Extra Pack 2012 - A recap of the TCG exclusives

For the fifth year in a row, the OCG will get a (Extra) booster pack, filled with all 42 TCG World premiere cards (you know, the TCG exclusives) we got in the past year. This Extra pack spreads from Extreme Victory to Order of Chaos (and a few extra's).

I guess it’s time to look back at what specific World premiere cards we had in the past year. I’m not going to cover all 42 cards, but I’ll take a selection of what I think made (or should’ve made) an impact on the game, in order of release.

Extreme Victory

Reborn Tengu

The second TCG world premiere card that has been semi-limited months before it even hit Japanese shelves (just like Allure of Darkness in May 2008). We have to admit it, this card yells bad card design and was one of the reasons Pot of Avarice became limited in usage. Because, what’s worse than three Tengu’s? Six Tengu’s!

And with the weird (temporary) TCG rule that XYZ materials were considered leaving the field, this card's effect suddenly went apenuts!

Dodger Dragon

A lot of TCG world premiere cards have a thing in common… them being overhyped. This is the first one of those. This card allowed disaster dragons to “dodge” counter traps for one turn and it made a significant impact on the game (NOT, lol). The September ’11 Forbidden & limited list made sure this card became utterly unused, because Heavy Storm returned and MST became unlimited! As people switched over from counter traps to “trigger” traps, Dodger Dragon couldn’t dodge anymore.

Tour Guide from the Underworld

aka little girl, tour guide of the broken, too good from the underworld, Tour Slut,… no need to explain this card, as it’s been the most hyped TCG WP-card from the past year. Oh yeah… and it’s FROM the underworld, not OF the underworld. Please get it right for once. She’s so good she’s the third TCG world premiere card (after Tengu) to get some sort of limit.

But seriously... have you noticed the OCG name they're giving her?: "Death Guide Departing the Underworld Bound for the Living World". Jeezes, what a mouthful...

Gladiator Beast Essedarii

This was a welcomed card in Gladiator Beast Decks, though the only fault (according to the players) is the ability to tag out after a battle. GB-players use this card a lot and I’ve seen people use Rescue Rabbit to get 2 Anduril to tag into Essedarii.

"My guided tours brings all the boys to the yard..."

Generation Force

Sea Lancer

This card actually revived the frog style decks and renamed it “Frog Lancer”. Sea Lancer equips itself with as many banished monsters (frogs) as possible and prevents its destruction by detaching 1 of those equipped monsters (re-activating their effects). Preferred targets are Poison Draw Frog (draw 1 card) and Dupe Frog (search 1 frog). During Irish Nationals, one guy introduced this deck in the world and hogged all the attention (by getting into top-8).

Pain Painter

This is the card that failed to revive the Zombies, even though it was a nice try. This is a tuner that allows for easy synchro summoning of hard to achieve Zombie synchro monsters. This was something zombies needed ever since Plaguespreader Zombie got hit by the F&L list in March 2009.

Orient Dragon

This card is a good anti-synchro card. It would be a nice level 6 synchro that replaces Iron Chain Dragon. But it came out a little too late to make an actual impact on the game. Though if people were to switch over to synchro’s again in the new format, this might be a good replacement for Brionac.

Adreus, Keeper of Armageddon

This is one of the better rank 5 XYZ out there, without being broken. This has been a nice addition to the extra deck for a while now.

Probably the coolest card from the set.

Photon Shockwave

Photon Sabre Tiger

2000 attack for a lv. 3 monster, but under such restrictions that it’s not broken. Can be searched through SNM Hamster, is handy with skill drain, can search another Sabre Tiger, but is not always going to save your day if you topdeck it. This is what I call, a good, balanced card.

Wind-up Rabbit & Wind-up Shark

These are the two TCG world premiere Wind-up effect monsters. Shark can be special summoned and changes its own level; rabbit can basically hop over everything thrown at him. These two cards are great additions to every Wind-up Deck out there.

Evolzar Dolkka

This is Herald of Orange Light in XYZ form. It negates monster effects and destroys them. This card is the reason why Dino Rabbit is more popular over here than in OCG and it is one of the reasons why Dino Rabbit is the top deck of this format in TCG.

Wind-up Zenmaines

This card achieved a change in OCG-Konami’s point of view on TCG world premiere cards. Before Zenmaines every TCG world premiere card was collected and released once per year in an Extra Pack. But Zenmaines got released ahead of that time, in the OCG Gold Series of begin 2012. It’s not weird, as it is a very powerful card and it made the gold series sell really well in OCG.

"They renamed me Naval Mine.
Three guesses as to why?"

Order of Chaos

Inzektor Hopper

Inzektor players love this card. It triggers the effect of Centipede and Dragonfly. And unlike Ladybug, this is not a bad top deck, as its attack is 1700 (probably the only lv. 4 or lower beat stick the inzektors have). There is that tiny bit of the text that allows another Inzektor to attack directly, even if it’s the first turn. But I guess we’ll see the revised card text in the Extra Pack, huh (just like they revised the text on Darksoul).

White Dragon Ninja

Ninja support is cool. This backrow protector is a nice addition to ninja decks. The fact that she’s a dragon instead of a warrior, allows her to be special summoned by Ninjitsu Art of Super Transformation. But ninja’s need a little more support to be competitive.

Interplanetarypurplythorny Dragon

This is a personal favorite and that’s not because of its ridiculous name (twist your tong, say its name 5 times out loud and fast). I like him because of the fact that he can be summoned when a monster you control is destroyed. This allows for field presence and is handy in control decks. This card was somewhat ignored in the Inzektor-heavy format, but is a card to think about in the September 2012 format.

Tour Bus from the Underworld

Overhyped TCG cards? This card definitely takes the cake. When announced, people thought that it could combo really well with Tour guide (it does) and its effect would be even more broken than Tour Guide (nope), which put its pre-order price at somewhere between 60 & 70$ (sucks to be you if you bought it at this price). Tour Bus is a card whose effect allows for graveyard control (either your own or your opponents). Price dropped fast, because this card is a bad top deck and not everybody likes graveyard control. Originally, it dropped to about 10$, but I notice the price has been going up again ever since the semi-limit of Tour Guide.

Come on! Say it with me!
Interplanetarypurplythorny Dragon!
Interplanetarypurpledonkey dragon!
Interplanetthingy purple donkey!
...

Legendary Collection 3

The Seal of Orichalcos

Next to the 10 TCG world premiere cards per booster set, this time we got 2 extra WP-cards, Shadow of the Six Samurai – Shien (from the Six Sam Structure Deck) and this one. That’s the first time this happened ever.

About the seal: A few weeks after we get the infamous seal of Orichalcos, the OCG gets it as well. Nothing much to say about this card, as the (probably nerfed) effect is still unknown.

Reading its effect? The joke's on you...

So, that’s my review of Extra pack 5. The cards not mentioned are just average (not bad, yet not great either), or simply not worth mentioning.

Until next time, V out.

Battle Pack Tournament

Yeah, it's been a while since I posted anything on this blog. I have been busy with a project for work with limited internet access. And meanwhile at home I rediscovered how addictive Civilization V really is (answer: really addictive).

But I have been preparing a few blog posts, so I'll update frequently in the next few days (before I leave to Rock Werchter at least :-P).

Well, let's start with the latest.

Battle Pack

Yesterday, we had a Battle Pack Sealed Tournament at our locals. Quite a few people showed up. There were 32 people present, which was more than usual for a Pegasus league tournament. But I guess the popularity of Battle Pack sparked the interest of many people.

We got 8 packs each (and 2 for price support, lol) and had to make a deck of minimum 20 cards.

The content of my packs:

• no “money” cards. No Tour Guide, Lance, Chalice, Tirus, Adreus,… But I did get a Solemn Judgment and a Gorz (which saved my ass a few times).
• 3 XYZ monsters: Leviathan Dragon, Utopia & Gem-Knight Pearl. Pearl and Utopia were used.
• Beat sticks, but no noteworthy effects: I put in Phantom of Chaos, but somewhere along the duels I noticed that none of my monsters had effects great enough for Phantom to use. But for some reason, I always had him and Creature Swap in my hand at the same time, which ended up being one of my combo’s :-P
• Forbidden cards: Raigeki (amazing card) and Premature Burial. Burial, combined with Autonomous Action Unit, allowed me to revive a few monsters.
• Draw power: 1 Reckless Greed, that’s it. My friend opening his packs in front of me had Pot of Greed, Pot of Duality and Graceful Charity (lol, what?)
• Fun card of the day: Bait Doll. Yeah, I did hit a spell from time to time, but I also hit a Solemn Judgment (on turn 2, lol) and a CED(which forced the opponents monster back to the hand), which was hilarious. I might end up using this card again in real-life, just because it’s funny.
• Card of the day: surprisingly: Spell Shield Type-8. Whether it’s fending of a Forbidden Lance/Chalice or a more dangerous Snatch Steal or Change of Heart, this guy jammed it. In this way of playing, my Spell Shield ended up being better than the Magic drain my opponents used (most of the times I had one or more spell card(s) in my hand).

The duels

Round 1: Versus guy that returned to the game after 7 years or so:

Beat him with some trouble (2-0). My beat sticks were strong, but hardly had effects, which I noticed is a downside. He was pleased with the learning experience from the match and I gave him some hints afterwards (he didn’t use cards like Book of Moon or Raiza the Storm Monarch). Thanks to the hints, he won the next three rounds, which was better than he ever expected (he was grateful for the help).

Round 2: Drago

First game, I ended up with 8 of my 10 support cards in the first 10 cards I got from my deck. I ended up losing because I couldn’t keep any monster on the field. Not to mention, he MST’d my Solemn Judgment in both games. Second round was closer, but I still ended up losing. (0-2)

Round 3: Rueben

This player was good. But in both Games I won with a close victory. (2-0)

Round 4: Julie

It was probably due to her crazy boyfriend next to her acting all weird, but she couldn’t focus on the game. She made several mistakes. I easily won 2-0.

Round 5: Guy whose name I forgot

This was the most exciting one and most memorable one. I might submit this to Konami’s come-back stories for Battle Pack.

First game, I won. Second game, he won (due to an early Solemn Judgment I used).

In round 3, his latest attack dropped my life points from 1900 to 400, while he had well over 5000 left. Next turn, I was able to use Raigeki to clear his field, even though I didn’t have any monsters. I set a Power frame and passed. His next turn, I used Solemn Judgment to stop his normal summon (down to 200). I pulled Reckless Greed and set it, hoping my opponent wouldn’t draw a monster. My opponent’s next draw was Treeborn frog (he cursed, I was happy). He summoned it and attacked, reducing my life points to 100). Next, I top decked Blast with Chain (fail), but Reckless Greed saved my life, as the two extra cards gave me Exarion Universe and Gene-Warped Warwolf (yes). I summoned Warwolf and crushed his frog.

Due to 1 set spell or trap, he couldn’t revive the Frog. He tried to finish me off by attacking Warwolf with Zombyra the Dark, but I used Blast with Chain on Warwolf, keeping it (and me) alive. When I attacked him directly, he used Metal Reflect Slime to defend himself. Next turn, he passed. Since I couldn’t draw and my warwolf couldn’t defeat his Slime, I passed as well. Then he got another monster and set 1 card. Next turn I summoned Exarion Universe and attacked his monster, which he defended with Power Frame. When he tried finishing me off by attacking my Exarion Universe I ended up defending my monster with exactly same trap (Power Frame). Realising I had two monsters of 2500 attack, he summoned another level 4 monster and XYZ summoned Utopia to defend himself (Utopia & the Slime).

I had my two monsters with 2500 attack and with the effect of Reckless Greed gone; I draw Exiled Force and summoned it. My opponent saw Exiled Force and panicked. I attacked Utopia twice with my 2500 beaters to bait Utopia’s negation (due to him panicking, he forgot he could allow a suicide). With no XYZ materials left, I targeted Utopia with Exiled Force, which resulted in his automatic destruction. In main phase 2, I tributed Force to destroy his Slime, together with his confidence to win. I had my two monsters with 2500 attack and he had an empty field with something over 3000 life points left. As his next top deck was a Forbidden lance with no monster to support it, he conceded. I had 100 life points and 4 cards in my deck left, but I won anyway.

Price support

With 4 wins, I ended up getting 5th place. We didn’t get those special Battle Pack cards (have they even been distributed in Europe?). But next to the 2 Battle Packs everyone got as price support, 5th to 3rd place got an extra Turbo pack booster (ooh, the new one), 2nd place got a playmat (lol, the Crow one) and 1st place got a Premium Pack tin (nice).

The Turbo Pack didn’t have much (elephant statue of disaster, Gemini Imps & preparing to intercept), but one of the price Turbo packs got me a starfoil Fabled Raven and a Rare Tour Guide from the Underworld. Win!

Next to that, due to the high amount of attendees, I was able to get some good trades. So the day ended really well.

The battle pack tournament was surprisingly fun.

Soon more posts... I promise.

V out.