Yuginews collected - Thanksgiving edition

Last Night, Kevin Tewart posted an article on the Konami Blog of Yugioh. It was an article about the stuff they released in the past few months and the stuff they plan to release in the upcoming three months (December-February). You can read it Over here.

I've read through this and noticed the following snippets of news:

• Konami will release more Deluxe Editions. Tewart mentioned they were quite pleased with the Deluxe Edition of JOTL. They're going to rotate Special Editions out of the roster and bring in more of these Deluxe Editions instead. Prime reason is that they can experiment more with what they can put in there, where as they're quite limited in their options with a Special Edition.
• Shadow Specters SE may be the last of the Special Editions we see in quite a while. The SE promo's are Stardust Dragon and Tuning (a reprint that's quite overdue if you ask me). For those participating in the Quasar waiting/drinking game, take a shot.
• Starter Decks Yugi & Kaiba: As predicted, long time players will have no use for these since they're STARTER decks. Stop complainig already. These products are aimed at new players. It's a good way for them to obtain good generic cards like Book of Moon, Call of the Haunted, Dark Hole, Enemy Controller, etc. Each of the Starter Decks will have an Ultimate Rare Key monster (Dark Magician & Blue-Eyes White Dragon).

First revelations of Legacy of the Valiant

But people are the most interested (obviously) in the first revelations of the next TCG booster set, Legacy of the Valiant. It's the first booster of 2014. These bits of information were released:

• Gravekeeper's will have 7 new cards. Yes, 7. The six from the OCG set and 1 TCG WP card(!). And for your info, Saniwa is translated to Oracle; Shrine of Necrovalley will be Hidden Temple of Necrovalley and Royal Tombs will be Imperial Tombs.
• Shinra archetype is renamed Sylvan. I guess that works. Also, their effects will introduce a new gaming term to the card game, named "Excavate". But no telling yet if they talk about the "reveal the top card", "send to the graveyard", or "return to the bottom of the deck" part of the effect. But we'll see another blog post about those effects somewhere in December or January.
• More Noble Knight support. You remember that last unknown Noble Knight picture on the Showcase page, right? That's Noble Knight Perceval/Peredur. Why do I know this? Because Borz and Gallahad are in the background. Those three were the Knights of the Round Table that went on their quest for the Holy Grail.
• Legacy gets the next Deluxe Edition. Release date: somewhere in the beginning of March (I guess around the 7th?).

New Forbidden and Limited List in a few weeks

The last bit of information Tewart shared with us was that the new F&L list will be posted online in a few weeks. What?

Yeah, we've been so used to the fact that February is the usual banlist speculation month, that we almost forgot this is now shifted to December. And ever since the OCG and TCG list split up, there are no more early leaks. Guess we'll have to wait for the blog to update, huh.

I can make up a wishlist for the next list, but we all know what's going to happen, right? They're going to hire some good Dragon Slayers and butcher the best deck of the moment, obviously.

YCS Atlanta Top 16 will switch to Booster Draft

Yesterday, another fun bit of news was shared. In order to promote their new Battle Pack 2 Round 2, Konami decided to switch the top 16 of YCS Atlanta into a booster draft final. That's fun!

Yeah, I like the idea, personally. It's generally known that Sealed and Draft formats bring out the best in the duelists and that only good players will win (and lucksackers obviously). Not to mention, I've always been a fan of Draft/Sealed plays.

Though I understand the frustrations of not being able to see the top decks of the new January Format face off against each other, but at the time the Top 16 starts, you should already know that, right?

Top ranked Cossy duelists get a token

Remember Cossy ranking? Yeah, in the tcg it's hardly being used. But once every so often, the top ranked duelists get a special price for being top ranked. In the past, this was often a special playmat. This time around, it's a special token card.

Well, that's it for now. V out.

PS: on a side-note: If you didn't already do it, don't forget to buy your copy of the latest 5D's manga with Stardust Spark Dragon. Don't forget, only the first print comes with this great card.

Cards to look forward to in Shadow Specters

You know the drill. I've looked at all 80 OCG cards and picked out the cards that are interesting.

Effect monsters

• Chauchow-chan: A new hand trap and this time, it’s a beast (no, literally). When you attack (or if you’re attacked) and a NORMAL trap is activated, you can discard this card from the hand to negate the activation. So you can walk into mirror force or dimensional prison without worries! And this is an anime card? Groovy.
• Wyd the Unseen Druid: A summoner Monk target. When this card is sent from the field to the grave, you can set a continuous spell from your grave to your side of the field. Nobody uses continuous spells, you think? What about… Dimensional Fissure, The Fire Formation Spells, or Burden of the Mighty? And since this is a spellcaster, you can even re-use Spellbook Star Hall.
• Drewes, the unseen Druid: When normal summoned, you can special summon a Lv. 4 DARK monster with either 0 attack or defense from your grave (except itself). Best use now is in Zombie decks (Zombie Master, Skull Conductor), or Archfiends (Archfiend Knight, Mad Archfiend), due to its limited use. But depending on what Konami releases in the future, this card is one to keep an eye on.

• Pon-poko & Tantan the Raccoon Rascals: Both have similar effects. They can special summon a Lv. 2 Beast from your deck (face-up or face-down, depending on the card). And surprisingly, there are a lot of Beasts that are Lv. 2. Ryko is the most known one, but all Ojama’s are Lv. 2, Nimble Momonga is one, just like The Fabled Cerburrel. Heck, you can even troll opponents with Sea Koala this way. And with the number of decent Rank 2 monsters out there, these cards make way for interesting “rascal” (troll) decks, don’t you think?
• Pumprincess the Princess of Ghosts: An interesting card to use. When destroyed and sent to the grave, you can use it as a continuous spell, making all your opponent’s monster attack go down with 100 during EACH stand-by phase, forcing your opponent to waste materials on it. Think of it as an alternate form of Burden of the Mighty, that’s very easy to bring back (it’s a zombie, so yeah).

• Vampire Killer: A reverse Catastor! When this card attacks a DARK monster, it’s destroyed before damage calculation! I’ve been aching for a card like this, even if only to face DARK decks, like blackwings, inzektors, Dark World, Infernity, etc…
• Aratama: A Spirit searcher? Interesting. This is actually a card that Spirit decks need to make it playable. When (flip) summoned, add 1 Spirit monster from the deck to the hand (safe itself). Can’t get any better than that, I guess? :-P
• Knight Day Grepher: And next to Spirit Support, there’s gemini support too? Cool. This card recycles Supervise (or other equip spells), which is the engine spell of the deck.

XYZ monsters

• Number 46: Ethereal Dragon: A dragon designed for Blue-Eyes decks and Dragon Mirror Matches. If this is the only card you control, you can either special summon a dragon from your hand, steal an opponent’s dragon or render the effect of all dragons your opponent controls useless.
• Number 64: Sandayu, the Veteraccoon: Another interesting Rank 2 XYZ. This card is designed for the Raccoon Rascals and for rascal/troll decks in general (Ojama fans, eat your heart out). It cannot be destroyed while you control other beasts, and you can detach 1 to get a tokens (sounds familiar, doesn’t it?). But unlike Dracosack, these tokens attack become that of the strongest monster on the field.
• Tree Spirit of the Meliaes: Reviewed this card a while ago. Best support Plant synchro decks and Gigaplant OTK decks could get. Requires 2 LV. 3 earth monsters and either dumps plants from the deck to the grave or revives them for another use.

Synchro monsters.

Only 2 synchro’s, but neither are really interesting.

Spells

• Pot of Duplicity: Copy-paste from my previous post: "After the watered-down version of Pot of Greed (Pot of Duality), we now get a Watered-down version of Pot of Avarice in the form of this card. This card forces you to skip the battle phase and only works by sending 3 monsters of different types from your grave to the deck (still a plus-1). So obviously it cannot be used in many decks. But in the decks where this card DOES work, it will work even better than Pot of Avarice ever would (Evilswarm decks, Chaos decks, Norleras decks, Mystic Piper decks, etc). A word of advice: don’t underestimate this card; because having consistency and control is more powerful than having a battle phase."

Traps

• Grisaile Gaol: (copy-paste from previous post) You can see this card will pop up In Monarch and HERO decks as a side-deck card. When this card is active and you control a fusion/tributed/ritual monster, neither player can synchro or xyz summon and the effects of face-up xyz/synchro’s is negated.
• Mistake: (copy-paste from previous post) Neither player can add cards to their hands, except by drawing them. At this point in the meta, it’s the most anti-meta card there is. Every meta archetype searches cards. This card is an ideal “f**k-you” to your opponent, if you’re done searching and want to prevent your opponent from searching cards. Beware that if your deck focuses on searching that this card can easily backfire.
• Survival of the Fittest: A weird addition, but this card supports Dino decks. It boosts a dino with 1000 attack and lets them attack another monster again. Use this on Jurrac Guaiba to get two more from the deck.

Afterword and a few other news updates

A few specific nice cards, but nothing seems over-the-top good. Bujins get good support, vampires are revived (lol), but other than that, nothing much will change with the release of this booster.

In the meantime, it's also revealed that Fire King Avatar Yaksha will be in Judgment of the Light (next to Chicken/Rooster)), implying that Wolfberk might be in there as well. This makes this set somewhat more interesting.

Also, due to comic-con, people spied and noticed what the content will be of the Blue-Eyes Structure Deck. As expected, we will not see Maxx "C" (called it), nor genesis dragon, hardened armed dragon, Level Eater or Symbols of Duty. Instead we will get Luster Dragon (they really should rename the card now), hieratic Dragon of Tefnuit, Dragonic Tactics and Compulsory Evacuation Device.

Battle Pack 2 Revelations and the general GOOD support of Shadow Specters

Two topics today, both are about “revealed cards”. First up, the newly revealed cards of Battle Pack 2!

Battle Pack 2: Reprint season alert!

Aah, Yu-Gi-Oh reprint season. It’s the time were prize hunters try to get rid of their foil cards at the highest possible price, or keep praying that their collection of money cards doesn't get hit by a stray reprint bullet. The season starts in June with packs like Gold Series (surprisingly absent this year), the August tins, the Battle Pack, a new Duelist League pack, a new Structure Deck, the Legendary Collections, a new Astral pack and closes with the November tins.

First up this year is Battle Pack 2. Until last weekend, most of the revealed cards weren't noteworthy. But last weekend that changed, when the European shops received their boxes and some just couldn't wait to open them. But unlike any Konami article on the pack, these revelations WERE interesting. These are some of the revealed cards that I consider interesting:

• Sinister Serpent: One of those classic forbidden cards that will never get off the list. Kind of hard to obtain as well, so this reprint is good.
• Plaguespreader Zombie: Used to be such an amazing card! Will be great again once Shadow Specters will be released! So pick up your copies!
• Chaos Hunter: Annoyingly hard to obtain and a nice first reprint. Also, it's a nice tech versus Dragon Rulers!
• Tour Bus from the Underworld & Tardy Orc: I kind of laughed at these two cards. They were overhyped at their release, and thus failed to meet expectations. The cards are not that great after all. Strange to see them reprinted in “this” set, since they’re not that great in sealed play either (Giant Orc >> Tardy Orc).
• Cardcar D: GREAT! This is a great addition to any battle pack and a lot of people were expecting this. Now it’s actually confirmed.
• Mermail Abyssmegalo: I nearly coughed up my coffee when seeing this and a confirmation picture. Here? Battle Pack reprint? Good for the Mermail fans trying to obtain a not-so-pricy version. But how good is this card going to work in Battle Pack?
• Mecha Phantom Beast Hamstrat: Seriously? This soon? Well, I guess that will please MPB-fans at least. This at least means that a MPB deck will be a bit cheaper (considering Dracosack is a +100$ card).
• The Forbidden Trio (Chalice, Lance & Dress): Sucks to be you if you recently bought your copy of Dress/Lance for 10-15$. They’re getting a(nother) reprint. The forbidden trio works in any version of the Battle pack, so they will always have a chance of reprint in these kind of sets.
• Shard of Greed: Never should’ve been a secret rare, so it’s nice to see this card reprinted.
• The Golden Apples: Interesting reprint. Hardly saw this secret rare card in any binder, even though nobody played it. Card is like Gorz, but in trap form.
• Overworked: Nice reprint of this Short print card. Will be necessary for the September format, because I doubt Fire Fists will get hit (hard).
• Breakthrough Skill: I’m surprised. Didn’t expect a reprint of this card this soon. But it’s nice either way. More and more people are seeing that this card is useful, so a reprint at this point can only be good.

With Battle Pack still not being the most expensive set, it’s interesting to buy with revelations like these. I wonder what other cards will be revealed this week (set comes out this thursday/friday).

If cards like these three don't convince you of BP2
Then I guess nothing will...

Shadow specter: Good, better, amazing

The next booster set that will be released in the OCG is Shadow Specters. Release date is July 20th. For the TCG, we will see this set somewhere in November.

With the launch of this new set coming closer, the latest V-Jump gave us a sneak peek of what’s to come in this set. And a lot of people (including me) were amazed at the revelations. I’ll give you a “cards to look forward to” post when the set is fully revealed, but let me just post a few of the cards that got people hyped.

Granmarg the Hard Earth/Solid Rock Monarch: The first of the advanced Monarchs is introduced. These variants are Lv. 8, but can also be summoned by tributing a Tribute Summoned Monster (a monarch, obviously). The effect: Same as Granmarg, but this card destroys 2 cards instead of one. And if you tributed an earth monster (another Granmarg), you also get a draw. There are more free slots in this set, so I have the feeling we’re going to see MORE of these advanced Monarchs.

Unearthing of the Monarchs: If Advanced Monarchs weren’t enough, here’s a spell that you will remember. Why? Because this card is a Black Whirlwind/Wind-up Factory for Monarchs. When you tribute summon a monster, you can either search a regular monarch, or an advanced monarch. Only downside is the same as "March of the Monarchs". It remains on the field, so it blocks the Frog Monarchs variant.

Vampires: Yeah, the "old" archetype that gets a boost this time around is nothing less than Vampires. And while the set supports "cutie" zombies in their new (seemingly bad) archetype Ghostrick, the Vampires have good, dark artwork that deserves a round of applause. More on these new vampires in a future post.

Tree Spirit of the Meliaes: This XYZ requires 2 Lv. 3 earth monsters and either sends a plant monster from your deck to the grave (Dandylion or Spore) or special summons a plant monster from your grave (re-using Lonefire Blossom). Plant Synchro decks & Gigaplant OTK decks can rejoice (though this makes it quite unlikely that Glow-up Bulb would ever return, lol).

Pot of Duplicity: After the watered-down version of Pot of Greed (Pot of Duality), we now get a Watered-down version of Pot of Avarice in the form of this card. This card forces you to skip the battle phase and only works by sending 3 monsters of different types from your grave to the deck (still a plus-1). So obviously it cannot be used in many decks. But in the decks where this card DOES work, it will work even better than Pot of Avarice ever would (Evilswarm decks, Chaos decks, Norleras decks, Mystic Piper decks, etc). A word of advice: don’t underestimate this card; because having consistency and control is more powerful than having a battle phase.

Grisaille Gaol: You can see this card will pop up In Monarch and HERO decks as a side-deck card. When this card is active and you control a fusion/tributed/ritual monster, neither player can synchro or xyz summon and the effects of face-up xyz/synchro’s is negated.

Mistake: Neither player can add cards to their hands, except by drawing them. At this point in the meta, it’s the most anti-meta card there is. Every meta archetype searches cards. This card is an ideal “f**k-you” to your opponent, if you’re done searching and want to prevent your opponent from searching cards. Beware that if your deck focuses on searching that this card can easily backfire.

Makes you wonder what the other "advanced" Monarchs will be, huh?

There are more interesting cards in the set (though not as hyped), but I’ll keep those for when the set is fully revealed.

That’s it for now. V out.

PS: Yeah, the starter deck is out as well. Wonder why I didn't cover that before? Because it's EXACTLY the same as the OCG-variant (I covered that one). But instead of 2x5 cards in 1 pack, we got 1x10 cards in a pack, making it very easy to obtain all 15 extra cards.