Primal Origins spoiled on the internet - The details

In the upcoming weekend, the Sneak Peek of Primal Origins will be held. So spoilers for the set should be arriving in the upcoming days, right?

Wrong, they're already spoiled in the past week. This set was not safe from the terror of the internet and was revealed more than a week before players could get a "first glimpse".

TCG World Premiere Cards

Some of them were already shown on the Konami blog, but since last night we got the info on all 10 of them.

• Noble Knight Support: Noble Knight Brothers, Eachtar, Avalon and Noble Knights of the Round Table. And as usual all in bling style. Avalon is too situational, Round Table only becomes good if you have more NK's in the grave (okay I guess?), Brothers is a spam and Pot of Avarice card, and Eachtor special summons itself by banishing Noble Knight cards from the grave and protects any Noble Knight Xyz you make with it.
• Artifact Scythe: A decent Sneak Peek promo for the fans of the archetype. When Scythe is destroyed, it special summons itself and prevents your opponent from using the extra deck (lol).
• Sylvan Princessprout: Prepares your deck for excavating another Princessprout or Cherubsprout and when she's excavated, she can special summon itself and manipulate her level to whatever you desire.
• Bujingi Sinyou: As if Crane wasn't enough, Sinyou boosts the attack of a Bujin monster you control, by giving it the current attack of the attacking monster. Seriously, more attack manipulation? Jeezes.
• Vampire Vamp: more random support for Vampires. It's okay, but it's not like Vampires are competitive or so. So you may as well ignore it.
• Gladiator Beast Nerokius: I don't know what to think of this one. Okay, it cannot be destroyed in battle and your opponent cannot activate card effects when THIS card attacks or is attacked, but it requires 3 GB's and when you send it back to the extra deck you only get two GB's back. Good to finish off certain boss monsters without worrying about card effects. But it's one of those cards you better only use 1 of.
• Escalation of the Monarchs: You can tribute summon a monster during your opponent's turn. And that's a continuous effect? That's both amazing and easy to bypass. Amazing considering you can get rid of problem cards the moment your opponent summoned them (like Exciton Knight or S.H.Ark) or that can only be targetted during specific moments (like Leo). But if your opponent MST's this card, you get no effect at all. Seems good, but I guess we'll have to see whether or not Monarch players are willing to give up their free Treborn Frogs for free Tribute Summons.

OCG Promo imports

And next to the TCG Exclusives, we also know what ten OCG promo cards are being imported. And the most surprising? They've never been this low in rarity.

1 Rare card, the rest is all common. Even the two number cards aren't even in Bling (granted, they're not THAT impressive but you might think they at least deserve a Super Rare foilage or so). Heck, even Hydride (you know, the only tuner that can also be used as a non-tuner) is a common.

What cards are they? There are 6 Monthly V-Jump promo's (but sadly enough they stopped right before Geargiangler and Felice), A Weekly Jump promo (ZW Sleipnir Mail), the Jump Festa promo from last year (Shogi Knight), the bad one from the Valuable Book promo's (Shadow Lich, but no Dragoascencion) and an old Vanilla (Bolt penguin).

To foil or not to foil

Next to the 20 extra cards to the 80 OCG card set, the question that everybody asks themselves, is: what cards are pimped beyond repair? The list can be found here: http://pastebin.com/ZBZbtTYJ

The 8 secret rares are: Majesty's Fiend (oh come on!), Thestalos the Mega Monarch (as predicted), Orea the Sylvan High Arbiter (Sylvan players will cry a little), Bujinki Amaterasu (also in Ghost and Ultimate Rare) and RUM The Seventh one (seriously, the ONLY good RUM card?). Oh, and also Noble Knight Brothers and G.B. Nerokius.

Ultra's are Sylvan Sagequoia and Sylvan Charity (Sylvan players will cry more), Bujin Hirume, Madolche Anjelly (both as predicted), Nr 62 Galaxy-Eyes Prime Photon Dragon, Artifact Durendal, Artifact Ignition and Artifact Sanctum (seriously, all three good Artifact cards?). Also Bujingi Sinyou and Round Table are Ultra as well.

I'm not going to run over all Super Rares (because it's only Super Rare, you know), but I am kind of surprised that they kept Jackpot 7 as a common. The card is an annoying OTK/FTK enabler and I wouldn't be crying over a secret rare foil for this card. The less it appears, the better.

Hits and misses

I don't like pimps of anti-meta cards like Vanity's Majesty (that should've been Jackpot 7 in my eyes), but it's Konami I guess. We're (sadly enough) getting used to it by now.

I'm kind of disappointed with the OCG imports, though. No Felice or Geargiangler? No Dragoascencion? Still no Gaia Knights? And still no signs of the OCG Gold series cards (like Cybernetic Fusion Support), nor the Geargia's from that OCG Duelist set.

I do like the full circle on Noble Knights. It's clear that this is the end of their support line as well, with cards like the Round Table and Avalon (although... where's Myrddin/Merlin?)

Oh, and I was so LOL'ing with Ghostrick Succubus' name change. Socuteboss? Hilarious.

That's enough venting from me now. Until next time, V out.

Cards to look forward to in Primal Origins Pt. 2 - Spells, Traps, OCG promos and thoughts in general

Let's continue where we left off previously, with Spells and Traps to look forward to.

D: Spells

• Rank-up Magic - The Seventh One: I wanted a good Rank-up Magic card. And this is a good one, even if it is restricted to 7 cards and restricted to once per duel. And with a few very good cards in that limit (S.H.Ark, Ragna Zero, Giant Hand & Tachyon Dragon), this will be the first RUM card that might be used in real life (if your extra deck has the space for it).
• Don Thousand's Throne: Easier to play around than RUM-The Seventh one, but still a nasty effect. Each time you take damage, you gain 500 lifepoints during your opponents end phase (it's obviously nerfed from the broken anime effect) and if a Numbers monster is attacked, you can send this to the grave and special summon its chaos number counterpart (and attach the target as material).
• Artifact Movement: How to replace MST? Well, this is a frigging good try. It basically does the same, but it also sets an Artiface monster from your deck to the backrow (only if destruction is successful) and if this card gets destroyed by your opponent, he skips his next battle phase. Lol, what?
• Forbidden Tome: Hate those Forbidden lances/dresses that manipulate attack power? Use this card to negate all other card effects on the field (until the end of the damage step). When timed correctly, you can keep your powerhouses alive.

E: Traps

• Discord Sector: Simple effect, yet so devastating. Neither player can special summon a monster with the same level or rank as a monstery they control. Very devastating for spam-Xyz decks. Very good for synchro style decks and monsters that manipulate their level (like the symphonic warriors as depicted in the art).
• One outta three: Declare one of the current extra deck cards (Fusion, Synchro or Xyz). Reveal both extra decks and the one who has the most of declared type gains 3000 lifepoints. Fo real? This is like an instant 3000-9000LP boost for hero decks, or for pure synchro decks. "I play 8 fusion monsters, you two? Cool, now I gain 3000/6000/9000 LP."

F: Crying out loud for OCG Exclusives

I still dislike the idea of extra OCG World Premiere cards. The OCG already has so many promo cards, so why add even more exclusives? Yeah, I heard the TCG World Premiere card argument, but the percentage of good cards in that 10-card pool is the same percentage of good cards in the OCG promo cards. There are a few, but not that many. While on the other hand, have you seen these 10 new cards?

Gagaga sister strengthens the OTK potential of the Gagaga OTK deck. Gogogo Goliath boosts the Rock Zombie deck bigtime. Dododo Draw is a great draw card (for an otherwise bad archetype). Galaxy-Eyes Cloud Dragon, Galaxy Soldier, Photon Stream of Destruction and Tachyon Transmigration all boost the Galaxy archetype greatly. And lastly, Battlin Boxer Shadow, Nova Caesar and Jolt Counter are amazing additions to the Battlin' Boxer Archetype (this IS the next fun-deck that becomes competitive after Chronomaly!).

It's these kind of cards that make fun budget decks competitive all of a sudden! And that's what makes so many people angry in the TCG. There are many people who play fun/budget decks and long for these kind of cards.

And while we obviously will get these cards over time (hopefully those Korean exclusives as well?), the question just remains: How and When? Will we get them before the next World Championship? Or are we going to have to wait a full year (thus November or so)?

Thoughts on the set in general

By Ra, this set is frigging amazing. Archetypes like Bujin, Ghostrick and Sylvan get amazing support. And everyone I spoke to in the last weekend has at least one card to look forward to from older archetypes. And then there's the new Artifact archetype that makes random MSTs a bad choice all of a sudden.

On a side-note, the TCG will receive this set in May. But to pass the time between Legacy and Primal Origins, Konami releases some other stuff (more than in other years).

• We already saw the Cyber Dragon structure in the beginning of this month.
• This week, we'll see Star Pack 2014 (with another reprint for Cardcar D and who knows what else).
• March 6-7 will see the release of the Deluxe version of Legacy.
• March 27-28 will see the release of Premium Gold (the King of Bling); a set filled to the brim with gold cards and 29 new cards!
• April 24-25 will see the release of "Dragons of Legacy", with 49 NEW cards, including LOTS of World Premiere cards (okay yes, that does compensate for the OCG world premiere cards). Several cards (both "meh" and amazing cards) have been revealed, many more will follow in the coming weeks.

And on further news, a new TCG structure deck with a GX-theme (*cough*lightsworn*cough*) will be released in June and July will see another installment of the Battle Pack (cool).

And in OCG, much news is being spoiled (3rd week of the month = V-Jump time) on the upcoming OCG booster, the anime and pendulum summoning. More on that in the following days/weeks.

That's it for now, V out.

Cards to look forward to in Primal Origin Pt. 1: Monsters

End of last week, all the cards of Primal Origins have been revealed to the internet.

So in all good tradition, it's time to give you the "cards to look forward to".

This is the last set of the Zexal series; so take in mind that this will be the last support for all the Zexal Archetypes (at the moment), safe the OCG promo/exclusive imports obviously.

And the number of supported archetypes is amazing. More than 30 archetypes receive 1 or more cards of support. And honestly, even all other cards kind of support one deck or the other. Everybody can find some good card in here.

A: Effect Monsters

• Mermaid Shark: Well, people. We finally have our Stratos for Fish monsters. Normal Summon this lil' fish and you can search out any fish between lv. 3 and Lv. 5 (awh, no Coelacanth or Fishborgs?). You think it's broken? Think again. Its 100 attack makes it an easy target for destruction, so without protection or without the ability to xyz/synchro with this card, you leave yourself vulnerable.
• Blizzard Thunderbird: By discarding one card, you can special summon any WATER Winged Beast from your hand AND 1 from your grave. Plus: Amazing effect! Downside: You can still count the number of WATER Winged Beasts on ONE hand.
• Battlin' Boxer Bailout: An archetype card that is VERY interesting outside of its deck. You take Battle Damage? Good, then special summon this card AND gain lifepoints equal to what you just lost. It's Lv 4 (easy Xyz), it's a Warrior (play 3 of this and ROTA) and it's FIRE (perfect for Fire Fists and Fire Kings and a nice addition for HERO decks). I doubt Konami didn't realize they made a great hand trap.
• Dawn Knight: And the circle is full. The Last Armageddon Knight knock-off is here; the LIGHT variant (took 'em long enough). If this card is sent from the field to the grave, you can send 1 LIGHT monster from the deck to the grave (Eclipse Wyvern, Wulf, Felice). And if this card is "milled" to the grave, you can return a LIGHT monster that was accidentally milled before and place it on top of your deck! So a potential recycle+topdeck for cards like Judgment Dragon, BLS or Lightray Daedalus/Gearfied? Good card, but only in limited decks.

• Majesty's Fiend: Did you dislike Vanity's Fiend? Then add this one to the table as well. Neither player can activate monster effects. Not on the field, not in the hand, not in the grave, not in the banished zone, nowhere.
• Finncess: Is this Rescue Rabbit/Cat? No. Is it Lonefire Blossom? Neither, but it's their lovechild (in terms of effect)! When it's Summoned (in any way), you can banish it to special summon a lv. 4 or lower Fish from your deck (safe itself). Possible Targets include: All Lv. 4 or lower Mermails, all Fishborgs, The Nimble Fishes, Gladiator Beast Murmillo and Torax... and Wind-up Shark. What makes it worse, is that it's a lv. 1, with 0 attack/defense; which makes it very easy to search/spam. This card is so good, I hate it already (yeah, this card will be limited faster than you think).
• Nopenguin: A penguin that says no. That's enough reason to add it to this list, right? No? Okay, then how about the often-requested effect for penguins to A: Special summon itself from the grave and B: Banish cards that are bounced to the hand. Penguin Soldier and Sacred spirit of the Ice Barrier approve this card.

B: Non-Xyz Extra Deck cards

Wave-Motion Phonon Dragon: Way to support the Photon archetype, assholes. Each time an interesting Xyz or Synchro appears that could boost the archetype, they slightly change the name. PhoNon? Seriously? Anyway, this card lends itself for chain synchro summoning (you know, the classic plant synchro decks). It's a Lv. 4 synchro tuner that can change its own level to any between 1-3, which is VERY handy for getting annoying synchro's out with high levels, like Mist Wurm, Shooting Star Dragon, Red Nova Dragon and Shooting Quasar Dragon!

C: Xyz Monsters

• Nr 62: Galaxy-Eyes Prime Photon Dragon: Not only is this card a massive beater and wall (4000 atk/3000 def), it can boost its own attack when it's attacked or attacks. So even if you reduce his attack to 0 by effect, it still becomes 1600 or more. And if you destroy it by card effect while Galaxy-Eyes Photon Dragon is attached, it special summons itself later in the duel, with double its original attack. WOW.
• Nr 102: Ragna Zero: Does your opponent have a monster with an attack different from its original attack? Well, this card targets it, destroys it and then allows you to draw 1 card when successfull! Ideal versus Fire Fists and Bujins, don't you think?
• Artifact Durandal: This guy is a great Rank 5 Xyz. Changing effects to destroy your own backrow (with Artifacts, Quick Booster, Toy Magician and Snipe Hunter, that can be quite funny), or redrawing your entire hand? I see this card becoming great in control and combo decks (I know power players will find Tiras/Adreus better, but don't underestimate this card (or you'll regret it).

• Ghostrick Succubus: As usual, the Ghostrick Xyz are the most playable outside of their archetype. This one destroys a card with attack lower than the attack of all Ghostricks combined. If you have 2 of these on the field (easy with raccoon decks, Ojama decks and such), you can take down 2 cards with an attack of 2800 or lower. Not only that, while you control a ghostrick monster, those monster zones cannot be used again. Combine this with annoying cards like Ojama Trio, or Ground Collapse to stop your opponent from summoning monsters at all! If you succeed, ensure your escape route before your opponent will punch you in the face out of pure anger.
• Bujinki Amaterasu: Do you like Leviair, but think its attack is too low? Well, here's the answer. It requires 3 Lv 4 monsters, but you can recycle banished cards like never before! Heck, I don't play Bujins, but I sure want this card! And with 2600 atk / 2500 def, this guy is hard to get over in 1 turn.
• Mirage Fortress Enterprisenir: Enter the Mecha Phantom Beast that is not a Mecha Phantom Beast (probably to prevent abuse?). It's a Rank 9 (the first decent one) that allows you to banish any one card once per turn, whether it's the field, hand, grave or deck.

How about mixing?

I noticed that a lot of cards were "not that great, but not bad either" and supported one or more rogue/fun deks. Here's a list of cards that require you to think out of the box. So, how about mixing...

• Umbral Horror Ghost in a Resonator deck. Resonators are tuners that still required a card that speeds the deck up a bit. This one is a perfect match!
• Mix Artifact Moralltach and/or Beagaltach in a Rank 5 deck and lure your opponent into destroying them (or d.i.y. with Malevolent Catastrophe) to special summon them and pop cards.
• Geyser Shark in a Rank 5 deck. The limited amount of decent cards that you can summon, make his card limited in its use atm. But who knows, maybe in the future this effect will become OP.
• You got some crazy mix-ideas? Let me know and I'll add them.

Afterword

Tomorrow or (more probably) Wednesday I'll cover the spells, traps and (rand about) the OCG exclusives.

Until then, V out.

Cyber Dragon SD, manga/Jump Promo, Legacy deluxe Edition and other Yugi-news

Lots of Yugioh-related product updates in the past few days, so let's recap it for you!

Cyber Dragon Structure Deck Content revealed

The Cyber Dragon Structure Deck is coming out this Thursday (non-US TCG) or Friday (US), so it was kind of obvious that the content would become leaked this week.

And so it did. Only 2 changes compared to its OCG counterpart, but what for changes. Heavy Storm and Transmodify are removed from the set and Machina Armored Unit plus Light of Redemption are added instead.

Glad for the removal of the forbidden Storm, but Transmodify being removed is a sad thing (though kind of expected, considering Lolkonami). Transmodify is still one of the money cards from Judgment of the Light (even though the only competitive deck that uses it is Infernity).

But look at it from the bright side: Another common reprint of Dimensional Prison, Trap Stun and Super Polymerization. Budget players will be pleased.

For the full content, see the Wiki page.

Nope! You won't see this one in this structure deck!"

Next manga/Jump Promo revealed

Last week (or so), the card effects of the next manga promo's were revealed.

• The next Zexal Manga (volume 6) promo will be Number 52 Diamond Crab King. Its effect is kind of meh. It's a possible 3000 beat stick that can place itself to defense position after it attacks (and then becomes a 3000 defense wall). But with all the effect negation, this card might as well be a 0-attack attack target.
• The next 5D's Manga (volume 7) promo will be Moon Flower Dragon - Black Rose (the manga counterpart of Black Rose Dragon). This card is a little more interesting. "When this card is Special Summoned OR when a Level 5 or higher monster is Special Summoned to your opponent's side of the field: Target 1 Special Summoned monster your opponent controls; return that target to the hand. You can only use the effect of "Moon Flower Dragon - Black Rose" once per turn.".
  So instead of blowing everything to smithereens like its anime counterpart, this is a bouncy dragon. Interesting against synchro decks; less interesting when facing XYZ based decks, though.
• Also, the next OCG V-Jump Promo's effect is revealed. It was already revealed to be a (legal) Dark Magician xyz (Dark Magician of Illusions). Now it's effect has been (partially) revealed. It's a rank 7 xyz, requiring 2 Spellcasters. By detaching an Xyz material, you can special summon a vanilla Spellcaster from your hand or deck. Also, when a Vanilla Spellcaster declares an attack, you can banish an opponent's monster. It's been clearly restricted to prevent abuse by Prophecies/DRulers, but now it's kind of a "meh" effect.
• And (last but not least) for the TCG, the next Jump Promo is revealed. It's the long awaited Alternate Art of Blue-Eyes White Dragon, with original art by Kazuki Takashi. Some like it, others find it a waste of promo. I personally don't mind.

Nice new promo card artworks

First reveals for Premium Gold and Dragons of Legend

Last weekend Konami was at the International Toy Fair in Nurnburg (Germany) and a picture was taken of their upcoming products, including the next Gold Series and that highly speculated set, Dragons of Legend.

Not much on the Gold Series, safe the given name of the set (King of Bling, LMAO) and the fact it would once more contain the Egyptian Gods. People who are hoping for a shiny gold Quasar reprint, prepare a shot (#Quasarwaitinggame).

The Dragons of Legend has people hoping for the 3 Dragons from the "Waking the Dragons" story arc to see a legal print. And the cover of the booster really gets people revved up. It's nothing less than Dark Magician Girl, the Dragon Knight (seriously?).

How Konami is going to integrate these three dragons (Timaeus, Critias, and Hermos) in the game while they were only used as fusion material monster (with monsters, spells and traps none the less), I have NO clue. But I guess we'll see as more details are revealed.

Note: For people thinking Shooting Quasar Dragon is also a "Dragon of Legend", prepare a shot (#Quasarwaitinggame).

"Woo, I'll be a REAL Dragon Rider soon!"

Legacy of the Valiant Deluxe Edition

In a month, the Deluxe Edition of Legacy of the Valiant will be released. One box will be with Evilswarm monsters; the other will have Gravekeeper artworks.

And last week, a (blurry) picture was leaked that showed the foil cards inlcuded:

• From Legacy: Sylvan Peaskeeper & Ghostrick Jackfrost (good choices!)
• From Primal Origin: Sylvan Sproutcolyte and Bujin Decisive Battle (I dunno? They don't seem too good to me?).

Soon...?

• No updates on Star Pack 2014, but considering its predecessor, it's better not to get your hopes up (no, certainly not Quasar. Though, if you still think so, prepare a shot (#Quasarwaitinggame)).
• Astral Pack Four has been announced to be released this month. no clue about its content or its exact release date as of yet. But if I can predict a few card: any card that has a text that can be reworded into "Excavate". And who knows, another foil Lonefire Blossom? Or Quasar (lol, as if). You know the drill by now, right? (#Quasarwaitinggame).
• And in a few weeks, Primal Origin will be released in the OCG (our May booster). Right now, about half of the set has been revealed; with the other half (and the frigging OCG World Premiere Cards) still left.

For those that didn't knew yet: The Quasar Waiting Game:
For each possible reprint that did NOT happen, take a shot.
#Quasarwaitinggame

Afterword

I'm still busy with my post about the YCS last weekend (are there any more posted decklists, safe those of ProWinston?). But you can still expect one this week.

Until next time, V out.