Yuginews collected - Thanksgiving edition

Last Night, Kevin Tewart posted an article on the Konami Blog of Yugioh. It was an article about the stuff they released in the past few months and the stuff they plan to release in the upcoming three months (December-February). You can read it Over here.

I've read through this and noticed the following snippets of news:

• Konami will release more Deluxe Editions. Tewart mentioned they were quite pleased with the Deluxe Edition of JOTL. They're going to rotate Special Editions out of the roster and bring in more of these Deluxe Editions instead. Prime reason is that they can experiment more with what they can put in there, where as they're quite limited in their options with a Special Edition.
• Shadow Specters SE may be the last of the Special Editions we see in quite a while. The SE promo's are Stardust Dragon and Tuning (a reprint that's quite overdue if you ask me). For those participating in the Quasar waiting/drinking game, take a shot.
• Starter Decks Yugi & Kaiba: As predicted, long time players will have no use for these since they're STARTER decks. Stop complainig already. These products are aimed at new players. It's a good way for them to obtain good generic cards like Book of Moon, Call of the Haunted, Dark Hole, Enemy Controller, etc. Each of the Starter Decks will have an Ultimate Rare Key monster (Dark Magician & Blue-Eyes White Dragon).

First revelations of Legacy of the Valiant

But people are the most interested (obviously) in the first revelations of the next TCG booster set, Legacy of the Valiant. It's the first booster of 2014. These bits of information were released:

• Gravekeeper's will have 7 new cards. Yes, 7. The six from the OCG set and 1 TCG WP card(!). And for your info, Saniwa is translated to Oracle; Shrine of Necrovalley will be Hidden Temple of Necrovalley and Royal Tombs will be Imperial Tombs.
• Shinra archetype is renamed Sylvan. I guess that works. Also, their effects will introduce a new gaming term to the card game, named "Excavate". But no telling yet if they talk about the "reveal the top card", "send to the graveyard", or "return to the bottom of the deck" part of the effect. But we'll see another blog post about those effects somewhere in December or January.
• More Noble Knight support. You remember that last unknown Noble Knight picture on the Showcase page, right? That's Noble Knight Perceval/Peredur. Why do I know this? Because Borz and Gallahad are in the background. Those three were the Knights of the Round Table that went on their quest for the Holy Grail.
• Legacy gets the next Deluxe Edition. Release date: somewhere in the beginning of March (I guess around the 7th?).

New Forbidden and Limited List in a few weeks

The last bit of information Tewart shared with us was that the new F&L list will be posted online in a few weeks. What?

Yeah, we've been so used to the fact that February is the usual banlist speculation month, that we almost forgot this is now shifted to December. And ever since the OCG and TCG list split up, there are no more early leaks. Guess we'll have to wait for the blog to update, huh.

I can make up a wishlist for the next list, but we all know what's going to happen, right? They're going to hire some good Dragon Slayers and butcher the best deck of the moment, obviously.

YCS Atlanta Top 16 will switch to Booster Draft

Yesterday, another fun bit of news was shared. In order to promote their new Battle Pack 2 Round 2, Konami decided to switch the top 16 of YCS Atlanta into a booster draft final. That's fun!

Yeah, I like the idea, personally. It's generally known that Sealed and Draft formats bring out the best in the duelists and that only good players will win (and lucksackers obviously). Not to mention, I've always been a fan of Draft/Sealed plays.

Though I understand the frustrations of not being able to see the top decks of the new January Format face off against each other, but at the time the Top 16 starts, you should already know that, right?

Top ranked Cossy duelists get a token

Remember Cossy ranking? Yeah, in the tcg it's hardly being used. But once every so often, the top ranked duelists get a special price for being top ranked. In the past, this was often a special playmat. This time around, it's a special token card.

Well, that's it for now. V out.

PS: on a side-note: If you didn't already do it, don't forget to buy your copy of the latest 5D's manga with Stardust Spark Dragon. Don't forget, only the first print comes with this great card.

Cards to look forward to in Legacy of the Valiant

It took me a while to finish this one, but here we finally are. Time to take a look at the more interesting cards in the upcoming January Booster, Legacy of the Valiant.

Effect Monsters

1. Giragilancer: A Lv. 6 Warrior Cyber Dragon. It comes with a maintenance cost, but you’ll probably only use this for Tributing / XYZ-ing / synchro-ing anyway so who cares?
2. Rainbow Kuriboh: When your opponent declares a direct attack, you can equip this card from your hand to that monster and stop it from attacking until either Kuriboh or the equipped monster is gone. Add to that that you can special summon it from the grave if your opponent declares a direct attack and you have another annoying Kuriboh to face.
3. Gorgonic Golem: An interesting rock monster that reduces an opponent’s monster’s attack to 0 if it’s destroyed by battle (permanently). Also, if you want to make a big move or swing for game, you can banish it from your grave to render an opponent’s trap/spell useless.
4. Tribute Devotee: Remember Samsara Kaiser? Neither do I (lol, j/k). Samsara Kaiser was part of the Caius Structure deck and was not worth remembering, because Treeborn Frog was just so much better. But this one… It’s a Water Warrior that special summons itself during your next stand-by phase if you tributed it. Handy for more Monarch Summoning obviously. Positive: you can have backrow, unlike with Treeborn Frog; downside: It has to survive (it has 2000 defense to help that, but still).

Ritual monsters

Knight of Photon Dragon: First Ritual Monster released in a regular booster since ages. And this one is the new Paladin of White Dragon. It’s level 4, it allows you to draw if you destroy a monster and you can tribute it to special summon Galaxy-Eyes from your hand or deck. Also, it’s a Warrior, so you can use both Preparation of Rites AND ROTA on it (lol).

Synchro Monsters

Guardian Beast of the Divine Tree – Gaou: A Lv. 10 synchro that’s easy to summon and cannot be targeted by your opponent’s card effects (safe during your main phase 2). I find that a weird exception, but that means it’s still vulnerable to a well-timed Compulsory Evacuation Device, Raigeki Break or Karma Cut.

Xyz Monsters

• Number 101: Silent Honors Ark Knight (read: SHArk Knight): Detach two to turn an opponent’s special summoned monster under this card as XYZ material. Better yet! You can detach 1 to prevent its own destruction. And with 2100 attack this card is slightly overpowered.
• Gorgonic Guardian: This card turns your opponent’s monsters attack to 0 and negates the effect. Better yet, you can use it during your opponent’s turn (WTF?). And if that’s not enough, you can destroy a monster with 0 attack once per turn! Thank god this requires 2 Lv. 3 ROCK monsters, because otherwise, this card would be dead broken. Still, a nice addition to Chronomaly decks. It also makes you consider mixing Gorgons and Reptillianes.
• Shinra Protecting god, Alsei: Probably will become Shinra Guardian Deity or something like that in the tcg (references to god is a no-no). Either way, this card requires 2 Lv. 8 monsters. Its effect: If a card is sent from your deck to your graveyard (f.e. effects of Card Trooper, any Lightsworn, etc), you can detach 1 to target and return 1 card on the field to the deck. Also, once per turn, you can declare a card name and draw the top card. If the card is the declared name, you can add it to your hand (*cough*convulsion of nature*cough*).
• Ghostrick Dullahan: Forget Utopia Roots, this is thé Rank 1 monster to look forward to in this set. It auto-gains 200 attack for each Ghostrick you control (including this one). During either player’s turn, you can detach 1 material to halve an opponent’s monster’s attack until the end phase. Handy to get over something and even more handy to protect your monsters.

• Fairy Knight Ingnal: This card reads as a massive Giant Trunade. You can detach 2 XYZ materials to blow the entire field back to their owner’s hands (or extra deck). Downside: It requires THREE Lv. 6 monsters. Primary use: Hieratics, if you want to turn the tables; otherwise a big no-no.
• Nobelswarm Beelzebuth: A light version of Evilswarm Roach (I think). During your main phase, or your opponent’s battle phase, you can detach one to blow the field if your opponent has more cards (field +hand) than you. It’s a good come-back card. But sadly enough it also promotes overextending. If you get punished with a Torrential Tribute, you can get this on the field and watch your opponent cry. Yeah, I have the feeling this card isn't going to be legal for a long time.
• Downerd Magician: AKA a vengeful Slacker Magician (eek, what did Alchemic Magician do to her in Xyz Tribalrivals?). You can summon this by using either 2 Lv. 4 casters… or by using any Rank 3 monster during your main phase 2 (e.g. Leviair after it uses its effect). Similar to Gaia Dragon, it’s a piercer and it gains 200 attack for each XYZ material. After each battle though, you detach 1 XYZ material.

Spells

• Xyz Override: A nice Field Spell. Instead of detaching an Xyz material from an Xyz you control, you can banish 1 card from your hand face-down instead. The face-down is to prevent abuse (Dragon Rulers). But that won’t stop control decks! If Dino Rabbit was still viable, this card would be their field spell (seriously, detach 2 from Laggia, or banish 1 card from your hand instead, make your choice). Downside: Similar to Mausoleum of the Emperor, BOTH players can use its effect. That means you need to be careful when using it.
• Riding Together: Remember Appropriate? It’s an awesome trap that allows you to draw 2 cards when your opponent draws cards outside of their draw phase. Downside: searching cards doesn’t count. Solution: This card! Each time your opponent searches a card this turn, you can draw 1 card. Seems a good side-deck card when facing search-heavy decks like Prophecies.

Traps

• Ghostrick Roleshift: Shame on me for covering an archetype-specific card? No, read between the lines of this card, seriously. Its second effect works outside of Ghostrick decks! "Once per turn, during the battle phase, you can select a set monster you control and flip it face-up." No need to remember the rest of the card if you don't play Ghostricks. What makes that effect interesting? Well, it's Book of Taiyou on crack. You can trigger cards like Geargiarmor, Gravekeeper Spy, Senior Silver ninja, etc faster this way. And unlike Book of Taiyou, this is a continuous trap. So you can use its effect multiple times (if you're able to keep it on the field, obviously).
• Frozen Will of the Monarchs: Can only be activated if you have no extra deck (awh), but in return, a Tribute Summoned Monster (obviously Monarchs) loses its effect (who cares if a monarch loses its effect after its been used) but in return, it is unaffected by ANY card effect. Catch: It doesn’t say until the end phase; it’s permanently unaffected by any card effect. Did you have trouble facing Monarchs? Well, it just got worse!

Card not to look forward to (lol)

Rank-up Magic – Astral Force: Actually, I wanted to exclude this card from my review due to it being nerfed like hell. But since a lot of people were freaking out about it when it appeared in the anime, I feel I should still talk about it.

The good part: You can rank up the monster with highest rank on the field with a full 2 ranks. Of course, it needs to be the same Type/attribute. Also, you can easily recycle the card.

The nerf: “You cannot special summon any other monster, except by the effect of Astral Force” (LOL, what a nerf!). So the “draw whore” decks you might have seen on youtube that abuse this card? Yeah, they don’t work in real life…

My thoughts about this set:

Hard to find cards I really like in here, because I'm not into any of the included archetypes (safe Gravekeepers maybe).

But just about any extra deck card in this set is good! I’m not covering the Chaos XYZ anymore, due to the lack of a decent Rank-up Magic card (again lol at the nerf of Astral Force).

Also, WTF at the 5 OCG-exclusives? Don't misunderstand me, they're good. The cards make both the Chronomaly and Heraldic archetypes tournament-worthy.

But seriously, why? All booster cards are already “World Premiere” for the OCG and the OCG has promo’s the TCG won’t receive for months or years (thus also “World premiere”). Why add 5 more in this booster? Are we seriously not going to see these for a year or so?

That's it for now. V out.

Analysis/rant of the September 2013 format

You might have noticed I’m cutting a bit back on blogging. That’s mostly because I'm busy with a project at work and have lots of side-activities. So for the upcoming weeks, expect less frequent updates.

I’ve been typing up the “cards to look forward to” post for Legacy of the Valiant, but while that one is on hold here’s something else I’ve been working on. This is my analysis of the current format.

And it’s not hard to see what the current format is. It’s all about Dragon Rulers.

Dragon Rulers = Tele-DAD anno 2013

During a lot of formats, you hear people complain about how unskilled that current format is. You heard it about Inzektors and Chaos Dragons, you heard it about Wind-ups and Mermails… but you don’t hear it about Dragon Rulers (safe the uninformed n00bs). And that’s because the deck is skill-intensive.

While it is true that the deck is good and bad players with this deck can still win over most other decks, they will fail more frequently when facing a good Dragon Ruler player. Dragon Rulers was and still is a deck that rewards good players, while punishing bad players in grind matches.

That makes Dragon Rulers the new Tele-DAD. There are two choices in a Tele-DAD-alike format: You can either play this deck and try to win, or you don’t play it and lose almost automatically. That was the scenario of Tele-DAD and that’s the scenario we see today. Even with the ban of the Baby Dragons and the Limit of Gold Sarc, the deck is still everywhere, though now with a lot of different flavors.

Only in the rare case where good players fix their deck to make it 100% anti-Dragon Rulers and if they only face dragon rulers during the tournament (which requires a great amount of luck), other decks may top. The prime example of this case is the ARG Open in Columbus Ohio, where both a Constellar and Evilswarm player made it to the finals. Both decks were teched out to face and destroy Dragon Rulers and both players were really good (seriously, why did I never see anyone use the GremlinKing + Azathoth + Infestation Infection combo before?).

Downside

While we should applaud that there’s finally a good skill-intensive deck that tops everywhere, this also has a few serious downsides:

• No other deck can truly shine: No matter what Konami tries to introduce in JOTL or Shadow Specters, it all pales in comparison to Dragon Rulers. And if Dragon Rulers survive the end-of-year banlist (highly unlikely), the same will happen with all cards introduced in Legacy of the Valiant. It makes people less interested in any of the new archetypes, like Mecha Phantom Beast, Bujin or Ghostrick. The only other deck that seems to gather attention is Noble Knights and even those players say it’s missing one or two more cards to make it top-tier.
• F&L list changes have hardly any effect: What happened to Zombies after the Semi-Limit on Mezuki and Plaguespreader? Nothing. What happened to Blackwings after the unlimit of Black Whirlwind (which never should've returned to three): two good players topping. None of the changes that should’ve impacted the game did anything, due to Dragon Rulers. Heck, Konami might even return Inzektors and Wind-ups to full force in this format and they wouldn’t do anything but scrape a few tops (don’t even think about it, Konami, that was NOT a hint).
• Bad sales for Konami: The main reason as to why Dragons will get butchered in the EOY-banlist is that Dragon Rulers cause bad sales for all other YGO products. There’s a reason why the Dragon Rulers are the cover monsters for the tins and Sixth Sense was made legal in TCG. Konami knows those “cheap tricks” are the only thing that will sell products at this moment. JOTL will not sell out, neither will Shadow specters (I even heard it flopped in Japan due to this and the competition with Vanguard). That’s also the main reason why Konami experimented with the JOTL boxes and the massive Noble Knight boost in Shadow Specters.
• Non-players don’t like Dragon Rulers: Not everybody can play (or wants to play) Dragon Rulers, that’s an obvious truth. But those people are sick and tired of seeing Dragons everywhere two formats in a row. So they either quit the game (until the next F&L list), or annoy the Dragon Players at locals to force them to quit the deck. If you’re one of the few competitive players at your locals, that behavior can be extremely annoying. Heck, even competitive players that don’t like the deck still play it, because it’s the best deck atm.

Meanwhile in the OCG

Ever since the split F&L list in September, people stopped looking at the OCG decklists. It’s hard to compare the two sides at the moment, because there’s such a huge difference between the two. But from what I can tell from Shriek, the decks that top the most are Dragon Rulers (duh) and Mermails.

Mermails have more power in the OCG, because they still have 3 Diva’s and 3 Dragoons . Adding to those is also the non-forbidden Trishula (yeah, that card makes a huge difference) and Dragoascension (which will be released in TCG either as Jump promo or in the next May booster) and Mermails become a lot more competitive than their TCG variant.

What is to come?

Until the end of year, we’ll only see Dragon Rulers, in all of its variants: Plant Rulers, Dragunity Rulers, Mythic Rulers, Blue-Eyes Rulers etc. The only decks that are able to scrape some tops are Constellar and Evilswarm (and one or two lone Prophecy/Mermail players).

And what of the end-of-year F&L list? Konami will kill Dragon Rulers and see what happens next. Most probably, Konami will make each Dragon Ruler either Limited or Forbidden. With those changes, Gold Sarcophagus and the Baby Dragons can return (edit: scratch the idea about the baby dragons. The link in the comments says enough, lol).

Next year, the TCG will see the launch of Legacy of the Valiant (the January booster), the Cyber Dragon Structure Deck in February, probably a new Zexal Tin (with the Duelist Pack promo’s) in March and (hopefully) the Zexal DS Game (in March or April) with their respective promo’s. This will mean that the January-April format will be ever-evolving.

Me in this format

I’ve been busy with work and social life activities, so Yugioh-ing has been set on the backburner for a bit. Add to that the latest few boosters don’t have many cards that really interest me (safe a handful in each set), so the experimenting has been cut down as well.

By far the only interesting deck I’ve seen in the last few months is the full Lv 1 deck: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tt3w3Huu4Jk. It’s really fun to watch and shows the true potential of Ghostricks, outside of its own archetype deck.

So, this is my little rant / analysis on the current format.

Until next time, V out.

Reprint season continues - November tins content revealed

Last night, Konami announced the full content of the November tins. No further teasers (Rank-up Magic BF) or accidental leaks (Diamond Dire Wolf), this is the real deal.

The "Redox, Dragon Ruler of Boulders" Tin includes:

• 5 booster packs (different in US vs Europe tins)
• Redox, Dragon Ruler of Boulders
• Diamond Dire Wolf
• Number 88: Gimmick Puppet of Leo
• Spellbook of the Master
• Rank-Up-Magic Barian’s Force

The "Tempest, Dragon Ruler of Storms" Tin includes:

• 5 booster packs (different in US vs Europe tins)
• Tempest, Dragon Ruler of Storms
• Thunder Sea Horse
• Gear Gigant X
• Number 40: Blackship of Corn
• Rank-Up-Magic Barian’s Force

My opinion

Well, since Big Eye, High Priestess and Abyssmegalo got reprinted (or announced) in the last few months already, it would be hard to surprise us with the tins content.

But the end result is okay. Not broken (like last year's Hanzo tin), but still okay. Diamond Dire Wolf, Gear Gigant X, Blackship of Corn and Thunder Sea Horse are very good reprints (next to the obvious dragon rulers). Leo is another legalization reprint and RUM is kind of necessary due to the many Chaos XYZ.

The only card that feels unnecessary is book of the Master. Okay, budget Prophecy players will like it obviously, but there were other cards that require a reprint before that one.

And seriously, where is the frigging Quasar reprint? Europe has been waiting for two years now. :-/

Until next time, V out.

Yarr! This time for real!

Battle Pack 2 Round 2 and Star Pack

There have been a few updates which I wanted to share with you.

Star Pack 2

First up is the announcement that 2014 will have another Star pack, because SP1 was a huge success [/sarcasm]. The new one will contain another few US-only cards from manga's and Jump.

But in reality, it's only the less good cards we see reprinted in here, together with a bunch of random reprints of less good cards. So don't expect reprints of cards like Big Eye or Quasar dragon in here. I think we would be very lucky if even Blackship of Corn would make it here.

Cards I expect to see a reprint: Troposphere, Blackwing Gram the Shining Star, Kachi Kochi Dragon, Infernity General and maybe Zubaba General. None of the big names, thus.

Battle Pack 2 Round 2

It was confirmed a while ago that Battle Pack would get a re-launch next year, with a special variant made for booster drafts. But since this week, more details were made available.

This re-release will be available from January 17th and will be a box with both 6 packs of the original Battle Pack 2 and 1 16-card pack from a card pool of 98 "new" cards.

The principle of the new draft will go as follows:

1. Each player receives and opens a box of BP2 Round 2.
2. You staple the packs as follows: 3 BP2 packs, the new cards pack and then 3 more BP2 packs.
3. You open the 3 BP2 packs and look at the 15 cards.
4. Pick 1 card you desire the most and hand the rest over to the player to the left of you.
5. You will receive the same amount of cards from the player on your right.
6. Repeat the previous two steps until all cards are chosen.
7. Open the Round 2 pack and take out the Ultra Rare card. That one is yours. You have 6 Super Rare cards and 9 commons remaining.
8. Pick 1 card you desire and pass the rest to your right.
9. You receive the same amount of cards from the player on your left side.
10. Repeat previous 2 steps until all cards are chosen.
11. Then open the other set of 3 BP2 packs and repeat the same process as with the first three packs.
12. At the end you have 1 Ultra Rare card (more on that below) and 45 other cards. With this you can create a 40-card deck.
13. Now you can play with these assembled decks! Have fun!

Damn' Ultra rares

End of last week, Tewart revealed the reason why that Ultra Rare is not included in the drafting and why you don't use it in your deck. The 5 ultra rares are highly wanted reprints. See his explanation on the following link: https://yugiohblog.konami.com/articles/?p=5687

The reprinted highly wanted cards are:

• Fog King
• High Priestess of Prophecy
• Dragunity Knight - Vajrayana
• Number 11: Big Eye
• Safe Zone

Afterword

Personally, I like this re-release. I've always been a fan of booster drafts. The cover already reveals interesting monsters like Goryu, General Raiho and Chow Len and Tewart mentioned some cards that may (or may not) be in the pack.

And the Ultra Rares just turned this pack into something highly wanted. Four of the five cards have indeed become highly wanted cards (safe Fog King). Guess they'll be easier to obtain now.

On a side-note: This week, the OCG releases Legacy of the Valiant. The first spoilers are being leaked over the net. I'll give my "cards to look forward to". But all in all, it looks like there are some amazing cards in there.

Until next time, V out.

YCS Turin & First Oceanian YCS

Hey, it's been a while. You know, busy with work and had a concert with the brass band I play in (and help manage). Due to that, I'v been missing out on the sneaks.

But now that the concert is over, I got more time again for Yugiohs! There have been quite a few announcements in the past week. The most interesting ones were those about the first upcoming YCS's.

First Oceanian YCS is a fact: YCS Sydney

North America, Latin America and Europe have had their fair share of YCS's in the past few years, but people from down under have been requesting a YCS for years now. Up until now, that was always without avail.

But guess what? A few days ago, Mike Ting (Dueling Legacy) mentioned on his facebook page that Australia would get the first Oceanian YCS. And yesterday, that was confirmed by Konami on the following page: http://www.yugioh-card.com/uk/news/news_ycssydney.html.

This YCS will take place in Sydney, Australia on January 18 + 19. The event will take place in the ANZ Stadium.

YCS Sydney will become the first YCS of 2014 and will be (most probably) the first YCS that will follow the January 2014 Forbidden & limited list.

So if you ever thought about taking a trip down south, this might be the perfect opportunity. Also for many OCG players, this might be an opportunity to participate in a big TCG event, since Australia is closer by than most American events (let alone European events).

YCS Turin is 125th YCS and Konami celebrates it

The next YCS is the 125th YCS and this time, that will be YCS Turin (Italy) at the end of this month (November 30 + December 1).

For that reason, Konami announced yesterday that every attendant will receive a unique playmat for that YCS, with Noble Knight Artorigus. Also, the top-cut will not receive the Giant Hand playmat, but a unique Lady of the Lake playmat. And they're quite nice looking too.

"You have my sword!"

"It's dangerous to go into the top-32. Take this!"

More details on the event itself can be found on the following page: http://www.yugioh-card.com/uk/events/ycs_turin.html

Sadly enough, I won't be attending this one (ran out of days off :-P ), but I guess it just became worth it to attend, huh.

Until next time, V out.