Reasons to hate or love Cosmo Blazer

Let’s do a hits-and misses of Cosmo Blazer, like I did with the previous sets! But this time, the opposite way around, because there’s a lot of negativity surrounding the set.

Misses, or reasons to hate Cosmo Blazer

• The Sneak Peek promo sucks (again). The last three Sneaks gave us mediocre Noble Knights as promo. This time around, while the included Noble Knight (Medraut) is actually good, they gave us the sword (which is usually a common) as the promo and turned the Noble Knight into a friggin secret rare (oh, come on!).

"Promo? I'm too good to be a sneak peek promo!
Here, take Excalibur instead. Arthur won't miss it..."

• Zexal anime (still) produces worse cards than 5D’s. I could write a whole post about how the anime cards of Zexal are worse than 5D's, but I bet you know what I'm talking about. Generally, the archetypes of the heroes/villains pale when compared to those of the 5D's heroes/villains. We get either good support cards for bad archetypes and good monsters with no support cards. Or neither.
• Fire Fists lack chickens and wolves. The Fire Fist is the main archetype of this booster set. But whle the archetype is quite good, the few cards that make the archetype tier-material are not in this set (aka, the Chicken build). Problem for that is the last Jump promo Poll, which included good cards like Chicken, Wolfberk and others, ensured that the included cards are property of Shueisha/Jump and thus not Konami. So no inclusion in the booster.

"You chose Destiny Leo over me, so f**k you!"

• Prophecies are expensive: Compared to other "bling" decks, like Lightsworn, Prophecies have more Ultra's, secrets and supers on their FIRST print, turning it into the most expensive deck EVER! Seriously, have you ever seen an archetype of which 2 good spell cards and the boss monster are secret rare? Never before, I tell you!
• Phool and Rieper were wrongfully translated: Though this is a fan error, not a Konami error. Wikia, DN and YugiohPro took over the first translation of Shriek, though nobody (NOBODY!) realized they updated the text afterwards, when they got a decent scan. This error was only realized when Konami posted an English preview of the card on their blog. All of the hype turned into rage. But as I said: fan error, not Konami error.
• Mermails: Dunno to put this in the hate or love section. Safe the TCG world premiere card Abyssteus, the other Mermails are kind of "meh"(and that’s saying it in a positive way). If you’re a Mermail player, the only card you'll want is the Ultra Rare Abyssteus, not that secret rare knock-off of AbyssMegalo.

Hey, "I'm a secret too! People will be sooo happy to pull me,
like when they pulled Megalo, right? Right?"

• Expensive XYZ. Nearly every XYZ in this set is good, I admit that. Konami saw that as well, if you noticed the card rarity of the XYZ. I’m honestly surprised about the rare foil of Basilitrice, but less surprised of the Secret Diawolf and Ultra Chidori and Tiger King. Thus the obvious result is that the XYZ will cost a lot as single cards.
• Card Rarity in general: Good cards are foil, bad cards are common or rare. Combine that with a few horrible/mediocre secret rares and the general interest of buying a booster box is gone with the wind (unless you want to start a Fire Fist deck). This set makes it possible for you to pull 10 decent/good cards out of a booster box, while all the other cards are just bad or not your kind. If you don’t like Fire Fists or Hazy Flames, don’t even bother buying a box of this set, buy single cards only.
• Bonfire Colossus & Mystical Fairy Elfuria are two mediocre (read: bad) TCG World premiere cards. Biggest problem is that they’re frigging secret rare! Next to that, the other secrets may be decent or good, but not overpowered or splashable in every extra deck, making it very hard for you to pull a secret rare that you actually want!
• The OCG imports suck: Granted, Konami didn't have a great time filling the 09x card pool, due to that Jump Promo card poll. But that’s no excuse to have so much bad cards in here. Proof: Only two cards are Super rare, the rest is common or rare. That has NEVER happened before! NEVER! And you know what's the most frustrating card in there?
• Crimson Sunbird: Crimson f**king Sunbird… I had hoped they would slowly release the old fusions in Astral Packs or so, not in booster sets. Seriously, this card is useless! You can’t even summon it with Instant Fusion, only with Summoner of Illusions! Yes, it IS a FIRE attribute. But if that’s the only thing Konami needs to fill in the OCG promo cardpool, I’m seriously wondering what’s going to happen to Lord of the Tachyongalaxy ... (Skullbird is WIND, so is Mavelus…). Thank god they didn’t put Wings of Wicked Flame in here…

"I will be in EVERY pack you open, trololol!"

Hits, or reasons to love Cosmo blazer

Of course, let’s not be all negative, there are a few good things as well about this set!:

• All XYZ are good: No matter how high their rarity is, Nearly every XYZ in this set is good, or has its uses!
• Hazy Flames are dirt cheap: I know, they’re the most unstable archetype of the set, but you have to admit it. By the time the structure deck is out, you’ll be able to build a good Hazy beast deck that will cost you less than 30$. And most of that money will go into staple spells, traps and extra deck cards (hey, and even Bounzer got a reprint, so now it’s even cheaper!)
• The Fire Elemental Lord revives Ring of Destruction (sort of): though the card text was altered upon release, the fire lord is a (weakened) version of Ring of Destruction and might strike your fancy if you like burn decks. Combine that with the new trap Kickfire and you’ll be burning the night away
• Fire Formation Tenki: I mentioned it in my article about the fire archetypes, but Tenki is the most splashable Fire Fist card, as it searches ANY Beast-Warrior (the ROTA of Beast-Warriors) and boosts them with a permanent 100 attack. And it IS a common, so very easy to get (which is weird, but good).
• New Blackwings and Infernities: if you’re a Blackwing fanboy, rejoice. There are two Blackwing monsters in this set (from the 5D’s manga)! Though they’re not great, they will be good to complete your collection. And Infernities receive Archer, which also sucks.
• Noble knights are becoming a decent archetype. With their XYZ and new Noble Knight, the Noble Knights are finally becoming a decent archetype. Makes me curious about using them. I wonder, though, if this is the last of them?

"God dammit! WHO TOOK MY SWORD?!"

Thoughts in general

While in the OCG, this set held a lot of potential, but with the additions in TCG, it just feels like a disappointment. Fire Fist fans are disappointed (no Chicken or Wolfberk), Mermail fans are disappointed (they won’t buy a whole set for 1 card they actually want), Prophecy fans are disappointed (due to translation errors and Spellbook of the master being another friggin secret) and people that don’t play any of these archetypes just don’t give a crap about this set.

Honestly, I’m more looking forward to the Structure Deck, Zexal Tin and HA7 in the upcoming months than this booster. Let’s hope Lord of the Tachyongalaxy will be better.