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Preliminary Thoughts - 908: Shining Victories


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Yes, it's that time of the... well these release 4 a year, but sometimes 2 months apart and sometimes 4, so... It's that time again!

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001: Angel Trumpeter

This is just a good card. Not a lot to say here, it’s just a 1900 Normal L4 Plant Tuner. It’s a good card, period.

002-005: Performapal Support

Honestly, most of it seems meh.

Odd-Eyes got some support here, in the forms of Unicorn and Light Phoenix, but the big issue is that Odd-Eyes still isn’t good enough. It makes Sky Iris better, but not Odd-Eyes itself, who is still too slow, which means Sky Iris has fewer quality targets.

From the top now:

Landlord Hermit Crab:
Its effects are cute, but it was printed after the point where the deck would appreciate it. That is to say, it’s too late. It needed to be released in DOCS to really be worth a test, because its type and effects are, overall, worse than Partnaga’s. Sure, it’s a 2 scale, but that’s not enough, especially because, if you’re desperate for one, Drummerilla is better overall. It does Synergize with Skt Iris, though, to cheat Sorcerer onto the board pre-Pendulum..

Odd-Eyes Light Phoenix:
This one has similar issues. He has a better name, but his type is worse than Partnaga, and his scale is the same. His Pendulum Effect is nothing to write home about, and his monster effect, while good, doesn’t earn him a general place.

Odd-Eyes Unicorn:
It could have a general place, but… It’s inconsistent. You have to draw/use your Wavering search on Majespecter Unicorn - Kirin to make it worthwhile. And even then, that’s… Inconsistent, as I said. Which makes me think it’s a card that’s going to wait on the backburner for a bit, but still a very good card, all the same.

Fireflux:
Level 4, Scale 5 gave it a lot of potential… Instead it’s just worse than Silver Claw. For a start, its effects needed to be swapped, AND the ancient gear clause needed to be an Armades clause. Yeah, it would have been strong, but as-is, it’s just… meh. It doesn’t do anything, and its stats are low. At least Silver Claw assists in OTKing.

Overall, they’re just not the same quality as cards like Guiturtle, Monkeyboard (well this was a given), or even Secondonkey, which is sad.

006-007, 050, 070: Speedroid Support

Den-Den Archduke:
It’s both a Mezuki and Stygian Street Patrol for Speedroid… Tuners. It’s good for sure, I just feel like it’s not the “I dead drew a tuner sheet” fixer that they needed. Maybe I’m wrong, time will tell. Oh, and it’s another Tuner that’s dead in the hand.

Pachingo-Kart:
Definitely not a bad tech card, at least. It also helps the dead drawn tuner issue, somewhat, while clearing threats before doing so.

Puzzle:
It lets you ladder for value! But… it still requires Red-Eye. don’t get me wrong, Red is great, but you have /2/ Level 3 Tuners and an entire /1/ in theme Synchro can actually be summoned with them. And as great as it is, it’s not easy to be able to turn Puzzle into Crystal Wing, which seems like it would be a big draw towards summoning Puzzle T1. Red-Eye not being to turn things into 7s makes me sad, even though I understand the flavor behind it.

Re-Dice:
It seems cute in the Phantom Knight hybrid, but that’s about it. Luck support still isn’t good. I’d like it better as a spell, quickplay or otherwise, because then there’d be a reason for it to exist.

008-013, 046-048, 071: Lunalight Intro

A waste of potential. The deck is way too balls to the wall, and it loses advantage faster than most other modern decks, casual or otherwise. Not to mention, the bosses aren’t impossible to remove, and they’re also far too offensive.

The deck has too many forms of revival, and it has a dependence upon a really bad trap to not lose advantage too fast. It’s like Fluffal was when we just had Bear + Wolf…

It has potential, still, but it needs ED options that gain or destroy advantage. Like Frightfur Tiger, or even Frightfur Sheep. It is inconsistent (Blue Cat should have been a searcher, instead of the balls to the wall float), and it’s not as good at what it does as other decks are.

The deck lacks advantage gain, at least from places other than the grave, and versatility in its bosses, which hurts it.

014-016, 053, 058: Raidraptor Support

RUUUUUUUUUUURIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

Avenge Vulture:
Meh? It needed to be a themed Thousand Blades, with some sort of restriction. Oh, and from Hand/Grave. Instead we got a needlessly restricted self summoner that isn’t worth it. fun.

Pain Lanius:
Awesome. What the deck needed and wanted. Something between Singing and Fuzzy, that’s more restrictive yet generic than Singing, yet less restrictive yet not as rewarding as Fuzzy. It’s fairly cheap overall, and it goes into 2 great Xyz, in addition to Force Strix. Oh, and it makes Skull Eagle usable… not that you would, but hey. Great support.

Booster Strix:
Not a card that will see play, really… But definitely a good card for the deck. It’s too defensive, and it can easily be outplayed, but the mere existence of it causes mind games when attacking into a ruri. Appreciate it.

Ultimate Falcon:
Overkill. Next.

Skip Force:
Ruri -> Ruri isn’t good. Ruri Xyz, barring Strix, Blaze, and Revolution are pretty mediocre. It needed to either be anything into a Ruri or a Ruri into anything, not a Ruri-specific Astral Force. The float is okay, but the only Ruri Xyz worth floating is Ultimate, who requires Des Double (eew) on Blaze, or Des Double/Soul Shave + Skip… When these cards are unsearchable. That’s inconsistent and overkill. I’d even say Raid Force is better for getting back Soul Shave.

017, 051: Blackwing Support

Death the Mourning Wind:
It’s a Level 3, 4, and 5 Tuner, but more versatile than that as it can target itself OR others. Sure, it burns you for that, but it’s good on its own for that. With Whirlwind up, it searches Harmattan and Gladius, which both work well with it. Harmattan allows access to Level 8, Level 10, and Level 12, if we ever get the generic for that. Gladius allow access to 6, 7, and 8. Oroshi is also a target, but not as synergetic. It’s a good card, even if it’s not good in any given build for now.

Chidori the Light Rain:
While I’m not sure why Raikiri downgraded to his former self… It seems okay, I guess. It would be better if Hawk Joe was a Winged Beast. It gets big fairly quickly, though, so that’s nice.

018-022, 052, 059-060: Blue-Eyes Support

Remarkably undecided here. Partially due to the fact that some of the support is amazing… but it seems like it needs the Felgrand support to REALLY work.

It seems like it has more potential than the other 3 legacy supports, by far, but… I dunno, really undecided. I’ll wait until the release of Felgrand, in full, to decide here.

 

Blue-Eyes Spirit Dragon stands out, though, for the sheer level of play it enables... Not that the others DON'T stand out.

023, 044, 061: Dracoverlord and Dracoslayer support

Lector Pendulum:
Stupidly funking good. Like damn, this card is better than Vector in almost every way. While their P-Effects aren’t directly comparable, they do similar things, and this one is more relevant overall. And it’s a second 5 scale for Face-off, meaning you can consistently decide upon which scale you’re missing and actually get it. Possibly best card of the set.

Amorphactor Psycho:
Good old love factor is a Unicore on crack. Who floats (and technically synergizes with the Felgrand L4 we’re getting) and can skip a Main Phase if it’s properly Ritual Summoned. It has 3 cards that can Ritual Summon it, and another card that can cheat it onto the board. It’s a strong card, as it needs to be. But let’s check out that 4th card that can summon it…

True-Draco Awakening:
This card… does not specify which field. Which means it can be a devastating card that spits out a 2950 super Unicore if you resolve it in Pedra/etc. mirrors, completely shifting the tide of battle if you weren’t killed by the opponent’s Draco onslaught. And it’s not like you can’t make it live yourself. That said, it does seem like it can be a bit dead, so time will tell

024-031, 062-063, 072: Amorphage Intro

I’m not going to go over these individually, either. 8 monsters and 2 S/T is a lot, even with half of the monsters doing the same thing.

Where Igknight looked strong before Konami’s official release changed the wording on Igknights, Majespecters looked effective, and Dinomist looked like the meh cards they were… Amorphage are different. They’re a slow control deck. They don’t seem outstanding, but they also don’t seem bad, and they’re harder to measure because of it.

They have incredible potential, but they’re slow as balls, and seem really dependent on Infection. They outplay decks, but they can only have 2 floodgates up at a time, and that means you have to have the correct ones in any given matchup when you need them. They also want to go first to set up on the opponent, so they never have to worry about being answered before they finish shutting you down.

 

I dislike that only half of the 8 of them can be Pendulum Summoned, though. I know the highest levels have the best floodgates, but that means they can dead draw.

It’s another that time will tell about, but it definitely seems better than Dinomists did.

 

I will say, the Field, the Spell, and even the Trap all seem good to me. While yes, the trap is a worse version of the spell, it still filters you into the floodgates you need in a given matchup for a +1.

032, 073: Dinomist Support

Spinos:
Good card. Plain and simple. It makes no sense that it doesn’t have a partner scale, though.

Eruption:
what the funk, why is this not continuous. Trash.

033-035, 054-056, 064, 074: Digital Bug Intro

These cards are actually worse than Aquaactresses. Like what the funk.

This is just a miscarriage of design. Sure, the wolfbark works in Inzektor, but that’s about it.

 

The R3 is decent, rest is terrible.

036: Red-Eyes Toon Dragon

While it’s not the low level spam Toons want, at least it makes for a Red-Eyes Engine that makes you able to funking summon the big ones. Thank God we finally got a big toon that’s a genuine supporter.

037: Ryuu Ookami

You lose 1 card from your Extra… for every GROUP you summon? Trash. No idea why the funk Wyrm is even a type, when YZ could have easily just been more archetypal. Only real issue with this is Yazi, anyway.

038: The Great Mara Monarch

It… exists? It’s a pseudo-Monarch that makes your Monarchs safer… but it eats a turn that could have been a Monarch. Meh.

039: Spirit of the Tailwind

It could’ve been cute in Shaddolls if it was LIGHT (and construct was alive), but it’s WIND. This leaves Tarotrei. It’s a good card in decks that can immediately utilize itself + what it searches. It’s slow elsewhere. Decent.

040: Drifting Spirit of Winter Blossoms

This is too hilarious in mirror matches, really. Level 3 Tuner, decent type on the whole, and wrecks matchups like BA. Side Card for sure, looking forward to finding out how MUCH impact it has.

041: Gendo, the Master Monk

IDK, seems like the type of card that would be relevant (and technically fits in Amorphages, if it wasn’t an inconsistent non-pendulum outsider) at some point, but also seems like a nuisance more than a floodgate of sorts. Don’t forget it exists, but don’t try too hard to make it work.

042, 068: Deskbot Support

009:
Um… no. It’s a dead draw and it’s overkill as funk. Why is this not a Pendulum, again?

Base:
Um… a OPT mulligan doesn’t seem good when it shuts off your Machine Duplications and its secondary effect isn’t good. Just… yeah.

043: Diceclops

F I L L E R B O I S !

045, 057: Melodious Support

Bloom Prima:
Great card… for a deck that can’t reliably summon it. This is what happens when you start with a stupid idea for a theme then shift away.

Fortissimo:
I… what? Again, this is what happens when...

049: Crystal Wing Synchro Dragon

Good card. Little hard to find places to efficiently summon it, aside from lolultimaya, but yeah, good all the same, one that should age well.

065: Pre-Preparation of Rites

Good card for a set of mostly bad cards. Has the potential to be relevant if they don’t sidestep it, like they did with Amorphactor Psycho.

066: Fusion Tag

Complete garbage. It should have (optionally) milled one of the revealed monster’s named materials as a bonus, or something.

067: Tuner's High

This is a card that will age VERY well. It’s a 141/Transmodify hybrid for Tuners, and it lets you sheet out important cards. Not good now, but almost certainly will be a good card.

069: Regretful Cards

It’s a joke card, overall. You won’t see it anywhere as it hits the opponent too late and can be played around, though it does encourage overextension.

075: Rippling Mirror Force

… Eh? Direct attack only hurts it a lot, so not really impressed. Then again, I haven’t been especially impressed by any of the new Mirror Forces.

076: Wonder Xyz

It’s an alternative method of the Nyarla -> Azzazoth play, and it’s good for similar such cute plays. Not especially good, but it has potential, unlike Urgent Tuning, as it allows it to use natural Rank-Ups and multiple materials.

077: Daunting Pose

It’s… not!SHS support, and doesn’t really seem good at that. Um… okay? Filler.

078: Friendly Fire

It’s opponent dependent 141 removal… and a trap, as opposed to a quickplay. It also targets. It’s just not good enough, modern day.

079: Unwavering Bonds

It’s 141 removal. That’s not good anymore. On the brightside, it’s Ariadne fodder. I guess it could be good in the future, but not now.

080: Graceful Tears

It’s the gag trap of the set. Not much else to say.

-----

Overall, the set is much better than BOSH was (barring TCG’s additions). While I’m not sure that it’ll make a huge change to the gamestate outside of Lector Pendulum, it adds a good few good cards to the gamestate, and a fair number that seem like they’ll age well. Death the Mourning Gale, Tuner’s High, Crystal Wing Synchro Dragon, Performapal Odd-Eyes Unicorn, etc. 

 

And both Amorphage and BEWD seem like they could end up going either way, which is shocking... Though Lunalight and Digital Bug are spectacular failures for intros.

I think this is a set that will be relevant for reasons like that for a while to come, though doubtful it’ll cause splashes on its own.

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Angel Trumpter is EARTH, you can clearly see its kanji in the card art. Also Crystal Wing is very summonable by Synchro heavy archetypes, especially with the likes of Symphonics who can easily ladder into it. From my testing Stardust Charge is Crystal's BFF, since he's pretty much the best Synchro to ladder into CrWSD.

 

I will agree with you on the Lunalights. Aside from White Rabbit and Black Sheep, the rest of them don't really do enough for the deck at all, with Purple Butterfly easily being the worst of the lot. Wolf really did not need to be level 6.

 

Amorphages look kinda interesting, and I am quite curious about the idea of mixing in some Traptrix as well.

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JUST PLAY funking BAS OR ANY OTHER RANK-3.DEK AND MAKE GIGA-ANT AND PROCEED TO RANK IT UP INTO THE OTHER DIGIBUGS.

Srsly, you don't need to play the Main Deck monsters.

>2 Level 3 Insect-type Monsters

 

 

Angel Trumpter is EARTH, you can clearly see its kanji in the card art. Also Crystal Wing is very summonable by Synchro heavy archetypes, especially with the likes of Symphonics who can easily ladder into it. From my testing Stardust Charge is Crystal's BFF, since he's pretty much the best Synchro to ladder into CrWSD.

 

I will agree with you on the Lunalights. Aside from White Rabbit and Black Sheep, the rest of them don't really do enough for the deck at all, with Purple Butterfly easily being the worst of the lot. Wolf really did not need to be level 6.

 

Amorphages look kinda interesting, and I am quite curious about the idea of mixing in some Traptrix as well.

Did mess that up with Angel, rip.

 

Issue with Synchrocentric is that... synchrocentric and laddering tend to not be good themes to work with. They're inconsistent, unless the synchros supply the tuners.

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Well, so far in my testing Symphonics with a Clown Engine have done well due to their utility in being able to revive tuners with Sizerrs and SSing them with Guitaars, while using Clowns to supply materials. I coined Stardust Charge because his draw let's you recuperate some of the cost of making him. But I agree in general, laddering is pretty faulty and resource consuming.

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After testing with some of the decks, I can confirm some general things about this set's outcome:

-Lunalights were somewhat of a dissapointment. I remembered how everyone I know hyped them up because of how blatantly offensive they were and how cards were buffed from their anime counterparts such as Cat and Sheep. The deck has its combos, but it needs to rely on gimmick techs to stay alive in the game, since it doesn't have coherency like what Fluffals kept getting. It's dependent on having a sufficient hand since it can't auto-generate +, and a full opposing field to take advantage of mostly. Not much of the other monsters except for Cat can float, and Fusions lack secondary abilities to support the rest of their members. This deck conflicts in some areas with the effectiveness of the Pendulum support, and how much setup is needed to properly gauge big damage. Though it does have cute combos with Black Sheep and things like Dark Eruption, Fusion Recovery, and Horn of the Phantom Beast. Nevertheless, the deck is pretty benign, but still can show potential. It's just that it lacks the kind of float, coherency & field removal power Fluffal had.

 

-Blue-Eyes was a mess. I can see how Konami of Japan promised this deck to be a contender in the meta, but it's hard to say when you cannot guarantee a great opening hand. The deck is split between the Eyes of Blue support and Blue Eye, and having the wrong supporting cards will conflict with each other and will leave you vulnerable. I can say for sure, that the only good Eye of Blue card in this set is Sage, since he sets you up easy and helps you get Blue-Eyes twice in a turn. Guard can get Maiden on board, which can lead to multiple Dragon synchros without Mausoleum, but he isn't totally necessary. Priest is hard to use in an early game and lategame, and his recycle effect isn't that bad but not necessary either. As for the Dragons, Spirit is obviously amazing being able to banish scales, and can tag out into a Blue Eyes to escape targeting or to OTK. Ancient Stone is very great as well, refueling your hand since the Deck mills through BEWD fast. Overall in order to get the best results, clutter is minimized so that Sage seems to be the only worthwhile Eyes of Blue to get out of the set, but Spirit, the Synchro and Stone are still very good. Like what you said, the Felgrand support (Specifically Gospel of Revival) is what sets this whole thing apart.

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Ultimate Falcon:

Overkill. Next.

 

Skip Force:

Ruri -> Ruri isn’t good. Ruri Xyz, barring Strix, Blaze, and Revolution are pretty mediocre. It needed to either be anything into a Ruri or a Ruri into anything, not a Ruri-specific Astral Force. The float is okay, but the only Ruri Xyz worth floating is Ultimate, who requires Des Double (eew) on Blaze, or Des Double/Soul Shave + Skip… When these cards are unsearchable. That’s inconsistent and overkill. I’d even say Raid Force is better for getting back Soul Shave.

Last Strix into Satellite + Skip into Ultimate Falcon

 

Falcon dies banish Skip to summon it again

 

It's literally a 3500 towers and the combo pieces aren't total bricks on their own

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Last Strix into Satellite + Skip into Ultimate FalconFalcon dies banish Skip to summon it againIt's literally a 3500 towers and the combo pieces aren't total bricks on their own

Normally I don't give Azne muh credit but holy sheet, summoning Multiple ultimate falcon?! RR might be able to match Pepe/pedra

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Honestly, this set is a step in the right direction, but KoJ still really needs to get its act together.

 

Angel Trumpeteer is one of my favorite cards in the set, which at first may sound like I really hate it, but it's a level 4 tuner with strong stats with a very well supported type/attribute combination. It's a solid card and I really like it.

 

Crystal Wing is a really cool, and definitely a big bone for decks that are able to ladder synchro plays. I like it, it's a really cool card.

 

P-Pals aren't really my thing, so I'll hold off on any comments. For that reason, I will point out that these cards won't add or take away from my opinion of the set. But, from Black (whose opinion on P-Pals I would value a lot), it looks like overall it's just kind of disappointing.

 

Speedroid cards are decent. Nothing spectacular, but nothing terribly bad.

 

Lunas are a big disappointment. I really like aggressive decks, so to see one as fragile and linear as Lunas was disappointing for me especially.

 

I don't care about Ruris.

 

I don't care about Bwings.

 

Melodius is meh

 

Dinomist is literally 50/50 with a decent card and a garbage card.

 

Draco stuff is cool and looks like it'll make for a very interesting mid-range deck to play. Will need to check it out.

 

Generic/Misc. monsters are a mixed bag with some solid contenders and some pretty dang bad ones. Diceclops is really bad and pack filler is a sin.

 

Deskbot 009 adds nothing new to the Deskbot table and the field spell is ultimately pretty meh besides the nuke effect. At best you'd tech it for said nuke; but not to actually really use.

 

Generic spells/traps are mostly garbage, save for two cards (you can probably tell which). Really disappointing.

 

And now for the meat of my opinions!

 

BEWD looked promising, but after playing them my opinion has become more unsure. The deck is really fun and you can really get some powerhouse plays out, don't get me wrong, but it's very resource intensive, lacks one-card plays, and very, very fragile. If the deck got going you could really throw down a large field; but any amount of mass removal REALLY screwed you over. It has a very tough time recovering from lost advantage, and that's a big hit against the deck. Hopefully Felgrand support makes a difference for this, because it is a very fun deck to play.

 

Amorphages I have... mixed opinions about. I already don't like Permission Decks (Toyo enlightened me on that MtG term; I just don't classify lock decks like this as "control" and it makes control too broad of a term in YGO) for obvious reasons; they're just not fun to play against. I'm not worried about them not because I don't think they don't look good, but because it looks like Konami's actually done their homework in designing this deck, at least for now. If it plays as it should, it shouldn't be able to make complete locks against decks and most decks should be able to counter their plays by changing up their strategies and finding work arounds; it's not impossible to play against and I appreciate that aspect of the design. That said, I'm just not really a fan of these cards as a whole, in flavor or execution. I never liked Ophion Set 5, and a lot of this deck feels like a repeat of that; but I know it won't be. I doubt they'll make any kind of meta impact because it has a lot working against in terms of the early game. Pendulums are basically a -2, and this deck looks like it has a very slow start-up and needs to gain some steam before it can start really laying down the hurt. In a slower format these guys would make a bigger impact, but I don't see them doing anything besides being an annoyance now and then.

 

And, for the real, REAL meat of my thoughts: Digibugs. This archetype makes me so mad just thinking about it. It honestly baffles me that KoJ would allow such a dysfunctional pile of horeshit to actually make it into the set. I've spent a good amount of time trying to get these to work with different techs and builds, and you just can't. This archetype is an embarrassment to Konami as a whole, and whoever came up with them is getting paid too much. I say this is the real meat of thoughts not because of content, but because this is the part of the set that entices the most emotion out of me, and none of it's positive. Holy CRAP Konami, try thinking the next time you make a one-off archetype. At least make it usable; Diceclops is a better option than this. Just WOW.

 

 

 

So yeah, mixed opinions. I do have to admit, there's more neat stuff in this than I expected, but Konami has done so much better in the past. At least this is a step in the right direction, albeit kind of small.

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Last Strix into Satellite + Skip into Ultimate FalconFalcon dies banish Skip to summon it againIt's literally a 3500 towers and the combo pieces aren't total bricks on their own

that involves running skip for example, which is a synergetic as hell otherwise. Both take away from opening well, which is a big deal, and there's no consistent way to find Skip Force, so really not convinced.
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BEWD support is usually limited to 1 rank 8 play or a Blue Eyes Spirit Dragon Synchro per turn in the early stages. Both scenarios encourage the deck to go first, as you get the most value out of Spirit's "floodgate" effect vs Clash Performapal and the ideal time to summon Azure.

 

Unfortunately, Ignister doesn't target and can be boarded in spite of Spirit's effect which forces out Moonlight Rose over Azure. If Clash summons Luster P you've basically lost as they can freely PS more than 2.

 

For other decks it comes down to whether they go first and drop Spirit Dragon and you have the means to answer the Azure Eyes (Notice, Utopia Lightning, Deskbot 003 etc)

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