Notes & Combos
With the release of S:P Little Knight (and to a lesser extent Raging Phoenix) in Revived Legion, Rescue-ACE has substantially changed for the better, though I will miss the old Reprodocus / Decode Talker package for its innate versatility and power.
Despite S:P Little Knight fixing most of our problems with Rescue-ACE, she brings more questions than answers when it comes to optimal deckbuilding in a Link Toolbox variant, something I want to find out for myself in future iterations of Rescue-ACE.
For this deck specifically, I went with handtraps and Talents instead of boardbreakers like Droplet, which performed okay (though I always prefer the latter over the former in this deck).
To compensate for the Decode Talker package, I stuffed the remaining slots with cards such as Selene, Accesscode, and Unicorn to bolster the deck's ability to go second by having access to more forms of removal and two OTK lines depending on the situation.
How does S:P Little Knight affect Elf's viability in R-ACE?
Personally, I think Spright Elf becomes far less valuable in R-ACE than in previous seasons, precisely due to S:P Little Knight. She has completely and utterly replaced Elf in her role to protect Turbulence.
Therefore, she can only be used as an endboard piece to bolster our existing board. Unfortunately, I find her role in this to be quite lacking for a number of reasons.
- Ironically enough, S:P Little Knight is a more threatening endboard piece than Elf is due to her tag out effect being a form of removal and interruption.
- S:P Little Knight allows us to immediately mitigate the effects of Evenly Matched, something that Elf cannot do, even if we have S:P or I:P in the GY.
- Elf's targeting protection becomes less valuable where most of our interruptions are in the backrow, except for S:P or Preventer, which requires the opp to have a monster in play for maximum value.
As a result, the only combos where I felt like Elf really mattered were in two card combos that ended on Elf + I:P + S:P or Elf + I:P + S:P + Princess, but even then, Elf is not one of our main sources of disruption in that endboard.
Those two combos above are mainly why I am still keeping Elf, but most of my other decks have abandoned Elf in favor of 1 or 2 S:P to protect Turbulence, whereas I am playing with builds and combos where I do not need Elf in the Extra Deck or as an endboard piece.
TL;DR: Spright Elf is very mid.