Order of Chaos Sneak peek pack openings

Here's what i pulled at the sneak.

I'm the person with the Green hoody. Incase you still can't tell, I've placed an annotation when I start opening my packs.


I think I pulled pretty good! 

- TheTCGLover

P.S. I Apologise for the overuse of profanity during the video. You have been warned.

Deck Thinning: How it works and why it's so darn important.

Today i would like to write a lengthy review about one of the most important aspects of Yu-Gi-Oh!. Every deck uses it, and decks use it to win. Use it right, and you can manipulate your deck to toolbox any situation, without compromising on advantage.

The power of Deck Thinning is one of the tools avaliable to any duelist who wishes to use it in their deck. Firstly, what is it?

To thin your deck is essentially to make the deck card count smaller. To weave through the arsenal of cards in your deck to the one that you want is probably the most powerful weapon you can wield. In many decks, there are ways to thin your deck, but all decks have access to draw cards. Draw cards have been put under control by Konami's banlist in the recent years. Pot of Greed did so much for such a simple effect. If you drew it early in the game, you could really outspeed your opponent and set up much quicker. Konami released Pot of Duality in The Duelist Revolution (Which i did a review on ages ago) which is the definition of consistency as we know it today. It is one of the ways that competitive duelists (competitive as in spends lots of money on a game with the intention of winning and making a profit) dig through their deck to the card they want. While that might thin the deck by 1 card, it does not thin it enough. Some decks need to thin their deck to get access to a single card.

The most common method of doing that is Milling. Milling is the process of sending many cards from your deck to the graveyard so the cards sent can be used. Debris plants (which is not so potent anymore) uses Ryko, Lightsworn Hunter to destroy a card on the field and mill 3 cards in the hopes that they mill anything that can be special summoned with Debris Dragon. It thins their deck immensely and the player does not have to worry about drawing the monster that they would rather have milled to the graveyard.

Lightsworn is the king of deck thinning. It uses cards like Necro Guardna and Glow-Up Bulb which are milled to the graveyard so that they can be used and not drawn into. There are other ways of thinning the deck other than milling. Upstart Goblin lets you draw a card and your opponent gains 1000 life points. Some see the 1000 life as too much of a benefit to the opponent, but others see it as a way to get to the cards you want quicker. It does not matter if you have 11000 life points and your opponent has now assembled multiple beaters on the field, ready to wipe you out right there. But with draw cards, your deck needs to be as small as possible. Many competitive players, such as myself, refuse to play a deck over 40 cards. with every extra card in your deck, the chances of drawing an out to the current situation is slimmer and slimmer. Cards like Upstart Goblin and Pot of Duality are completely useless if your deck has over 40 cards. If you're playing a 41 card deck, the card you just drew with Upstart Goblin could have been in your hand already if you were playing a 40 card deck (theoretically).

Another way to thin your deck is through controlled milling (a term i just made up). That is, sending the cards to the graveyard that you want there, rather than just sending anything that you might of wanted to draw instead (monster reborn, dark hole etc.). A deck that uses this well is Frog monarchs. They use Swap frog to send treeborn frog and fishborg blaster to the graveyard from the deck. Treeborn frog special summons itself every standby phase and fishborg is a tuner which can be summoned by discarding a card while you have a water monster on the field. This allows you to synchro both into Formula synchron and draw a card, and you have not even wasted your normal summon yet! But controlled milling (or dumping) is generally more costly on resources. Foolish burial can be used in any deck, but is a -1 depending on what you send to the graveyard. Konami know how placing "send ____ from your deck to the graveyard" on a card is a powerful tool to thin your deck, and don't make many cards that can do that.

The best decks can fetch nearly any card from their deck and place it on the field immediately. Search cards like Reinforcement of the Army, Charge of the Light Brigade, Gateway to the Six, Dragon Ravine all let you fetch the monsters from the deck that you need, allowing for increased consistency and deck thinning at the same time. If you don't run a deck that uses search cards, you can use recruiters like shining angel and mystic tomato if you really wanted to. There is no reason why you shouldnt be trying to thin your deck during a duel.

Now, back to card reviews!

Yu-Gi-Oh Card Review: Trishula of the Ice Barrier

With Hidden Arsenal 4 coming to the TCG in about a month, players are looking forward to one of the, if not the, most powerful synchro monsters ever created. It will literally change the game as we know it (Why do Ice Barriers get all the best synchros??)

Anyway, todays card is the almighty Trishula of the Ice Barrier

Scoop.

This level 9 synchro monster has 2700 attack and 2000 defence. Thats not great for a level 9, but this card requires a generic tuner and generic non-tuners so theres no real problem about that. Its a water type, which follows suit with all of the Ice Barrier monsters. The real problem with this card is its badass broken effect:

When this card is Synchro summoned, you can remove from play one card from your opponent's field, hand and graveyard (The card in hand is chosen at random).

There are many cards that remove stuff. Caius removes, Chaos Sorcerer removes, Bottomless removes etc etc. But this card is broken simply because there is no meta deck that is safe from its effect. No deck likes to have the cards in their hand removed, so thats painful enough already. But wait, a card in your graveyard is going too. That could be your precious Vayu or Necro Guardna or the 3rd dark in the grave you needed to summon dark armed dragon. Then it removes a threat from the field.

This card is one of those cards that requires next to no strategy to use at all. since you -2 upon summon and then remove 3 cards, its a +1 overall.

I really hope this card gets limited/banned soon. Some decks can synchro spam this card multiple times, making that 2700 attack painful. Usually a powerful card has its base attack reduced to compensate for the effect, like Mist Wurm or Stardust Dragon. But this card is just a badass that everyone will learn to hate very quickly.

This card can be stopped by Solemn Warning or Divine Wrath. With Divine Wrath, discarding a card is a small price to pay to stop trishula's potent/broke effect. Konami released an anti-trishula card in Starstrike Blast called Mirror of the Ice Barrier, but it really does not do enough and the player summoning trishula can easily choose not to remove anything.

This card is also broken because even if it gets summoned onto an empty field, it hurts you. If you play decks that like to remove from play cards, then trishula is not so bad.

Upon release, this card will be at three. That means many decks (Fish decks and Debris plants) will break this card and summon 3 on the field on the first turn if they can. Hopefully Konami will come to their senses and limit this beast.

The 2011 March ban list: Semi-Limited discussion

Hey. To show some actual continuity on this blog, the next set of cards on the banlist to discuss are the newly semi limited ones. They are:

Archlord Kristya

Card Trooper

Debris Dragon

Spirit reaper

Megamorph

Overload fusion

Royal Tribute

Icarus attack

Solemn warning

Archlord Kristya has been at 3 since its release, but thats not to say its a powerful card. With a high attack power, a rather easy summoning condition with added hand advantage, an increasingly useful continuous effect while on the field AND the ability to recycle itself back to the top of your deck, its got something for everyone. It limited its playability with it only being usable in a fairy deck, or a deck that splashes many fairies (Which does not really exist, except for maybe Perfect Herald decks). But to me, many players that played fairy decks played Kristya at 2 anyway, so semi limiting it really does not hurt it whatsoever.

Card trooper is the big one for me personally. As I've reviewed before, it has a built in milling ability that pumps its attack into a beatstick and replaces its self if it gets destroyed. Its a brilliant card and now that its at two, it can be used to replace the lost Dandylion in Plant synchro decks. There was no need to put it at 1 when you cannot perform the Card trooper OTK with 2 of them anyway. Expect to see this card become a semi-staple in this upcoming format with it being able to get under bottomless and +1 you if it runs into a mirror force.

Debris Dragon has been brought down to 2 from unlimited. It is abused too much in plant decks with dandylion. But has putting it to 2 really made a difference? The only difference i can see is consistency issues, but thats about it.

Spirit reaper has been at 1 for a long time. I do not know the exact banlist that it was limited though. Its a powerful card that provides a nice wall to protect you if a combo went wrong or you need to stall for something like Final countdown. In my opinion, i had enough trouble dealing with one, but maybe two is a little too annoying for my taste.

Megamorph , Like spirit reaper, has been limited for quite a while. Nobody plays equip spells anymore, and this card is not very special. Sure, it doubles your monster's attack power when you're losing, but people do not build their decks to win when they're losing.

Overload fusion is usually combined with Future fusion to make a mean OTK. you use future fusion to send Cyber Dragon (which is at 3 now) along with many machine types from your deck to the graveyard for Chimeratech Overdragon. Then you use Overload fusion to remove all the machine types from your graveyard to summon that Overdragon. You now have a huge beatstick that tends to mean OTK. With Overload fusion at 1 and Future fusion at 1 too, the deck was incredibly inconsistent. But with this card at 2, the deck might shine again.

Royal Tribute at 2 is not really a big deal. Gravekeepers players can still get this card into their hand with Pot of Duality or Gold Sarcophagus. Putting it to 1 or banning it entirely would have been much better.

Icarus attack is Konami's attempt to damage blackwings alongside limiting Blackwing - Kalut the moon shadow. While blackwings get top 32 in the tournaments in america/europe, they are a tier one deck in the OCG, which explains why blackwings have been hit hard this banlist. It is also an amazing card which can blow up any 2 cards you choose, so it was always a gorgeous 2-for-2 card.

Lastly, Solemn Warning is a powerful card which in my observation of decklists and duels, were played at 2. That's not to say that they were never played in 3s, but hitting it to 2 is not that painful. The idea of paying up to 6000 life points seems absurd, but it was used at 3 for consistency because once you drew it, you had the opportunity to stop a deadly play right in its tracks.

Next up, the UNLIMITED LIST!

The 2011 March ban list: Limited discussion

It's time to discuss the next part of the banlist; the limited list.

Limited:
Honest
Dandylion
Blackwing - Kalut the Moon Shadow
Book of Moon
Gateway of the Six

Honest has been limited from 2. It seems that with honest at 1 and Kalut the moon shadow at 1 too, konami is trying to aim for a format that emphasizes attack points. With Honest, one could attack with a ryko, knowing that it could get over any monster. While light is not the most supported attribute, it is an amazing support card that could be reused with Monster reborn and Beckoning light. But now that honest is a one man band, if you draw it, you better use it when you need to.

Dandylion was semi-limited back in march 2010. A professional duelist called Jeff Jones saw the synergy that Dandylion had with Debris dragon and Quickdraw Synchron as well as Drill warrior. With that, and a few other powerful cards, he created a tournament winning deck called Quickdraw dandywarrior. One year later, and that deck is dead, but Plant synchro took its place, which abuses dandylion to a much further extent (Mat Collins won YCS Milan with Plant synchro in November). With Debris dragon being so abusable with Dandylion, with the main combo is to summon Black rose dragon and get two tokens, it was limited to one. Konami tried to compromise this change by Semi-limiting Card trooper, which i will talk about when i write the Semi-Limited discussion

Blackwing - Kalut the moon shadow is in the same boat as Honest. It provided any blackwing monster with the attack power it needed to get over any monster. Your opponent uses his resources to summon a big monster with a beefy attack power. But with Kalut at 3, there was no need to worry about being attacked. It could be combined with shura the blue flame to ensure that you always get it's effect to special summon.

Book of moon was the big limit of the banlist. It has been at 3 this format and some people considored it a staple at 3. With its unmatched versatility (Stop attacks, flip a tuner face down to stop a synchro summon, flip your monster down to get past bottomless, flip your ryko face down when its attacked to get its effect again ETC), It is one of the best -1 cards in the game. I feel that the game is better with Book of moon at 1. However, there is now a bigger emphasis on trap stun and royal decree now that most of the backrow cards will be traps. You could run Enemy controller to replace book of moon, but it just does not compare in terms on versatility. Make sure you're running your backrow hate next format!

Lastly there is Gateway of the six. The Legendary Six Samurai have been in the OCG for almost a whole format, so the Six samurai have had enough time to prove their position as a tier one deck. But the reason why it is such a good deck is because of the broken combos when combined with Gateway of the six. With 2 Gateways on the field, you could summon one six samurai and have enough counters to search for a monster. Repeat this and you suddenly have a field full of monsters. That is why Gateway is fine at 1. The deck is still functional and Shi en is still as powerful of a card. I'm glad i traded my Gateway when it was still $30.

So thats my quick take for the Limited list. I'll post my semi-limited verdict soon!

Yu-Gi-Oh Card Review: D.D. Sprite

Happy tuesday everyone! Time for another review.

If you are one of my normal readers, you may have noticed that i am churning out more reviews than i normally do. Well, since i've created this blog, i've realised how many people are reading it on a regular basis, and that means you, the reader, like what you're reading.

So yeah, i will write more reviews, in shorter time, on cards that you're pulling from the latest packs right now. Ok? Good.

Now onto the card. Today im reviewing D.D. Sprite!



This little one star tuner has no attack points and only 100 defence points. While that might sound bad, it's one of those cards that gets better and better the more you think about it.

You can remove a monster from your side of the field to special summon it from your hand. The monster removed by this effect is Returned to your side of the field in the next standby phase.

Now since you cannot use this effect on your opponent's turn, the monster removed will return on your opponent's standby phase.

Ok, if you have played this game for longer than a second, you will know that tuner monsters that special summon themselves are very good. There is nothing that says you cannot normal summon it too. Which in my opinion, makes it versatile.

But, while this card has that nice little versatility bonus, it does have a problem. The TCG rulings say that if D.D. Sprite is not present on the field in your opponent's standby phase, the removed from play monster does not come back. That does hurt the card very much since now you cannot use D.D. Sprite for a synchro summon without losing hand advantage.

But, there is one place that this card can shine. And with the release of the latest GX manga in march, the TCG will be introduced to Elemental Hero The Shining. The Shining and Elemental Hero Absolute Zero are two cards that are going to hit our meta with force. Absolute Zero has already been screwing around with opponent's for the last year with its ability to raigeki an opponent's field when its removed. But with D.D. Sprite, you can remove Absolute Zero for its effect, destroy your opponent's monsters, and get Absolute Zero back to be used again.

This card had so much potential, but Konami ruined what was a fun and splashable card. Give it a try anyway.

Yu-Gi-Oh! Card Review: Legendary Six Samurai - Kizan

Happy Valentines Day people! And what a better way to celebrate a day like today with a card review about samurais.

I was debating on either Enishi or Kizan, but i came to the conclusion that only a few people actually run Enishi, so thats pointless.

Here we have, The Legendary Six Samurai - Kizan!


This warrior type has 1800 attack and 500 defence. thats quite decent for a level 4 monster, but it gets better.

If you control another six samurai monster, other than a Kizan, you can special summon it from your hand. and while you control 2 or more other Six-Samurai monsters, this card gains 300 ATK and DEF.

So with 2 other six samurai on your field, thats a 2100 beater that you just special summoned. That is extremely impressive. With Gateway of the six, thats 2 more counters (which if you normal summoned a Six Samurai before, thats a total of 4 counters, which means a free search)

With 3 Kizans and 3 Grandmaster of the six samurai, you can just keep special summoning out the wazoo every turn (Incase you didn't notice, Kizan is Grandmaster when he was younger, just like Enishi is a younger Enishi - Shien's chancellor).

You can also use Kizan to synchro with Shien's squire (A level 1 tuner also released in Storm of Ragnarok) to make Legendary Six Samurai - Shi en.

Lets just put it this way. If you want to play six samurais and you want to be considored any good at this game, then you must max out on Kizan.

Which brings me to the price. Now that STOR has been officially released, Kizan's price has sharply risen from $30 (around £20) to $50 (around 30-35). Thats no surprise that it's worth this much.

So how do you beat it?

• Thunder King Rai-Oh: Legendary Six Samurai - Kizan is an inherent summon (Like Cyber Dragon)
• Solemn warning and Solemn Judgment: stops the summoning and they don't get any counters
• Black Horn of heaven: Same as Thunder King Rai-Oh but in trap form.
• Puppet plant: If they have not already swarmed the field and wiped you out, you can use puppet plant during your turn to take their kizan. But if i were you, i would use your puppet plant on Shi en to stop them negating your spells and traps with it.
• Negate their normal summon: Legendary Six Samurai - Kizan needs another Six Samurai on the field to special summon itself. Take out their normal summon and their Kizan/Grandmaster in their hand is a dead card.

Yu-Gi-Oh! Card Review: Karakuri Steel Shogun mdl 00X "Bureido"

Its time for tuesday's review! (if i will actually do a review every tuesday from now on, i dont know) And recently i've been building Karakuri's and putting in all the new cards from Storm of Ragnarok. In this set, they got a card that can special summon when it destroys monsters in battle, a 4 star tuner and a better Reinforcement of the army.

We also got introduced to Burei's Dad. presenting to you today, and i hope i wont have to write this name out ever again:

Karakuri Steel Shogun mdl 00X "Bureido"!


This level 8 Machine synchro monster has 2 cool effects, and is similar to Burei. When this card is synchro summoned, you can special summon one Karakuri monster from your deck. And once a turn, when a karakuri monster switches position on your side of the field, you can draw a card.

Wow. That's amazing. it has the same special summoning effect like its son (or younger brother, IDK), which allows you to push for game or synchro some more. And with the release of Karakuri Muso mdl 818 "Haipa", you can summon Bureido, special summon haipa and dish out a total of 4900 damage. Add a Limiter removal into the mix, and thats more than your opponent can handle.

And i have not even started with the second effect. Since karakuris change positions, you will almost certain get to draw an extra card every turn.

Good cards to use for its second effect:
- Strategist: Special summon this card with Bureido and switch its position with its effect, bureido kicks in and lets you draw a card.
- Burei: His second effect lets you switch a monsters battle position on the field, switch one of your karakuris and draw a card.
- Haipa: After its attacked, it gets switched into its weaker defence position. but with bureido, you draw.
- Karakuri Cash Cache: It lets you search for a monster, then switches the selected monster's position. you can draw there too since the position change is the last part of the card's effect.

and all of the non-synchro karakuris get switched into defence position when they are attacked, so you will always get a draw on your opponent's turn.

But how do you get this card out? its a level 8 and it requires a tuner and one or more machine type non-tuners. With Storm of Ragnarok, We now have Kuikku and Saizan. With Saizan in the graveyard, you can summon kuikku, destroy an opponent's monster with it, special Saizan in defence mode, and synchro for Bureido in your main phase two.

Or if you dont want to do that, you can always just special summon a cyber dragon, summon a strategist and theres your 8.

Karakuri's, like scraps, have really come into their own with an intricate set of combos and with all this new support, they can go toe to toe with the Six Samurai next format.

Yu-Gi-Oh ZEXAL: Looks to be a pile of s***.

Yup. I caught my first glimpse of ZEXAL the other day: the successor to 5D's. I have been watching 5D's (subbed) on youtube and even though the story is completely random and still goes on about "friendship and bonds means i win", its still entertaining to watch. I saw episode 145 the other day and Yusei was dueling Bruno (Antimony). Bruno uses Tech genus cards which debut in Extreme Victory, which is the set after Storm of Ragnarok and releases into the OCG on February 11th.

So with 5D's finishing on episode 150 (Thats about 4 weeks of Yugioh 5D's left, folks), a new Yu-Gi-Oh follows. Which is called ZEXAL.

I have not read too much into it. But i know the story follows a character called Yuma who duels some bully from his school. And some crazy event occurs with some being called Astral.

To be completely honest, 5D's was surprisingly good because the characters were not 15 year olds. They were older and it catered to the older viewers (I'm looking at you, GX). But ZEXAL? It just looks to be a pile of crap.

and what's with the name? Aparrently, the X in ZEXAL is not said, so its just "zeal".

I will only watch this to see the new cards, unless its just like GX but set in the future. *shudders*

Consistency: Why they're winning and you're not.

Hello Yugi fans. Today, in my spare time, i have decided that i should do an article on consistency, and why some cards in our metagame favour it and are ran because of it.

What is consistency exactly? Well, For something to be consistent, it needs to happen often and reliably. In Yu-Gi-Oh!, it is important to build your deck so that you have an "out" (a way to deal with anything your opponent throws at you) at any point in the game. this allows you to breakdown your opponents strategy and subject them to yours.

But if you play competitively (go to locals and attend regionals and other tournaments) or you want to, just remember one thing:

Most of the cards in the anime are inconsistent and should be kept in the anime at all times and not in your deck.

Now. How do you make your deck more consistent? Before even considoring that question, you need to know your win condition (what your deck needs to do to bring your opponent's life to 0). Then, you can build your deck to get to that condition Consistently.

Lets take an examples. Gravekeeper's used to be a control deck. they had a one-for-one removal with Gravekeeper's descendant and could shut down the graveyard with Necrovalley, which made cards like Monster reborn and XX-Saber Faultroll useless. But this deck was just not good enough. It was outcompeted by faster decks that could set up their win condition quicker. However, in Starstrike blast, Konami threw Gravekeeper's players a Consistency bone called Gravekeeper's Recruiter. It could search for almost any gravekeeper's monster when sent to the graveyard from the field. Players suddenly realised that you could search out Gravekeeper's commandant, which could search out Necrovalley. This in turn lets you run Royal tribute and deplete your opponents hand of monsters, while you can bring yours back with Gravekeeper's stele. So you see, with a little help from our friend Consistency, the deck now has a powerful Win condition which can be met quickly and often. This is why in YCS Atlanta in November, Gravekeeper's decks placed in the top 3 spots.

But in a more general sense, consistency can be aquired through certain cards. As long as you know your win condition, you can run 3 of any card that can help you get that condition.

Right now, i am running Scraps. Its a very fun deck, and it has a plethora of intricate combos and +1s at your disposal. The main win condition of this deck is to summon scrap dragon and blow your opponents cards away with its effect. While thats all well and good, Scrap dragon is a synchro monster and cannot go into your main deck. That means that i needed to build my 40 card deck that is dedicated to bringing out a scrap dragon as consistently and as often as possible. To do that, i have to run 3 Scrap beast and 3 scrap chimera as well as 3 Scrap goblin, so there is always a Scrap chimera to use. The only problem with the deck is that it relies on its normal summon often to get the ball rolling. All it takes is a Solemn warning on my Scrap Chimera to put me at a severe disadvantage. But i have cards like Scrapstorm (The Scrap's draw card) and Scrapyard to set up my win condition.

As for certain cards. The main cards that can help consistency are Draw cards. these serve little purpose in your deck but to make your hand more consistent. Allure of darkness lets you draw two and then remove a dark from your hand. At first glance, you may think that removing one of your precious monsters is a terrible idea, but your hand is stronger now and your deck has been thinned by two cards. and you can always remove a monster that does not quite fit the bill in the current gamestate. For example, lets say my opponent has a stardust dragon on the field. and in my hand, i have a smashing ground and a Blackwing - Bora the spear. I know that i cannot destroy stardust dragon with smashing ground because of its effect, and Bora does not have enough attack power to get over it. In my draw phase i draw Allure of darkness, i use its effect and draw two. Lets say i just drew Blackwing - sirocco the dawn and Blackwing - Kalut the moon shadow. If i remove Sirocco for Allures effect, i just turned that Allure of darkness into a monster that can help me get past that stardust. By using that draw card, you managed to get out of that situation and deal some damage, and your deck has been thinned.

But as far as draw cards go, the best one by far is Pot of Duality. I dont need to explain its effect, but it is by far the easiest way to increase consistency in your deck no matter what. Even though you lose special summoning for the turn, you have now got a much better hand next turn, which means that win condition your deck is aiming for is now so much closer.

I hope that this small article helped some people. Many people have been criticising that Pot of duality is too expensive. While that is true, the card turns inconsistent but powerful decks into Consistent ones.

I might do a few more card reviews soon when i get the time. Maybe when the next set comes out, because those Aesirs look awesome.

Storm of ragnarok: Special edition

Quick post. For anyone who didnt know before. The confirmed Special edition cards that come with the Storm of ragnarok special edition is

- Light and Darkness dragon
- Hand of six samurai

The reasons behind those choices are quite clear. Light and Darkness dragon was crying for another reprint since its being so widely played.

Hand of the six samurai has also been chosen, to tie in with the release of the new Legendary six samurai sub-archetype in this set. It was one of the two Six samurai cards that were difficult to get hold of. The other being Grandmaster.

Well. Does this warrant buying some special editions? Well, each one of these promos dont need to played in more than 2 copies, so you might want to buy a few.

Storm of Ragnarok: Cards to look out for

Yes, i know. the release date for the next set is still a month away. but like starstrike blast, it has a plethora of interesting core cards that i would like to discuss. Storm of ragnarok (STOR) introduces new archetypes and support cards which are brand new and some which debuted in the anime.

• The Aesirs: These 3 gods have come straight from nordic mythology and STOR gives each different Aesir a bunch of monsters to synchro into it. Thor has the nordic beasts, Loki has the nordic alfar and Odin has the nordic ascendants. As well as that, there are many support cards that have devastating effects while you control any Aesir. But one of the best parts about the aesirs is that when they are destroyed, by removing the appropriate tuner (remove the one you used to synchro it), it special summons itself at the end phase and something happens. Thor lets you deal 800 damage, Loki lets you get a trap card back to your hand from the graveyard and Odin lets you draw a card. But thats not all. Each aesir has their own effects that can shut down your opponent.
• The Legendary Six Samurai: STOR introduces the Legendary Six Samurai sub-type. It is a bunch of new monsters and support cards which in the OCG, have pushed Six samurai to tier 1 (alongside blackwings and a couple of other decks). They get a new swarming monster alongside Grandmaster of the six samurai called Legendary Six Samurai - Kizan. As well as other cards, combined with the original six samurai cards (especially Gateway of the six which can create disgusting loops), this is the deck to look out for next format.
• More Karakuri support: Since Karakuri debuted in the newest set, Starstrike blast, Karakuri have consistent OTK abilities and an overpowered Synchro monster which you can bring 3 out very easily. But with the new support in STOR, they have just got better. STOR introduces new monsters and more support. A notable support card is Borrowed Karakuri house, which lets you add a karakuri from your deck to your hand, at the cost of switching the battle position of one of your karakuri monsters.

As well as that, there are interesting cards in particular i would look out for:

• Apple of Frigg, a normal trap card: When you take Battle Damage while you control no monsters, you can activate this card. Gain Life Points equal to the Battle Damage you took. Then, Special Summon 1 "Wicked Spirit Token" (Fiend-Type/DARK/Level 1/ATK ?/DEF ?). Its ATK and DEF are equal to the Life Points you gained from this card's effect.
• Tyrant's insults, a normal trap card: Tribute 2 face-up monsters you control. Neither player can activate the effects of Effect Monsters that activate on the field or in the hand.
• Vanadis of the Nordic Ascendant, a confirmed exclusive for the TCG: You can substitute this card for any 1 "Nordic" Tuner Monster for a Synchro Summon. If this card is used as a Synchro Material Monster, all other Synchro Material Monsters must be "Nordic" monsters. Once per turn, you can send 1 "Nordic" monster from your Deck to the Graveyard to change this card's Level to the Level of the monster you sent to the Graveyard, until the End Phase.

So there you have it. The three cards listed above is only the tip of the iceberg as far as hidden gems are concerned. If you want to see the set list, click here.

Yu-Gi-Oh! Card Review: Pot of Duality

With a new set of cards, comes a bunch of fun new reviews!

The duelist revolution is the latest set, and by far the most hyped and discussed card in the set is the Pot of Duality

Pot of Greed and Pot of Generosity in one card!

Its effect is simple, balanced and generally quite useful regardless of what deck you play. You reveal the top 3 cards from your deck to you and your opponent, then you select one and add it to your hand. Then send the other 2 back into your deck and shuffle it.

Now on the outside, it seems like a fair 1-for-1 (you trade in this card for another), but it goes much deeper than that. Being able to dig 3 cards deep in your deck means that pot of duality becomes a card that you want right this second from your deck, and not 1,2 or 3 turns later.

That alone is why its so good. It takes some of the luck out of the deck, makes it more consistent (meaning you pull off the same combos more often) and there is no discard cost or a life point cost either!

BUT, all powerful cards needs a drawback, and to some decks, its a very harsh one. the turn you activate Pot of Duality, you cannot special summon OR activate another pot of duality. that drawback means it might not fit in EVERY deck, like Infernities which special summon many times within a couple of turns.

So there you have it. This card is a perfect example of balanced draw power, and its guaranteed to make your deck better!

Right now Pot of Duality is worth about £60 ($100) so if you want a playset for your deck, be prepared to fish out at least £150 ($250) for them.