Merry Christmas

Wait, what?

Yeah, merry Christmas, everybody! And no better card to show this holiday celebration, than by the new card: Token Christmas.

Or, to say it in another way: the new Jump Festa Cards are out and for once, they do NOT suck. Each new card from the Jump festa has its use, even if it's just as a holiday card (lol).

Jump Festa

For those that do not know, Jump Festa is an annual party or exposition in Japan, all about anime and manga, sponsored by Shueisha, creators of the various Jump anthologies [/Shameless copy of Wikipedia].

And since Yu-Gi-Oh! is part of Shueisha, they always release two variants of card packs, with reprints and several new cards.

Why did you never hear of it until this point? Because most new cards in these packs are hardly worth playing. And when they get a print in the TCG, it's as a common in the 09x card pool, because the effects are not good enough.

What makes this year different? Well, all of the new cards are actually kinda good, or have a good use...

The new cards

Bright White Dragon Wyrbuster and Dark-Winged Dragon Collapserpent: You can call these two the younger versions of Lightpulsar Dragon and Darkflare Dragon, because they can only be special summoned by banishing either a LIGHT or DARK monster from your grave (sounds familiar) and they search each other when sent to the graveyard. Biggest use for them: Chaos Dragons!

Komodo Dragon: Also known as: "Thank god Future Fusion is Banned". When this card is sent to the grave, you can special summon a dragon from your hand (and it does NOT miss timing)! Dragon decks will rejoice with this card. Also, it's a Debris Dragon target!

Fishborg Archer: Broken as hell in water decks. Special summons itself from the grave by discarding a water monster (Atlantean Dragoons) when you control no monsters and it's friggin tuner, allowing for easy synchro-ing in water decks.

Fire God Vulcan: A Fire Beast-Warrior? Doesn't remind me of anything..... A level 6 that bounces cards back to the hand? Basically it's a watered-down version of Brionac in Fire form, but severely restricted.

Secret Sanctuary of the Spellcasters: Secret Village of the Spellcasters got its private sanctuary, because the two cards work so well together in locking down your opponent it's not even funny (for the opponent). After Secret Village locks down spells, this card locks down monster attacks AND effects. Combine that with Sorcerer of Dark Magic and your opponent can go straight to the scoop phase.

Fire Dance Longsword: A Fire Beast that works well together with the Fire King archetype and works well with Diawolf. Random destruction gives this card its power.

Nine-Snakes Peacock: A searcher for WIND attributes. This card works amazingly with Icarus Attack and Swallow's Nest, because it triggers when tributed and it DOES NOT miss timing.

Armor Kappa: If you want a replacement for Gachi Gachi Gantetsu, you can try this card instead. Same summoning conditions, can gain attack up to 2400 (unless Veilered) and can (during one battle phase) protect your monsters (all of them) from being destroyed and protects your lifepoints at the same cost (a discard cost).

Token Christmas: That's the intro card of this post. The card tributes 2 tokens (of the same level) to summon monsters from your grave of the same level. This card will work great in the new Phantom Beast Plane Archetype that will be in Lord of the Tachyongalaxy (more on that in a later post, somewhere in 2013).

Afterword

In short, these new cards are good and should not be looked over. I can't tell when they will be printed in the TCG (I expect from Lord of the Tachyongalaxy onward?), but I expect that all these cards (safe a few perhaps) will be played in their respective archetypes. So, if that happens, I think this Jump Festa will be a success.

Next time, I will post more about the fire archetypes, I will...

V out.

Banlist Requests Analysis day 1 - Banging my head against the wall

Yeah, you heard it right.

As I said in previous post, I'm trying to do something big with all the banlist predictions out there. I'm trying to make a list of the people. The wish of all the players out there. I thought I would be able to do so, as I've seen several lists on my linked blogs and I had to say most of them were either good or up for debate.

I've screened most of the blogs today and gathered every list I saw. Then I watched the predictions from the Alter Reality Games and then I started banging my head against the wall.

The lists of Billy Brake & Vexacus4666 are the easier ones to digest. Even the first one (of Paul) I can get... somehow. But the lists of Joe Giorlando & his copy-cat Patrick Hoban are just flailing wildly at every tier deck there is.

Joe explains that this list is his "ideal" list, not what he thinks Konami's going to do (As if Konami would ever hit that many cards). But when he starts explaining, he's going the wrong way.

• First he gives off an explanation why every good card in the current top decks should either be forbidden, limited or semi-limited. (so far I get it, this is his ideal list).
• He then explains why cards like Deep see Diva & Genex Undine are on his limited list, because of the upcoming structure deck & the Water Support in Abyss Rising.(I get that these two cards can make crazy combo's with the new water support, but it feels like overkill to me).
• And then he puts Tribe-infecting Virus at 3, because he says (and I quote) "This card really isn’t very good".
• And to top it off, His copy-cat (Patrick Hoban) goes along with him in his own article and says (I quote again): "the reality is Tribe Infecting Virus sucks"

Why returning Tribe-infecting Virus to the game is a BAD idea

Tribe-Infecting Virus	Atlantean Dragon Riders (TCG name pending)
This card allows you to destroy monsters of 1 type, at the cost of 1 card in your hand.	When this card is sent to the grave to activate the effect of a WATER monster, add 1 Sea Serpent (except this one) from your deck to your hand.

1. Normal Summon Tribe-Infecting Virus
2. Discard Atlantean Dragon Riders to activate the effect of Virus. Declare the type of monsters you want to get rid of (machines/insects/dragons).
3. Your opponent's monsters of the selected type are destroyed
4. You can search ANY Sea Serpent of ANY level (except Dragon Riders) from your deck to your hand as a bonus.
5. Congractulations! You just got yourself a costless mass destruction!
6. If your opponent has more face-up monsters and you have another Dragon Riders, you can repeat the previous steps, as Virus' effect doesn't have that "once per turn" part.

Frustrations

Yeah, putting Diva and Undine at 1, but returning this bad boy to 3 is not going to help balancing the game... That's just filling one pit by making another pit.

I just find it very frustrating that a paid writer with some credentials (I guess) clearly knows what's coming, makes an ideal banlist that would make the game fair and then just stupidly puts a forbidden card (that combo's with one of those upcoming cards) back at three, just because he thinks it's bad. If you're going to say controversial things, at least do some research to back up what you're trying to prove...

Let's just say that those two articles put a cross over me enjoying the creation of a banlist of the people today.

Let's hope I can read some better lists tomorrow.

V out.