V Reviews: Assassination Classroom: A feel-good anime in disguise

Last weekend the last episode of Assassination Classroom aired. Therefore it's a good reason for me to pick this anime for my first review. Because who doesn't want to see a yellow octopus-humanoid creature with a creepy smile destroy the world?

The face of doom... sorta... I think?

As you might've realized. That face doesn't look harmful nor threatening. I mean, there's no way anybody could make this face creepy, right?

Oh, right... I forgot this is a thing since the latest E3.

V reviews: Assassination Classroom Season 1

A: Backstory of the series

Assassination Classroom (or Ansatsu kyoushitsu in Japanese) is a manga created by Yusei Matsui from 2012 which is still running today.

Yuusei started out as assistent for the manga Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo, which may explain his sense of humor and fascination for weird humanoid creatures.

In 2005 he got his own first success with Neuro: Supernatural detective, which ran for over 4 years and spawned a 25-episode anime in the fall of 2007. However, fans of the manga were kind of let-down with the "not-so-great" adaptation of the manga. And after the anime ended, interest in the manga slowly started to decline, which caused it to eventually end in 2009.

After Neuro ended, it took a few years before Yuusei landed another series that stuck. But in 2012, he struck gold with Assassination Classroom.

And gold is the correct term for this series. In the few years it's been running, there's a 22-episode anime with a second season already announced, a 3DS game and a Live Action movie with a sequel already in the making.

That's a lot for a manga series that's hardly 3 years old!

B: The Story itself

The story starts with the announcement that a "monstrous alien" creature has destroyed 70% of the moon, turning it into the shape of a crescent moon forever (which I know is technically impossible, but just roll with it).

This creature has declared that it wants to destroy the entire world in one year. But he gives humanity a "chance" to destroy him. And that's said with quite a sarcastic undertone, because this creature has superhuman abilities, can fly at mach 20 and has superior reflexes. And all that while he has the shape of a yellow octopus.

But for some weird reason, he decides to become a homeroom teacher in the Japanese class 3-E at Kunugigaoka Junior High School. Why exactly is still a mystery in the anime, but the flashback from episode 1 says it has something to do with a woman.

The government sees the opportunities in this and offered a 10 billion yen reward (about 100 million dollars) for the person who is able to kill this creature. And with this E-class having the most opportunities to perform this assassination, the Japanese department of Defense sends one of their most capable workers to the class in order to teach them combat and assassination techniques.

And if you think this creature would oppose this, you would be wrong. The creature gratefully accepts this opportunity, as long as he can teach this class and he even gives hints on how to kill him as well.

Since the creature doesn't have a name, it doesn't take long for the students to give him one. This being: "Korosensei", which is a combination of the Japanese words korosenai ("cannot be killed") and sensei ("teacher"). In short: "The unkillable teacher".

But I hear you ask: How can this series about assassinations with weapons be a regular Shonen series?

Actually, the Yusei evaded that touchy subject quite easily. Korosensei can't be killed by regular means. Guns, knives, grenades and even poisons don't work on him. But Korosensei has admitted he's weak to a certain "Anti-Teacher" substance, which is otherwise harmless to normal humans. The substance has been converted by the government to pellets and knives (which are sorta rubbery). The pellets are mostly used for pellet gun variations and grenades, but the manga is quite creative with the use of these pellets.

And aside from all assassination attempts, Korosensei does his best to teach his class as best as he possibly can. And he does a swell good job. He helps the students out with their school subjects and sometimes even their personal misery.

He also wants to help them get better in this school, because the 3E-Class is in fact the outcast class of this Junior High school. The head of the school is a twisted SOB who's trying to raise the amount of "superior" students, by turning the people with the lowest grades into outcasts (which in turn should motivate the rest to study harder). This in such a way that the E-class has to reside in a different building on a different campus site, in the mountains. This is all done in such a way that the E-class has almost 0% chance of ever upgrading to the regular classes.

And this is where this show truly shines. While the assassination attempts are quite funny and sometimes even ingenious in their making, it's the fights of these underdog students to be accepted by their peers and the rest of the school that makes this series truly interesting to see.

Going into further detail would spoil the show, but it's definitely worth a watch!

C: Characters

Character	Description
Korosensei	The main character of the show. He's the "evil creature" that has blown up 70% of the moon and is the sole target for these assassinations. Next to that, he's a devoted teacher, but also quite silly. And while everybody should do their best to kill him, he makes it very hard to hate him, because he's basically "the best teacher ever". Also, he can't lie, because his face is almost literally an open book and changes color depending on his mood/feelings.
Shiota Nagisa	The only student that can be seen as the "main character", since most of the episodes are from his point of view. Often seen as a weak student (both in studies as physically) and is often mistaken for a girl. He keeps notes on the weaknesses of Korosensei and is on friendly terms with (almost) everybody in the class.
Akabane Karma	Karma's a bitch and this guy's seriously tries to gain similar status. He's the smartest guy in the E-class, but got expelled a few times due to bad behavior and violent behavior. He may seem lazy, but don't underestimate him, because he's about as mischievous as Marvel's Loki. Also, he's possibly the most assertive character of the show, saying things that the characters with a more Japanese attitude wouldn't dare to say.
Karasuma Tadaomi	The loyal government worker who trains the students to improve their physical condition and assassination skills. Probably the strongest human on the show, but even he can't handle Korosensei. He's also the "straight guy" in this comedy, but can sometimes be a bit dense.
Irina Jelavic	A Russian assassin/spy who tries to reap the bounty on Korosensei. But due to failure, she ends up teaching English at the E-Class. Her biggest asset is her "charming" personality... No, I'm not talking about her boobs! Shame on you! I was literally talking about her personality, which earned her the nickname "Bitch-sensei".
Asano Gakuhou	The board chairman of the school. Is a "shadow figure" in the first episodes, but quickly reveals himself to be one of the primary antagonists of the series. Sinister SOB.

Since this is a class/school, there are tons of other characters, but they're mostly supporting roles. Though, they all have an episode (or half episode) where each of them gets the focus.

D: Adaptation from source material

The manga is adapted quite faithfully, with no filler added (hurrah!). A few chapters have been cut out from the manga sadly enough, but who knows? We might still see them in season 2. So if you're wondering on whether you should read the manga or watch the anime, you can go and watch the anime, because not that much is left out.

What I find positive is that the anime doesn't attempt to stretch out the individual chapters either. 1 chapter is 1 half of the episode (safe the pilot chapter obviously), even if it is a stand-alone chapter. This causes several episodes to have 2 stories. But honestly, I like that more than needlessly filling up the episode with nonsense.

Also, I find it positive that they work in seasons, rather than adapting all existing material in 1 show like Naruto or Bleach. It gives sufficient opportunity to faithfully adapt the series, rather than improvising to fill the needed timeslots each week.

E: Animation

The show is very well animated with no hiccups or signs of lazy animation anywhere. It's also bright and colorful, but the colors can quickly go darker when the story needs it to be darker.

F: Sound

Quite good, but nothing outstanding. The Opening songs are song by the student voice actors. And while they're not bad, they're not that outstandingly great either.

Conclusion and Personal Opinion

I personally liked this show a lot. After watching some dark animes lately (like Mushishi and Welcome to the NHK) and the long running animes having "darker" moments atm, I was in the mood for something light. This anime delivered that and then some!

I was often laughing my ass off during the comedy moments and often ended the episode with a big smile on my face. Truly, this anime generally made me feel better about myself. So I can say that I'm looking forward to the next season of this show.

Were there any negative things about this show? A few minor things, but it's more nitpicking than anything else:

• This is a typical shonen humor/action series. Don't look for ingenious storytelling or amazing new things here, because it's not here. On the other end, it doesn't fall into many of the cliché anime tropes either. There's no romantic subplots anywhere to be seen, which is VERY rare in these kinds of shows. Heck, even the typical anime "fanservice" that needs to be in every shonen series is very limited and limited to very specific characters (Trust me, this could be a lot worse!).
• The anime is great in terms of story, but can be very predictable at moments. Though it's the execution that's enjoyable, rather than the lack of inventive storytelling.
• A few chapters surrounding the swimming pool were strangely enough not adapted. And due to the very specific setting, will probably not see an adaption in season 2 either. This means that at least 1 supporting character will not get her own episode. Sad panda.
• Korosensei has a few Deus-ex-machina abilities to escape his assassinations. Let's hope there aren't more of these, because these will get real annoying real fast.

Overall, I give this series an 8,7/10.

It's very much enjoyable and a must-watch for everyone that wants to see something light and funny.

Looking forward to season 2, Nurufufufu~

Until next time, V out.

Adding more content to the blog

Hey, MaJu V here. No, I'm not dead. Why do people keep thinking that?

I've been wondering about what to do with my blog for a while now. I'm currently not that much into Yugioh as in the past (though I haven't quit yet. It's just set on the back-burner for a while now).

But I've missed writing about stuff, so I've been thinking about what to blog about.

When I revamped this blog a few years ago, the purpose of the blog was going to be about more than just card-games, but it kind of went that route from the get-go. So I thought: "Let's get it back to what it's always supposed to have been. A blog about the stuff I like: Anime, music, card-games and so much more."

So from now on, I'll also be posting a bit more regularly, but the topics will be more varying.

I'll be reviewing the anime I've seen of late (complete, not per episode), I'll be giving a few recommendations on music (probably Belgium's finest bands, if I can be a bit chauvinistic) and who knows what else comes to mind?

Does that mean all Yugioh-related posts will be gone for good? Of course not. Once I'm done working on my house (hopefully at the end of this year), I'll probably have more time to play Yugioh IRL and I'll probably want to write more posts about that.

Also, busy with a few other experiments, but that'll take some more time to see it come to fruition.

Until next time, V out.

The OCG exclusives come to TCG-land - an overview

Once in a blue moon, I feel like writing a YGO-related article again. Today, with a Examn Japanese (2nd year of 5 or 6) just behind me, I feel like venting some energy.

Well, let's be honest, the venting of energy and the released article that the OCG exclusives will finally be coming to TCG in April (W00t!)

Say what?

Yesterday, Vexacus posted the following article: http://southernhobby.com/products/detail?p=29348

In short, on April 10th, the new Yu-Gi-Oh! World Superstars Booster will be released, containing 50 cards previously only accessible in Japan and Korea and 2 former World Championship Cards (Legendary Dragon of White and Legendary Magician of Dark). Each booster will have 5 cards (4 Super Rares and 1 prismatic Secret Rare), with a total of 18 Prismatic Rares and 34 Super Rares.

It caused a little discussion on what cards would be in there, but actually WHAT's in in there is as good as confirmed in my eyes (I'm like 90% sure).

What's in there?

In short, the following:

• The 5 Japanese exclusives from Legacy of the Valiant.
• The 5 Korean exlcusives from Legacy of the Valiant.
• The 10 Japanese exclusives from Primal Origins.
• The 5 Korean exclusives from Primal Origins.
• The 10 Japanese exclusives from the Duelist Advent.
• The 5 Korean exclusives from the Duelist Advent
• The 10 Japanese exclusives from The New Challengers
• Legendary Dragon of White and Legendary Magician of Dark

Together, this makes for a 52-card booster set.

Note: The Japanese exclusives from Secrets of Eternity and the Korean exclusives from The New Challengers have only recently been released in their respective areas and still need to be "exclusive" for them for a longer time.

Legal note: The other 10% I'm not sure of, is the situation where Konami becomes Lolkonami again and trolls us with ancient vanilla's or lame OCG promo cards.

But WHAT CARDS are going to be released?

Well, the following archetypes are going to get support:

• Chronomaly: 2 cards, Which includes the infamous Chronmaly Nebra Disk (which at one point became limited in the OCG because it made Chronomaly's OP).
• Heraldic Beasts: 3 cards, which makes the archetype actually playable.
• Yuma's Onomatopoeia & Utopia archetypes: 10 cards that you know you'll never play, unless it's in a fun deck.
• Galaxy Photon support: 4 cards, of which Galaxy Soldier and Tachyon Transmigration are good. The other two you may forget.
• Battlin' Boxer support: 3 cards. A decent monster, a great trap and a great Xyz monster that makes the archetype very much playable.
• Heroic Challenger support: 3 new cards, which are decent.
• Star Seraph Support: 3 new cards, which ridicule the already existing cards by their mere presence. These 3 cards are amazing.
• Music Djinn support: 1 new Djinn Xyz, named Humhumming. Not OP, but a decent addition if you want to play a full Djinn deck.
• HERO support: Elemental HERO Blazeman. Kinda nifty support for Masked HERO decks.
• Naturia Support: 1 card, but it's kinda "meh".
• Mecha Phantom Beast Support: Nice addition to an underplayed archetype, but not enough to make it competitive.
• Ghostrick Support: 2 new cards, a nice trap and a cool new Win condition Xyz.
• Numbers: More intended for the collectors: 5 different new Numbers cards to add to the collection (or six, if you count F0 as well).
• Lovecraftian Monster Support: A cool new Korean "archetype", which combines elder gods (like Wodan), with creatures straight from Lovecraftian fiction. All focus around Level and Rank 4 monsters and have some nifty effects. Most anticipated card is Elder God Wodan.
• Watt Support: Wattchic Fighter is weird: On one end it's completely based on Jojo's bizarre adventure (which is cool), on the other end, it's a psychic Watt card (which doesn't make sense), but does kind of give support to the archetype.
• Other random good cards: Guerillakite is a Lv 4 FIRE tuner that damages the opponent when sent to the grave and is a rekindling target. Earth Shattering is a cockblocker vs Mill decks. Flowbot is a Plant that works very well in Sylvan decks in order to prepare the deck to mill cards.

Is the set going to be worth it?

Wel, the first thought that went through my mind was: "OMG, this set is going to be amazing!", a deeper analysis showed that half of the cards are supporting less used archetypes, or are simply crap. Yes, at least 1 card in every pack is destined to be a Yuma card, be prepared for that.

But, similarly to other Hidden-arsenal-alike sets, there's going to be a few hunted cards that will be worth money. Dragons of Legends proved that, amongst many mediocre cards, there were 5 or so cards that were hunted beyond belief (especially the Hands).

The cards that are going to be hunted in this set will (probably) be the following!:

• Chronomaly Nebra Disk
• Number 36: Chronomaly Super Machinery Fort Hyuk
• Elder God Noden
• Star Seraph Scepter
• Star Seraph Sovereign
• Number 86: Heroic Champion - Rhongomiant
• Elemental HERO Blazeman

Afterword

Yes, obviously there will be a handful of cards that YOU like, but not the general public. So these are the "money" cards (though none will become too pricey, I guess). The rest will be worth pennies. Your choice if you want to pick up a box or not. Just telling you the facts.

Until next time, V out.

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.

Battle Pack 3 - Taste the rainbow

Well, a few weeks ago, Konami announced that they would make another rendition of the by now infamous Battle Pack series, this coming on July 25.

And while the first pack focused on Draft dueling in general and the second one focused on getting boss monsters on the field, this one will focus on monsters with specific type advantages. Therefore it's also named BP3 Monster League!

Ooooooh! Look at the pretty rainbow!

How the hell is this going to work?

If you recognize a few of the monsters in the previous image, you'll notice that the monsters each have a positive effect on their specific monster type, making them kind of bad in regular draft duels where you have a mishmash of different monster types.

But this version of Battle Pack is going to have a specific rule, where all monster types are treated the same. All specific monster types are reduced to "monster".

How does it work? Let me give a few examples with some of the depicted cards:

• Freya, the Spirit of Victory: While you control a face-up Fairy-Type monster(s) other than "Freya, Spirit of Victory", this card cannot be selected as an attack target. All Fairy-Type monsters you control gain 400 ATK and DEF.
• Evil HERO Infernal Gainer: During your Main Phase 1: You can banish this card to target 1 face-up Fiend-Type monster you control; that target can attack twice during each Battle Phase. During your second Standby Phase after this effect was activated: Special Summon this banished card in face-up Attack Position.
• Battlestorm : This card gains 100 ATK for each face-up Winged Beast-Type monster you control. Once per turn, if you control 3 or more face-up Winged Beast-Type monsters, you can destroy 1 Spell or Trap Card your opponent controls.
• Koa'ki Meiru Sandman: During each of your End Phases, destroy this card unless you send 1 "Iron Core of Koa'ki Meiru" from your hand to the Graveyard or reveal 1 Rock-Type monster in your hand. You can Tribute this card to negate the activation of an opponent's Trap Card and destroy that card.
• Silent Psychic Wizard: When this card is Normal Summoned, you can target 1 Psychic-Type monster in your Graveyard, and banish it. When this card is sent from the field to the Graveyard, Special Summon that banished monster.

See how certain disadvantages turn into advantages all of a sudden? Archetypes like the banish psychics and the Koa'ki Meiru's suddenly don't feel that bad anymore, do they?

10 NEW cards!

While Battle Pack 1 had some OCG exclusives printed in here, this battle pack will introduce 10 NEW cards.

New, as in world-premiere cards. And according to what I'm reading, these cards are specifically made for draft play.

There will be 2 monsters, 2 spells and 6 traps. Two revealed card names are Ghosts from the past (a trap similar to ghost of a grudge?) and Quantum Cat (Schrodinger's cat? Rescue Cat V2.0?)

Some Xyz Reprints

The total set will be 237 cards, making it the biggest core draft set to date (not including BP2's reinforcements add-on). And some of those cards will be Xyz. But according to the article they will be as rare as the Egyptian gods in BP2.

Question of course is, what cards will be reprinted? Will it be crap cards like Utopia, the lord of reprints? Or type-specific Xyz (considering types don't matter in this set)?

Oh, yes... almost forgot to mention this. This time, the rarity will not be starfoil, or mosaic rare, but Shatterfoils (the shattered glass foil).

Afterword

I'm looking forward to this set already. This rule change will make it interesting to see how certain older cards can shine in their own way.

Until next time, V out.

The difference between a top event with and without Dragons of Legend legal

The entire post in short: Dragon Rulers have been revived once more and both Kuribandit and Soul Charge are to blame.

"I'll be stealing ya wins, buddy!"

YCS Paris - Dragons of Legend NOT legal - Mermails win

Peter Gross once more proved to be one of the best European players. He directed his Mermail deck and proves that the deck is virtually untouched since the last banlist (seriously, why Gunde and not Sphere/Steus?).

The rest of the top 32 is as follows:

• 13x Mermail (including Peter Gross' deck)
• 1x Evilswarm (Aoued Benabdallah - 2nd Place)
• 10x Geargia
• 3x Bujin
• 1 Prophecy
• 1 Chain Burn
• 1 Fire Kings
• 1 Infernity
• 1 Harpie

Not much to say about this anymore. This was the last YCS in this shape, since Dragons of Legend is legal from now on. And what will follow is somewhat illustrated at the latest ARG Championship Series.

ARGS Richmond - Dragons of Legend Legal - Kuribandit DRulers win

Without any surprise, Goblin Hoban won again. The worst best Yugioh Player (as he's somewhat referenced to) finally quit his Mermail deck to show us what power cards were in Dragons of Legend. And it's quite clear that the combination of Kuribandit and Soul Charge is deadly in the hands of skilled players (especially in Dragon Ruler decks).

The top 16 is as follows:

• 4x Mythic Kuribandit DRuler
• 2x Mermail
• 2x Geargia
• 2x Bujin
• 2x Infernity
• 1 Kuribandit Ghostrick
• 1 Evilswarm
• 1 Hieratic (Pure)

The full decklists can be checked on the ARG Website.

The new Dragon Rulers - Kuribandit DRulers

The most preferred combo is using Kuribandit's effect to excavate 5 cards, which are 4 monster cards (inluding 1 DRuler) and obtaining a Soul Charge. Get the Soul Charge to your hand and dump the rest.

Then, during the next turn, you can use Soul Charge to revive as many cards as you can.

If you didn't excavate Soul Charge, you can just use the DRulers effect to special summon themselves from the grave/hand. If you don't open with either of the two cards, the rest of the spell line-up is draw/dump power (Gold Sarc, Upstart Goblin, Card of Consonance, Trade-In, Dragon Shrine, etc), so it's hard to have an opening hand that sucks.

If you haven't guessed, this version of DRulers is all about dumping cards in the graveyard and reviving them with Soul Charge or by Monster effect (similar to Chaos Dragons), so that you have an overpowering line-up of dragons and Xyz (similar to Chaos Dragons). The trap line-up is small to non-existent (similar to Chaos Dragons) and it doesn't use any other protection cards (similar to Chaos Dragons).

Yes, you heard me correctly, the new version of Dragon Rulers is basically how Chaos Dragons worked when they were at their best. Dumping cards (Future Fusion), spamming the field with overpowering monsters (REDMD, DAD, Lightpulsar, BLS, Chaos Sorcerer), and constantly-reappearing boss monsters (the Lightpulsar-REDMD combo).

Any other Dragons-of-Legend cards?

Looking through the top 16, there were a few other cards (next to Soul Charge en Kuribandit) from Dragons of Legend that were played. Those were the following:

• Wiretap. One of the best counter traps at this point. Negates the activation of a trap and sends it back to the deck. Both Geargia decks and Infernity decks are playing it.
• There were also 3 people in the top 16 trying out the combo of Fire and Ice Hand, but that was only visible in the side decks.

That's it for now, V out.

Cards to look forward to in the Duelist Advent Pt. 2 - Spells, traps and OCG Premiere Cards

Let's continue where I left off in my last post, with the spells and traps from the Duelist Advent, and the OCG World Premiere cards (you know, those ten cards we won't see until the end of this year or so).

Spell cards

• Savage Feast Lv 5: You can special summon 2 Lv 5 warriors from your hand or grave. That's amazing, right? Right? Yeah, it would be if there were more interesting lv 5 warriors out there. But as it stands now, each archetype that could support it, only has 1 or two (mediocre) Lv 5 warriors (not counting synchro's), so the chance of you actually using this card to its full potential is small (unless more support comes out?).
• Metaphization/Imagine Breaker: A great support card for the new Genryu type. Once per turn, you can tribute 1 dragon (cough*hieratics*cough) to special summon a Genryu type monster from your deck with the same level as the tributed monster. The number of Genryu monsters is very low right now, but expect more to be released in the following sets (you know, like Psychics in the 5Ds series).
• Fountain of Magic: Read as: amazing side-card against Noble Knights, Crystal Beasts and Chain Burn. It's a quick-play (so chaining works wonders) that lets you draw as many cards as your opponent controls face-up spells and traps (including those that are waiting to be resolved) and then you can discard a number of cards equal to the face-ups that you control (including this one obviously). But in exchange you can no longer stop/destroy your opponent's backrow until his next end phase. So it does require skill to use.

• The Monarch Storms forth: Amazing support for monarchs and basically any deck that uses high-level monsters (Agents, Chaos Dragons, etc). It's a better version of Soul Exchange, that doesn't cost you the battle phase; but costs you the use of your extra deck that turn. But trust me, in the turn you require this card, you're not longing to use that extra deck anyway.
• Pop-pull-up: A field spell searcher. If your opponent has a field spell and you don't, activate one directly from your deck. Nice side-card if your deck relies heavily on field spells (Prophecy, Dark World, Gravekeeper, etc) and your opponent does as well.

Trap Cards

• Battleguard Howling: If a warrior you control is targeted for an attack or for a monster card effect, you can burn the opponent equal to that monster's original attack (lol) and then bounce it back to the opponent's hand (even more lol). It's more restricted than Compulsory Evacuation Device, but it's soooo much better (and funny) when used.
• Showdown: One of the best counter trap cards to come out in recent memory. Forget 7 Tools of the Bandit and Dark Bribe, this is more interesting. During the damage step, when a spell or trap card is activated (like Forbidden Lance or Fire Formation Tensen), or a monster effect is activated (like Blackwing Kalut, Honest, Bujin Crane, etc), you can negate the activation and destroy that card. This is a good counter towards Fire Fist decks, who use attack manipulation spells/traps; or decks that rely heavily on 1 monster with lots of support (Bujins).

OCG World Premiere cards

Still don't like it, but we're getting used to it by now (I guess). Let's see what the OCG got that we didn't.

• Heroic support: Assault Halberd is amazing. It's a Cyber Dragon-style card that pierces. And when it does damage, you can search a Heroic Card (monster and support cards). Thousand Blade on the other hand encourages Challenger spamming (including more of itself!) that can special summon itself from the grave when you take damage. And Rhongomiant (the Xyz) is another Numbers Xyz that can take up to 5 Xyz Materials that is virtually indestructible if its got 3 or more Materials.
• Star Serpah Support: Now this is interesting. I always thought the Star Seraphs were kind of under-represented and could be more interesting if only there were more. And look what happens? 3 new monsters (awh, no Xyz here?). And similar to the others, these monsters focus on getting more of them on the field.
• Number Hunter: A card version of Kite (somewhat) that's anti-Xyz and Anti-Numbers in General. But with 1600 attack, that's its only feature (thus, situational).
• Onomatopia: A field spell for the Onomatope-cards (Gagaga/gogogo/tralala/etcetera), but since it requires multiple incarnations of Utopia to be good, this won't be used.
• Humhumming the Keyboard Djinn: How cool, another Djinn Xyz. When it's sepecial summoned, you can special summon another Djinn Xyz from the grave (even Queen Dragun Djinn), and attach up to 2 Xyz materials from your hand (even spells or traps, lol). And when you detach a material, a Djinn Xyz can attack your opponent directly. Makes you re-think about making a Djinn deck, right?
• Marshalling Field: Read as: an easy way for machine decks to get high-level Xyz on the field and another attempt to make us use RUM-cards. Good card for machine lovers.

Appearing on your wishlist, but not in your hands for the next year...

My thoughts on the set

Similar to other series starter sets (e.g. Generation Force), this booster is not amazing. But it sets up nice start-support for the new archetypes that Konami will push in the coming year. If you want to play any of the included new archetypes, you better pick up this set. If you're not interested, pick out the few support cards that interest you and leave this set alone.

We'll see if Konami can make this set more interesting with the OCG imports and TCG WPC's, but I think it'll be one or two extra interesting cards at most.

That's it for now, V out.

Note: The used names are fan-interpretations of the translation. All names and effects are a subject to change when appearing in the TCG. Heck, they names are already being altered every few days on the wiki.