So I went and bought a box of Battle Pack...

So I heard the plea of Tewart, saying you should buy battle pack, together with your friends. So I did… I went to the shop with two of my teammates and we each bought a box (lol).

I opened it when I got home and boy; it sure surprised me what was in there.

• TWO Tour guides from the underworld (I couldn’t believe it when I pulled that second one. I thought I was losing my mind for a second).
• Tiras, keeper of genesis (starfoil – those extra stars look good on him)
• Adreus, Keeper of Armageddon
• forbidden Chalice & Forbidden Lance
• Pot of Duality & Solemn Judgment
• Heavy Storm & Magic Cylinder (both starfoil)
• Jinzo & Breaker the Magical Warrior starfoil (breaker looks awesome in starfoil, Jinzo not that much)
• Blackwing – zephyros the Elite & Phantom of Chaos (both starfoil, it looks cool on them)
• Snowman eater Starfoil (the stars look like it’s hailing next to the falling snow, cool).
• Fabled Raven, Psi-Blocker & Hardened Armed Dragon
• 2x Gem-Knight Pearl, 2x Gachi Gachi, 2x Leviathan Dragon, 2x Utopia (1 starfoil), and an army of Zenmaister and Grenosaurus (ugh).
• Lots of other good cards (Caius, raiza, Machina Fortress, Divine Wrath, Ryko, Makyura the Destructor, the tricky, Beast King Barbaros, Reckless greed, Morphing jar, Battle Fader…)

A few thoughts:

• This box was amazing, when I compared it to those of my mates. One of them got 0 tour guides, and 1 tiras; the other one got 1 starfoil tour guide & 0 tiras/adreus.
• I bought the last box the shopkeeper had, so: yes, there IS a rush on the product. Don’t wait too long when it comes out in the US next Tuesday, or you won’t have any left.
• Water attribute cards look amazing with starfoil, as it seems as it’s snowing/hailing on them. Certain other cards look amazing in starfoil as well (breaker, Heavy Storm, Zephyros).
• Starfoil does not look good on certain dark old cards like Black Witch of the Forest and Jinzo.
• Due to the strange (but cool) effect, it’s hard to get the full effect of starfoil prints on picture / camera.
• The new rare lettering is hard to notice on XYZ monsters (white instead of white) and effect monsters (black vs black). You can feel the lettering, though.
• The starfoil card can literally be anything from the set. It could be a Tiras (amazing), or a Shadow Spell (lol, what?), so don’t be too down if your first pack has a bad card in starfoil.
• The chance of getting a starfoil variant of another card that’s in the box is also higher than expected. I got both variants of Jinzo, Utopia, Shadow Spell, Witch/forest, backup warrior (fail), blizzard dragon and Liberty at last.
• I noticed the pack distribution was as follows: good pack – bad pack – good pack – bad pack. This might’ve been just my box, but it’s something to keep in mind if you buy single boosters.
• I did not get Fiendish Chain, Harpie’s Feather Duster or King tiger Wanghu (awh). But I guess I can’t complain, considering what I did get. Due to the amazing cards I got, I was a little hyper last evening (those that called me might have noticed).

Should YOU get Battle Pack: Epic Dawn?

Let’s put it this way: If you lack a lot of cards in this set, or if you’re new in this game, the answer is: “HELL YEAH”! The amount of competitive cards you can get from this set is worth its price tag. The prices of a booster box of Battle Pack is lower than a booster box from the latest set and the chance of pulling good cards are higher in Battle Pack than f.e. Extreme Victory.

On the other hand, if you’re a card seller, or if you already have a play set of all the cards (safe Gem-Knight Pearl & Backup warrior) from this set, the answer is: maybe not. If the only reason you got this, was Pearl & Backup warrior, then I can assure you, they’re not that hard to get from the set. Not to mention: Pearl is gonna get two other prints soon (Duel terminal 6b & Hidden Arsenal 6) and Backup warrior is not a great card.

V at Regionals

Yesterday, there was WCQ Regional at my locals. I went there, but there was an underwhelming amount of twenty-something attendees. That’s a low amount for a qualifier. Could it be a backlash from the unusual high amount of attendees at nationals last week? Who knows?

As the judges waited a bit longer for more people to show up, I walked around, looking at the Qualifier mats that was price support. I was drooling over what I saw. It wasn’t the Grapha mat from last Regionals, it wasn’t the Heliopolis mat from nationals… It was the Ninja mat I wanted! That encouraged me to get into that top-8.

We waited for quite a bit, but finally end up giving in our deck lists and going into the first round.

Round 1: Vs Albert (Ninja Dragons)

It’s fated. At nearly every tournament we both attend, I’m going up against this guy. I like this guy, because he builds different decks nearly all the time. Some of them are good, others are bad. Some are original and fun to play against. Most of the times I win, but there have been several occasions where he surprised me and beat the living crap out of me. This time, he brought Ninja Dragons (cool).

• Game 1: I get Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon on the field, together with two Lightpulsar Dragons. I overlay both dragons for Photon Strike Bounzer, surprising him for already having the card (lol). He couldn’t do a damn thing anymore. He drew a Hanzo, but as my Bounzer would only negate it, he lost automatically.
• Game 2: He gets two Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragons on the field, together with Lightpulsar Dragon. He counts 8100 damage and comes to the conclusion he just OTK’d me (wow).
• Game 3: For the first time in our duel, he can get his ninja stuff going. I can play around the first Super-Transformation, but get hit by the second. But a topdecked Dark Hole & Victoria turn the duel around. I win.
• Result: OXO

Round 2: Vs. Kim, the national Champ (Inzektors) – Feature match!

From the moment I saw the matchup, I thought: “Cool, versus the champ and his Dino Rabbits”. It would be the first time playing against a Dino Rabbit deck in an actual tournament. We sit down at the Ninja mats (cool), in front of the camera; which I accidentally knock away (woops). The moment I talk to Kim about me facing the national champ and his Dino Rabbits, he says he brought another deck to this tournament. Boy, was I in for a surprise…

• Game 1: I quickly notice I ain’t facing Dino Rabbits when Dragonfly and co. hit the field. As usual, I lose the first game to “the ultimate self-touch deck”.
• Game: 2: It starts off well when I use Chain Disappearance on his Tour Guide (lol). Then I try using Veiler in a chain when he activated Safe Zone. He explains I couldn’t do that because Safe Zone prevented his Dragonfly from being Veilered. At that point I wanted to beat up that teammate of mine (the one that topped nationals). Two days before, he explained that it worked the opposite way, even against my arguments. Due to believing him (he didn’t realize he was wrong, until I put the facts in his face), I lost that game, when I should’ve won! (CURSES!)
• Result: XX

Round 3: Vs. Karel (Darkworld)

I face this guy from time to time. Nice guy, but a bit of a dork. I try to be nice to him, as he seems a tormented soul with a heavy past. But sometimes even I can’t help myself boasting a little when laughing together with my friends. I’m going to remember apologizing to him next time; I may have been a little harsh on the poor guy.

• Game 1: He can’t get his Darkworld cards in his hand (He normal summoned Snoww) and loses fast.
• Game 2: He suddenly gets Chaos Hunter on the field (my arch-nemesis), but he didn’t saw Honest supporting my Light Dragons, so I beat him.

the second game onward, my memory’s a little vague. So I’m not sure if I won 2-0, or 2-1.

Round 4: Vs Stijn (Inzektors)

I got in front of a fellow Chaos Dragons player, only to find out he switched over to Inzektors as well. Why is everybody changing to inzektors, for crying out loud? Oh, well.

• Game 1: I lose the dice roll, he gets his inzektor stuff going, I lose (familiar scenario).
• Game 2: I get Future fusion, get Chaos Monsters, I banish his key cards. I win.
• Game 3: I misjudge a face-down Solemn warning, when It actually was a Torrential Tribute. I wanted to keep my REDMD alive, so before I used REDMD’s effect, I Tried triggering the Warning by summoning Lyla, only facing Torrential Tribute and missing the chance of getting Lightpulsar’s loop. This misjudgment costs me this round. Aaaaaah…
• Result: XOX

Round 5: Vs Unknown (the bugz!)

I faced one of the few French guys that bothered coming to our area for the qualifier. Apparently he’s the buddy of Sebastien Gonzales, one of Belgium’s best players. So, I’m prepared for anything.

• Game 1: I have a bad opening hand and can’t protect myself against them swarming bugz (not again...)
• Game 2: Somehow I get Eclipse Wyvern in the grave, but my field remains empty. He plays Dimensional Fissure on me (gee, I didn’t see that one coming) and attacks me with Spirit Reaper (Okay, he got me there!). Next turn I surprise him with Return from the different Dimension, bringing back my two banished Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragons, using their effect to bring more boss monsters and overwhelm his attack-positioned reaper.
• Game 3: This exciting match goes back and forth. My deck shows its anti-inzektor potential, by banishing his hornet at least two times, veilering his Centipedes before they do a lot of damage & using Chain Disappearance on his Dragonflies. He counters my boss monsters with various traps. We go into time, but in the end he has to give in. For once I had the right cards at the right moment, making the right decisions.
• Result: XOO (Yes!)

Since there were less than thirty players, there were only 5 rounds, so that was it. Together with Maarten, another familiar face at locals (another one of those guys I face nearly every tournament), we joke about getting into top-8. We both realize it’s impossible with 2 losses. We both wanted that Ninja mat, as we're both Ninja fans.

Final standings are given and I end up being 8th place, to my own surprise. They seriously had to film my face when they announced me being in top-8, I was overjoyed, as I won that Ninja mat I wanted so badly! Maarten, on the other hand, was not that happy. He got 9th place, missing out on that mat. I could read the disappointment from his face. The organizer handed out the notes for qualification for the European Chamionship (in Italy). He handed one over to me, to my surprise. I thought only 1 person for each 6 players got qualified? Well, we’ll see whether or not I’ll get an official invite in my mailbox, or not. It’s not like I can go to Italy either way (lol).

Thoughts in general:

People are switching over to inzektors more and more. It’s a sad thing and I’ll be glad when September comes and puts an end to that self-touch deck.

The organizer held back on price support. I find it hard to believe that the winner gets the same price as the 8th place (me). It’s not really fair for a guy that won all rounds to get the same price as the guy that he beat in the second round.

Keep your eyes on Inzektor Players! If it isn’t re-using used monster effects, or getting to many cards in their hand, it’s misunderstanding their own cards. Safe Zone appears to be the latest tech card in the deck, but many players use it wrong! Remember the following:

1. Veiler that Dragonfly or Centipede BEFORE your opponent activates Safe Zone
2. you CANNOT attack directly with a monster equipped with Safe Zone!
3. You CANNOT prevent the destruction of a DEFENSE-position Dragonfly by activating Safe Zone.
4. When Safe Zone is removed from the field, that Dragonfly you tried to protect is destroyed & vice versa.

Nationals time

Warning: Beware of long post! I tried to make it easy enough to read...

Aaah, Nationals time. The second time I participated and I hoped to do a little better than last year. I remember last year, I got a mere 87th place out of about 120 participants. But that was the first year I was playing. This time around, I took my Chaos Dragon deck.

I got up at 7h, and took the train to Brussels. After a five-minute walk from the station, I end up at the Outpost of Brussels around 10h, where the tournament took place.

I thought that shop would be bigger; sine nationals attract about a hundred attendees each year. But I was wrong… It isn’t the biggest place, but apparently the organizers thought there wouldn’t be a hundred people because of the “economic crisis”. Guess what… there were 160 people, even more than last year! Woops! They hired the lounge bar next door to make sure all those people could sit and play. The top-32 tables and the feature matches were held in the lounge bar, the rest was in the Outpost.

Registration was slow (as expected), in that BIG shop [/sarcasm], so instead of starting out at 11 o’ clock, it ends up being 12h30 before we could really start. It was no surprise people started to get grumpy and hungry after a while. Most of them were there since before 10h.

In the meantime, I got to do some nice trades. I finally got that Hyper Psychic Blaster for my Psychic Gusto Deck & I finally got me a Trishula, the re-sealed Dragon of the Ice Barrier (now my Ice Barrier collection is complete! Hurray!). My friends, on the other hand, were hyping up on Cardfight Vanguard, that new trading card game. Since the Outpost was the first shop to actually sell these in Belgium, it was only a matter of time before they sold out. A lot of people were interested in them.

Somewhere between 12 & 12h30, all players get to sit down alphabetically, so that the judges could pick up the deck lists. The head Judge says that due to the late start, round 7 & 8 would be held the day after. I’m not pleased with the announcement, as I wasn’t planning on returning on Sundays (unless I would top, of course).

During this decklist-check, I’m seated in front of Max Van Nijverseel, the guy that got 4th place at YCS Toulouse. That guy’s huge! From the talks I had with him that day, I could hear he’s definitely one of Belgium’s finest players at the moment. Let’s just hope that 4th YCS place doesn’t get to his head.

Round 1: Vs Lightsworn-Chaos Dragons-something deck

A short while after that, we finally get to the first round. The first opponent speaks French and only a few words Dutch or English (great). But he understood the game mechanics well enough and my French is average enough to get the game going. I win the die-roll, so I go first.

• Game 1: I get dragons on the field easily. I beat him fast!
• Game 2: I open horribly, but he can’t seem to get stuff going either. Just like game 1, he isn’t using the effect of Eclipse Wyvern & I start to notice that he doesn’t have any dark monsters at all (HUH?). After a few turns, I finally can get Lightpulsar and Darkflare on the field, and I beat him down.
• Result: OO

He explains (in his worst English) that it was his first big tournament and he was quite nervous. That would explain why he couldn’t get the second game.

Just before the second round started, my judge-friend came up to me and said: “Hey, I’m taking care of coverage today. Would you mind if I picked you to be one the next feature matches?” I thought about it. As I’m a fair-play guy, it’s only an advantage to be covered, as my opponent cannot cheat. So, I said yes. We got to play on the Gagaga Girl mats, which were beautiful! I wanted one of those :-P.

Round 2: Vs Grapha's minions (feature match!)

This opponent is a guy from my locals. The feature match made him obviously more nervous than he would be in a regular matchup (my fault I guess :-P). After re-rolling the dice for 4 times (lol), I end up losing the roll.

• Game 1: I open up with Charge of the Light Brigade & Solar Recharge, together with a bunch of Chaos monsters (cool). I got Lyla to my hand, but he activates Mind crush and I have to say bye to Lyla (f**k). He buries his Grapha and he attacked me with Trance Archfiend (wait, that's all?). During the match he mistakingly draws after he played reckless Greeds. I didn’t notice it, but the judge did. He apologizes, but gets a warning and a replay ensues. His nervousness is getting worse and he can't focus anymore. Thanks to that, he forgets about that Grapha. I’m able to come back quickly and beat him!
• Game 2: I start to wonder if he ended up with the same hand, but with a Dark World Dealing instead of Mind Crush, because again, he buries his Grapha & he attacks with DJ Archfiend. He’s able to get Grapha on the field this time around, but I get over his him with REDMD, banish the living sh!t out of him with Darkflare Dragon and beat the rest of Grapha's armies!
• Result: OO

After the match is over, my friend-judge and another judge have a small discussion about how the first one forgot to start the camera (fail). So our match was typed out, but no video (too bad). Then I start hearing rumors about how the entry packs were going to be Order of Chaos instead of Galactic Overload. This caused a lot of irritation amongst the players, as people wanted GAOV, not ORCS.

Since I had time to spare, I buy 10 packs of Galactic Overload (since I wasn’t going to get anything from the entry). I open them, along with my mates and piss them off when we pull a Photon Strike Bounzer, a Night Beam, Evoltile Elginero & Light Art Hijiri and a few other good rares and commons. Yup, that was money well spent.

Round 3: Vs the Bugs

Another French guy, but at least this one speaks English well enough to have a conversation, even if he clearly wasn’t that talkative. Before we start, we finally get our entry packs, proving that it was ORCS we got (ugh). The only good card I pulled from it was Blade Armor Ninja. Then we roll dice, I lose.

• Game 1: After he opens Tour Guide into Sangan, I still have no idea what he plays. It takes a few turns, but it ends up being Inzektors. But Darkflare, Chaos Sorcerer and BLS cause a lot of his combo cards to be banished, before he could draw into a Dragonfly. I sure love Chaos monsters :-P.
• Game 2: He opens quite well and even though I put up quite the resistance, I can’t seem to draw a single Chaos monster. Even Lightpulsar refuses to go to my grave! Curses!
• Game 3: This one goes back and forth. I refuse to give into his Inzektors and banish his Centipede, Tour Guide, Sangan and 2 of his Hornets (again he fails to draw Dragonflies). But as we go into time, he finally gets his Dragonfly, takes the upper hand with his last Hornet and takes the last of my life points.
• Result: OXX

This was an exciting match, even though I lost in the end. At this time around, the time schedule for the nationals gets updated again, and apparently round 7 & 8 will be held today after all, but we weren’t going to get a 1-hour break between round 3 and 4. I’m pleased, but a few of the judges are complaining because it will be late when the tournament ends today.

I meet up with my friends. Several of them are able to keep a 3-0 score, but half of them had at least 1 or 2 losses.

Round 4: Vs the annoying bugs (again)

Another French guy, but he speaks English fluently and is quite the nice guy. We have a chat and help out the French and Dutch players next to us who apparently don’t understand each other. We roll dice, I win!

• Game 1: I open up with 2 Wyverns, a few Chaos monsters and 1 Ryko. He destroys the Ryko instantly with Hornet and attacks. I then draw my third wyvern and realize there’s no more way out for me. I quickly lose.
• Game 2: I can open quite well, but I mistakingly use my effect veiler as a monster instead of keeping it in my hand. Next turn, he summoned Dragonfly, which I couldn’t negate anymore. Well, I deserved that loss.
• Result: XX

Round 5: Vs Skill Drain Heroes

Finally I face another Dutch speaking guy. And it’s a guy that doesn’t play Inzektors! I win the dice roll, so I start out.

• Game 1: He flips Skill Drain early on in the game. I curse that card, since my MST’s are in my side-deck and Heavy Storm remained somewhere hidden in my deck the entire duel. I didn’t get Future Fusion, or the Lightsworn Support cards I needed. So when he gets Beast King Barbaros on the field, I have to face the truth. Skill Drain hurts.
• Game 2: Obviously I side in my MST’s and hurray, I open with one of them, together with Heavy Storm! I use both of them (too) early in the game, but neither of them hit Skill Drain (I do hit Solemn Warning and Judgment). Not surprisingly, he flips his Skill Drain soon after and I have no way out again (DAMNIT!). I hit myself in the head for using that MST too early to be good, since I can’t get the other two in my hand. And then Karma laughs in my face, providing me with top decks like Ryko & Lyla.
• Result: XX

At that point, I’m kind of pissed. The guy was nice, but I just got my third loss (again, due to my own mistakes), meaning chances of me getting top-32 were reduced to 0. When I meet up with my friends, most of them had 2 losses.

Round 6: Huh?

I sit down, rather ranked down after facing three losses in a row. The table area was quite empty, as three opponents don’t show up, including mine. The guy next to me starts the timer on his phone, saying that he missed the top 32 in Toulouse, because his last opponent showed up in the last seconds, stalled like hell and got the win due to time. He said that ever since, he’s making sure that doesn’t happen to him again. After two minutes my opponent shows up, he says I can have the win, signs the paper and walks off. Lol, what?

The guy that was timing calls the judge and he signs “no-show” on his paper. On my other side, another young player faces the wrath of the head judge after he has to admit his side-deck is in a box filled with other cards (hard to prove you're not cheating then,huh). Poor kid was nearly crying when he got a game loss.

Round 7: Chaos Dragons (lol, mirror-match)

The guy I face seems tired. When I talk to him about it, he says he hasn’t slept in near 48 hours. After the deck shuffle, I win the dice roll, so I begin.

• Game 1: I open up with chaos card and LS support, so I pass. He profits from it and gets Spirit Reaper on the field, attacking me. He picks Lightpulsar Dragon for discard (he’ll regret that) and didn’t get that Chaos Sorcerer (lucky me). Next turn, I get the Lightsworn engine working, get Future Fusion in my hand, get all my boss monsters on the field and try to go for an OTK. He prevents that, thanks to Gorz, but he ends up losing anyway.
• Game 2: I open bad, he opens Future Fusion. He wins, period.
• Game 3: This was one of the most exciting games of the day. He tries stuff by getting Darkflare Dragon in the grave. I draw Victoria, revive his Darkflare Dragon & banish it for my Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon (lol, Victoria Win!). But I can’t get the win yet. He’s good! He comes back and ends up reviving my BLS. I feared I had no outs with Lyla being the only card left on the field. But then I draw Divine Dragon Apocralyph and get an idea! I summon it, use its effect to get REDMD back to the hand, overlay him and Lyla for Maestroke, detach Apocralyph to turn that BLS face-down, remove Ryko & Apocralyph to summon Lightpulsar from my hand. Banish it to summon REDMD, special summon the other Lightpulsar from the grave and smash for game! Thank you Maestroke!
• Result: OXO

I thanked the guy for the exciting match. He smiled, but hoped the tournament would be over soon. I asked him: “So you can go to bed?” No, he said. “I still need to go out with my girl tonight”. Ouch, wonder how that turned out for him?

Later on, the judges put up the standing after round 7 (First standing I’ve seen today). I was in place 63 of the 160. Cool, still in top-64. Top 32 was impossible, but if I could remain in the top 64, I would still get those Qualifier sleeves. But 63th place is cutting it, so I had to win next round. Several of my friends were nervous too, because they had two losses. They couldn’t lose another one, or they would be kicked out of the top-32. That situation made the last round the most exciting one.

Round 8: Chain burn

The last one is Dutch speaking as well (hurray). I lose the dice roll.

• Game 1: He opens Pot of Duality and reveals Jar of Greed, Legend of Yata-Garasu and Morphing Jar. For a moment I feared he was playing empty jar, a deck my I have a bad matchup against. But for some reason, he picks Jar of Greed instead of Morphing Jar (huh?). After getting a few monsters on the field, I notice it isn’t an empty jar deck, but rather a chain burn deck. I tried getting to his life points asap, but he ends up countering me with double Just Desserts and finishes me off with Secret Barrel.
• Game 2: He stalls and draws massively again. But this time around, he doesn’t have that Swift Scarecrow in his hand, so I quickly kill him with my boss monsters.
• Game 3: All or nothing. Both of us were fighting to remain in top-64, so it was hard vs. hard. I get monsters on the field; he can counter with cards like Lava Golem. But I won’t go down that easily. I use his Ojama tokens to get Scrap Dragon and Catastor on the field. Both our life points go down, but neither player is giving up. Then he gets Metaion, the Timelord on the field. He would’ve killed me if its effect would’ve worked, but my Effect Veiler prevents him from attacking. When it was my draw phase, I started to wonder how to get over that card, as attacking it was out of the question. I knew it was just a matter of time before he activated another Just Desserts or Secret Barrel. In the background I hear “TIME!” and realize I had to do something, or I would lose (I was slightly behind in LP). I draw into Eclipse Wyvern and my first thought was “Bad topdeck”! But then I noticed I still had Lyla on the field and remembered that come-back move from last round. I overlay Lyla & Eclipse Wyvern to create Maestroke, the lifesaver. And yes, he saves my butt. I use his effect to put that Metaion face-down, then destroy it with Scrap Dragon’s effect and attack for game with all my monsters.
• Result: XOO

The game is over and we’re both happy with the exciting match.

Final standings came out, while I drank another juice. I ended up being 43th place (of 160 attendees). I was quite happy with the result, even if I wasn’t in the top-32 (wasn’t my expectation). But being so close to that top-32 made me feel a little bitter about my mistakes in the matches I lost (the so close, yet so far feeling).

Next to the ex-champ from my locals, one of my teammates (the best player) topped too, so he would be coming back on Sundays. After talking and joking around with all the guys from locals, I walk to the train station and head home. By the time I started walking, it’s already 21h, so it was past 23h when I got home. A long day passed by, and I was happy.

After hearing from my team later on, that teammate got to 7th place and apparantly one of the only Dino Rabbit players at nationals actually won over all the inzektors! No matter how many Inzektors topped, it's Dino Rabbit that wins again! (I felt happy again!)

Pros for today:

• Good trades and awesome GAOV-pulls.
• Doing a coverage match and winning it 2-0!
• Maestroke the Lifesaver being the best addition to the extra deck I had in months.
• One of my teammates getting 7th place! Congratz to him!
• Dino Rabbit beating all the inzektors (loving that result!)
• None of my opponents being bas*ards (unlike last year), some of them were really nice.

Cons for today:

• The not-so-great organization of the tournament (location, timing, changed time-schedule)
• Not getting GAOV as entry packs, but ORCS
• Making mistakes causing me to lose two matches.

So, that was me at nationals. This weekend it's European Qualifier. We'll see what my deck does there, with the nice addition of Photon Strike Bounzer :-P

The Cadillac of Demons

A few days ago, I was following a conversation on Pojo about the Battle Pack. This conversation included the infamous Konami honcho, Kevin Tewart. Suddenly, a conversation about the Battle Pack got a side-walk after a question about Mazera DeVille.

Kevin mentioned that he found it sad (for the creator) that nobody got the original joke about Mazera’s TCG name. And thus he hinted the card name’s origin (and Wikipedia did the rest, lol).

This old card, from Ancient Sanctuary, got translated from Devil Mazera into Mazera DeVille, the closest thing a TCG monster ever got to the name devil.

Why, yes. I AM a devil, not a Djinn!

But why “DeVille”? There was a joke bound to the card name, of course, but not the one the fans thought of. Everybody thought Mazera’s name was based upon Cruella de Vil, but that’s not it.

Of course not, I am so NOT a devil!

Mazera’s literally the Cadillac of demons, as his TCG name is based upon the Cadillac De Ville. Hardly anyone realized it. But I guess that’s what you get when you try a car joke amongst a young public that rather watches cartoons instead of expensive cars.

The Galactic Overload reverse review #2: The TCG Exclusives

Second on my reverse review list is the TCG exclusives. The following cards will be ours and ours alone until September 2013! Enjoy them!

Noble Knight Artorigus

Wow, just wow… Look at this card. Just look at it. The artwork is beautiful (for once, there’s an actual background!); the text is just drawing you in. Yes, this IS king Arthur, drawing Excalibur from the stone. Well done, Konami, well done.

Card effect? Oh, yeah… this card has none. Nobody’s going to use this card, really. But it’s beautiful and if you have one of those legendary collection binders, this card deserves a spot in those card spaces in the cover.

Ancient Dragon

ANOTHER level manipulating dragon. This card gains attack and a level each time it inflicts battle damage. If you like to make rank 5 XYZ, this is the card for you.

Hieratic Seal of the Dragon King and Hieratic Seal from the Ashes

For each great archetype that gets introduced in TCG, we get a few exclusive cards. In the case of the hieratics, we get a Gemini monsters & a trap card.

Difficult card to play, as it is a level 6 gemini with 0 attack. But it has potential, when combined with cards like Superalloy Beast Raptinus and (especially) Supervise. In these cases you can access its effect quite easily and gain from it.

But for it to work decently you need to get it to the grave first, and that's probably the most annoying part. But that other TCG exclusive Hieratic card helps.

Seal from the ashes allows you to: send a Hieratic monster from the deck to the grave; return a banished Hieratic to the grave; and special summon a Hieratic monster from the grave! This is handy when you get bothered by your opponents bottomless trap holes or Macro cosmos’s. YES, its “return to the graveyard” effect bypasses Macro Cosmos! That makes this one of the most interesting TCG exclusives.

Draconnection

Great card that fixes consistency issues in certain dragon decks. For example :

• In a Ninja dragon deck, you can put that dead White Dragon ninja back in your deck and get an Armed Dragon Lv. 7 out of it.
• In a hieratic build, you can send a dead Hieratic Seal of the Dragon King back to the deck, and get a Hieratic Dragon of Tefnuit instead.
• In a Chaos Dragon deck, when you want to get that REDMD back from your graveyard; you can swap that Eclipse Wyvern in your hand for a Divine Dragon Apocralyph.
• If you’re a fan of Rescue rabbit, you want to keep that Alexandrite Dragon in your deck. With Draconnection, you can swap that Alexandrite dragon for a better dragon. Can you do that, Kabazauls?

Evoltile Elginero

Risky, but useful. A card with a great effect, but its 0 attack can make it a bad topdeck. In combination with Evo-Force, though, this card gives you plusses!

Lightray Grepher

Meet Lightray Grepher. YES, ANOTHER Warrior Dai Grepher.

I can make a number of jokes about this guy, like the number of his split personalities that keeps on increasing, or how his cardstory is getting f**ked up with Each new Grepher card out there.

But in this case, let’s keep it simple. Dark Grepher & Lightray Grepher are the two outcomes of The Paths of Destiny.

And on terms of effect… handy in Light attribute decks, like Lightsworns, Agents, or why not… a complete Lightray deck (perhaps a little too soon for that, though).

Tardy Orc

This is a joke, nothing more to it. The name, the art and the effect all clearly state that this is a joke. I bet the designers had a hell-of-a-time to create this one.

People hyped this card when it was announced on the product page as a secret rare. But as many (other) people figured, this card has a bad effect. It’s basically Giant Orc, recreated in the “Tour of the Underworld” theme. That doesn’t automatically mean that this card is as broken as Tour Guide, geez…

Well, sucks to be you, if you pull this as a secret rare in your box :-D (though I’m not laughing too hard, since I generally have this kind of luck :-S ).

Trials and Tribulations

In the past, only Dragon decks could recuperate from tributes, thanks to Super Rejuvenation. With this card, everyone can at least profit a little from tributing monsters.

For the rest, look! Here’s a decent article about this card, from the Konami blog.

XYZ Wrath

Another one of those XYZ support cards. It’s an altered version of Divine Wrath. This can help against Chaos Dragons, Six Sams or Monarch decks. But that’s about it, right now. Very limited use in the current meta.

 

That’s it for TCG exclusives. Next time, it’s trap time.

Galactic Overload reverse review #1 - The OCG promo's

With the upcoming release of Galactic Overlaod, I’m gonna do a reverse review of the latest Yu-Gi-Oh! set. With reverse, I mean starting with the last cards, going up!

Number 11: Big Eye

So, Goyo Guardian got banned last year. Guess it's time to bring it back! This is the splashed down version of it. The stats AND the effect instantly reminded me of Goyo. But its effect has become more limited in usage. Still useful to steal that Zenmaines, Scrap Dragon or whatever other monster is bothering you. The two level 7 monsters might be harder to get on the field, but this card's type gives you a hint in what deck this card can be used. Right… spellcasters. A lot of the Spellcaster powerhouses are Level 7. Dark Magician, Endymion, Arcanite Magician,… And don’t forget, we have a few spellcasters that can manipulate their own levels (Gagaga Magician, Gagaga Girl, Flelf who I’m going to talk about soon).

Number 07: Lucky Straight

IF you get this card on the field (which is very unlikely, considering you need 3 level 7 monsters), you already deserve an applause. If you get his effects to work, I will scoop, because you earned that win.

No, seriously. This card is an iconic gambling card, used in the anime by a lucky gambler. In real life, however, you probably wasted your entire hand getting this card on the field. And then, you can only hope your opponent isn’t sitting over there, with an Effect Veiler in his hand. Long story short, this card isn’t playable in real life and using his effect will most probably unlock an achievement in the next Yu-Gi-Oh! game.

Beetron (Kabutron)

In a lot of archetypes there’s one of these kind of cards. A card of which you feel has an affinity with an archetype, but isn’t really a part of it (Yes, I’m looking at you, commander Gottoms & Reese the Ice Mistress!). These type of cards often get neglected in their archetype-deck (in my example, X-Sabers & Ice Barriers), because they lack that archetype naming and therefore are less usefull.

This card has an affinity with Inzektors (it’s a dark insect, whose effect can help inzektors). But because this isn’t an inzektor card, it has a high chance of being overlooked by inzektor-players. I noticed nobody’s playing it in the OCG, so the chance of players using it over here is low.

But none the less, if Inzektors get hit by the banhammer in September, this might be a card to consider to replace limited or banned cards.

Influence Dragon

This card is usefull in dragon-specific synchro summons (like Trident Dragion or Exploder Dragonwing). Other than that, this card is not that great.

Bright Star Dragon

Another level manipulating dragon, that’s also a light-attribute beatstick. His effect, however, works only when he’s normal summoned.

This is not such a great card. If you want beaters, there are many other options. And in terms of effect and usability, Delta Flyer is better.

The release of this card has a consequence, however. This is one of the Tag Force 6 promo cards… With this card being released in this set, this means we’ll never get Tag Force 6. Sad story, really.

Buten + Doom Donuts + Nimble Manta

A few weeks ago, I was jokingly saying that because this is one of those sets that’s not THAT great, they might as well include these (useless) Jump Festa promo cards. Never thought they would actually do it :-S.

Buten’s only use is when he’s in the grave. There, he can turn a light-fairy on the field into a tuner. This wouldn’t be such a bad effect a few years ago, during the 5D’s era. Nowadays, however… this is a waste of card. Oh, and look. Konami removed the halo. Who would've guessed?

Doom Donuts is the least useless of these 3 cards, being a card that’s able to destroy zombies (and other monsters with either 0 original attack or defense). This card can be used as a side-deck card if Zombies ever return to tier 1. The only question I have here is, why did Konami change the naming of “Death” cards again? Everyone expected this card to be “Des Donut”, like Des Kangaroo, or Des Koala. Now it’s a Doom card. Weird...

Nimble Manta is (like most Nimble monsters) able to special summon more of itself. But due to the wording, it can only be used under the effect of Dark Hole, Torrential Tribute, or other similar cards. Why? Because it misses the timing! The specific wording makes this card WORSE than Peten the Dark Clown, which is a symbolic card for "missing the timing"-monsters.

Shining Elf

This is one of the more interesting OCG promo cards. It’s a rank 2 XYZ which can disable your opponents attack power (yes, its effect can be used multiple times on the same monster). It’s quite funny to watch your opponents Leviathan Dragon or Stardust Dragon being reduced to a 1500-attack monster.

However, since the best Rank 2 XYZ remains Gachi Gachi, this guy kinda flies under the radar. But in a Spellcaster deck that uses Magical Apprentice, this guy can help you out.

Flelf (Full Elf)

With a name that reminded me of Full metal alchemist, you'd expect more of this card. But this is just another level manipulating card. Not bad, but not that great either, since it's not the first of its kind.

This card can be searched through Apprentice Magician & can be used in both synchro’s and xyz (unlike Gagaga Magician). This is a useful card in spellcaster type deck. Might be helpful to get cards like Big Eye on the field.

Thoughts in general

It’s not uncommon that Konami uses less usable OCG promo cards in sets that have no Special Edition, but I have a feeling there are a few missed chances here. Gustaph Max would've been a nice addition, due to its connection with some of the other machines in this set & its usability in the Hieratic Dragon decks. Oh, well, perhaps another time.

Another thing I noticed is the amount of spellcasters included. This even though the next set focuses on spellcasters, not this one. I expected more machines and dragons to be in here.

Next to cover, the TCG exclusives