Maximum Crisis takes Pendulum Summoning to the next Level with monsters that have Pendulum Scales of 0 and 13! This is a big deal because until now, 1 was the lowest Pendulum Scale and 12 was the highest. Because you can only Pendulum Summon monsters that are between the two Pendulum Scale values, that meant you could never Pendulum Summon Level 1 or 12 monsters. That all changes right now!

Pendulumucho is a Level 1 monster with a Pendulum Scale of 0 and a handy Pendulum Effect that lets you add one of your Pendulum Monsters that’s either banished or in the Graveyard to your Extra Deck, face-up. That’s great news for anyone who’s been playing with cards like Odd-Eyes Persona Dragon, Odd-Eyes Pendulum Dragon, Odd-Eyes Mirage Dragon and Odd-Eyes Phantom Dragon. All those monsters are DARK monsters, which makes you want to use Allure of Darkness to help you draw more cards. The problem is, once those monsters are banished, you previously had no way to get them back! Pendulumucho can be the low end of your Pendulum Scale, retrieve a monster you banished for Allure, and when you’re done with it, you can just destroy it with Sky Iris to find another “Odd-Eyes” card.

In addition to Pendulumucho, Maximum Crisis also supports a pair of monsters with Pendulum Scales of 0 and 13. Supreme King Gate Zero and Supreme King Gate Infinity are Level 7 DARK monsters with Scales of 0 and 13 respectively that can move themselves from your Monster Zone to your Pendulum Zone if they’re destroyed by battle or card effect. They’re also able to destroy themselves and another face-up card you control to pull Dragon-Type monsters out of your Extra Deck, though they change their ATK and DEF to 0, negate their effects, and forbid you to use them for Synchro or Xyz Summons. Why would you want to do a thing like that?

It’s because of what you can use those monsters to Fusion Summon! If you have four Dragon-Type monsters, including one Fusion Monster, one Synchro Monster, one Xyz Monster and one Pendulum Monster, you can fuse them to Summon Supreme King Z-Arc! Generally speaking, the Spell you want to use here is Dragon’s Mirror, since it can banish the Dragons from the Graveyard should they wind up there. Z-Arc is the monster you see on every pack of Maximum Crisis, and it has 4000 ATK/DEF, can’t be targeted or destroyed by your opponent’s card effects and wipes out every card your opponent controls when it’s Special Summoned! It is incredibly difficult to lose a Duel in which you Summon Supreme King Z-Arc and even hard for Z-Arc to be destroyed at all, but if it is, you can move it to your Pendulum Zone where it’ll suppress the effects of all your opponent’s Fusion, Synchro and Xyz Monsters, and let you destroy cards your opponent draws or searches for once per turn.

Maximum Crisis isn’t the end for Pendulum Summoning! The strategy will change further when Pendulum Evolution launches at the end of June! Maximum Crisis  is available now.