The other side of the Cardgame #4: Glimpse at Judgment of the Light

As you may know, both in the OCG as the TCG, 4 boosters come out per year. But they don’t come out each 3 months exactly. In the last few years, the releases have been:

• TCG: January – May – August – November (1-5-8-11)
• OCG: February – April – July – November (2-4-7-11)

As you can see, there’s one period in the year where boosters follow up rapidly (November-January in TCG, February-April in OCG), while there’s also a period where there’s 4 months of waiting time (January-May in TCG, July-November in OCG).

So it’s no surprise that the next OCG booster is around the corner, while we don’t even have Lord of the Tachyon Galaxy yet in TCG. I’ll give my "cards to look forward to" review when the set is officially released, but I’ll already give you a few noteworthy comments right now:

Judgment of the Light

• Judgment of the Light is both LIGHT and DARK: So people saying the set is going to be pure LIGHT were wrong.
• More Fire Fist & Mecha Phantom Beast support. No word on support for the older archetypes yet (Madol, Geargia, Mermail, Atlantean, Fire King nor Prophecy). Still possible, though.
• Several new (anime) archetypes, including Super-Defense Robo (Earth machines, used by Orbital 7), Umbral (dark fiends, used by Vector), Holy Lightning (light fairies, used by Durbe) and War God (Light animals, supposed to appear in the anime?).
• New support for an old famous archetype: Just like last set gave support for Harpies, this set gives support for another old archetype, namely Archfiends (interesting). One of the most noteworthy newcomers of the Archfiends is Trick Archfiend. It’s a Tour Guide target which basically replaces Sangan, and searches for Archfiends (of ANY level). And while tributing this card on the field doesn't trigger the effect, it DOES trigger when sent to the grave from the hand/deck because of a card effect (Armageddon Knight/Dark Grepher/DW Dealings).
• Nothing yet on potential Light/Dark Elemental Dragon or Elemental Lords, also nothing on a Light Armageddon Knight knock-off.
• Synchro monsters return: Yes, the rumors you heard are correct. There will be 7(!) new synchro monsters in this ocg set.
  • Brotherhood of the Fire Fist - Kirin: A level 8 synchro for the 4-axis Fire Fist decks.
  • Mecha Phantom Beast Conco-Ruda: A level 7 synchro for the Mecha Phantom Beasts, though this one protects tokens instead of monsters (huh?).
  • Mist Bird Clausolas: A level 3 synchro that’s actually worth summoning (lol). But couldn't they keep the "Valley"? It's the second Mist Valley synchro (after Mist Wurm) whose name is "Mist" only (not much of an archetype this way).
  • Balmung, Fighter of the Demon World: A lv 4 synchro that can finally replace Armory arm (cool). The name is a reference to a Nordic weapon, the art kind of looks like Dark Blade and the effect somewhat reminds me of Colossal Fighter (for card effects instead of battle).
  • Armades, keeper of Illusions: a synchro brother for Tiras and Adreus. An interesting card to fight against Fire Fists or trap heavy decks.
  • Psychiconductor Behemoth: A lv. 6 psychic synchro with the effect of D.D. Warrior Lady. Interesting enough, this card actually works well with the other banished psychic monsters (nice, this was needed).
  • Starform Dragon, a Lv. 11 dragon that can be easily summoned by Karakuri decks (according to DSummon) and is annoyingly hard to get rid of (unless you steal it with Big Eye, lol).
• No less XYZ monsters: Next to the 7 Synchro monsters, there’s also 11 new XYZ (including a few chaos xyz). Their effects and use varies from monster to monster, but they’re nice additions anyway (nice as in: okay, but not super amazing).
• 16 of the 80 ocg cards are still unknown, but those will be revealed when the set is release. Amongst these cards is the usual 03x card pool (the random monsters) and the non-archetype/non-anime spells and traps. So, there's still room for a few unexpected surprises.

My thoughts

Yeah, that’s my preview of the set. Still quite vague, isn't it? But as I said, the full review comes when the set is fully revealed (around April 20th). But at this moment I have the feeling it will not be as great as the last few sets.

Next up: V-Jump’s new promo cards and a red hand. Until then, V out.

"I'm the party girl that will make Tour Guide forget all about Sangan!"