And the series keep on coming - New Yu-Gi-Oh anime next spring

If you've been following the Zexal anime, you'd notice that the series is reaching its climax right now (if you don't watch it, I don't blame you).

The new series will be named Yugioh Arc-V (pronounced "Arc Five").

First details

Rumors are spreading fast, together with the latest W-Jump (and the next V-Jump (next week) might have more details). But right now, the following is known:

• The main character (see previous image) is named Yuuya Sakaki
• The series will be launched in the next Spring season of anime (April presumably, but no fixed date yet). This ends the three-year run of Zexal.
• The series will introduce yet another way of summoning monsters from the extra deck (who would've guessed?). Current rumors say that the new "Arc" summoning is based upon the "Champion" summon/ability(?) from Magic the Gathering. But more on that when rumors are either confirmed or wiped from the table.
• Primal Origins will most likely be the last booster from the Zexal Series. The OCG April booster will be filled with cards from Arc-V. For evidence, just look at the launch date of the Zexal Series and Generation Force. Final Boss monsters will most likely be released as promo cards, similar to those from the 5D's series (Shooting Quasar and the Timelords).

I could rant for hours about how I don't like the Zexal anime (even though Vector is the best YGO villain since Bakura), but let's just keep it at: "Glad it's over." After the series ends, I'll probably do a few analysis (rant) posts about the series and its boosters/promo's.

That's it for now. Friday the 13th is coming... V out.

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.

TCG-Konami & Duelist Packs

You might have noticed it's been a while since the TCG got their last Duelist pack. The last one that was released over here was Duelist pack: Crow and was quite a success, due to easy-to-get Blackwing monsters & Zephyros the Elite being one of the most splashable Blackwings ever.

But Kevin Tewart (the most known honcho of Konami) never made a secret of it that TCG-Konami does not like Duelist packs. The appearance of the Duelist pack Yuma last year made his point completely.

This 30-card set was something that the TCG didn't want. Out of the 30-card set, Volcasaurus was the only new decent card. Any Marketing student (with a specialization in card games) could see that this Duelist Pack would remain in store shelves for years to come.

So, until further notice, Konami will never again release a Duelist Pack.

"Come on, you do WANT one of my "amazing" cards
to make a Yuma deck, don't you?
Trust me, it's competitive!"

What about the new cards?

But stopping the line of Duelist Packs brought a new problem along with it. In each Duelist pack, there are a few new cards. Duelist Pack Yuma had 5 new cards. This year's Duelist Pack Kite/Kaito had an incredible amount of 12 new cards (lol, as if OCG-Konami was laughing in the face of its TCG-counterpart). But those cards need to get a TCG print sometime.

Kevin Tewart once said on Pojo that they were brainstorming a lot about a decent way to release this.

And then finally last week, after a long period of silence, the 808blog posted an announcement that 2013 would see the release of a new Premium Tin (the Zexal Collection Tin), which includes these cards.

The Zexal Collection Tin

In short, each tin will have 3 fixed Ulimate Rares (reprints), 4 random new Ultra Rare cards and 7 random new Super Rare cards. That's a total of 14 cards in each tin.

Also, the random cards will come from a card pool of 21 (new) cards, including the cards from the Duelist Packs.

So WHAT is in it?

The reprints? There's a great chance that these will be reprints of Jump cards (so non-US players can play them), like 7-Swords Warrior, Barbaroid, E-Hero Escuridao, Catapult Warrior or Shooting Quasar Dragon. Though I wonder which ones they'll pick, since all of the cards I just mentioned are NOT Zexal-related (lol).

And the new cards? Well, the tin art revealed cards like Volcasaurus and Photoknight Paladios, so I bet your ass most of the new cards from the previous mentioned Duelist Packs will be in here.

I so feel like a TV-shop salesman right now... <_<

But if you can count and you read all of the previous sections, you'll notice that the numbers don't match. 5 new cards from the Yuma Duelist Pack, 12 new cards from the Kite Duelist pack... that doesn't match the 21 new cards in total!

So, I guess there's still some speculation on what OTHER cards will be in here? Will there be cards from the upcoming OCG-premium pack (which includes Zubaba General)? Or will it be random OCG promo cards (like Number 56: Goldrat)?

Anyway, I'm looking froward to this release, since my main deck right now is a Photon deck and cards like Volcasaurus & Paladios are good XYZ monsters in general.

That's it for now.

Until next time, V out.