Starstrike Blast Sneak Peek: Cards to look out for

Right. A new post which isn't a review. I thought that i would show a collection of new cards which you might want to look out for at the sneak peek. here is my top 6:

6 - Tuning
A card which yusei used a few times in the anime. you add a card with "synchron" in its name from your deck to your hand, then send 1 card from your deck to the graveyard.
With about 10 monsters with Synchron in its name, you have a good pool of cards to search to deal with any situation. Notable cards to search are Quickdraw synchron, junk synchron and Synchron Explorer. The second effect means that you might be lucky enough to mill a dandylion and load your field with 2 non-tuners so your synchron can come in and synchro summon right away. In my opinion, with quickdraw being a very strong deck already, this card will break them.

5 - Large Heat Wave
A cold wave for monsters. Its absolutely broken and should have never been made. until your next draw phase, you and your opponent cannot normal summon or special summon (but you can flip summon) effect monsters. Nobody plays vanillas anymore (except for a certain few cards) so this card hurts any deck right now. The most broken part of this card is that it ends on your next draw phase. That means that if you manage a way to skip your next draw phase, the effect continues for another 2 turns! So with reckless greed, you can stop your opponent from summoning monsters face up for 3 turns.
Trust me, its broken.

4 - Red Nova Dragon
Being printed in a tin, this card is a powerhouse that jack uses with a "burning soul". its summoning requirements are somewhat a pain, but if you can get it out, you can run over anything. It can protect itself from any effect by removing itself and that means one attack is negated too. It comes back in the end phase after that effect. It gains 500 attack for each tuner in your graveyard, which means with 3 tuners needed to summon it, it usually comes onto the field with a whopping 5000 attack points. With decks like flamvell, you can use rekindling to summon Flamvell baby, Flamvell Archer, Flamvell Magician and a Flamvell Firedog/Grunika from your graveyard and synchro it all into Red nova dragon. And it only costs you one card.

3 - Psi-Blocker
Recently announced on the konami strategy website, this TCG exclusive has a great effect which definitely see play once this set is released. Once per turn, you can declare a card name and its effects are negated and cannot be activated until your opponents next turn. this means you can declare your opponent's face down cards, and if you're lucky to have declared one of them, you can attack without fear. This card can also hit cards that activate in the hand, like Battle Fader and Gorz, the emmisary of darkness. Be sure to look out for anyone who pulls one of these at the sneak!

2 - Glow up bulb
This card laughs at spores playability. If this card is in your graveyard, once per duel, you can send the top card from your deck to the graveyard to special summon this card from the graveyard. I believe that this card rivals the playability of plaguespreader, and it doesn't mess up your next draw if the play you were going to make does not turn out the way you wanted. Want an example of an epic play? Special summon cyber dragon, special summon this card, special summon dandylion tokens if it gets milled, then synchro into stardust dragon or goyo guardian. This card can also help with the summoning of formula synchron which is also debuting in this set. It needs a level 1 tuner and a level 1 non tuner so this card helps its summoning perfectly.

But what's the number one card to look out for this set? Well im undecisive between swift-attacking scarecrow and other cards. I'll let you decide...

Yu-Gi-Oh Card Review: Scrap Chimera

Next up for review is another scrap monster (the first was scrap dragon). Scraps have debuted in The Duelist Revolution and have already claimed a YCS. But there is one scrap monster that makes it the amazing archetype that it is: Scrap Chimera.

While Scrap dragon is more splashable, scrap chimera is a brilliant card for its own deck. Its effect fits into its deck perfectly.

Beep Beep RAWRRRR!

When you normal summon this card, you can select (that means it targets!) one Scrap tuner monster in your graveyard and special summon it. But this card cannot be used as a synchro material except for a Scrap synchro monster AND all the other monsters used for that synchro summon have to be Scraps, too.

Thats a mouthful right there, but even though it can only used for a scrap monster synchro summon, it special summons its own scrap monster to tune with! The best card to special summon with Scrap Chimera's effect would be Scrap Beast so you can synchro summon straight into Scrap Dragon.

But Scrap Dragon is not the only synchro monsters avaliable to Scrap Chimera. The Duelist revolution sneak peek card Scrap Archfiend is a level 7, so you can special summon Scrap Goblin and tune straight into him. When the next set, Starstrike Blast is released, Scraps will get a level 9 synchro monster called Scrap Twin Dragon (when its in the TCG). You can use Scrap Chimera to special summon Scrap Soldier (Which is also coming out in Starstrike Blast) and synchro into that.

But enough about what it can synchro into (which is why its so good). With 1700 attack and 500 defence, it is the beater of the deck right now and does not have the drawback of being destroyed at the end of the battle phase like the other scrap monsters do. With Scrap Chimera, you can special summon scrap beast or scrap goblin, and attack and destroy them. Their effects will activate and destroy themselves, which lets you get a scrap monster back to your hand (Like another scrap chimera!) whichever way you look at it, scrap chimera will easily give you at least a +1.

And thats that. If you play a scrap deck, you need to have 3 of this card. Its just simply too good not to. And since its not very splashable, do not expect this card to be seen on the ban list.

Yu-Gi-Oh Card Review: Blue-Eyes White Dragon

Now for a little bit of nostalgia, Konami have decided to release the legendary collection. Comprising of 6 cards that everyone will recognise, as well as six packs: one of each of the first 6 sets (In the UK, we got 2 packs of the first 3 sets instead), it gives duelists another chance at pulling some old favourites that were until now, difficult to get hold of.

The Legendary Collection comes with the 3 god cards (In the new card format) as well as an alternate art Dark Magician, Red-Eyes Black Dragon and today's card, the all powerful Blue-Eyes White Dragon!

My Favourite Blue-Eyes artwork!

This card was first used by Seto Kaiba in the very first episode (excluding season 0 of yu-gi-oh) and he likes it so much, he has 3 of them in his deck! He could fuse them together to create the Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon, with an impressive 4500 attack points.

It has 3000 attack points and 2500 defence points, which is 500 more attack and defence points than Yugi's ace card, the Dark Magician, respectively. Kaiba relied on Blue Eyes's powerful strength to take any monster down.

Alone, this card could not survive the evolving metagame we have today. It's not a card you can splash into a deck for some extra power and expect to get it out. Monster effects and mass destruction cards play more of a part in todays yu-gi-oh than ever, and Blue-Eyes white dragon wouldnt last a turn on the field if left unprotected.

But there are many support cards that make Blue-Eyes playable, and i will list a few of the best ones.

First up are the ways of getting him out onto the field without wasting tonnes of resources. Cards like Ancient Rules and Kaibaman can help summon him as easy as the first turn! But thats not all, you can also use Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon to special summon him from your hand or graveyard once a turn!

You will need to search him from your deck too. You can use cards like The White Stone Of Legend to add a Blue-Eyes to your hand whenever it is sent to the graveyard (Future Fusion can help with this!) or Summoner's Art, to add a level 5 or higher normal monster straight from your deck to your hand. You can go one step further and use Paladin of White Dragon to special summon him straight from your deck!

Lastly, you want to be able to special summon it from the graveyard (It has no special summoning restrictions and it can swing for 3000 attack. You dont see that very often anymore, just look at Judgment Dragon!). Monster reborn, Call of the Haunted and to a lesser extent, birthright and silent doom can bring him back over and over again.

But now that he is on the field, what can you do to keep him there? If by some chance that your opponent wants to take your precious dragon down in battle, you can drop an Honest since Blue-Eyes is a light attribute.
Alternatively, you can use Justi-Break to destroy all effect monsters on you and your opponents side of the field (sorry Sangan and Dandylion... oh, whats this?).

So as you can see, Blue-Eyes may not be able to hang around for long, but there are effective and near-costless ways to keep bringing it back and ploughing through your opponents resources, and if you happen to have your Blue-Eyes removed from play, you can always run 2 or 3!

Yu-Gi-Oh Card Review: Summoning Curse

The next card up for review is another common card from The Duelist Revolution. I believe it was worth a rarity upgrade, but nobody's complaining. Presenting: Summoning Curse!

Oh look, Dark Armed Dragon!

Now it has a very good effect. Whenever a player special summons a monster, the cards controller has to remove from play one card in their hand. But to keep it on the field, you have to pay 500 life points at each of your end phases.

This card is best used in decks that do not special summon, such as gadgets or watt decks. But it can still be used in other decks too. This card basically stops special summons in the same way as Royal oppression. Your opponent will have to be willing to sacrifice cards in their hand to swarm the field. And since the cards sacrificed will be REMOVED from the game, your opponent wont be able to trigger cards like dandylion or any dark world monsters.

But compared to Royal oppression, Summoning curse does not get rid of the monster, and 500 life points a turn can accumulate to quite a lot. If you manage to get both of them out though, then you can destroy the big monsters, and make them remove cards when they summon weaker ones.

This card can also work in infernities. Since they play with no hand, they have no cards to remove when they special summon monsters!

Try it out sometime, its surprisingly effective!