The New Black Luster Soldier and other new chaos cards

Once every few months, V-Jump publishes a pack of 5 new cards. Last pack was last December, so it’s time for a new pack! The V-Jump of August (which will contain the new F&L list, btw) will contain the next V-jump promo cards. And they’re all Chaos-related!

The new BLS, it’s BS

The main card everybody was looking forward to, is the new BLS: Black Luster Soldier – Envoy of the Twilight. And look at it, the art is awesome!

But then look at that effect:

Cannot be Normal Summoned/Set. Must be Special Summoned (from your hand) by having an equal number of LIGHT and DARK monsters in your Graveyard and banishing all monsters of 1 of those Attributes from your Graveyard, and cannot be Special Summoned by other ways. While face-up on the field, this card is also LIGHT-Attribute. When this card is Special Summoned: You can activate 1 of these effects, depending on the Attribute of the monster(s) banished for its Special Summon. You cannot conduct your Battle Phase during the turn you activate this effect. ● LIGHT: Banish 1 monster on the field, face-up. ● DARK: Banish 1 random card from your opponent's hand, face-down, until your opponent's End Phase.

This basically means that BLS will ONLY have an effect when it’s summoned by this condition (and only then). If you summon it with (for example) Monster Reborn, it will have no effect (booh!). Not only that, but having an equal number of Light and dark monsters makes it kind of annoying to summon, not to mention the fact that you have to banish all LIGHT or DARK monsters from your grave (booh!). It also has that condition that it’s both LIGHT and DARK (okay, that’s kind of normal, but easy to counter with Gozen Match). Oh yeah, and did I forget to mention that you have to skip your battle phase the turn you actually DO use the effect (BOOH!).

Tl;dr? IT SUCKS!

Light and Dark Gaia Knight

Just like BLS, Gaia the Fierce Knight has been re-used in many different cards (Swift Gaia the Fierce Knight (effect), Gaia the Dragon Champion (fusion), Gaia Kight the Force of Earth (synchro), Gaia Drake the Universal Force (synchro fusion), Gaia Dragon the Thunder Charger (XYZ) and now thus the Light and Dark Chaos monsters. Here comes Gaia, Knight of the Dark Nights and Gaia, Knight of the Bright Nights (oooh, look at the word play). (Wikia says Polar Nights and White Nights, but TCG print will determine the TCG name)

Both have similar effects, with opposing attributes. You can use both effects once per turn:

• Tribute one other DARK/LIGHT monster, to add 1 Lv. 4 LIGHT/DARK (resp.) warrior from your deck to your hand and then send 1 card from your hand to the grave.
• Banish 1 LIGHT/DARK monster from your grave to either boost your monster’s attack or lower your opponent’s monster attack.

These monsters are searchers and provide sufficient imagination for chaos warrior decks (though seriously, why the “-1” on their effect?). The first things that come to mind are Destiny HERO’s and Light Beat Warriors or Noble Knights.

New Primal Seed and new Exchange of the Spirit

This whole pack reeks of nostalgia. The provided spell card (Chaotic Seed) is a wink to Primal Seed, while the trap, Exchange of Dawn and Dusk (or First Light and twilight, depending on the translation) is a nod to the long-time forbidden card: Exchange of the Spirit.

The spell goes as follows: If you control a Light and Dark monster (or a monster that has both attributes), you can add 1 banished LIGHT or DARK warrior to your hand. They added the once per turn clause to prevent abuse (yeah, that’s the sole reason why Primal Seed is still limited in the first place).

The trap basically reads: Dump 1 LIGHT/DARK warrior from your hand to the grave to add 1 warrior of the opposing attribute and the same level from your deck to your hand. These two cards bring stability to the Chaos warrior deck. It ensures you have that right DARK/LIGHT warrior (Armageddon Knight, Dark/Light Grepher, etc), and allows you to recycle banished warriors, like D-HERO Malicious.

So how can you use these cards?

Well, its cards like these that give the opportunity to mix, remix and experiment! You can use these cards and…:

• Use them in a D.D. deck. Warrior lady is Light, Survivor is Dark. And these cards smell like pure chaos (hint: Chaos Zone).
• Mix them with Destiny HERO’s and Light Warriors like Neos Alius, Photon Thrasher and Noble Knight Gawayn. Destiny Draw remains a good engine.
• Mix Constellars with Destiny HERO: Pollux is a Light Lv. 4 warrior, Constellar Alrescha is a Lv. 6 LIGHT warrior. Diamond Dude is a Dark Lv. 4; Malicious is Lv. 6.
• Mix Lightrays with Dark Warriors. Lightray Gearfried is hard to get on the field, but once it’s there, it’s a boss!
• Remix Chaos Ninja Dragons. Remember the variant of Chaos Dragons that uses Ninja’s? Time to upgrade them with these cards, to easily search Golden Ninja and Ninja Grandmaster Hanzo. It adds a much-needed consistency to this deck.
• And you can probably think of other combinations I didn’t even think of yet.

Since I love Chaos decks, so I guess it’s time to experiment! Let’s hope the September F&L list isn’t too hard on the Chaos archetype (read as: let’s hope this B(L)S doesn’t cause the good BLS to become forbidden). And then let’s hope these cards (and Collapserpent + Wyburstar) gain a TCG-print soon.

That’s it for now, V out.

PS: Note: these are OCG-names and translated by fans. Names may change upon release in TCG.

PPS: Rest of Battle Pack 2 is now revealed as well. No further surprises noticed.

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.

Yugioh update week #1: Belgian YCS - it's not a joke

Always the same. The one week you're off going to some festivals and music concerts and don't have time to check the internet, Yu-Gi-Oh provides us with many updates. You should've seen my surprised look when I logged into my pc yesterday.

The OCG-set of Shadow Specters has been filled to 5/6 of all cards; the cards of the next (OCG) V-Jump pack have been revealed (Chaos cards, yeeeey) and the next European YCS has been revealed.

I'll give you a few noteworthy cards of those revealed cards in the next few days, but today's post will be about that next European YCS... in Belgium!

Wait, where?

If you're not from Europe, you're probably not familiar with the European YCS-policies (or at least something I thought was a policy).

Basically it goes as follows: European YCS's are focused in countries with a Konami (branch) office. So, this means the UK, Germany, France and Spain. Italy's another frequent visit, even though it doesn't have a branch (but they do have Italian cards). Other countries don't receive YCS's (with the exception of Netherlands receiving the World Championship two years ago, but that's not really a YCS, huh :-P ).

Because of this situation, it's been an frequently recurring rumor for a few years now that Belgium will receive a YCS, but it never happens. Though I bet this is the same in other countries that didn't have a YCS yet.

So you can understand my surprise to see that years-old rumor suddenly become a reality with this news flash: http://www.yugioh-card.com/uk/news/news_ycsbrussels.html.

A YCS in the country of beer, fries, chocolates and waffles

As a Belgian myself, I am thus proud to announce that the first upcoming YCS will be in Brussels, Belgium on August 31 and September 1st.

This YCS will be a Battle Pack YCS (probably due to the date of old-format/new-format). The Event place is unknown as of yet, but there's only a handful of places they can choose from (Tour & Taxis, Brussels Expo, or some privately rented place).

I say first upcoming, because the other revealed European YCS (YCS London) will take place in October (exact date unknown as of yet).

I'll provide more details of this YCS once they're known.

See you next time. A happy V out.

PS: I'll keep updating the nationals post, so if you have info on the missing spots, please provide it! Thanks in advance!

List of Nationals / Continental Champs and decklist links (if available)

Let's keep this post informative for everyone. This is the list of National Champs all over the world and continental representatives.

I'll keep this post updated every week with all new info available. If you can fill in the blanks, please let me know.

Europe

Date	Country	Winner	Deck used	Decklist
April 20	Ireland	Jonathan Waters	Mono Mermail	Decklist available
May 5	Austria	Noko Prokic	Dark World Creator Turbo	Decklist available
May 18-19	Belgium	Bernard Jean-Lou	Mono Mermail	Decklist available
May 18-19	Germany	Tran Duc	Chain Burn	Decklist available
May 18-19	United Kingdom	Tom Paine	Mono Mermail	Decklist available
May 18	Sweden	Adam Ask	Mermail	N.A.
May 19	Netherlands	Rafael Neven	Mermail	Decklist available
May 25-26	France	Alain Ly	Dragon Rulers	N.A.
May 25	Slovenia	Miha Flisek	Mermails	Only finals video
June 1-2	Italy	Stefano Lenti Livraghi	Dragon Rulers	Decklist available (scroll down)
June 1-2	Spain	Rodrigo Torores	Dragon Rulers	Decklist Available
June 1	Switzerland	Roman Kieser	Dragon Rulers	Decklist available
June 2	Bulgaria	Marino Kunchev	Unknown	N.A.
June 8-9	Czech Republic
June 8-9	Denmark	Mads Mikelsen	Evilswarm	Decklist Available
June 9	Malta	Ryan Dyer	Unknown
June 9	Norway	Christopher Reyes	Unkown
June 15-16	Portugal	Hélio Babo	Dragon Rulers	Only finals report
June 15	Croatia	Urh Kovačić	Dragon Rulers	Decklist Available
June 15	Lithuania	Žilvino Volsko	Gladiator Beasts	Only finals video
June 15	Finland	Tom Thureson	Evilswarm	Decklist Available
June 16	Poland	Przemysław Strzałka	Dragon Rulers	Decklist Available
June 23	Greece	Vassilis Stamatiadis	Prophecy	Decklist available

Central and South-America

Date	Country	Winner	Deck used	Decklist
May 18-19	Costa Rica	Tomas Jimenez	Prophecy	Decklist available
May 18-19	Mexico	Léonardo Sanchez	Kristya Dragon Rulers	Decklist available
May 18	Argentina	Nicolas Godoy	Dragon Rulers	Decklist available
May 18	Chile	Sebastian Mora	Dragon Rulers	Decklist available
May 18	Jamaica	Unknown	Mermails	N.A.
May 18	Venezuela	Edwin Rodriguez	Dragon Rulers	Decklist Available
May 19	Colombia	Juan Cujia	Dragon Rulers	N.A.
May 19	Dominican Republic	Yorguin Medina	Prophecy	Decklist available
May 19	Guatemala	Alejandro Cañas	Mermails	Decklist available
May 19	Honduras	Leonel Ortega	Fire Fist	Decklist available
May 19	Nicaragua	Allan Zepada	Prophecy	Decklist available
May 25-26	Brazil	Ivan Ferreira de Lima Junior	Dragon Rulers	Decklist available
May 25	Bolivia	Aaron Beltran	Dragon Rulers	N.A.
May 25	Ecuador	Ivan Fiallos	Dragon Rulers	Decklist available
May 26	El Salvador	Frank Arce	Dragon Rulers	Decklist Available
May 26	Panama	Rolando Gordon	Karakuri OTK	Decklist Available
May 25-26	Peru	Gerardo Delgado	Dragon Rulers	Decklist available

Africa

Date	Country	Winner	Deck used	Decklist
May 25	South-Africa	Jivesh Dhanraj	Prophecy	#

Asia - Middle-East (TCG)

Date	Country	Winner	Deck used	Decklist
May 16th	Israel	Ido M.	Evilswarm	Decklist available
May 26	Turkey	Murat Bıçakçı	Evilswarm	Decklist available (register on forum)

Oceania

Date	Country	Winner	Deck used	Decklist
April 27	New Zealand	Chris Dalton	Tele-Karakuri	Decklist available
June 8-9	Australia	Marcus Wheeler	Prophecies	Decklist available

Asia (OCG)

Date	Country	Winner	Deck used	Decklist
May 26	Thailand	Weerapun Suebyoubol "Pink"	Dragon Rulers	Decklist Available
June 15	Philippines	Irwin Arogo	Dragon Rulers	Decklist Available
June 23	South Korea	Park Jin Woo	Dragon Rulers	Decklist available
June 23	Singapore	William Oh	Dragon Ruler	Decklist available
June 29-30	Malaysia	Zack Teoh	Dragon Rulers	Decklist available
June 30	Hong Kong	Cheung Wing Ho	Dragon Rulers
June 29	Japan - Tokyo	Joker	Dragon Rulers	Decklist available
July 6	Japan - Osaka	Atsushi	Blue-Eyes Prophecy	Decklist available
July 7	Taiwan	Shi-En Huang	Dragon Rulers

Continental Championships (TCG)

Date	Continent	Location	Winner	Deck used	Decklist
June 10	Oceania	Penrith, Australia	Chris Matiske	Dragon Rulers	Decklist available
June 28-30	Europe	Frankfurt, Germany	Chris Bountaloudis	Prophecy	Decklist available
June 28-30	South America	Guayaquil, Equador	Carlos Andres Perez Padilla	Dragon Rulers	Decklist available
July 5-7	Central America	Monterrey, Mexico	Alejandro Vivaldo Reyes Suarez	Dragon Ruler
July 12-14	North America	Chicago, USA	Patrick Hoban	Dragon Rulers	Decklist available

Notes

• Luxembourg (Europe) did not have Nationals. The link on Konami's website referred to the Belgian Nationals.
• Cyprus (Europe) did not have Nationals. The link on Konami's website referred to the Turkish Nationals.
• While Turkey and Israel are officially part of Asia, they play the TCG instead of the OCG. Because of this, they're part of Europe in terms of qualifiers.
• Since there is no African WC Qualifier, South-Africa tags along with Europe in terms of Qualifiers.
• If you know of information that's not in the list yet, put it in the comments below. All help is appreciated.

Updates

• Update 07/06: Updated Venezuela, Equador and Argentina thanks to Carlos Julio - Source: http://kabras-yugiohtcg.blogspot.com
• Update 2 (same day): Also found and added the information of Italy, Peru, El Salvador and Dominican Republic.
• Update 9/06: Mike from High-Level Gaming gave us the info on who became the Aussie champ.
• Update 10/06: Updates - Added info of Danish and Swiss Nationals and Oceanian Continentals
• Update 11/06: Added the decklist of the Australian Champ, thanks to High Level Gaming (FB).
• Update 12/06: Added the decklist of the Oceanian champion, thanks to HLG.
• Update 15/6: Added information on the Turkish winner, added Philippine representative.
• Update 20/6: Updated nationals of Croatia, Poland, Finland. Also added the decklist of the Philippine winner (link to his blog).
• Update 24/6: Added info on Greece, the champs of Singapore (thanks to YGO-Singapore on FB & High Level Gaming) and Thailand, and the (correctl) schedule of OCG-qualifiers (last part thanks to the "Road of the King" blog).
• Update 26/6: Found a Konami article with the Latin American champs (This post), also found the Swedish champ (google translate helps). And via analyzing the updated qualified list of Europe I found the names of the Bulgarian, Maltese, Norwegian and South-African champs. Also found the Portuguese champ thanks to Troza. And Yu-Gi-Oh! Edition Singapore (fb) posted the link to the South-Korean decklist.
• Update 30/6: Added winners of Tokyo, Hong Kong and Malaysia.

Box openings: A story of success and failure

Lord of the Tachyon Galaxy openings. You know you all love it (or hate it). So I wanted to try it as well and share in the happiness of pulling Books of Apocalypse or Drago-bastards.

So, via Novagames (a webshop from Northern-Ireland), I bought myself a few boxes. 2 for my friend Drago, 1 to open in front of the webcam I recently bought and 2 to open with friends.

Drago got 3 secrets out of his two boxes. He got cards like Fire Fist Cardinal, Torrential Reborn, Windrose, Harpie’s Channeler, Sacred Sword, Kerykeion, more than a playset of each Dragon Ruler, etc. While we said he pulled somewhat decently, he was kind of disappointed (total value of the pulled cards didn't add up to the cost).

Then, on Tuesday, I opened my box. Here’s the result. First time doing something like this, so I don’t know if it’s good quality (*looks somewhat unsure*).

And last, but not least, last Saturday I got together with two friends of mine, Chris and Carl.

Chris has the nickname “God-hand”, because he always seems to pull the good cards. If you want a Dragosack or Tour Guide out of your packs, it’s better to let him pick the packs. Carl is less lucky in pulling cards, but he’s the better duelist (he’s a regular topper in the Belgium National tournaments). Carl is the one that wanted to play Dragon Rulers. He already had his binder plundered to get that first Dragosack; and he was only able to get that second one thanks to Chris (the hand of god proved his name once more), whom he still owes (a lot).

So we opened the first box and each randomly picked a few packs from it (8 packs each). In total we pulled the amazing number of 6 supers (including Constellar Sombre, Sacred Sword and some Mecha Phantom Beasts), A Harpie’s Channeler, Scramble Scramble and Gwalchavad as Ultra/Ulti and a secret... Dragosack.

Guess who pulled it?

I ended up with the Dragosack (partial refund for the boxes, 20€ and the promise to give him the Number-cards I pull from “Number Hunters”) and promised Carl he could borrow my Dragosack during big tournaments.

The second box was less awesome. I was able to pull the secrets (two, once more) from the box, but accordingly to my luck with pack openings, I ended up with Windrose and (once more) Totem Bird. This is a sign, I tell you! Second Box also had a Kerykeion and Hootcake as noteworthy foils, but the total value of the second box just didn't compare to the awesome first one.

Afterword

So, this concludes my awesome failing of pulling good cards.

I’ll be testing variants of Dragon Rulers now. It will probably be a wind variant, due to the high number of Wind Dragons, Windroses and Totem Birds I have (I tell you; it’s a sign!). So either that, or a psychic version (earth/wind psychics with Risebell and Dragon Rulers).

This week, I’ll give you some do’s and don’ts on handling Dragon Rulers. Until then, V out.

Preview – The Blue-Eyes Structure Deck

Each year, the OCG produces 2 structure decks, one in June and one in December. The last Structure deck brought us the Fire Kings. The new one (upcoming June), will produce a LOT of support for Blue-Eyes White Dragon.

New Blue-Eyes Support

There’s not 5, but 6 new cards in this set! Let’s review them quickly:

• Blue-Eyed Maiden: Already reviewed this card when I first laid eyes on her. Simply put, she’s a lv 1 tuner that brings forth the wrath of the Blue-Eyes if you try to touch her. Many people already found ways to abuse her (because she gets her effect when the user targets her for card effects (like Spellbooks for example).
• Guard of Storm Dragon: The Rider of Darkstorm Dragon. This card is a Lv.1 tuner that works as a union monster and allows the equipped monster to inflict piercing damage. This is the least impressive card of the new cards.
• Dragon’s Mausoleum: A Foolish Burial that can potentially work twice (if you first dump a normal monster, you can dump another one). I see use for this in Blue-Eyes decks, Chaos Dragons, Dragon Rulers and Hieratic Decks.
• Bellow of the Silver Dragon: Special Summons a Normal monster from the grave. Also, this card is a quick-play spell. Can be used in Gemini, Hieratic and Blue-Eyes decks. Who doesn’t like a quick-play monster reborn (lol).
• Dragon’s Soul Castle: Continuous Trap. Once per turn, you can banish a dragon from your grave to boost one of your monsters. When it’s sent to the grave (by any player’s card effect), you can special summon a banished dragon. Can be used in Chaos Dragons, Dragon Rulers and obviously, the blue-eyes deck.
• Last but not least, the Blue-Eyed Silver Dragon: The long-awaited Blue-Eyes Synchro! When it’s summoned, dragons cannot be targeted or destroyed by card effects (so no bottomless, no Dimensional Prison; only Solemn Warning works). And during each of your Stand-by Phases, you can revive a Normal Monster from your grave. Not just dragons, ANY normal monster. That means Gemini monsters as well! This card is obviously used in Blue-Eyes deck, but can also be used in Gemini Decks, Gem-Knights and even Hieratic decks (Delta Flyer + Vanilla Dragon of Lv. 5/6).

Note: These are the OCG names according to Shriek, these are subjected to change when hitting TCG shelves.

"You want to D-Prison ME?
I eat prisons for breakfast!"

Amazing reprints

Next to the great new cards, there are also a lot of good reprints. I’ll give a few of the better ones:

• Flamvell Guard: Became interesting again ever since Dragon Rulers use this card. For those that can’t get this “old” Hidden Arsenal 1 card, here’s the first reprint.
• Honest: Just checked it and I can hardly believe it. My collection of Honest’s has been reduced to the ones I use. All spare ones have been traded over the years. So I guess a new reprint doesn't hurt, eh.
• Maxx “C”: Common Maxx “C”? For the OCG, this reprint is great, since the first print was a short print card from the Extra Pack. Though, I doubt if this card will be in the TCG variant.
• Trade-In: Expected reprint, since this is needed in every Blue-Eyes related deck.
• Cards of Consonance: Last reprint has been a few years ago, so a new one is welcome for newer players.
• White Elephant’s gift: THIS is a blessing. This card had 1 print: it was a short-print from the hardly-sold Starstrike Blast. It's hard to find this card, unless you buy a box of that set and even then, you’ll probably only get 1.
• Monster Reborn: One of the oldest cards that is still great. It's one of the best top-decking cards ever created. Newer players will be happy with this reprint, because it’s not easy finding good-quality Monster Reborns at a cheap price (especially since it’s a staple card).
• Fiendish Chain: Good card remains good. Even with its two reprints last year, it’s still a wanted card.
• Damage Condenser: Interesting reprint. This old Super Rare has only been reprinted once (in the accursed Dark Revelations 4 set) and is still a good surprise tech.

This will be known as White Dragon's Gift from now on!

Afterword

The full SD list can be reviewed on the Yugioh-wikia: http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Structure_Deck:_The_Blue-Eyed_Dragon%27s_Thundering_Descent.

I love dragons and this set will boost all known dragon decks; from good-ol’ Deep Draw Dragons, Disaster Dragons, Chaos Dragons, Hieratic Dragons, Gemini Dragons to the currently overpowered Dragon Rulers.

The only noteworthy absence from this Structure Deck is Super Rejuvenation. But considering this card will be hit in the September banlist (its absence from this set is an obvious hint in my eyes), not many people would be interested in the card in October (when this structure deck will hit the TCG shelves).

Other than that; if Dragon Rulers get hit by the September list, this Structure Deck will be there to heal the wounds for all dragon fans. So rejoice!

V out.

Card ruling updates - the changes in Astral Pack 2

You might have known this, but reprints of cards in tournament-packs (in this case: astral packs) often mean their card rulings or card text has been updated. These updates might have slipped under your radar, but they’re important enough to make a post about them.

Note: the following pictures are as follows: Previous version of the card on the left, Astral Pack version on the right.

Justice of Prophecy: Only during YOUR turn.

Two noteworthy changes on this woman, when compared to the original version from Return of the Duelist:

• Her effect no longer works during your opponent’s turn! Until it was possible to use Book of Fate/Wisdom during your opponent’s turn, use the effect of justice during the end phase (if it was still alive) and search for a spellbook and High Priestess to use it during your next turn.
• The often discussed “you can’t use the effect because you didn’t activate a card after her summon” is now gone with the simple text “previously this turn”.

Light and Darkness Dragon: Now syncs with Lightpulsar Dragon

The important changes are:

• The problem-solving card text now specifically mentions that it only works once per chain. Not to mention, it now also specifically mentions it works during either player’s turn (this should end LOTS of discussions).
• Destruction and Special summon now occur at the same time. Until now it has always been assumed that the special summon happened AFTER the destruction. This means that if LADD was on the field with (for example) Lightpulsar Dragon, LPD would have missed its timing (because the last thing that happens in the chain was the summon of LADD’s effect, not the destruction of LPD). From now on the destruction and special summon occur at the same moment, so nothing stands in the way of Lightpulsar’s effect. (this is a nice upgrade for Chaos Dragons).

Gemini Spark: Draw only when successful

Two changes here:

• The card text is now clearly divided in 4 parts. The first two (tribute and target) are the cost (before the semicolon), the last two (destroy and possibly draw a card) are the effect. This should avoid lots of discussions.
• You can only draw a card when the destruction was a success. So no longer targetting Zenmaines to draw a card; this is no longer possible.

Harpies Hunting Ground: Its effect now targets

The first problem-solving card text is out and it has an interesting change: The effect of spell/trap destruction now targets, where it previously did not mention it!

Other (minor) card changes:

• Photon papilloperative: The detaching of XYZ material and the target declaration no longer happens at the same moment. Now you FIRST detach an XYZ material, THEN you target an opponent’s monster.
• Recycling Batteries: The effect of adding Thunder monsters to your hand now targets.
• Spiritual Water Art- Aoi: Its effect now no longer targets (huh?).
• Harpie’s Brother: First announcement of the set was the name change of Harpie’s brother. It is now named Sky Scout.
• Cyber Phoenix: It now specifically mentions that it has to remain face-up until the start of the damage step.
• Removal of “face-up” from card texts: The mention that certain effects can only activate if you control a face-up “archetype” card has been updated to have that face-up removed (was kind of silly anyway in the effect of the affected cards). This change is inflicted on Spellbook of Power, Atlantean Dragoons, Geargiaccelerator, Fire Fist Raven and Fire Fist Hawk.

Other changed card texts are old cards now being available in problem-solving card text. They do not have any change impact.