Emissary from Pandemonium

Fiend/Tuner
Earth/7 Stars
2600/1800

This card cannot be Special Summoned. You can Normal Summon this card with 1 Tribute. If you do, it becomes Level 5 and its original ATK and DEF are halved.

Summary:

Generally, cards that can fill multiple roles in your deck give you more options while you are dueling. For example, Breaker, the Magical Warrior can be a powerful 4 star monster, or it can destroy a spell or trap. So Breaker, the Magical Warrior is useful in several situations, and that makes Breaker powerful.

This card is trying to do the same thing, but I feel that Emissary from Pandemonium does a poor job. It is either a sub par tribute monster, or a tuner monster that most decks will have trouble using (due to its high level).

Effect:

Emissary from Pandemonium can be used in two different ways:

1) As a 7 star tuner with 2600 attack.
2) As a 5 star tuner with 1300 attack.

Since this card cannot be special summoned, a tribute summon is the only way that Emissary from Pandemonium can be brought out. That really limits its use as a tuner.

So, if you tribute two monsters for Emissary from Pandemonium, you will have a 7 star tuner monster with 2600 attack. In this case, Emissary from Pandemonium is almost useless as a tuner. You would need to be using a level one monster as the synchro material, and that's after you sacrificed two monsters in order to get Emissary from Pandemonium out! It's just stupid to summon a powerful monster only to tribute it anyway. The only reason to summon Emissary from Pandemonium at level 7 is as a high level monster with no effect, which is pretty bad for a two tribute monster that cannot be special summoned.

The only time you should bring out Emissary from Pandemonium at level 7 is if you absolutely have to.

Emissary from Pandemonium is far more useful as a level 5 tuner. You won't attack with it much since it will only have 1300 attack, but it is much easier to use as a tuner. Even then, it isn't a very good tuner monster. Being a high level tuner means that it can only be used with level 3 or lower monsters (until higher level synchro monsters come out). This really limits the decks that this card would be useful in since not every deck uses many low level monsters. The fact that it is a high level tuner means that it is slow when compared to other tuner monsters. Since you can only normal summon Emissary from Pandemonium and it isn't strong enough to stay on the field by itself, the only time this card is useful to synchro summon with is if you will have the other monsters for the synchro summon on the field.

There are just better ways to synchro summon than to use Emissary from Pandemonium.

Combos:

There are some decent combos for Emissary from Pandemonium.

Anything that will help you normal summon Emissary from Pandemonium will be a huge help. Soul Exchange and Mausoleum of the Emperor are great ways to get Emissary from Pandemonium onto the field, especially Soul Exchange. Soul Exchange can get rid any monster in a way that few cards can (it does not destroy, hits face down monsters and you get choose the monster), then you can summon Emissary from Pandemonium at level 5, ready to synchro summon with.

If you summoned Emissary from Pandemonium with one tribute, Skill Drain will negate Emissary from Pandemonium's effect and reset Emissary from Pandemonium's attack back to 2600, and level to 7. So you can summon a 2600 attack monster with one tribute while Skill Drain is on the field. This may sound good, but there are monsters that are far better than Emissary from Pandemonium at this. For example, Beast King Barbaros can be summoned at 3000 attack without any tribute under skill drain.

Finally, if you plan on using Emissary from Pandemonium, you should consider using the quick-play spell card Battle Tuned. It removes a tuner from the grave and gives that tuner's attack to a monster on the field. Emissary from Pandemonium is the tuner with the most attack in the game, and a 2600 attack boost in a quick-play spell card is ridiculous. You could make almost any monster huge (3000+) at any time you want, and the boost is permanent.

Conclusion:

I wouldn't expect to see Emissary from Pandemonium in any popular decks anytime soon because most decks can't afford to use a tuner that they must tribute for, or anything to support Emissary from Pandemonium. I don’t see it in any Skill Drain decks either because there are much better cards to use in its place.

About the only decks I could imagine Emissary from Pandemonium being played in are ones that have lots of low level monsters to synchro summon with, and maybe some support for high level monsters. However, even that is a bit of a stretch.

-Valt