YCS Toronto Analysis Pt. 2 - New cards in play

YCS Toronto was the first big event of the new format. Safe Bujins (which did nothing at the event), there was not a single "new" deck to be seen at this big event. But while there were no new decks, new cards were being used from both Number Hunters and Judgment of the Light. Some players might not have seen these cards in play yet, so let me point out their uses, one by one!

Number Hunters

Mechquipped Angineer: This fairy XYZ is seeing play in both Mermails and Agent-style decks, but can also be used in Karakuri & Wind-up decks. In the last two mentioned decks, it focuses on battle position manipulation (and plussing because of that). In Agents it can be used (with two Venuses) to keep a boss monster alive (and it's the first Rank 3 fairy, which helps the Agent deck in general).

In mermails, however, it is used to keep Bahamut Shark alive. This combo is basically: Use 2 Lv. 4 monsters to summon Bahamut Shark. Detach 1 to special summon Abysstrite (in defense, obviously); then use 2 Lv. 3's to make Angineer. During your opponent's turn, ensure you detach one material from Angineer to keep Shark alive. Next turn, you can detach the other material to summon another Abysstrite. And Trite is both a wall and allows you to summon another Mermail from the grave when she's gone (a control combo).

Number 74: Master of Blades: Hyped due to it being a cheap rank 7; but it's also considered "less good" than Big Eye and Dracosack (it misses timing). But even with the (dis)hype, it saw a solid place in the extra deck of nearly every Dragon Ruler player, just in case.

"Seek & Destroy? I say NO!"

Judgment of the Light - Effect Monsters

Archfiend Heiress: Used in Infernity decks: Searches out Palabyrinth and Infernity Archfiend. Consistency++!

World of Prophecy: The new boss monster of Prophecy decks: Upon its summon, it recycles 2 Spellbook cards and it can then optionally nuke the field (but no, this effect does NOT bypass Stardust Dragon).

Fencing Fire Ferret: Played in Dragon Rulers. Serves as a Ryko replacement. It destroys a card and deals burn damage. It's also a fire Attribute, which gives it a use in the grave (banish to summon Blaster).

Brotherhood of the Fire Fist - Rooster & Coach Soldier Wolfbark: Two of the key cards in current Fire Fist decks. Almost forgot to mention these two (lol). I did notice that Wolfbark is a more popular choice than Chick... Rooster.

The new mascot for the Fire Ferrets!

Judgment of the Light - Extra Deck Monsters

Mist Bird Clausolas: With the great number of Scapegoats running around, and with the easy combo of Effect Veiler + a Lv. 2 monster, this card is a very much welcomed addition to the extra deck. Its effect isn't half bad either.

Armades, Keeper of Boundaries: It’s a Lv. 5 synchro that can move between your opponent’s spells & traps. Sees more play than I initially thought it would.

HTS Psyhemuth: Saw play in Blackwings. It’s a D.D. Warrior lady on steroids and the best Lv. 6 synchro out there (as long as Vulcan the Divine isn't shipped yet).

Star Eater: Easy to summon it with synchro decks; hard to get rid of without the right cards.

Number 66: Master Key Beetle: The single most useful card of JOTL. It was seen in a large number of decks as a key protector.

Herald of Pure Light: Mainly used in both Prophecy decks and Agent-style decks. It's a perfect recycle-card for monsters. It helps dead cards to return to the deck and returns a monster from the grave to the hand.

Angel of Zera: A lv. 8 synchro that’s hard to get rid of (permanently), but has mixed results with the people playing it (Crimson Blader & Stardust Dragon are more preferred Lv. 8 synchro’s).

"I am keymaster of Gozer. Are you the gatekeeper?"

Judgment of the Light - Spells and traps

Transmodify: Thé hyped card of Judgment of the Light after the September F&L list was published. It works in Agent/Herald decks and it works in Infernities. Both people that topped with the Herald and Infernity deck had 3 of these (so yes, it works wonders).

Archfiend Palabyrinth: Used in Infernity Decks. Banish Heiress to get Infernity Necromancer; banish Stygian Street Patrol to get Infernity Archfiend and search a card (if your hand is empty). Like Heiress, it helps the consistency of the deck.

XYZ Encore: After the event, this is one of the card that became (over)hyped. Why? because nearly everybody in the top 32 played it in their side. And they all answered the question "why?" with the same answer: "To get rid of Evilswarm Ophion" (or Evilswarm in general). It's quick-play and your opponent cannot negate its effect (like how Super Polymerization works). I think Evilswarm players will now play Rank 3 XYZ as well, just in case (lol).

This TCG exclusive is good!
We want more! We want more!

Number Hunters – Stats and facts

Last month, the 808-blog posted that the TCG would receive a new set of 60 cards. These 60 cards would be 10 foil reprints of previous rares/commons and 50 new cards, including 25 XYZ monsters (of which 6 chaos Xyz). While everybody was rejoicing of this great news, I was one of the few calling it bullshit.

The stats didn't add up

Why, you ask? I’m a statistics person and thus I’m keeping a list of all OCG promo cards that need a print in the TCG. While the "50 new cards" part is quite possible (there are more than 50 ocg promo cards that need a tcg print, fyi); the 25 new xyz, including 6 chaos xyz was statistically not possible at the time of the announcement. The extra part of new Heroic Challenger cards was just as hilarious, since at that point in time, all Heroic Challenger cards were printed. But yeah, the 808-blog is infamous of giving us info on products before Konami confirms it (remember the Zexal tin and the Star Pack? Yeah, they got that info first too). So I had my doubts about it being BS.

So I started thinking. In the past year, the OCG did get a ridiculous amount of new promo cards, compared to all previous years. I guess it was all a build-up towards this kind of release? I was skeptically accepting the post as “truth”, but kept my Big-Eyes out on OCG-news.

"I spy with my little eye..."

And then came the (at least for me) stress releasing post on shriek, at the beginning of this month:

Number Hunters Vs Collector’s pack Zexal Edition

Take a look a the following two links:

1. http://www.yugioh-card.com/en/products/bp-numh.html
2. http://shriek.twoday.net/stories/352913642/

The first one is the product page of Number Hunters (more on that further on). The other one is a Shriek post that says that upcoming August, the OCG gets a similar set to Number Hunters, but this will have 50 cards (instead of 60), containing new ones and reprints. Suddenly my stats did add up (rejoice!).

The surprising thing here is that we get Number Hunters in July, while the OCG gets the set in August. Did you know that it is the first time we get this kind of set BEFORE the OCG?

"Wow, that's a shocker!"

So what is going to be in there?

A while ago, the product page of Number Hunters came online (see the first link previously mentioned), providing both OCG and TCG a glimpse of what’s going to be in the Number Hunters (and thus also the Collector’s pack). The glimpse turned out to be half of the whole set. This is what we got on info:

• The set will be released on July 12th (or 11th in Europe). The boosters will be similar to Hidden Arsenal boosters (4 super rares and 1 secret rare).
• We now know 21 of the promised 25 new XYZ monsters, including all 6 chaos XYZ.
• We know 14 other new cards (that’s a total of 35 of the 50 new cards), including new Chronomaly cards, new Gimmick Puppet cards and (indeed) new Heroic Challenger cards.
• The fun part is: A lot of the new monsters didn't appear in the anime yet at the time of announcement, providing us with a sneak peek of what was to come in the anime (that's cool).
• Two OCG promo cards (of the 10) are already confirmed to be printed in this set: Nr 15: Gimmick Puppet Giant Grinder and Coach King Giantrainer (does that mean Wolfberk finally gets a TCG print as well?). More likely is the Chronomaly and Gimmick Puppet cards from the last OCG Premium Pack.

Gimmick Puppet? They might as well have named them "Creepy Puppet".

Any good cards in there?

Of the revealed cards, some were quite vaguely printed, making it unable to get the effect (wonder what effect Queen of the Night will have). But of those whose effect was clear enough to get, these are good:

• Number 74: Master of Blades: This requires 2 Lv. 7 monsters (everybody loves Lv 7 monsters lately). It has 2700 attack and when targeted by a card effect, you can detach 1 to negate and destroy the card effect. Also, it’s a psychic XYZ!
• Mechquipped Engineer: This Light Fairy requires 2 Lv. 3 monsters and has the ability to place 1 of your attack monsters into defense, during either player’s turn (!). It also makes the target invulnerable to destruction. It’s a good defense and helps decks like Karakuri and Morphtronic.
• Comic Hero King Arthur: Never thought they would print this one, considering the Noble Knight archetype, but hey… here’s another King Arthur XYZ (lol). This one, however, is splashable in any warrior deck. If this card would be destroyed by battle (including suicide attacks), you can detach 1 XYZ material instead. While doing so, this card gains 500 attack (permanently) and the opponent takes 500 damage. Considering this card has a base attack of 2400, this makes him a nice addition to the extra deck.
• CXyz Comic Hero Legend Arthur: If you would use rank-up magic on a warrior to make this, it might be worth your while. Once per turn, this card cannot be destroyed by battle (3000 attack makes it nice). And if you upgraded King Arthur, you can banish the monster this card destroys by battle and inflict burn damage equal to the destroyed monster’s original attack (wow).
• Skypalace Gangaridai: Forget Gustav Max, here’s the new rank 10 XYZ: Gagiga …Gangreen… Gangaridai! Detach 1 xyz material to destroy 1 card your opponent controls (card, not monster). And if the destruction is a success, you can burn your opponent for 1000 lifepoints. The effect can only be applied once per turn (they learned their lesson, huh) and this card cannot attack when its effect is used, but it can be upgraded via Rank-up Magic and can then still attack (you know, the Gaia Dragon syndrome).
• CXYZ Skypalace Babylon: The upgrade of Gangaridai. It has 3800 attack, has a great burn effect if it destroys an opponent’s monster and if you upgraded Gangaridai instead of Gustav Max, you can detach 1 XYZ material to attack once more (did I mention the 3800 attack and the burn effect when it destroys another monster?). So this is Konami’s way of saying “Please try out the rank-up magic cards. It now comes with a free burn OTK”.
• Box of friends: This trap lets you summon 2 monsters with 0 attack or defense from your deck. This ain't the full effect yet (I bet), but if this is it, I see this card being very useful in certain decks (like Zombies).

Buy Number Hunters. It now comes with burn OTK cards!

And the reprints?

Well, the 10 foil reprints are unknown at this point, but they shouldn't be too amazing (the reprints are anime cards and the Zexal anime cards suck by default). And if you think about it, the foil reprints should be mostly reprints of Heroic Challenger and Chronomaly cards.

"Come on, you all wanted a foil version of Heroic Gift, right?"

Afterword

Ever since the Duel Terminal and Hidden Arsenal series ended, we were kind of wondering what Konami would do as a follow-up. Guess this is the answer, huh.

Will we see more releases like this one? Only time will tell.

Until next time, V out.

Note: Big Eye and Shock Master are not in this set. They're only in this post for the function of comic relief.