5 May 2014

Primal Origins spoiled on the internet - The details

In the upcoming weekend, the Sneak Peek of Primal Origins will be held. So spoilers for the set should be arriving in the upcoming days, right?

Wrong, they're already spoiled in the past week. This set was not safe from the terror of the internet and was revealed more than a week before players could get a "first glimpse".

TCG World Premiere Cards

Some of them were already shown on the Konami blog, but since last night we got the info on all 10 of them.

  • Noble Knight Support: Noble Knight Brothers, Eachtar, Avalon and Noble Knights of the Round Table. And as usual all in bling style. Avalon is too situational, Round Table only becomes good if you have more NK's in the grave (okay I guess?), Brothers is a spam and Pot of Avarice card, and Eachtor special summons itself by banishing Noble Knight cards from the grave and protects any Noble Knight Xyz you make with it.
  • Artifact Scythe: A decent Sneak Peek promo for the fans of the archetype. When Scythe is destroyed, it special summons itself and prevents your opponent from using the extra deck (lol).
  • Sylvan Princessprout: Prepares your deck for excavating another Princessprout or Cherubsprout and when she's excavated, she can special summon itself and manipulate her level to whatever you desire.
  • Bujingi Sinyou: As if Crane wasn't enough, Sinyou boosts the attack of a Bujin monster you control, by giving it the current attack of the attacking monster. Seriously, more attack manipulation? Jeezes.
  • Vampire Vamp: more random support for Vampires. It's okay, but it's not like Vampires are competitive or so. So you may as well ignore it.
  • Gladiator Beast Nerokius: I don't know what to think of this one. Okay, it cannot be destroyed in battle and your opponent cannot activate card effects when THIS card attacks or is attacked, but it requires 3 GB's and when you send it back to the extra deck you only get two GB's back. Good to finish off certain boss monsters without worrying about card effects. But it's one of those cards you better only use 1 of.
  • Escalation of the Monarchs: You can tribute summon a monster during your opponent's turn. And that's a continuous effect? That's both amazing and easy to bypass. Amazing considering you can get rid of problem cards the moment your opponent summoned them (like Exciton Knight or S.H.Ark) or that can only be targetted during specific moments (like Leo). But if your opponent MST's this card, you get no effect at all. Seems good, but I guess we'll have to see whether or not Monarch players are willing to give up their free Treborn Frogs for free Tribute Summons.

OCG Promo imports

And next to the TCG Exclusives, we also know what ten OCG promo cards are being imported. And the most surprising? They've never been this low in rarity.

1 Rare card, the rest is all common. Even the two number cards aren't even in Bling (granted, they're not THAT impressive but you might think they at least deserve a Super Rare foilage or so). Heck, even Hydride (you know, the only tuner that can also be used as a non-tuner) is a common.

What cards are they? There are 6 Monthly V-Jump promo's (but sadly enough they stopped right before Geargiangler and Felice), A Weekly Jump promo (ZW Sleipnir Mail), the Jump Festa promo from last year (Shogi Knight), the bad one from the Valuable Book promo's (Shadow Lich, but no Dragoascencion) and an old Vanilla (Bolt penguin).

To foil or not to foil

Next to the 20 extra cards to the 80 OCG card set, the question that everybody asks themselves, is: what cards are pimped beyond repair? The list can be found here: http://pastebin.com/ZBZbtTYJ

The 8 secret rares are: Majesty's Fiend (oh come on!), Thestalos the Mega Monarch (as predicted), Orea the Sylvan High Arbiter (Sylvan players will cry a little), Bujinki Amaterasu (also in Ghost and Ultimate Rare) and RUM The Seventh one (seriously, the ONLY good RUM card?). Oh, and also Noble Knight Brothers and G.B. Nerokius.

Ultra's are Sylvan Sagequoia and Sylvan Charity (Sylvan players will cry more), Bujin Hirume, Madolche Anjelly (both as predicted), Nr 62 Galaxy-Eyes Prime Photon Dragon, Artifact Durendal, Artifact Ignition and Artifact Sanctum (seriously, all three good Artifact cards?). Also Bujingi Sinyou and Round Table are Ultra as well.

I'm not going to run over all Super Rares (because it's only Super Rare, you know), but I am kind of surprised that they kept Jackpot 7 as a common. The card is an annoying OTK/FTK enabler and I wouldn't be crying over a secret rare foil for this card. The less it appears, the better.

Hits and misses

I don't like pimps of anti-meta cards like Vanity's Majesty (that should've been Jackpot 7 in my eyes), but it's Konami I guess. We're (sadly enough) getting used to it by now.

I'm kind of disappointed with the OCG imports, though. No Felice or Geargiangler? No Dragoascencion? Still no Gaia Knights? And still no signs of the OCG Gold series cards (like Cybernetic Fusion Support), nor the Geargia's from that OCG Duelist set.

I do like the full circle on Noble Knights. It's clear that this is the end of their support line as well, with cards like the Round Table and Avalon (although... where's Myrddin/Merlin?)

Oh, and I was so LOL'ing with Ghostrick Succubus' name change. Socuteboss? Hilarious.

That's enough venting from me now. Until next time, V out.

1 May 2014

Battle Pack 3 - Taste the rainbow

Well, a few weeks ago, Konami announced that they would make another rendition of the by now infamous Battle Pack series, this coming on July 25.

And while the first pack focused on Draft dueling in general and the second one focused on getting boss monsters on the field, this one will focus on monsters with specific type advantages. Therefore it's also named BP3 Monster League!


Ooooooh! Look at the pretty rainbow!

How the hell is this going to work?

If you recognize a few of the monsters in the previous image, you'll notice that the monsters each have a positive effect on their specific monster type, making them kind of bad in regular draft duels where you have a mishmash of different monster types.

But this version of Battle Pack is going to have a specific rule, where all monster types are treated the same. All specific monster types are reduced to "monster".

How does it work? Let me give a few examples with some of the depicted cards:

  • Freya, the Spirit of Victory: While you control a face-up Fairy-Type monster(s) other than "Freya, Spirit of Victory", this card cannot be selected as an attack target. All Fairy-Type monsters you control gain 400 ATK and DEF.
  • Evil HERO Infernal Gainer: During your Main Phase 1: You can banish this card to target 1 face-up Fiend-Type monster you control; that target can attack twice during each Battle Phase. During your second Standby Phase after this effect was activated: Special Summon this banished card in face-up Attack Position.
  • Battlestorm : This card gains 100 ATK for each face-up Winged Beast-Type monster you control. Once per turn, if you control 3 or more face-up Winged Beast-Type monsters, you can destroy 1 Spell or Trap Card your opponent controls.
  • Koa'ki Meiru Sandman: During each of your End Phases, destroy this card unless you send 1 "Iron Core of Koa'ki Meiru" from your hand to the Graveyard or reveal 1 Rock-Type monster in your hand. You can Tribute this card to negate the activation of an opponent's Trap Card and destroy that card.
  • Silent Psychic Wizard: When this card is Normal Summoned, you can target 1 Psychic-Type monster in your Graveyard, and banish it. When this card is sent from the field to the Graveyard, Special Summon that banished monster.

See how certain disadvantages turn into advantages all of a sudden? Archetypes like the banish psychics and the Koa'ki Meiru's suddenly don't feel that bad anymore, do they?

10 NEW cards!

While Battle Pack 1 had some OCG exclusives printed in here, this battle pack will introduce 10 NEW cards.

New, as in world-premiere cards. And according to what I'm reading, these cards are specifically made for draft play.

There will be 2 monsters, 2 spells and 6 traps. Two revealed card names are Ghosts from the past (a trap similar to ghost of a grudge?) and Quantum Cat (Schrodinger's cat? Rescue Cat V2.0?)

Some Xyz Reprints

The total set will be 237 cards, making it the biggest core draft set to date (not including BP2's reinforcements add-on). And some of those cards will be Xyz. But according to the article they will be as rare as the Egyptian gods in BP2.

Question of course is, what cards will be reprinted? Will it be crap cards like Utopia, the lord of reprints? Or type-specific Xyz (considering types don't matter in this set)?

Oh, yes... almost forgot to mention this. This time, the rarity will not be starfoil, or mosaic rare, but Shatterfoils (the shattered glass foil).

Afterword

I'm looking forward to this set already. This rule change will make it interesting to see how certain older cards can shine in their own way.

Until next time, V out.