Box openings: A story of success and failure

Lord of the Tachyon Galaxy openings. You know you all love it (or hate it). So I wanted to try it as well and share in the happiness of pulling Books of Apocalypse or Drago-bastards.

So, via Novagames (a webshop from Northern-Ireland), I bought myself a few boxes. 2 for my friend Drago, 1 to open in front of the webcam I recently bought and 2 to open with friends.

Drago got 3 secrets out of his two boxes. He got cards like Fire Fist Cardinal, Torrential Reborn, Windrose, Harpie’s Channeler, Sacred Sword, Kerykeion, more than a playset of each Dragon Ruler, etc. While we said he pulled somewhat decently, he was kind of disappointed (total value of the pulled cards didn't add up to the cost).

Then, on Tuesday, I opened my box. Here’s the result. First time doing something like this, so I don’t know if it’s good quality (*looks somewhat unsure*).

And last, but not least, last Saturday I got together with two friends of mine, Chris and Carl.

Chris has the nickname “God-hand”, because he always seems to pull the good cards. If you want a Dragosack or Tour Guide out of your packs, it’s better to let him pick the packs. Carl is less lucky in pulling cards, but he’s the better duelist (he’s a regular topper in the Belgium National tournaments). Carl is the one that wanted to play Dragon Rulers. He already had his binder plundered to get that first Dragosack; and he was only able to get that second one thanks to Chris (the hand of god proved his name once more), whom he still owes (a lot).

So we opened the first box and each randomly picked a few packs from it (8 packs each). In total we pulled the amazing number of 6 supers (including Constellar Sombre, Sacred Sword and some Mecha Phantom Beasts), A Harpie’s Channeler, Scramble Scramble and Gwalchavad as Ultra/Ulti and a secret... Dragosack.

Guess who pulled it?

I ended up with the Dragosack (partial refund for the boxes, 20€ and the promise to give him the Number-cards I pull from “Number Hunters”) and promised Carl he could borrow my Dragosack during big tournaments.

The second box was less awesome. I was able to pull the secrets (two, once more) from the box, but accordingly to my luck with pack openings, I ended up with Windrose and (once more) Totem Bird. This is a sign, I tell you! Second Box also had a Kerykeion and Hootcake as noteworthy foils, but the total value of the second box just didn't compare to the awesome first one.

Afterword

So, this concludes my awesome failing of pulling good cards.

I’ll be testing variants of Dragon Rulers now. It will probably be a wind variant, due to the high number of Wind Dragons, Windroses and Totem Birds I have (I tell you; it’s a sign!). So either that, or a psychic version (earth/wind psychics with Risebell and Dragon Rulers).

This week, I’ll give you some do’s and don’ts on handling Dragon Rulers. Until then, V out.

Reasons to love or hate Lord of the Tachyongalaxy

Last Thursday/Friday, Lord of the Tachyongalaxy finally came into stores. So it's time to review the hits and misses of our latest TCG booster set.

Hits, or reasons to love LTGY

• The Dragon Rulers are rare! Konami took a different approach to the TCG-version of the Elemental Dragons. Instead of bumping their rarity from Super Rare to Ultra or Secret Rare, they wanted it to remain playable and made them all rare! So I guess TCG won’t have to pay 20$ per Dragon, unlike the OCG. And for the foil fans, Konami decided to give everybody their secret rare as well, in this year’s tins! That is amazing!
• The Baby Dragons are present! During the last month, every Dragon fan was crossing their fingers to have the baby E-Dragons as well. The 4-Dragon deck would only work at half the original strength I those 4 weren't in the set. And Konami heard our prayers. They’re in the set… and they are common (WOW). Yeah, no 20-30$-versions of the baby dragons either, huh. 4-Dragons might really become a budget deck (at least if you don’t look at the extra deck, lol).
• Totem Bird: Aside from its amazing artwork, this is probably the "best" TCG World Premiere Card of this set. Too bad it’s a secret rare. Still, I want this mini-Laggia for my Angry Birds, err… Gusto Deck.
• A lot of good cards have low rarity (safe a few exceptions): Shark Fortress is a common (lol, wut?), the 4-dragon archetype monsters are non-foil, Zerofyne is a rare, Wheel of prophecy is also pimped down, and then look at the OCG imports. Sombre and Kerykeion are Super rare instead of Ultra, Constellar Omega is Ultra instead of Secret and Number 69 is a frigging rare, not a secret rare? Many cards of which I expected to see a rarity bump got downgraded instead.
• TCG Konami gets the joke: The Mecha Phantom Beast are airplanes. Their support cards are obviously terms from the military airforce, using terms as “scramble” or “Barrel roll”. The fans immediately remembered a certain meme and TCG-Konami got it as well. Thus, the card “Barrel roll” became “Do a barel roll!” .
• Every archetype of the last year gets support: Whether you like Madolches, Geargia’s, Prophecies, Fire Fists, Mermails, Atlanteans, Fire Kings, Constellars, Evilswarm or Noble Knights, they all receive new cards.
• Boosting older archetypes: Continuing with their trend to boost older archetypes, Konami now boosts Harpies with Harpie Channeler, Harpie’s Pet Phantasmal Dragon and Hysteric Sign. With the rumor that Harpie dancer may be the next Jump Promo after Zubaba General (not confirmed at all, btw), that would make a nice revival of a fan-favorite archetype.

"Press Z or R twice!"

Misses, or reasons to hate LTGY

• The anime cards suck (as usual). Blizzard Falcon is the only anime card that may be used, rendering 20-25 % of all cards in this set virtually useless. The Burning knuckler archetype is nice, but you already know this is about the only support they'll have.
• MPB Dracosack is a secret rare: Yeah, this could've been expected after seeing the rare Dragon Rulers and common baby dragons. You’ll save out 4 (elements) x 3 (of each card) x 2 (big and baby dragon) x 20$ = 480$ on main deck cards, so in return you’ll have to spend over 100$ per MPB Dragosack.
• Prophecies remain bling-bling: As expected, Spellbook of Judgment is secret rare (considering the previous bumps, I’m not surprised). Fits with the rest of the bling deck, but this makes Prophecies one of the most expensive decks ever.
• Mermail Abyssbalean: There's no real broken TCG World Premiere card, but bad cards? This is possibly the worst. Dump 4 Mermail monsters to summon it? At least Abyssleed is a beat stick and is able to force your opponent handless (if you ever use its effect). This card just isn't worth it.
• Fire Fist fans are sulking: Still no sign of Chicken, but they get a Cyber-Dragon knock-off instead. Yeah, Tewart mentioned it might take longer than expected to get the rights from Jump's publisher(Shueisha) to get a TCG-print of Fire Fist Chicken. But then there's Coyote... Why? And why (for crying out loud) a secret rare? The card would have some use in the 3-axis build (which is not being played without Chicken anyway) to get that level 8 synchro on the field. But… why does it have that restriction of needing a face-up Fire Formation card? That makes Cyber Dragon a better topdeck in Fire Fists than this card (and that’s saying something).
• No Special Edition: Obviously absent from the past months news flashes, there's no news on a special edition! Of the past few sets we all got a Special Edition, with varied success. And while we all know this set is the best since Duelist Revolution, we will get NO Special Edition of this one (due to many other releases probably?). Let’s hope the August tins will have this set at least.

"Prepare your wallet for the rapture!"

The belated sneeks in BeNeLux

Belgium (and also Netherlands and Luxemburg) had belated sneak peeks, due to the original delivery being wrong (German instead of English cards). Due to that, all sneak peeks of Tachyon Galaxy were delayed. I heard the first one was last friday. This weekend, none were going on, due to Belgium Nationals being this weekend (more on that later). But since Monday was a holiday in Belgium, there was another belated sneak. So I got a shot at this sneak peek.

Out of my original five boosters, I only got a Duckfighter and Geargia-Gear and the commons/rares were nice, but not good enough to grant me my victory (battlin' boxers were all over the place, lol). During the tourney I bought a second pack of sneak-peek boosters (no limit on sales since the set is out and Sneak-peek boosters have a higher foil chance. And that resulted in a Windrose, the Feather Duster Lord and a Rank-up Magic Barian's Force (both which I wanted). Further trades got me a Harpie's Channeler (which was later on traded for a Kerykeion), a Sacred Sword of the Seven Stars, a totem Bird and this baby...

1 down, 2 to go.

Thoughts on the set in general

This set is basically the best we got in the past year and will be sold-out in no-time (mark my words).

Do pay attention. 1 full box does not guarantee you a full play-set of Dragon Rulers (I noticed after watching a few box openings out of curiosity).

So… Get your Dragon Rulers while they’re hot! Get that Kerykeion while it’s still cheap! Get your Judgment and Dracosack while they’re “only” about 120$ (yeah, that price will rise further if the set is sold out). I expect it to become 150-200$ each around the time of the Continental/World Championship.

Until next time, V out.

PS: Further posts this weekend will be updates on OCG/TCG releases and the review of the OCG's latest Extra Pack.

Tick tock...

Until half of February, when the next forbidden and limited list will appear in V-Jump (presumably end of next week), the Yugi-news has been kind of slow.

I've been looking around for a few news facts and came up with the following:

Kevin Tewart Reveals what we should expect from the star Pack

In a post on pojo, Tewart revealed that NOTHING in the Star pack would influence the secondary market in the US and is mostly aimed at non-US territories (hence the old/false rumor it was going to be a Europe-only release). He also said that the pack will not be available in big amounts in the US, because all the cards are "easily" available.

Basically that means that the star pack will mostly focus on the reprints of Jump cards. So all those cards in my previous post that could make the pack a bit interesting? Forget about those, they're probably not going to be in there :-(

Content Onslaught of the Fire Kings Revealed

In Europe, the first Fire Kings Structure Deck have been received, together with the decklist. Changes are:

• We do NOT get Jurrac Velo & Jurrac Guaiba.
• We do not get Chain Destruction.
• We get Neo Flamvell Sabre (eeeew), Royal Firestorm Guards (actually works with the deck) and Call of the Haunted (not bad) instead.

I know many fans will be pissed about the face Guaiba isn't in the Structure Deck. But (as Tewart confirmed on Pojo) that's mostly because Guaiba doesn't really work with the other cards in the structure deck.

Zexal tin reveals its cover monsters. Is it real?

God, let's hope it's not real. let's hope it's just a well-made Photoshop. Because of this picture. Giga Brilliant might be nice, but eeeeew, gagaga magician? And Ultra Gagagabolt? That HAS to be fake, right? Right? (*looks uncertain*).

Konami is SLOW with their updates

If you follow the product page of Yugioh, you might have noticed that in the last few months, they're slow in their updates. The so-called "update" of Cosmo Blazer only appeared on the day of the first Sneak peeks (was supposed to be shortly after new Year), and the structure deck page has only been updated this week (also a little late). This has been going on for a while now and has gone so far that in a few cases the European page has become faster than the US version (and that is saying A LOT).

While I was skimming through Pojo on some interesting news, I noticed a post of Tewart that he realizes they're behind schedule on product information and they're "working to fix that".

Let's hope so, because we still have nothing for the Star Pack, the Zexal Tin, the Special Edition of CBLZ, Hidden Arsenal 7 nor the upcoming Starter Deck.

Franken becomes Zombiestein

Kinda missed this one during all the news updates last week. The English name for No. 22: Franken has been revealed. It's now oficially: Number 22: Zombiestein. Release of this card is in Zexal Manga Volume 3, in sale June 4th.

Wind elemental Lord

Its name is Windrose, the Elemental Lord. Has been thoroughly discussed on other blogs and youtube. It's basically Harpie's Feather Duster in Monster Form and it's a Winged Beast.

And that's about itt. All in all, no big revelations in the past few weeks.

One final note. I notice that High Priestess' price is going higher and higher, ever since the revelation of Final Judgment of Prophecy. Europ sites still state prices of 65€ onward, but tcgplayer stores go close to 100$. Interesting trend, to say the least.

Until next time, V out.