Critique and Analysis:

Distant Rumblings of the Thunder’s Charge
June 10^th, 2005
By JMatthew

Peering into the Japanese sets of Duel Masters allows us to peek into the future of our own Duel Masters environment. True, some of these cards will not be turned out to us with the exact same text as their Japanese counterparts. However many will remain intact and so we should be able to get pretty good idea of what is going to happen. In this article we take that peek so that we might have chance to prepare for the inevitable storm to come.

Card images and translations are courtesy of Ideal808 who happens to be a regular supporter of Pojo. Be sure to check them out! In addition, they have many of these cards in Japanese right now, allowing you to get the jump on all your friends out there. I know many of you former and current Yugi-Oh players have been conditioned to stay away from Japanese cards, but remember – in Duel Masters you merely need to own and have present a single English copy of the card in order for you to play with up to a full play set of Japanese Duel Masters cards in any sanctioned tournament!

Alright, with out further commentary let’s take a look at a few of the cards that may be in “Thundercharge of Ultra Destruction” that I believe show the most promise.

DM7-29 Bloody Charger
Uncommon - Spell Card

Civilization: Darkness
Type: Spell Card
Power:
Cost: 3
Found In: Series 7 Invincible Charge
Card #: 29/55

Translation:

· Select 1 of your creatures in your battle zone. During this turn, this creature becomes a Slayer (When this creature loses a battle, destroy the other creature.)

· Charger (After you use this spell card, place this card in your mana zone instead of placing it to your graveyard.

The very first spell ability is about to be introduced – Charger. This is an interesting ability with which the spell goes straight to your mana pool after being cast. Bloody Charger is likely one of the best of these cards. Especially useful if your opponent has been able to get the early game drop on you, with Bloody Charger not only can you send your weenie out to kill their brute, but you also get a mana to boot! Nice…

DM7-35 Moebius Charger
Uncommon - Spell Card

Civilization: Natural
Type: Spell Card
Power:
Cost: 3
Found In: Series 7 Invincible Charge
Card #: 35/55

Translation:

· You may select 1 of your creatures in your battlezone and place it in your mana zone.

· Charger (After you use this spell card, place this card in your mana zone instead of placing it to yout graveyard.

Yet another one of the Charger cards. Moedius is very similar to previously printed cards, however the charger ability is what truly makes it work while allowing you to end up playing three mana in a single turn. Though this may cost three mana, I prefer to see myself playing this to place a Bronze-Arm Tribe into my mana zone, thus having two cards generate a total of four mana for me.

DM7-14 Chain Slash
Rare - Spell Card

Civilization: Darkness
Type: Spell Card
Power:
Cost: 5
Found In: Series 7 Invincible Charge
Card #: 14/55

Translation:

· Select 1 of your opponent's creature in the battle zone and destroy it.

Darkness has the most powerful creature control in the game. No matter how hard Fire or Nature try to catch up, Darkness always remains leaps and bounds ahead. Welcome to Darkness newest creature control card. While this card is one more than Death Smoke you aren’t forced to face any iffy restrictions upon it’s casting. One less than Terror Pit looses you the shield trigger ability, however still makes it arguably playable.

DM7-30 Otherworldly Warrior Nagul
Uncommon - Armorloid

Civilization: Fire
Type: Creature
Power: 4000+
Cost: 6
Found In: Series 7 Invincible Charge
Card #: 30/55

Translation:

· Power attacker +3000 (While attacking, this creature gets +3000 power.)

· Double breaker (This creature breaks 2 shields.)

· This creature cannot be attacked.

There are several creatures in this set which simply “can not be attacked.” This ability is actually much more powerful then you may think at first as it allows you to have a creature that can only be destroyed when your opponent plays a spell to kill it (or if you are just plain stupid and slam it head on into an overpowering blocker). Out of all of these creatures Nagul is likely the most powerful as it is a double breaker and gains a nice +3000 bonus when attacking.

DM7-46 Flying Man
Common – Hedrian

Civilization: Darkness
Type: Creature
Power: 1000
Cost: 2
Found In: Series 7 Invincible Charge
Card #: 46/55

Translation:

· When this creature is destroyed, you may select 1 card from your opponent's hand without seeing the card and put it in the opponent's graveyard.

Hand control/destruction has generated a great deal of interest lately. Enter Flying Man, yet another card to add to your hand destruction arsenal. While this is not instantaneous hand destruction like Ghost Touch and it’s friends, Flying Man possesses the unique ability to threaten your opponent into confusion. Kill it, they loose a card – don’t kill it they loose shields!

DM7-28 Poison Tiara
Uncommon - Brain Jacker

Civilization: Darkness
Type: Creature
Power: 2000
Cost: 3
Found In: Series 7 Invincible Charge
Card #: 28/55

Translation:

· When you are attacked, you get "Slayer" until the end of this turn(When this creature loses a battle, destroy the other creature.)

How obscene is this? A creature that turns a player into a slayer? With all the shield manipulation available to us at this point this creature is looking incredibly powerful. Heck, I might even be willing to start experimenting about with Raza Vega! By the way – even more shield manipulation should be available with the release of this set.

DM7-19 Crused Totem
Rare - Mystery Totem

Civilization: Natural
Type: Creature
Power: 6000
Cost: 6
Found In: Series 7 Invincible Charge
Card #: 19/55

Translation:

· Double breaker (This creature breaks 2 shields.)

· While this creature is in the battle zone, your opponent cannot use "Shield Trigger".

This card terrifies me. Please, please, please, PLEASE, PLEASE tell me you are errataing this card Wizards of the Coast! Why?? This card is outright broken! Look – 6 mana for a 6000 creature is par for green and that’s fine. Unfortunately, this creatures doesn’t stop there. Double Breaker is first add – okay, the card is slightly broken, but only slightly. Wait – let’s add another ability. How about we make your opponents shield triggers useless? Yeah, that sounds good! Uh…no!!! This wrong, wrong, wrong!!! Okay – calm down JMatthew. The set hasn’t actually come out. Perhaps Wizards will play it smart. They’ve done with Duel Masters in the past.

Please?

Regards,

JMatthew

jmarkulin@satx.rr.com