the Duel Energy he'd been stockpiling from daily matches, he could basically "audit" his Deck after each Duel for strange, new arrivals.
Lately, though, his opponents had all been heavy-hitters, each with their own signature tricks, so the cards drawn to him by Duel Energy were pretty scattered.
But after today's Duel, because The Tyrant Neptune truly carried an extraordinary supernatural charge, Hikaru had gained a large amount of Duel Energy. So it was likely that everything Super Polymerization had been "preparing" for him would finally surface at once.
He rummaged for a while, then paused.
"Huh...Adoration!?"
At some point, a Vision HERO Adoration had slipped into his Deck. The HERO didn't answer, but the card flashed twice in his hand, like a shy hello.
Somewhere along the way, Vision HEROs had snuck in; Hikaru even found two low-Level Vision HERO monsters tucked alongside it. They stayed quiet, perhaps disinterested, perhaps bashful. After that soft flash, they settled down again.
"Hah, thanks for the backup," Hikaru chuckled. "I'll introduce you to the others later."
He flipped forward again, then his eyes lit.
'Panzer Dragon?'Hikaru thought back.
So this was the card that had started glowing after the Duel with Ansiel. He hadn't identified it then, just a light in the Deck, but now the picture snapped into focus:
Panzer Dragon.
Level 5 | LIGHT | Machine | Fusion | 1000 ATK / 2600 DEF
Materials: 1 Machine + 1 Dragon
For Hikaru's build, that Fusion condition is easy, and crucially, Panzer Dragon isn't shackled by "must be Fusion Summoned." You can bring it out with Instant Fusion or, in older formats, Metamorphosis, pop it at the End Phase, and Panzer Dragon's GY trigger blows up Skill Drain or any other problem card on the board. Elder Entity N'tss can't be reached by Instant Fusion the same way, so Panzer covers that niche beautifully.
If he'd had Panzer Dragon in the Ansiel Duel, he wouldn't have needed to lean on a Quick-Play De-Fusion line just to dodge Skill Drain and clear it later; he could have Instant Fusion → Panzer, let it self-destruct, then pop the floodgate from the GY trigger.
And the materials are wide open. In a list full of Machine starters and Dragon Fusions, Hikaru could call it out almost on demand. When you need to clear the way, it's a clean, tempo-positive option.
"HERO Duels net me the support of Vision HEROs… The match with Ansiel gifts me Panzer Dragon, which clears any card on the field after it breaks… The fight with Jim hands me Skull Wagon, which works right out of the GY, and Fossil Fusion that can even use cards in the opponent's GY…"
The more Hikaru spoke, the brighter his eyes grew.
Every Duelist in these finals, even the ones eliminated, had their own reading of what a Duel is. When Hikaru Dueling them, fusing their power and beliefs with his own, the cards and spirits that came to him aligned almost perfectly with each opponent.
Which meant: whoever he faced next, Hikaru should be receiving some seriously cool "parting gifts."
For a moment, he even found himself missing the old tournament format from before he crossed worlds.
If this were a Swiss system, if he could face each duelist exactly once, the Duel Energy would pile up at a ridiculous pace.
But;
He pictured the intensity of duels in this world and the toll they took on the body, and quickly shook his head.
Dueling here was punishing. Even for him, now well-trained, grinding through eight opponents of roughly equal strength in a row would leave him spent.
Hikaru cut off the daydream. He stowed his cards and stretched out his shoulders.
Next came the last round of the revival bracket, "revival matches" no less fierce than a second final, to decide the eighth and final spot from more than a dozen hopefuls…
Only now did Hikaru truly feel how cruel Dueling could be in this world.
The upside was that, during the revival phase, he and the current Top 8 could finally rest and loosen the knot of focus in their minds.
And just as he let himself breathe and tried to ease his nerves, someone else was still grinding.
"Draw card, draw card, draw card..."
In the training hall, a blonde girl drilled her draws like a machine. Her motions were messy, scattered, she couldn't calm down at all.
"Sis, take a break," said Grace, her silver-haired twin, coming up with a towel and a worried look. "Your head's all over the place…"
As twins who knew each other best, she didn't even have the heart to tease. That alone showed how worried she was about Gloria.
Gloria didn't refuse. She let her hands relax; her eyes went unfocused and she nearly stumbled, but even then, the cards in her grip never spilled.
She steadied herself, shook her head, put her Deck away, took the towel, and wiped the sweat from her brow.
"Grace, I can't stop. This is my last chance. Only by beating everyone can I make it back to the finals! And this is the perfect opening, this way I can duel Amagi Hikaru directly."
"But why push yourself this hard, Sis?"
"For the fight, of course!" Gloria answered without missing a beat, passion blazing across her face. "Dueling him makes my blood boil. That kind of clash, that kind of struggle, is what makes a duel truly exciting!"
Grace pressed a palm to her forehead and sighed, again and again. "That's exactly why I'm worried about you."
...
Stones 💎💎
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