Reviewing the TCG World premiere cards (GAOV-ROTD-ABYR-CBLZ-LTGY)

Like each year (the sixth one in a row), the OCG gets a special pack with all TCG World Premiere cards of the past year.

This year’s edition is kind of special. Instead of the usual September release including 4 sets of 10 cards, the OCG now gets the set in May (making the cards legal for the World Championship) and the set now includes all cards of the last 5 sets (including those from Lord of the Tachyongalaxy). They also get the 2 World Championship promo cards Legendary Magician of Dark and Legendary Dragon of White (the “unplayable” XYZ of both Dark Magician and Blue-Eyes White Dragon).

Now let’s review the TCG world premiere cards we got. Unlike previous editions, this year was without real broken cards. The most noteworthy additions were the following:

• Noble Knight Gawayn (Return of the Duelist): Sneak peek promo and a card that is splashed in various HERO decks. It’s a 1900 beat stick that can be special summoned when you control an E-HERO Neos Alius.
• Abyss Dweller (Abyss Rising): Became an instant staple in many Extra Decks. During either player’s turn, you can detach 1 material. Any monster effect that activates in the opponent’s grave is negated for that turn.
• Spellbook Star Hall (Abyss Rising): Had quite a bit of interest upon its release, due to its ability to boost Spellcasters and its ability to search a caster when destroyed. However, it became neglected in favor of Spellbook of the Master and Spellbook Judgment day. This is a card to remember if Judgment Day and/or High Priestess gets hit in September.
• Mermail Abyssteus (Cosmo Blazer): This card empowered TCG players to turn the Undine-Merlantean version of Mermails into the Mono-Mermail decks as it’s known today.
• Totem Bird (Lord of the Tachyon Galaxy): Too soon to know if this card will actually have an impact, but it’s a mini-Laggia. And even if you can’t use it now, you know that it will become useful someday.

"The best card from this abyss..."

And honestly, that’s about it. 5 good cards from a set of 52 cards. At first, I also thought of putting Elfobia in here, but the limitations on her effect (only levels and only until the end of MP1) made it kind of an awkward card.

So basically, if you are an OCG player and you don’t like the Noble Knight archetype, there’s absolutely no reason to buy lots of this booster. There’s only a handful of cards worth noting.

Them Locals Special Edition: Barbecue-tourney

Yesterday we had a special tournament at one of the places I attend. A Barbecue tournament. First we play, then we eat. Fun & Fun!

Round 1: Vs Kenneth (Gravekeepers):

• Game 1: A little back-and forth game. Necrovalley + Solidarity make powerhouses of those spellcasters. But the game turns over when I bring Lightray Daedalus on the field and I go: “Hey, for the first time EVER I can actually use his effect!” He grabs the card, reads it and swears. He tries to come back, but it’s KO soon after.
• Game 2: The game starts bad when he goes Necrovalley + Royal Tribute on me (my whole hand gone!). But he fails to draw ANY monster, so I get enough time to recuperate and come back. Not exactly the way I wanted to win, but yeah.
• Result: OO

"Hey, that's a nice field spell you have there, buddy..."

Round 2: Vs Miguel (Six Samurai)

• Game 1: So epic we’ll never talk about this game… EVER! <_< (I won one of the most awkward games I’ve played in months).
• Game 2: I open bad, he opens with two SS United and is able to OTK me.
• Game 3: Back-and forth game. After I get rid of his Shi En, he’s able to bring Driven Daredevil on the field (I thought he was going Black Rose, this was a surprise). After thinking for a while, I found a way to beat that bastard. I used my Maestroke’s last material to flip it down. Then I used my Forbidden Chalice on my maestroke to make his attack 100 higher than Daredevil’s defense, therefore bypassing his effect. He’s surprised and can’t come back.
• Result: OXO

"I put that b!tch face-down!"

Round 3: Vs Jeroen (Plant Synchro)

• Game 1: He loops around with his synchro’s and everything I try is being blocked. At a certain point he shows he could easily go into Shooting Quasar Dragon. Am I glad that's still illegal over here. End result: I lose.
• Game 2: I side in some stuff and he scratches in his head, because he doesn’t understand my deck or what it’s trying to do. This gives me some advantage in game 2 as I do know what his tries to do. But when both my Gearfrieds get milled (curses!), we go into time and I block access to my Gorz by having Gozen Match active, I ended up losing a game I should’ve won.
• Result: XX

"Hey, nice party. Can I come over and play?"
"NO!"

Round 4: Vs Carl (Machina Geargia)

• Game 1: Me never having faced Machina decks (I’m not counting DS games with bad AI) put me at a disadvantage, because I tried to counter with things that didn’t work as I thought they did (the Catastor Vs Gear Gigant+Gearframe ruling :-S). I end up losing.
• Game 2: I’m able to do some shenanigans with Chimeratech, but when I revive my Cyber Dragon I realize I don’t have a second one (*facepalm*). That was a stupid mistake that cost me game 2 (though Carl says he could’ve countered my other strategy). I have to admit, Machina Geargia is a good deck.
• Result: XX

"I ain't no Ancient Gear! I'm modern gear!"

End result: No top-4 cut-off and I end up 6th place or so. I can’t remember clearly (didn’t care anymore because of the two losses).

In between and after the duels we do some trades and we’re able to get cheap SE’s of Return of the Duelist (10€ instead of the usual 12,5€). I got 1 Librarian and 2 Acid Golems, together with the crappiest secret (why?), the one Spellbook I didn’t want (Hierophant) and a few good supers. Further trades and friends got me a few other cards I wanted, but getting that second High Priestess is going to be harder than I thought (since I’m not willing to pay a shitload of cash on a deck that’s not going to be a top deck anyway).

After that we got to eat barbecue. And even though the weather wasn’t that great (rain), the food and the atmosphere were great. It was a fun and great day after all.

Until next time, V out.

PS: Oh, yeah... Six Sam won YCS Indianapolis. Check the blogs of LFN for a report and the blog of Team overload for many of the decklists.

Them Locals #3

Yesterday, I went to one of the locals I attend from time to time in Ghent. Second time I brought my Photon Lightray deck along to a local tourney, but I noticed this time around there was some decent competition (yes).

I was a little late and the judge tells me that (since I got a little late on the sneak too here) this is the last time he would let it slip through his fingers (sure, k, no problem.).

Round 1: Vs Ruben (Wind-up)

• Game 1: I open broken and clear both his backrow (storm) and send his monster back to the deck (ehren). Turn 4, the game is already over and I didn't even get to see one of his monsters.
• Game 2: I suddenly notice what he's playing... wind-ups. Without siding decently and no Veiler in my hand, I quickly lose to his magician combo's.
• Game 3: I didn't draw a single good card from my side and draw my gearfried waaay to early to actually be useful. He solemns my only way of countering and I quickly lose (ratz).
• Result: OXX

Round 2: Vs Kai (random deck): newbies? I always face them for some reason...

• Game 1 & Game 2: With random monsters and spells you can't achieve a lot, honestly. I tried to hold back, but he quickly lost both games. I tell him he needs to reduce his deck to as close as 40 as possible (he has near 60 cards in there) and give him a few other hints.
• Result: OO

Round 3: Vs Michaël (HERO deck)

• Game 1: I open teh nutz again and he has to look as I take the game in a few turns.
• Game 2: I open badly this time around. But I'm able to hold my defenses for a while (thank you Lighray Madoor). But when he uses Miracle Fusion to get Great Tornade to blow my Madoor away and the next turn parallel world fusion, I have to give in.
• Game 3: For a while I fear I might lose again, but I draw into Spirit of Purity and Light, get enough monsters banished for Lightray Madoor and then use them to get Photon Strike Bounzer on the field. I finish with Summoning Lighray Gearfried, causing a deadlock. A close game, but I win.
• Result: OXO

Round 4: Vs Jolly (Zombies)

Another first-timer, but this one's better.

• Game 1: Again, I try to hold back. But my deck answers me with power cards. I win.
• Game 2: She gets stallers on the field (Spirit Reaper, Lady in Wight) and suddenly appears with Patrician of Darkness. I underetimate this old-school card and get suckered into defeat. Curses
• Game 3: She tries to stall again, but I get better answers in my hand this time around.
• Result: OXO

End result: 3 wins gives me the 4th place. 3 boosters of ROTD & the latest Turbo Pack as price. Though the only noteworthy card is... Rebound (why do I only draw crap from this set?).

The winner, Carl, gets 10 boosters and pulls 4 ultra/ulti cards (Puddingcess, Spellbook Magician, Spellbook of Secrets & SuperRoboGalaxyCrap). Why is he the only one that gets good stuff? :-(

On the other hand, the same day was able to get 10 ORCS boosters off a very cheap price (something close to 0). THose packs got me better results (Invoker, Super Transformation, Evolzar Solda, Dark Mist and a bunch of rares.

So, all in all a good day of testing. Now I at least have a few ideas to fill my side-deck with.

Until next time, V out.

Hits and misses of Return of the Duelist

Return of the Duelist came out (officially) in stores!

Reviewing the whole set is kind of ridiculous. So instead of doing that, I’ll give you my picks and drops from this set.

I tried to avoid archetype-specific cards, unless the cards can be used outside of their mentioned archetype.

Hits of the set

• Heroic Challenger – War Hammer: I kind of underestimated this card, but it’s good. If this card destroys your opponent’s monster and sends it to the grave, this guy can steal it and use its power for its own. If it wasn’t for Effect Veiler and three MSTs, this card would’ve been amazing.
• Temperance of Prophecy: If you’re trying to make a good spellcaster deck, from now on this card should be in it, whether or not its main focus is Prophecy monsters. When activating a Spellbook card, you can tribute this card for a high-level LIGHT or DARK spellcaster from your deck! And because most spellbooks affect spellcasters in general (not just the Prophecy monsters), these cards can be mashed into many decks.
• Madolche Magileine: Like the Gadget effect of re-filling your hand? Then check this card. When normal or flip summoned, this card searches another Madolche card, INCLUDING another copy of itself. With the usual Madolche effect that it’s automatically shuffled back in the deck, this card by itself can instantly make sure your hand is never empty (unless the summon is negated, of course).
• Uniflora, Mystical Beast of the forest: Anybody call for some Beast support? This guy is one of the best beasts I’ve seen in a while. Tribute this card to special summon ANY kind of beast from your grave or hand.
• Silver Sentinel: If your opponent has a fetish to destroy your back row, this card will surprise him. If your opponent destroys this card, it can special summon itself and destroy a card your opponent controls. A surprise about this card: they didn’t alter his sniper rifle! This probably is because the barrel isn’t that visible, but still, an unedited gun in Yu-Gi-Oh!? That’s a first one.
• Illusory Snatcher: Read this card as: Easy XYZ. I’ve looked around on the internet and somehow, this card does NOT miss timing. So, yes, it can be used in monarch (stated by the art), Hieratics, Steelswarm and any other deck that uses tributes.
• Gear Gigant X: a.k.a. the money card from the set! This card supports Geargia’s the most, but is also a generic card searcher in any machine type deck.
• Soul of Silvermountain: One of the more interesting cards. It blocks an opponent’s spell or trap card and when it destroys a monster, you can special summon ANY earth attribute monster from the grave. Granted, its 1800 attack is low, but otherwise this card would be dead broken (similar as how Leviair’s attack is only 1800). Bringing back Naturia Beast, Barkion, Iron Chain Dragon or other high-level earth monster is no joke.
• Sword Breaker: Ally of Justice Catastor for types instead of attributes. Nuff said. This is potentially the only (non-dark) monster that can commit suicide with Catastor.
• Galaxy Queen’s Light: Easy Lv. 7 and higher xyz summoning. Helps to summon monsters like Dyson Sphere, Super Robo Galaxy Destroyer and Gustav Max.
• Impenetrable attack: Remember how you can only use 3 Waboku’s in a deck? Hurray, Konami just re-made the card. Now you can chose whether or not you choose to prevent battle damage or prevent your monsters from being destroyed. But unlike Waboku, this card also prevents your monster being destroyed by card effect! Final Countdown decks will rejoice. Haters will hate, though.

Misses of the set

• Photon Caesar: In the anime, we’ve been introduced with several monsters which are treated as 2 XYZ materials. Those effects are translated in real-life as "special summon another copy of itself when normal summoned". A good example of this effect is Heroic Challenger – Double Lance. The less good example of this effect is Photon Caesar. Caesar was created to easily overlay into Neo-Galaxy-Eyes. But believe me, you will find more use in cards like Lightray Gearfried and Guardian of Order.
• Cold Feet: Every set has its cards that are weird or just simply suck donkey balls. This set has Cold Feet… literally. The card Cold Feet is a watered down version of Cold Wave and affects ONLY yourself. So unless you can combo it with Mystical Refpanel (who the hell would do that), you basically are just skrewing yourself.
• Blue Dragon Ninja: Ninja support FTW… or not? A potentially great card, if they would’ve switched the AND with an OR. Sorry, but discarding 2 cards to negate an effect is just not an option in real life.
• Spellbook Library of the Crescent: Possibly the worst of all spellbook cards I’ve seen. This card has a potential of more than 50% of being a dead card.
• Chew-bone: Of all OCG imports that could’ve made this set good (or better), we get possibly one of the worst OCG promo’s out there. This card represents the support zombies have been getting in the past few years. It’s not just any miss. This is a “three-strikes-you’re-out” kind of miss.
• The absence of Thunder Seahorse: The introduction of the Hunder (why no T?) archetype would’ve been a good deal, but Konami somehow forgot the key monster, Thunder Seahorse. The card has a similar effect like Thunder Dragon (of which the archetype is based upon), but isn’t limited to another copy of itself. I do wonder if they have plans of releasing it in the near future (the special edition or so?)
• The card rarity in general: Name any decent archetype card you want from this set, it will have a high rarity. We noticed it during the sneak. Only a handful of people got a few of the good cards and they were all super, ultra or secret rare.

Next time, I'll give you some test results of DN of the past week

Madolche Puddingcess - When does it activate?

In the upcoming set (Return of the Duelist), we’re introduced to a lot of new archetypes. One of them is called Madolche, which combines names of dessert with titles. The key card of the Madolche is Madolche Puddingcess.

Now I’ve noticed there’s a lot of discussion about her effect. What’s the effect, you ask? Well, let’s look at the TCG card provided to us.

*Looks very closely.* Yeah, err… right. Blurry text, huh…

So until there’s a decent TCG picture available of Puddingcess, we’re stuck with the interpretation of the OCG text. That text goes as follows:

“When this card is destroyed by your opponent and sent to the Graveyard: Shuffle it into the Deck. If there are no monsters in your Graveyard, this card gains 800 ATK and DEF. When this card battles an opponent's monster: You can target 1 card your opponent controls; destroy it.”

The problem?

What seems to be the problem, you ask? Well, there are a few words missing in this card effect; a few VERY crucial words. The effect does NOT state WHEN the destruction effect occurs.

• Is it upon attack declaration (like the suicide effect of Utopia)?
• Is it before damage calculation (like Ally of Justice Catastor or Neo-Spacian Grand Mole)?
• Or is it after damage calculation (like D.D. Warrior Lady)?

The end results of these three possibilities are very different. Consider the following situation: You control a Caius the Shadow Monarch in face-up attack position, a set Spirit Reaper and a faced-down MST. Your opponent controls a Puddingcess and has no monsters in the grave.

The result would be the following, depending on the 3 given situations:

1. Your field would be empty and you would’ve taken 1800 damage. Your opponent would laugh at you with his puddingcess at his side. Virtually, this would mean this card is Raigeki incarnated.
2. Your opponent can attack either Caius or the set Reaper. The opponent could choose which card to destroy. If he chooses Caius, he does not take battle damage. Puddingcess will survive.
3. Your opponent can declare an attack on either the set Reaper or Caius. If he chooses Caius (for whatever spooky reason), the opponent will take 600 damage and Puddingcess will be destroyed. but after damage calculation, you can destroy either Caius, or one of the set cards.

Clearly, the end result varies a lot, from Puddingcess being destroyed by battle to Puddingcess being the only card left on the field. No wonder there’s a lot of discussion going on about her.

So what IS the right effect?

If you chose situation 3, you are correct (you get a free pudding from the puddingcess).

The destruction effect is activated AFTER damage calculation, similar to the effect of D.D. Warrior Lady.

If you chose situation 1, you’re either ignorant or foolish. There’s no way Konami would allow a walking Raigeki run on the field.

Reasoning

It took me a while to find a reliable source, but I found it somewhere on the DuelingNetwork forum. They stated that there was a similar line in the text of D.D. Warrior Lady & that of Puddingcess. So, I went and looked for the two OCG cards and compared them!

The original OCG text of D.D. Warrior lady states:

When this card battles another monster, after Damage Calculation you can remove the opponent's monster and this card from play.

Notice the similar part (aside that they're both blondes)? Yes, it IS: "When this card battles another monster".

Konami realized this wording would make this card annoyingly confusing and decided to fill in the following: ", after damage calculation".

Since this situation is repeating itself today with Princess Pudding, they will (normally) add those same three words on this card. But you’ll have to wait until after the sneak peek to see the fully corrected TCG text.

Until that time, we’re stuck with a blurry text and an interpretation of the OCG-text.

Seriously, what DOES it say?

V out.