Why has Armorknight demon disappeared.

      Armorknight Demon used to be the best size 3 in Danger world. He was pretty much untouchable. Played in every decks, I thought this card would still be a stapple in 100 years.
    Now, he is rarely seen as a one-off in Armorknight's sideboards.
    Analyse of a monster that was hit by the Powercreep, and more importantly, was beaten up by a shifting meta.

Previous world champioship.

                               I cannot talk about the meta that occured before as I began playing

Buddyfight with the release of Darkness fable (that didn't affected the meta). So by that time, the two tier 1 decks where Thunder knight and Dungeon Hybrid. There wasn't much other decks that could seriously call themself as threats.
        And Armorknight wasn't one of them. Dungeon Hybrid would kill them faster, Thunder knight's shields would block any damages they try to deal, and Armorknight loses on the long run no matter what.

        The only option was to call Demon equip Ricdeau and pray.
         If it fairly logical than Miracle Explosion changes the whole decklist and make some cards irrelevant. They were already irrelevant and were only play by default.

         And when I think about it, Demon, is one of those cards. 6 damages is a lot for one card, but it is a size 3. Gargoyle + Wall lizard deals 6 damages too.
        Demon's blast was overestimated. He is no way near able to one shot the opponent. His main strenght is something else. We will talk about it later.

    Conclusion : even one year ago, Demon was not that god we thought he was.

A undercosted rival

     Hopefully I don't hype him too much like I did with Demon. But Iblis is nuts. 1 gauge for a 7/2/5 with a bonus soul is decent. If you add a double attack, the card is great.
     It has a bonus Penetrate that will be on very frequently. Oh and if the game lasts long enought and your weapon has 5 soul there is a last bonus that turns Iblis into a Demon with penetrate :') . And against slow decks, it happens often enought (Eagle, 2 weapons and 2 Gargoyle).

      And with Armor reuse, you start an Iblis spam that will protect your center until you get your weapon to 7 crits to one shot your opponent.

      Because of the Double attack Iblis has, Demon's ability to board whip became a lot less relevant.
    What Demon's 9k power does well are that it runs over 8k defense monsters, and fly over a battle booster on a 5 or 6k defense monster.  But this is not very interessant. Iblis + Little drake makes 9k or Ogre 'A' gives you the power needed to your weapon. And if your opponent wants to protect his monster with a battle booster, Iblis will take the Counter attack with his Soulguard and have a second try onto his monster.

      Finally, the only offensive thing Demon does well over Iblis is his 6 crits. Compared to the Iblis versatiliy and spam possibility, it becomes very hard to give Demon a room over Iblis.

A meaningless defense

     If Demon's blast is not that good, it means that within the turn he is called he cannot end the game by himself. And it is something very unfortunate considering his call cost.
     However if he stays more than one turn, your opponent will be forced to bend under his constant 3 crits damages, and his call cost is payed off. This is Demon's main strenght I was talking about earlier.


   But the close  'he stays more than one turn' has become more and more complicate to fufill. Before, outside of Tarot's Justice Hammer and DDW's Death damage, there wasn't much good spells and effects to get ride of Demon.  And said decks where not meta : Judgment wasn't out yet and DDW only had incomplete Black dragon and Death decks.
     So there was only link attack to reach Demon's 8k defense.
    And if the attemp fails (Battle circle aura, Demon slay barrier), there wasn't a second attempt because 4+ attacks formations where still fairly rare by that time (only Dungeon with Tetsuya and Skull Warrior could do that).

     Now ? Destruction started to spring into every decks. This is why Iblis' defense is much more suited to the metagame than Demon's. He doesn't force link attack, but with his Soulgard he will force two separates attacks ; and he won't die to any destruction.

What state is Demon now ?

     So Demon is at a pretty bad spot right now. The only situations where Demon is good are very rare, even with Armor reuse to grab a Demon in the drop if the one situation where he shines happens.

Will Demon come back ?

      If  destruction effect will certainly never disappear from the game, Demon is not Armorknigt restricted. So we can easily imagine a new archetype in Danger world that can erase Demon's huge price. For instance, an archetype with a lot of on-call effect monsters which will give you a ressource advantage. They will be the perfect sacrificial lamb.
      But Danger world is the worst world in term of raw ressource advantage, so said Archetype is very unlikely to be released.

      Demon has very low chance to quit your collection to see plays :'(


     To close out this article,  I looked for theorycraft reasons on why Demon disappeared from the decklists. I hope you found this interesting, and I will see you in another article.