I like to throw my readers a bone every now and then, with an article about the things you actually want to read about: NEW CARDS! Brace yourself though, the article is a little lengthy.

EVO-Crushinators of Doom isn’t just a funny name, it’s the first expansion to the Duel Masters Base Set, and the first of four stand alone expansions to the game, before we enter block format. The first expansions usually hold some of the best cards in the game, and the most expensive when their scarcity goes up.

Expansions just seem to have a way of shaking things up. In most games, after they get going, it’s sometimes harder to find awesome cards that will see play from expansions as the game gets going, but the first few usually drastically change the shape of the metagame as it was previously known. Now, we suddenly have 1.5 times as many cards as we had before, and the game looks a lot different. And through all these different expansions, the game will evolve in so many different paths, it’s next to impossible to catch up.

With the game evolving, it seems pretty adequate that the first expansion to Duel Masters would feature a new mechanic in which you can actually evolve your own creatures, an effect probably dubbed from the Pokémon TCG.

What’s the game look like now? Well, there are about five top-tier decks where I play. Nature/Darkness Control (As I’ve already delved into), Domain (Four-color Control Deck), Water/Darkness Control, Fire/Darkness Control, and Nature/Water Tempo.

Notice how many times “control” is up there? Clearly, we’re in the midst of a heavy control format right now. Right now, the Aggro deck is the one that needs the most help from the new set, and it might just get it.

Four of the above decks use Darkness, which in my opinion is the best type right now. Darkness has pure creature destruction in it’s grasp, which works particularly well as creatures need to wait a turn before attacking. Evolution creatures totally annihilate this rule.

One of the biggest strong points of evolution creatures is that they don’t have summoning sickness, allowing them to attack right away. This lets you deal an extra hit on them before they get a chance to respond with Terror Pit or Teleportation. Is also heavily hampers the effectiveness of Death Smoke. With better creatures that Spells can’t reach as easily, expect boards to be more cluttered with creatures than before. It also makes it more easy to make mistakes, which will allow players to take more advantage of deck building skills and playskill, rather than dumb luck.

It’s pretty important to keep in mind that playing Evolution cards does come at a big risk, and many players may not think of it as so. Evolution cards do cost less for a bigger package, and usually net great effects, but it also nets you card disadvantage. The cost of summoning an evolution creature is like disregarding one of your own creatures already in play. While some spells like Natural Snare may allow you to take further advantage of the card underneath, other effects could potentially devastate your game, like sending a creature on top of your deck. This effect would normally be annoying, as it also stifles your draw phase, but with evolution creatures, it does double damage on your card advantage.

Here’s a good example…

Let’s assume you’re on the draw, and you have 5 cards in your hand, never missing a drop in your mana zone. During one of your turns, you summon a creature, giving you four cards. Later on, you evolve that creature, giving you three cards. You still only have one card in play, where if you summoned a non-evolution creature, you would have two. If the creature is destroyed, let‘s say by Terror Pit, two cards go to the graveyard. Since it only cost your opponent one card, your opponent got card advantage on you, in slang, a 2-for-1. If your had just summoned a normal creature that was destroyed, your opponent would be up no cards at all, since one card was used to destroy one card, in slang, they traded.

Let’s say your opponent put a creature on top of your deck through the effect of a spell. If the creature wasn’t evolved, it would go into a zone of the game, the deck, where you would be unable to use it right away, which means you lost a card. But your opponent also lost a card in the transaction, so you both broke about even. In addition, your opponent didn’t take care of the problem, just delaying it. Which means you could have pulled out of the situation a little better.

However, if that creature had an evolution card on it, both would go on top of your deck, in any order the caster chooses. Because two cards are now in a zone of the game where you can’t use them, at the cost of only one card of your opponent, they got a 2-for-1. Your opponent will usually make it so you draw the evolution creature, which could disrupt your next turn, giving them an even bigger advantage.

That doesn’t mean evolution creatures aren’t good. It just means that they do come with their inherent risk of nasty drawbacks. There will be a lot of attempted Aggro decks that revolve around evolution creatures, and not all of them will soar off the ground. Only through heavy playtesting can the perfect strategy for evolution creatures be really found. And right now the playtesting has to be heavily geared towards beating control.

Control isn’t about to break your shields at all, until they can deal with whatever you can serve up. Ironically most control decks totally disregard blockers, and just rely on their spells for creature denial. This could turn out to be your greatest advantage. With little to no blockers and only a jumbo grip of removal spells in their hands, a creature that can attack right away will put them on the back-foot. The control decks generally work off the back foot anyways, but they have to establish control in order for their deck to work. Your best plan right now is to not let that happen.

Eventually, through the vast stages of 2-for-1 trades your opponent will be getting, it will be hard to keep up with them card for card. With that, what do evolution creatures need to let them beat the control decks?

One of the best things you can give a creature to beat control decks is Double Breaker. It puts them on a faster clock. It allows you to hold cards in your hand, even if you’re at a disadvantage, until you’re ready to summon it right away and attack. Your plan against control is going to be getting them with no shields and swinging with an evolution creature for the win.

Beforehand, the only real strategy was massing your little guys out there and hoping they couldn’t kill them all, which often times they did with Vampire Silphy. Now your strategy is much more stable, and you’ll have more options available.

If control decks get down, you’ll also need to know how to play versus the other aggro decks, and not always the mirror match. Evasion is the one thing that allows one aggro deck to outmaneuver the other one. The ability to go through your opponents creature without the fear of being blocked is a big one, since you can kill them faster. Sometimes you just need bigger creatures than your opponent though.

Some of the new evolution creatures will increase the power of your other creatures while they’re in play. Barkwhip, the Smasher increases the power of all Beast Folk by 2000 while it’s in play. This effect will spawn a cycle of “tribal” based decks that will not only use cards of a certain civilization, but of only one creature type to.

The Tribal theme will run rampant throughout the set. Tribal “lords” is a dubbed nickname for creatures that will reward you by sticking to a certain type of creature, by giving them added effects. King Nautilus is a Water creature that makes all Liquid People unblockable. King Nautilus is the Lord for Liquid People, and that is the effect it gives. Expect people to be building decks around it.

This is also another inherent downside to playing with evolution creatures. As they can only evolve from one type of creature, you may find yourself playing with tier two cards just as evolution bait. Burning Mane isn’t the best of cards, but because it’s a Beast Folk, it has the potential to evolve into something like Fighter Dual Fang. This allows Burning Mane to become a threat, when normally it wouldn’t be.

This also puts in the “what if” factor that can break hard decisions in the game. You find yourself saying something like: “I could win right now, but what if…” or “If he’s holding the <insert random card name here> I lose, but if he’s not, I win.”

It’s the fact that your opponent could have that card that makes a lot of people flinch, and makes games to fun and tight. Wizards knows what their doing. Some of the cards that will come out are bad, but are printed just because in these random situations, they could be devastating.

So, putting all that into motion, what decks are going to get big? I’m sure that’s what you’re all thinking. There’s going to be tribal decks for Nature, Fire, and Water definitely. Light might get some, and possibly Darkness, even though there’s little support for it’s base creature type, which in this set will be Parasite Worm.

Other archetypes will spawn that mirror ones from other games, most notably Magic: The Gathering, since it seems to have the most design similarity to Duel Masters. Some of you will hate to admit it, while other are geared that this game is still a Yu-Gi-Oh! rip, which it’s clearly not, as it requires thinking.

Mono-Green is going to get big, with Beast Folk paving the way. The two evolution creatures Nature gets are both Beast Folk, and both have absolutely amazing effects. One only costs a measly two for a 5000 body, that pumps your other guys up as well. The other has 8000 and double breaker, which is amazing on evolution creatures, and ups your mana.

Beasts is probably going to be one of the faster decks to contend with, and that’s just if it stays in it’s own color. Nature knows how to support both itself and another color, while still staying true to the beat down formula. While mono-Green may be the best way to go, expect hybrid popping off everywhere with it’s mana manipulation capabilities.

I call it that, since Humans sounds a little weird. Red Dawn, or whatever other name it can be called will utilize Fire’s evolution creatures rather than Natures. Fire seems to have a lot more creature kill and rush mechanics involved, combined with some of the biggest dudes in the game, it could be a force to contend with. Armored Blaster Valdois is a Double Breaking, 6000 Power, evolution creature for a mere four mana. As if that wasn’t good enough, it pumps your other creatures by 1000 while their in the battle zone, no matter what creature type they are.

Again, hybrids will appear, but probably will not fare as well as Nature, which has the mana accel to support it. Fire seems to have all the tools it needs on it’s own to rush into your opponents face. If Beasts doesn’t get off the ground, Red Dawn will probably take grasp of the tier 1 aggro deck.

A named dubbed nicely in Magic terms, Suicide Black is a deck that paid whatever it had to in order to serve up a victory. Most of the creatures had nasty drawbacks you simply didn’t care about because they were big.

General Dark Fiend is just such a creature. For five you get a 6000 double breaker. Whenever it attacks, you sacrifice a shield though. This is the attempt Darkness has made to go aggro. While it’s hard to shift from the tier 1 control color to a good aggro color, Darkness may very well have the tools to do it, or if not a nice hybrid deck.

If that doesn’t go well, the parasite evolution creatures coming out certainly will. Chaos Worm is simply amazing. A five mana evolution creature that lets you kill a creature upon it’s arrival into the battle zone. You can kill their only line of defense, and swing right away too, a deadly combination. The only downside is there’s so little parasite worms out right now. There’s also a certain Darkness evolution creature with 11000 power. But more on that later…

Seas is a dubbed named I came up with for the soon-to-be ten million attempts to break King Nautilus in an Liquid People deck. King Nautilus is not to be fooled with, at eight mana, it has 6000 power, Double Breaker, and makes all Liquid People unblockable. Read again though, that’s all Liquid People. While it looks awesome on paper, I believe it’s fairly overhyped. It’s a solid creature, but I still think the evolution creatures is where we have to look for the goods.

Crystal Lancer is downright amazing. An unblockable Double Breaker that’s unaffected by summoning sickness means two shields right away. That, and the fact it has 8000 power means we won’t be seeing it die from combat too often. It also evolves from a fairly easily cast set of creatures, Liquid People. There are many inexpensive ones, like Aqua Hulcus and Soldier, which see play by how good they are anyways.

Crystal Paladin may be my new favorite card though. When it’s summoned it shoves all blockers back to their owners hands. This means not only is it busting through, but so are your other creatures. It also allows you to find better use for early game blockers you played who outlived their usefulness. Add in 5000 power, and it’s amazing. Water evolution creatures rely slightly more on effects than sheer power like Fire and Nature ones. Still, expect them to make a splash on the tourney scene, be it tier 1 or not.

Blockade is another dubbed name I came up with. Blockers suddenly got a lot more use. With the addition of the Evolution creatures, your former blockers which will protect you from the early rush, can turn into your trump card as they gain potentially devastating tricks.

Light is known for having a busted spell like Holy Awe, and Diamond Cutter is no different. Suddenly, all your blockers can attack… shields! So do your creatures with summoning sickness. You can also evolve a puny Guardian into Ladia Bale, the Inspirational, which tops at 9500 attack and can still block. It also has Double Breaker making it a double edged sword for any occasion Light may find itself in.

While the other colors are getting hyped, I think Light could be the diamond in the rough and could shine through from the single worst color in constructed to one of the best.

What will happen to the now dominant control decks we have come to know and have attempted to play around? Expect spin-off or updated versions to come out (including Swamp Version 1.1) and try their hand at the field again. Don’t be surprised if the deck does a complete 180 on what it used to do, or if it falls off the tier map totally.

Well, that’s it for this week. Sorry, no deck lists. Next week, after the set is officially released, I will show you numbers and cards, adding to around 40 or so, as I delve into the wonderful world of EVO-Crushinators with analysis on one of the above archetypes. IM or email me if your particularly adamant on seeing any one of them in my next article, because as of right now, I’m ready to pull them out of a hat. Until next week…

-hydromorph

AOL: hydromorph1602