Reviewing Every Core Yu-Gi-Oh Booster Set: Arc-V Era

Wait… Monsters that act like Spells? Hello Pojo Readers, Crunch$G back reviewing every Core Set in the game’s history by getting to one of the more controversial eras due to the new summoning mechanic, Pendulum Summoning. I’ve finally gotten to the Arc-V Era, so of course we’ll see a lot of Pendulum Monsters in these sets. Pendulum Monsters are those cards that can be a Monster or a Spell basically, can have a Monster and Pendulum Effect, and have Scales to help you summon monsters of various Levels from your hand or face-up from your Extra Deck, which is where Pendulum Monsters typically go. It’s controversial due to the power level of Pendulums in theory, which was mostly balanced with a lack of Pendulum Decks being meta compared to how many there were. The meta in this era was still mostly not Pendulum-based except for a select few times. Oh yeah, there was also the Wyrm-type making its debut. Here we’ll look at all the Arc-V era sets to see how good there are, and there are some very good ones in this era, so let’s get started with these sets.

Duelist Alliance

Release Date: August 15th, 2014
Cover Card: Odd-Eyes Pendulum Dragon
Sneak Peek Promo: Dragon Horn Hunter

It’s kinda big to start with possibly one of the greatest sets of all time, but that’s just how Arc-V started off. This set completely shifted the meta to favor archetypes that debuted in this set while everything before it went down a peg just for this set existing. We see new archetypes in this set like Melodious, Performapal, Shaddoll, Superheavy Samurai, tellarknight, Yang Zing, Odd-Eyes, Burning Abyss, and U.A. while also supporting old archetypes like Artifacts, Archfiends, Batterymen, Numbers, Agents, Djinns, Monarchs, Skull Servants, Fishborg, Gaia, and Lightsworns. The TCG Exclusives in this set are Doomstar Magician, Scarm, Malebranche of the Burning Abyss, Graff, Malebranche of the Burning Abyss, Cir, Malebranche of the Burning Abyss, Dante, Traveler of the Burning Abyss, The Traveler and the Burning Abyss, U.A. Mighty Slugger, U.A. Perfect Ace, and U.A. Stadium and the OCG Imports are Gaia the Polar Knight, Gaia the Mid-Knight Sun, Chaos Seed, Exchange of Night and Day, Number 58: Burner Visor, Felis, Lightsworn Archer, Fishborg Doctor, Panzer Dragon, Cloudcastle, and Pilgrim Reaper. This won’t really change throughout this era, so I’ll get the regular ratios out of the way now with 8 Secret Rares, 10 Ultra Rares, 14 Super Rares, 20 Rares, and 48 Commons. You still have the Ghost Rare and 5 Ultimate Rares in this set during this time, but I’ll let you know when those are gone of course. The Ghost Rare was Stellarknight Delteros, which was also an Ultimate Rare alongside Odd-Eyes Pendulum Dragon, El Shaddoll Construct, Saffira, Queen of Dragons, and Baxia, Brightness of the Yang Zing. The Secret Rares gave us Odd-Eyes Pendulum Dragon to search weaker Pendulum Monsters while in the Scale and prevent damage while also doing double damage as a monster, Raiza the Mega Monarch to return cards on field and in grave to Deck and give you an additional card on field if you used a WIND to Tribute Summon this, Baxia, Brightness of the Yang Zing as a Synchro that needs Wyrm non-Tuners to shuffle cards on field up to the number of different Attributes you used to summon this and to pop a monster you control to revive a Level 4 or lower monster, Stellarknight Delteros as a Rank 4 needing 3 Level 4s to prevent your opponent from responding to your summons while also popping cards and floating into other tellarknights, Yang Zing Path to return your Yang Zings to Deck for a draw 2, Magical Spring to let you draw for your opponent’s face-up Spells and Traps at the cost of discarding for your face-up Spells and Traps and then gives those face-up Spells and Traps basically complete immunity for a few turns, Time-Space Trap Hole to return monsters Special Summoned from hand or Extra Deck to the Deck at a cost of 1000 LP for each, and Dante, Traveler of the Burning Abyss as a generic Rank 3 that can let you mill up to 3 cards for a 500 ATK boost per each and also going to Defense Position after it attacks and grabbing your Burning Abyss cards from grave after it goes to grave. Ultra Rares have Satellarknight Deneb for the searcher in tellarknights, Chiwen, Light of the Yang Zing to be a Level 1 Tuner that floats into other Yang Zings and revive itself when you Special Summon your Yang Zings. El Shaddoll Winda as a Fusion of any Shaddoll and DARK that is immune to effect destruction while locking the players to Special Summoning only once a turn and retrieving your Shaddoll Spells/Traps upon going to grave, El Shaddoll Construct as a Fusion of any Shaddoll and LIGHT that sends any Shaddoll card from Deck to grave on Summon while also having a Catastor-like effect for Special Summoned monsters and floating into retrieving a Shaddoll Spell/Trap, Saffira, Queen of Dragons to let you have the option to draw 2 and discard 1, discard a random card from the opponent’s hand, or add a LIGHT monster from grave to hand the turn you Ritual Summon this card or send a LIGHT monster from hand or Deck to grave, Stellarnova Alpha to send your tellarknights to grave to be an Infernity Barrier that also lets you draw a card, Sinister Shadow Games to send Shaddoll cards from Deck to grave while also flipping your Shaddolls face-up, Yang Zing Creation to be a card that locks you into Synchro Summons only from Extra Deck in exchange to float into another Yang Zing when a Yang Zing you control is destroyed, Doomstar Magician to pop a card in the Pendulum Zone and draw you a card at the cost of a discard, and Felis, Lightsworn Archer to be a Level 4 Tuner that summons itself from grave if sent from Deck by a monster effect and can tribute itself to pop a monster and mill 3. Super Rares have Dragon Horn Hunter as a Scale 2 vanilla monster with a Pendulum Effect to boost your Normal Monsters by 200 ATK and prevent you from taking damage from battles involving them, Foucault’s Cannon as another Scale 2 vanilla Pendulum that pops a face-up Spell or Trap during the End Phase of the turn it’s activated in the Pendulum Zone, Satellarknight Alsahm to burn the opponent for 1000 on summon, Suanni, Fire of the Yang Zing as another Yang Zing floater that lets you Synchro Summon on the opponent’s turn and gives a Synchro Monster that uses it as material a 500 ATK/DEF boost, Bi’an, Earth of the Yang Zing as yet another Yang Zing floater that lets you Synchro on the opponent’s turn and gives a Synchro that uses this as material protection from destruction in battle, Bixi, Water of the Yang Zing with the same Yang Zing effects and gives a Synchro that uses this as material immunity from Trap Effects, Pulao, Wind of the Yang Zing for more regular Yang Zing stuff and gives a Synchro using it as material protection from Spell effects, Hypnosister to have effects based on cards in the Pendulum Zones with 1 or more giving this a 800 ATK and DEF boost, 2 or more destroying any Pendulum Monster this battles at start of Damage Step, 3 or more forcing your opponent’s monsters to attack this if able, and 4 letting you draw a card if this monster destroys another monster, Samsara, Dragon of Rebirth as a generic Level 5 Synchro that revives any other monster in grave when destroyed, Castel, the Skyblaster Musketeer as a generic Rank 4 that can detach 1 material for a Book of Moon or detach 2 materials to shuffle a face-up card on field into Deck, Shaddoll Fusion to let you Fusion Summon any Shaddoll using monsters in hand or field or also letting you use the Deck if the opponent has a monster summoned from the Extra Deck, Shaddoll Core as a Continuous Trap that summons itself as a monster that can be treated as any Attribute to summon a Shaddoll and being sent to the grave lets you retrieve a Shaddoll Spell/Trap from grave, Pendulum Back to retrieve 2 monsters from grave with Levels between your Pendulum Scales, and The Traveler and the Burning Abyss to revive any Burning Abyss monsters sent there that turn. Noteworthy Rares have Superheavy Samurai Big Benkei as a monster that can swap battle position on Summon and attack in Defense Position using its 3500 DEF, Mozarta the Melodious Maestra to summon LIGHT Fairies from hand once per turn at the cost of locking your summons to LIGHTs, Satellarknight Altair to revive a tellarknight on summon, Shaddoll Falco as a Tuner that revives a Shaddoll in face-down Defense Position on FLIP and revives itself if sent to the grave by an effect, Shaddoll Dragon to bounce an opponent’s card on FLIP and pop a Spell/Trap if sent to the grave by an effect, Shaddoll Beast to let you draw 2 and discard 1 on a FLIP and a draw 1 if sent to the grave by an effect, Satellarknight Skybridge to shuffle a tellarknight you control into Deck to summon a different tellarknight from Deck, Scarm, Malebranche of the Burning Abyss to be Special Summoned from hand if you control no set Spells and Traps and popping itself if you control no Burning Abyss just like all the other Burning Abyss monsters alongside a search for a Level 3 DARK Fiend at the end of the turn it was sent to the graveyard, Graff, Malebranche of the Burning Abyss with the Burning Abyss effects and to summon a Burning Abyss from Deck after being sent to the graveyard, Cir, Malebranche of the Burning Abyss with those Burning Abyss effects and revives a Burning Abyss after being sent to grave, U.A. Mighty Slugger to bounce a U.A. from hand to summon itself and preventing the opponent from using cards or effects when attacking, U.A. Perfect Ace to summon itself from hand by bouncing a U.A. and to discard a card to negate any opponent’s card or effect, and Panzer Dragon as an Instant Fusion that pops a card when it is destroyed. The Short Printed Commons in this set are Spy-C-Spy to reveal a card in the opponent’s Extra Deck to gain 1000 ATK if the revealed monster had 2000 or more ATK or recover your LP by the ATK of the revealed monster if it had less than 2000 ATK, Wightprince to send Skull Servant and The Lady in Wight from Deck to grave if it’s sent to grave and can be banished alongside 2 Skull Servants to summon a King of the Skull Servants from Deck and this is treated as Skull Servant in the graveyard, Pop-Up to activate a Field Spell from Deck if the opponent has a card in the Field Zone, and That Six to treat the result of a 1, 3, or 5 from a dice roll as a 6 or you can treat a roll of a 2, 4, or 6 as a 1. Noteworthy Commons have Superheavy Samurai Blue Brawler to swap its battle position on summon and can’t be destroyed in battle, Aria the Melodious Diva to give your Melodious monsters protection from targeting and battle destruction if it was Special Summoned, Sonata the Melodious Fairy to Special Summon from hand if you control a Melodious and boost all your Fairies by 500 ATK/DEF while you control this Special Summoned card, Satellarknight Vega to summon a tellarknight from hand on summon, Satellarknight Unukalhai to send a tellarknight from Deck to grave on summon, Shaddoll Hedgehog to search a Shaddoll Spell/Trap on FLIP and a Shaddoll monster upon being sent to the grave by a card effect, Shaddoll Squamata to pop a monster on FLIP and send a Shaddoll from Deck to grave upon being sent to the grave by a card effect, Artifact Lancea with the old Artifact stuff and can be tributed during either player’s turn from hand or face-up from field to prevent players from banishing cards until the end of the turn, Nefarious Archfiend Eater of Nefariousness to be Special Summoned from hand while you control a Spellcaster and to revive itself by popping a face-up monster you control, The Agent of Entropy – Uranus as a Level 5 Tuner to be Special Summoned from hand if you control The Sanctuary in the Sky and can send an Agent from Deck to grave to have this monster’s Level become equal to the Level of the sent monster, Djinn Demolisher of Rituals to be able to be used in grave as Ritual Material and gives a Ritual that uses it as material protection from targeting, Batteryman 9-Volt to search a Batteryman on summon and then doubling its ATK and DEF while also popping itself during the End Phase, Resonance Insect to search a Level 5+ Insect upon being sent from field to grave and sending any Insect from Deck to grave on banish, Re-Cover as a Level 1 Tuner that revives itself at a 2000 LP cost if the opponent has 5 or more cards in the Extra Deck than you do, Deskbot 001 as a Level 1 Tuner that gains 500 ATK/DEF for each Machine you control and can revive itself when you Special Summon 2 or more Machines at once, Feast of the Wild LV5 to summon 2 Level 5 Warriors from hand and/or grave with their effects negated and unable to attack that turn, Hymn of Light to Ritual Summon Saffira, Queen of Dragons and can banish itself from grave to protect a Ritual from being destroyed, The Monarchs Stormforth to let you Tribute Summon using your opponent’s monsters that turn at the exchange of locking you from your Extra Deck, U.A. Stadium to boost your monsters by 500 ATK/DEF when you Special Summon a U.A. monster and search for a U.A. monster when you Normal Summon another U.A. monster, and Cloudcastle as a generic Level 9 Synchro that revives a Level 9 on Synchro Summon and prevents Level 8 or lower monsters from attacking the turn they’re summoned. Overall, this is probably one of the best sets ever just due to how much it changed the meta on release. After the release of this set, all of the topping strategies were mainly from this set while everything before it could of been rogue at best. Satellarknights, Shaddolls, and Burning Abyss were some of the best archetypes in this set and Yang Zings did have some power to themselves. Castel, the Skyblaster Musketeer was also a great generic Rank 4 to get, Shaddoll Fusion changed how we saw Fusion Summoning for the rest of time, and we got a decent first Pendulum in Odd-Eyes Pendulum Dragon. This was a very game-changing set, it deserves the praise it gets from players.

Set Rating: 10/10

The New Challengers

Release Date: November 7th, 2014
Cover Card: Dark Rebellion Xyz Dragon
Sneak Peek Promo: Lancephorhynchus

Continuing most of what we saw in Duelist Alliance, The New Challengers came along and added fuel to the fire of what we saw in the meta alongside a new contender. You had support for archetypes like Shaddoll, tellarknights, Yang Zing, Melodious, Performapal, Monarchs, Naturia, Machina, Burning Abyss, and more alongside the debuts of Qli and the Frightfur/Fluffal archetypes. The five Ultimate Rares in this set were Frightfur Bear, El Shaddoll Shekhinaga, Yazi, Evil of the Yang Zing, Dark Rebellion Xyz Dragon, and Stellarknight Triverr, and this was a case where the Ghost Rare was the cover card with Dark Rebellion Xyz Dragon being given the honor. Overall the Secret Rares were great in this set with swarming capabilities of Qli with Qliphort Disk, the FIRE and and especially great EARTH Fusions for Shaddolls with El Shaddoll Grysta and Shekhinaga respectively, a powerful Scrap Dragon-like Synchro that floats into any Wyrm for Yang Zings with Yazi, a powerful generic Rank 4 that can help run over any Monster with Dark Rebellion Xyz Dragon, a new Solemn Judgment-like card with more drawbacks with Solemn Scolding, a Level 6 Synchro for Burning Abyss with Virgil, Rockstar of the Burning Abyss, and the big boss from the final episodes of Zexal in Number 99: Utopic Dragon. The Ultra Rares were fairly loaded as well with the ever important searcher for Qli in Qliphort Scout, a Yang Zing that quickly swarms the field for Synchros with Jiatou, Darkness of the Yang Zing, and interesting floodgate-like Monster against non-Wyrms with Night Dragolich, a new Mega Monarch that later became popular in Ritual Decks with Zaborg the Mega Monarch, the powerhouse that locked down the opponent’s backrow with Denko Sekka, the ultimate Herald boss with Herald of Ultimateness, basically the win condition for tellarknights due to its field bouncing and hand destruction with Stellarknight Triverr, a great Equip Spell for Qli due to its battle protection and searching capabilites with Saqlifice, a nice searcher for specific Fusion Materials and Polymerization recovery option with Fusion Reserve, and Burning Abyss’s Tuner in Rubic. The Super Rares were fine with Lanphorhynchus giving your vanillas some piercing while in the Scale, one of the important Edge Imps for Fluffals due to being required for several Fusions in Edge Imp Sabres, the two Level 6 Qlis that remove cards when tributed with Qliphort Carrier to bounce Monsters and Qliphort Helix to pop Spells and Traps, a Level 5 Yang Zing with Taotie, Shadow of the Yang Zing that prevents the opponent from stealing a Synchro you summoned using this, a new Machina in Megaform that floats upon Fortress leaving the field and tributing itself to Lonefire Blossom out any Machina, the Pendulum equivalent for a Rescue Monster with Resuce Hamster that recovers Pendulums in the Extra Deck while in the Scale and tutors out 2 Pendulums from the Deck, a Fusion of vanillas that’s immune to all non-vanilla Monsters with First of the Dragons, a generic Level 4 Synchro that negates cards or effects, banishing of cards sent from the Deck or hand to the grave, and a search for any Ritual Monster or Spell with Herald of the Arc Light, a variant of A Hero Lives for Melodious with 1st Movement Solo, a Quick-Play Fusion Spell for Shaddolls with El Shaddoll Fusion, a removal Trap that trades 2 Burning Abyss Monsters for 3 of the opponent’s cards with Fire Lake of the Burning Abyss, a powerful Rank 6 that debuffs all the opponent’s Monsters to 0 ATK on summon with Number 39: Utopia Beyond, and the final Barian boss from Zexal with CXyz Barian Hope. Noteworthy Rares include Performapal Trampolynx for its early role in bouncing Qliphort Scout for another search in Qliphort Decks, Superheavy Samurai Scales for a free and easy Special Summon in the archetype that also revives a Superheavy Samurai on summon, a nice searcher for your Fluffals or Edge Imp Sabres with Fluffal Dog, a quick Polymerization searcher or Fusion enabler itself with Fluffal Owl, a strong double attacking piercer for Qli with Qliphort Shell, the powerhouse boss for Qli at the time with Apoqliphort Towers, the quick OTK enabling for Fluffals with Frightfur Wolf, a Naturia searcher upon sent to the grave and a tutor option to swap EARTH Plants for EARTH Insects and vice versa with Naturia Sacred Tree, a free revival for any Monster while turning them into Wyrms with Oasis of Dragon Souls, a much needed Level 4 for U.A.s with Midfielder, and the powerful Utopia draw power of Xyz Change Tactics. The Short Prints were Ms. Judge for her negation of the opponent’s first effect if you hit two heads, a Goblin card searcher if it does damage unless the opponent hands you a card from their hand with Scrounging Goblin, a new Bamboo Sword Equip that gives the Monster 0 ATK and upon being sent to the grave lets you search another Bamboo Sword with Cursed Bamboo Sword, and a card that lets both players summon a banished Monster face-down with Different Dimension Encounter. Noteworthy Commons give us cards like Canon the Melodious Diva for a free Special Summon if you have another Melodious Monster, a Superheavy Samurai Monster that equips itself to a Superheavy Samurai from hand for a 1200 DEF boost and attack negation with Superheavy Samurai Soulshield Wall, a searcher for Toy Vendor in Fluffals with Fluffal Bear, a Polymerizaton recovery card upon being Fusion Material with Fluffal Cat, a Level 2 Beast Tuner that revives Level 2 or lower Beasts in Attack or face-down Defense Position with Valerifawn, Mystical Beast of the Forest, the Deskbot searcher on Special Summon with Deskbot 002, the Fluffal searcher upon being sent to grave along with offering a discard for a draw and Special Summon if you hit a Fluffal or Edge Imp Sabres with Toy Vendor, the double Normal Summon for Qli on a Field Spell with Laser Qlip, the Ritual Spell for Herald of Ultimateness that cannot be responded to by the opponent with Oracle of the Herald, a recovery Trap for Qlis in the Extra Deck with Qlimate Change, a Polymerization substitute that banishes itself to recover a Fusion to the Extra Deck and offer a draw with Fusion Substitute, the OTK enabling Equip Spell for U.A. with U.A. Powered Jersey, and the searcher for Rank 10 Train Decks in Ruffian Railcar. Overall, this set was not on the same power level as Duelist Alliance, but it was a good follow-up from the set by supporting various archetypes that debuted in the previous set. We saw some good Shaddoll cards with their EARTH Fusion and Quick-Play Fusion Spell, Burning Abyss got a nice Synchro to use alongside their Xyz in Dante, Satellarknights got what is basically their main win condition to this day in Triverr, and we saw the debut of Qliphort as one of the first meta worthy Pendulum Decks the game saw. We also had some nice cards here in there with Herald of the Arc Light, Zaborg the Mega Monarch, and Dark Rebellion Xyz Dragon and some great Numbers with Number 99: Utopic Dragon and Number 39: Utopia Beyond. It was a great set overall to support the previously established archetypes for this era.

Set Rating: 8.5/10

Secrets of Eternity

Release Date: January 16th, 2015
Cover Card: Rune-Eyes Pendulum Dragon
Sneak Peek Promo: Dragoons of Draconia

Out of all the sets in this era, this is easily the worst one in an era with otherwise very good sets. With that said, there’s some redeeming qualities in here. We continue to support some of the top archetypes at the time with Nekroz, Qli, Tellarknight, Shaddoll, and Burning Abyss alongside some other legacy support for archetypes like Dragunity, Wind-Up, Volcanic, X-Saber, Morphtronics and continuning support for Performapals, Superheavy Samurai, Ritual Beast, Yosenju, and many more. We are also introduced to the first Raidraptors and the Infernoid archetype, probably the shining light of this set. Our five Ultimate Rares are Infernoid Onuncu, Nekroz of Gungnir, Superheavy Samurai Warlord Susanowo, Metaphys Horus, and Stellarknight Constellar Diamond. The Ghost Rare in the set is Malacoda, Netherlord of the Burning Abyss. Overall mostly good Ultimate Rares, but somewhat of a strange Ghost Rare. The Secret Rares give us Infernoid Onuncu for one of  Infernoid’s main bosses for their Main Deck, Qliphort Monolith as a second good Pendulum Scale that’s a vanilla monster in Qli, Nekroz of Gungnir for another potential toolbox piece in Nekroz, Nephe Shaddoll Fusion despite being the Fusion Spell the archetype hardly plays, Pot of Riches to give Pendulums some draw power with a massive downside, A Wild Monster Appears! to cheat out some interesting monsters from hand, Soul Transition as an interesting piece of draw power for Qli potentially, and Malacoda, Netherlord of the Burning Abyss to give BA a Ritual and mark another summoning mechanic off the list. Ultra Rares include Infernoid Harmadik as one of the better low level Infernoids, Qliphort Stealth as one of the best Qlis to Tribute Summon, Apoqliphort Skybase to be Towers but worse, Caius the Mega Monarch to upgrade what was once one of the better Monarchs, Rune-Eyes Pendulum Dragon for some interesting Odd-Eyes Fusion plays, Metaphys Horus as a very interesting Synchro that gives benefits based on its Synchro Materials, Stellarknight Constellar Diamond as a pretty good Rank 5 to slap on top of other Tellarknight Xyzs and to give the archetype a counter to Shaddoll and Burning Abyss, Sky Cavalry Centaurea for a good generic Rank 2 that helps bounce bigger monsters it battles alongside its immunity to destruction in battle with its Xyz Materials, Eye of the Void for an alternate way to summon Infernoid monsters, and Swordsman of Revealing Light for some stall options. The Super Rares in this set include some key Superheavy Samurai cards like Superheavy Samurai Flutist, Trumpeter, and Warlord Susanowo alongside Infernoid Antra, Qliphort Cephalopod, and Satellarknight Rigel to support some of the better archetypes, legacy support cards with Jinzo – Jector and Skilled Blue Magician, some interesting tech cards with Thunderclap Skywolf and Lightning Rod Lord, the WIND Fusion for Shaddoll with El Shaddoll Wendigo, more Infernoid Spells and Traps with Void Seer and Void Launch, and the Ritual Spell for Burning Abyss with Good & Evil in the Burning Abyss. Noteworthy Rares include Dragoons of Draconia as a cool piece for Normal Monster Pendulum strategies, Performapal Trump Witch to give that series access to Fusions, Infernoid Patrulea for another Infernoid name, Dance Princess of Nekroz to make your Ritual Summons harder to counter, Koa’ki Meiru Overload as monster effect negation in Rock Stun, Gem-Knight Lady Lapis Lazuli for FTKs in Gem-Knights, Raidraptor – Nest for searching in Raidraptors, Gottoms’ Second Call for revival in X-Sabers, Nekroz Cycle to Ritual Summon from grave in Nekroz, Tenacity of the Monarchs to make your Monarch Spells and Traps searchable, more Burning Abyss names with Farfa being the best of the three and Libic and Cagna offering other options, more offensive and defensive options for U.A. with Playmaker and Blockbacker, and a free Warrior extender with Doggy Diver. Short Pritned Commons include Legendary Maju Garzet for more ATK power, Marmiting Captain as a retrained Maruading Captain that’s worse, Extra Net to counter Special Summons from the Extra Deck, and Double Trap Hole to take care of monsters summoned in Defense Position. Noteworthy Commons give us Performapal Partnaga as a Scale 3 Reptile that later Performapal Decks ran to search, Superheavy Samurai Soulpiercer to give Superheavy Samurais piercing and searching, Raidraptor – Vanishing Lanius to help Raidraptors spam the board more, Gem-Knight Lapis to summon your FTK enabler, more Infernoid names with Piaty, Seitsemas, and Attondel, Yosenju Tsujik to give Yosenjus some ATK boosting, Spiritual Beast Rampengu to help banish more Ritual Beasts. Morphtronic Smartfon as a Tuner that can Special Summon itself and potentially add another Morphtronic to hand, Jigabyte as a free Special Summon in Spellcaster strategies, Uni-Zombie as a Tuner that helps send Zombies from hand and Deck to grave, Deskbot 003 to summon your Deskbots from Deck, Dragunity Divine Lance to help equip your Dragunity monsters from Deck, Re-qliate to give Qlis their own floodgate, Ritual Beast Ambush to summon your Ritual Beasts in grave and/or banished, Zenmaiday to help give your Wind-Up Xyzs more materials and to rank them up into bigger Wind-Ups, Unpossessed to boost your Familiar-Possessed monsters and help summon them from Deck when your monsters are destroyed, Blaze Accelerator Reload to give Volcanics some draw power and a way to send Volcanic Scattershot from Deck to grave, Mischief of the Gnomes to mess with your opponent’s plays that rely on specific Levels, and Dododo Witch to summon your Dododo monsters from hand for Xyz plays. Overall, this is still the worst set of the Arc-V era in my opinion, but there’s 100% still some really good cards in here to boost the already released archetypes. It also gave us Infernoid, which has held up very well over the years and still gets tops to this day every once in a while. Volcanics came back to meta relevance thanks to this set and the lone card the set gave the archetype, which is still the last card they’ve received in the last 6-7 years as of posting this. The set is okay overall, just nothing amazing.

Set Rating: 6.5/10

Crossed Souls

Release Date: May 15th, 2015
Cover Card: Clear Wing Synchro Dragon
Sneak Peek Promo: Sea Dragoons of Draconia

The thrid Dimension Dragon makes its debut as we reach Crossed Souls, which is a little bit of an upgrade over Secrets of Eternity. In this set we support Fluffal/Frightfur, Infernoid, Melodious, Nekroz, Performapal, Raidraptor, Ritual Beast, Superheavy Samurai, Shaddoll, Tellarknight, Yang Zing, Yosenju, Burning Abyss, and U.A. for some archetypes of the time and legacy support for Madolche, Galaxy/Photon, Harpie, Junk, and Utopia. We also see the debut of the Zefra archetype to bring the lore of several archetypes together, and we see Void become a proper archetype for the Infernoid Spells and Traps. The Ultimate Rares in this set are Nekroz of Sophia, Frightfur Chimera, Ritual Beast Ulti-Gaiapelio, Clear Wing Synchro Dragon, and Tellarknight Ptolemaeus, with Crystal Wing Synchro Dragon being the Ghost Rare. A good overall batch of Ultimate Rares and a good Ghost Rare. The Secret Rares in this set include Ghost Ogre & Snow Rabbit as the first Ghost Girl to be printed and help pop cards that activate their effects, Nekroz of Sophia for a gimmicky boss in Nekroz to help clear the board, El Shaddoll Anoyatyllis for the WATER Fusion in Shaddoll to help counter Nekroz, Clear Wing Synchro Dragon as a generic Synchro to counter Level 5 or higher monsters, Oracle of Zefra as the searcher for Zefra that gives added benefits when you use any of the Extra Deck summoning mechanics, Galaxy Cyclone to help serve as double removal against Spells and Traps, Jar of Avarice as a Trap version of Pot of Avarice that can return any card to the Deck at the cost of only 1 draw instead of 2 with the original, and Dante, Pilgrim of the Burning Abyss as the Fusion for the archetype later used to summon off Beatrice. Ultra Rares give us Satellarknight Zefrathuban to serve as removal for face-up monsters in Tellarknight or Zefra Decks, Zefraxi, Treasure of the Yang Zing to serve as a monster to turn your Yang Zings or Zefras into Tuners, Infernoid Pirmais as another Infernoid name that can shuffle set cards into the opponent’s Deck without a response, Infernoid Devyaty as the second Main Deck boss for Infernoid, Bloom Diva the Melodious Choir as the main Fusion for Melodious that helps get rid of Special Summoned monsters and do some burn, Ritual Beast Ulti-Gaiapelio as the massive boss monster for the Ritual Beast archetype, Tellarknight Ptolemaeus as a generic Rank 4 to cheat out any Rank 5 monster with great ease, Madolche Puddingcess Chocolat-a-la-Mode as a Rank 5 for Madolche to help continue your combos and put cards back in Deck, Lose 1 Turn for a floodgate against monsters the turn they are Special Summoned by turning them to Defense and negating their effects, and The Terminus of the Burning Abyss to give the archetype a Fusion Spell. Super Rares give us Superheavy Samurai Battleball to let you Synchro Summon using the opponent’s monsters, Frightfur Leo to pop the opponent’s monsters each turn and do some burn, Frightfur Sheep to help get some guaranteed attacks and the ability to revive itself with an 800 ATK boost when destroyed, Chaofeng, Phantom of the Yang Zing as a Synchro to lock the opponent from using effects of monsters with Attributes that match the Yang Zings you used to Synchro this card along with searching a Tuner upon destruction and summoning a Wyrm from Deck when you destroy the opponent’s monsters, Void Vanishment to search your Void Spells and Traps as well as going to grave to banish an Infernoid and opponent’s mosnter when they battle, Unexpected Dai to summon any Level 4 or lower Normal Monster from Deck while you control no monsters, Zefra Divine Strike to give Zefra a piece of omni-negation, Monster Rebone to revive an opponent’s monster to your field when they Special Summon a monster, Draghig, Malebranche of the Burning Abyss as another Burning Abyss name that lets you stack your Deck when it is sent to grave, The Melody of Awakening Dragon to search for any 2 Dragons with 3000+ ATK and less than 2500 DEF, Powerful Rebirth to revive any Level 4 or lower monster with its Level boosted by 1, Number S39: Utopia Prime to overlay on top of a Utopia monster to let you comeback when your 3000 LP behind to turn your LP to 10 and banish your opponent’s Special Summoned monsters and adding 300 burn for each, Galaxy-Eyes Full Armor Photon Dragon to overlay on top of your Galaxy-Eyes Xyzs to serve as removal for face-up cards, and Harpie Harpist as another Harpie Lady to search your Harpies during End Phase when it goes to grave. Noteworthy Rares include Sea Dragoons of Draconia to support Normal Pendulums by letting you summon Normal Monsters from hand when monsters are destroyed in battle, Stellarknight Zefraxciton as removal for face-down cards for Zefra and Tellarknights, Zefraniu, Secret of the Yang Zing as a searcher for Zefra or Yang Zing Spells/Traps when Pendulum Summoned or destroyed, Schuberta the Melodious Maestra as a Fusion for Melodious that can banish cards from grave once for a small ATK boost, Raidraptor – Blaze Falcon as a Rank 5 in Raidraptors you Rank-Up into to attack directly and destroy opponent’s monsters as a result alongside detaching a material to destroy an opponent’s Special Summoned monsters, Raidraptor – Revolution Falcon as a Rank 6 you Rank-Up into to detach a material and attack all monsters the opponent controls as well as changing Special Summoned monsters this card battles to 0 ATK alongside the option to pop an opponent’s monster and deal some burn if it has a Raidraptor Xyz as material, Fusion Conscription to search for any monster specifically listed on a Fusion Monster in the Extra Deck, Frightfur Fusion as a Miracle Fusion for the Frightfur archetype, Rank-Up-Magic Revolution Force as the Rank-Up for the Raidraptor archetype, Moon Mirror Shield to guarantee your monster is stronger than an opponent’s monster it battles by 100, Barbar, Malebranche of the Burning Abyss to give BA some burn, and Junk Anchor to serve as a substitue for any Synchron Tuner and discarding a card to revive a non-Tuner Junk monster in your grave for an immediate Synchro Summon. Short Prints in this set include Phantom Gryphon as a 2000 ATK vanilla monster, Putrid Pudding Body Buddies as a monster you can’t really use as any material but instead can pop your Pendulum Scales to give to the opponent to potentially burn them, Harmonic Oscillation to let you Pendulum Summon using your opponent’s Scales as long as it’s from the Extra Deck only, and Diceversity to change a monster’s Level that’s already different from it’s original Level to the result of a dice you roll. Noteworthy Commons give us Performapal Lizardraw for some draw power in the Pendulum Scale for Performapal, Superheavy Samurai Big Waraji as a free Special Summon in Superheavy Samurai as long as you have no Spells and Traps in grave and serves as 2 Tributes for a Superheavy Samurai, Superheavy Samurai Gigagloves to stack your Deck in Superheavy Samurai while helping stop damage from direct attacks by changing an opponent’s monster ATK to 0 when the attack and you have a Superheavy Samurai on top of the Deck, Fluffal Sheep to Special Summon from hand if you control a Fluffal and bounces a Fluffal to revive a Edge Imp, Edge Imp Chain to search for Frightfur Spells and Traps, Raidraptor – Mimicry Lanius to banish itself from grave to search your Raidraptor Spells and Traps as well as boosting your Raidraptor Levels by 1 while on the field, Ritual Beast Tamer Zeframpilica as a monster that revives a Ritual Beast or Zefra on Normal/Pendulum Summon, Infernoid Sjette as another Infernoid name that helps destroy the opponent’s Extra Deck, Deskbot 004 to send your Deskbots from Deck to grave to gain 500 ATK times the sent monster’s Level when it battles and lets you summon 2 different Deskbots after it destroys a monster in battle, Doomdog Octhros as a searcher for Level 8 Fiends, Frightfur Factory to banish your Polymerization or Fusion Spells to Fusion Summon a Frightfur using monsters from hand/field and recovers a banished Frightfur Fusion when it goes to grave, Zefra Path as a floodgate against Special Summoning in Zefra, Fiend Griefing to return an opponent’s monster in grave to Deck while sending a Fiend from your Deck to grave, Abyss Stingray and Statue of the Anguish Pattern as some modern Trap Monsters, U.A. Dreadnought Dunker to give U.A. some piercing and destruction options, U.A. Rival Rebounder to summon another U.A. from hand or grave when summoned on the opponent’s turn or Normal Summoned, U.A. Signing Deal to summon any U.A. from Deck at the cost of some LP, U.A. Penalty Box to banish monsters that U.A. monsters battle for a few turns and search a U.A. Spell by banishing itself from grave, Cybernetic Fusion Support to pay half your LP to use any of your hand, field, or grave for any Fusion Summon in Cyber Dragons once that turn, and Primitive Butterfly as a free Level 5 Insect to Special Summon itself and it can increase its own Level by 1 each turn. There’s some pretty good cards in here, and a solid archetype debuting that has held up over time in Zefra. Besides Tellarknight Ptolemaeus, nothing is really broken in this set. It’s still a decent set to give the meta some updates still and it gave us Ghost Ogre & Snow Rabbit. It’s solid, but not the most groundbreaking set.

Set Rating 7.5/5

Clash of Rebellions

Release Date: August 7th, 2015
Cover Card: Odd-Eyes Rebellion Dragon
Sneak Peek Promo: Sky Dragoons of Draconia

Now it’s time to begin what I believe is a streak of really good sets that continued for the rest of the era, starting with Clash of Rebellions. We got a lot of strong stuff going on here with support for Fluffal, Infernoid, Pendulum Magician, Melodious, Odd-Eyes, Performapal, Raidraptor, and Void for current archetypes and legacy support for Cyber Dragons/Toons, Gem-Knight, and Red-Eyes. We also got two new TCG exclusive archetypes debuting with Kaiju and Kozmo with D/D making its TCG debut finally, the first Speedroid being printed in the TCG, and the debut of the Aroma, Dracoslayer, Igknight, and Performage archetypes in general. The Ultimate Rares in this set are Archfiend Black Skull Dragon, Infernoid Tierra, Ignister Prominence, the Blasting Dracoslayer, Odd-Eyes Rebellion Dragon, and Red-Eyes Flare Metal Dragon, with Flare Metal being the Ghost Rare in this set to wrap up a very strong lineup for Ultimate and Ghost Rares. The Secret Rares in this set give us The Black Stone of Legend to summon your Red-Eyes monsters from Deck and recycle your Red-Eyes monsters in grave while also returning from grave to hand, Aromage Jasmine for some draw power when you gain LP and an extra Normal Summon for the archetype when you have higher LP, Archfiend Eccentrick to serve as a potential monster removal and/or Spell/Trap removal option, Odd-Eyes Rebellion Dragon as the first Pendulum Xyz in the game, Red-Eyes Flare Metal Dragon as a generic Rank 7 that helps revive your Red-Eyes monsters and deal 500 burn each time the opponent uses a card effect alongside its immunity to effect destruction, Mistaken Arrest to prevent cards from being added from Deck to hand until the end of your next turn, Storming Mirror Force to bounce your opponent’s Attack Position monsters when they declare an attack, and Tatsunoko as a generic Level 3 Synchro Tuner that lets you use a monster in your hand as Synchro Material. Ultra Rares give us Igknight Templar as an Igknight name to help fill your scales with Igknights to search your FIRE Warriors, Aromage Rosemary to help make your Plant monsters attacks be near uncounterable while you have higher LP and gives the ability to swap battle positions when you gain LP, Gem-Knight Lady Brilliant Diamond to sacrifice one of your Gem-Knights to get a free Fusion, Archfiend Black Skull Dragon as a Black Skull Dragon retrain to help deal massive burn after it attacks alongside its near uncounterable attacking ability, Infernoid Tierra as a Fusion for Infernoids to help mill your Deck and Extra Deck alongside other effects in Infernoids, Ignister Promience, the Blasting Dracoslayer as a Synchro for Pendulums to summon your Dracoslayers from Deck and help shuffle cards into Deck by destroying your Pendulums, Cards of the Red Stone as a Destiny Draw for Red-Eyes that also lets you send from Deck to grave after, Kozmo Farmgirl to search your Kozmo cards after it deals battle damage and summon your bigger Kozmo monsters from hand, Absorb Fusion as a searcher for Gem-Knight monsters that also can let you perform a Fusion Summon afterwards, and Hi-Speedroid Kendama as a generic Level 6 Synchro that does piercing alongside the abilities to banish a Machine from grave for 500 burn and reviving itself if you control no cards. Super Rares give us Xiangke Magician to let you use Xyz Monsters as Xyz Material as if their Rank was a Level, Xiangsheng Magician to change the Rank of an Xyz you control to the Level of a Level 5 or higher monster you control, Fluffal Mouse to help summon more Fluffal Mouse from Deck on Normal Summon, Red-Eyes Black Flare Dragon as a Gemini for Red-Eyes that deals 2400 burn after it battles, Red-Eyes Archfiend of Lightning as another Gemini in Red-Eyes to destroy your opponent’s monsters in DEF as long as their DEF is less than your monster’s ATK, Luster Pendulum, the Dracoslayer as a Pendulum Tuner to destroy your other Pendulum Scale to search a card with the same name, Igknight Crusader as another Igknight name similar to Templar, Infernoid Decatron as a Level 1 Tuner for the archetype to send your Infernoid from Deck to grave to increase Decatron’s Level by the sent monster’s alongside copying the sent monster’s effects, Brillaint Fusion to let you Fusion Summon a Gem-Knight using monsters in your Deck as material, Red-Eyes Fusion to let you Fusion Summon any Red-Eyes related Fusion by using monsters in your Deck as material, Void Imagination as Infernoid’s Fusion Spell that can let you use your Deck for materials potentially and make your Infernoids Level 1 while you control it, Dried Winds as a Continuous Trap for Aromage to pop your opponent’s cards each time you gain LP, Kozmo Goodwitch for a Book of Moon effect at the cost of 500 LP and to banish itself to summon a bigger Kozmo from hand, and Superheavy Samurai Ogre Shutendoji as a Synchro for the archetype to destroy the opponent’s backrow on summon. Noteworthy Rares include Sky Dragoons of Draconia to pop your opponent’s cards when your Normal Monsters deal damage, Crystal Rose to send your Gem-Knight or Melodious monsters from Deck to grave to copy the name, Aromage Bergamot to gain 1000 ATK when you gain LP and do piercing when your LP are higher, Magical Abductor as a Pendulum Monster that gains Spell Counters and use them to search any Pendulum Monster or Level 1 Spellcaster depending on if its a Pendulum Scale or monster, Toon Cyber Dragon as a Toon version of the original Cyber Dragon, D/D/D Oracle King d’Arc as a Fusion for D/Ds to turn effect damage into LP gaining, Performage Trapeze Magician as a Rank 4 Xyz for Spellcasters to give monsters the ability to double attack and turns any burn lower than the ATK of this monster to 0, Kozmo Forerunner as a Level 5 in Kozmo that pops Spells and Traps on summon and can banish itself from grave upon destruction to summon a smaller Kozmo monster from Deck, Kozmo Forerunner as a Level 7 Kozmo that gives you 1000 LP each Standby Phase and banishes itself from grave to summon a smaller Kozmo from Deck, Kozmotown to shuffle your Kozmos from hand to Deck to redraw alongside recovering banished Kozmo monsters and searching a Kozmo monster upon destruction, and we get the first two Kaijus in Dogoran, the Mad Flame Kaiju and Kumongous, the Sticky String Kaiju to help out the opponent’s boss monsters. Short Prints include Risebell the Summoner as a Normal Pendulum Monster that can increase a monster’s Level by 1, Retaliating “C” to summon itself from hand when the opponent uses a Spell that summons a monster and banishes any card that would be sent to grave alongside the ability to float into any EARTH Insect with 1500 or less ATK upon going to grave, Chicken Game as a Field Spell that can offer you some draw power at a 1000 LP cost, and Side Effects? to let the opponent draw 1 to 3 cards and you gain 2000 LP for each card. Noteworthy Commons include Raidraptor – Fuzzy Lanius to Special Summon itself while you control a Raidraptor and searches another Fuzzy Lanius when it goes to grave, Raidraptor – Singing Lanius as a free Special Summon while an Xyz Monster is on your field, Performage Damage Jugger to discard itself to negate burn damage or battle damage and can banish itself from grave to search another Performage monster, Performage Hat Tricker to Special Summon itself from hand while 2 or more monsters are on the field, Performage Trick Clown to revive a Performage from grave when it goes to grave alongside 1000 burn to you, Black Metal Dragon to equip itself from hand to a Red-Eyes monster and searches a Red-Eyes card upon going from field to grave, Keeper of the Shrine to revive itself when your Dragon is sent to grave by an effect and retrieves a Dragon Norma if it was a Normal Monster that was sent to grave, more Igknight names with Squire, Paladin, Margrave, and Gallant, Aromage Canaga to bounce the opponent’s Spells and Traps when you gain LP and debuffs their monsters by 500 ATK/DEF while you have higher LP,  Deskbot 005 as a Scale 10 in Deskbots that pops an opponent’s Spell/Trap on summon, Pianissimo to change your monster’s original ATK to 100 and prevent it from being destroyed by battle or card effects that turn, Aroma Garden as a Field Spell to give you 500 LP while you control an Aroma monster alongside a 500 ATK boost until the end of the opponent’s turn and another 1000 LP if your Aroma monsters are destroyed, Wavering Eyes to destroy Pendulum Scales and offer some strong bonus effects, Return of the Red-Eyes to revive Normal Monsters while you control a Red-Eyes monster and revives a Red-Eyes monster upon destruction, Humid Winds to let you pay 1000 LP and search an Aroma monster alongside boosting your LP by 500 each time the opponent has higher LP, Balance of Judgment to let you draw cards equal to the surplus of cards your opponent controls vs cards you control and in your hand, Kyoutou Waterfront to gain counters when monsters go to grave and search Kaijus while it has 3 or more counters, and Secret Blast to burn the opponent for 300 per each card they control and another 1000 damage if they destroy it. There are a ton of good cards in this set that changed the meta. We got the first Performages, Kozmos, and Dracoslayer monsters to start the build to one of the most powerful Deck’s in the game, alongside some good generic cards like Flare Metal Dragon, Storming Mirror Force, Archfiend Eccentric, etc. We also got a new FTK piece in Chicken Game, alongside another strong Short Print with Retaliating “C” being a decent hand trap in the right meta. We also got Kaijus to change the way we out annoying boss monsters in an era where boss monsters were getting tons of protection. A great set in an era of other great sets.

Set Rating: 9.5/10

Dimension of Chaos

Release Date: November 5th, 2015
Cover Card: Scarlight Red Dragon Archfiend
Sneak Peek Promo: Samurai Cavalry of Reptier

We might be halfway through the Arc-V era, but it is the end of an era in terms of Ghost Rares and Ultimate Rares being in core booster sets, as this pack was known for the last core set to have Ultimate Rares before they became OTS exclusive, as well as the last set with Ghost Rares for nearly 5 years. It also was the last set without a foil in every pack, so there was at least a positive change coming. Anyways, Dimension of Chaos was the final set of 2015 and gave us support for current archetypes like D/D, Deskbot, Frightfur/Fluffal, Igknights, Odd-Eyes, Performages, Performapals, Raidraptors, Superheavy Samurai, Kozmo, and Kaiju alongside legacy support for Blackwings, Gaia the Fierce Knight, and Toons alongside making Black Luster Soldier a proper archetype, plus the debut of the Majespecter and Graydle archetypes. The Ultimate Rares in this set are Black Luster Soldier – Super Soldier, Odd-Eyes Vortex Dragon, Scarlight Red Dragon Archfiend, Assault Blackwing – Raikiri the Rain Shower, and Majester Paladin, the Ascending Dracoslayer, with Scarlight Red Dragon Archfiend being the Ghost Rare to wrap up the final Ultimate and Ghost Rares in core sets in a pretty strong way. Secret Rares in this set include Odd-Eyes Vortex Dragon to give Odd-Eyes a Fusion that has some good omni-negation for Pendulums, Scarlight Red Dragon Archfiend as a good generic Level 8 Synchro to take care of Special Summoned monsters weaker than it and do some burn on top, Odd-Eyes Fusion so you have a Fusion Spell for the archetype, Painful Decision as a searcher for Level 4 or lower Normal Monsters, Blazing Mirror Force as a Mirror Force that does some burn on top, Urgent Ritual Art to copy Ritual Spells in the graveyard, Painful Choice to tribute a monster to search a monster with similar stats, and Kozmo Dark Destroyer as an untargetable 3000 ATK body that pops a monster on summon and upon destruction lets you summon a lower Level Kozmo from Deck. Ultra Rares give us Charging Gaia the Fierce Knight for a mosnter you can get on field without tributes and search for Black Luster Soldier monsters when tributed, Majespecter Racoon – Bunbuku for a searcher for your Majespecter monsters, Black Luster Soldier – Super Soldier to retrain the original vanilla monster with some actual effects, Frightfur Sabre-Tooth to help the archetype OTK easier by reviving Frightfurs and giving them a small ATK boost, Assault Blackwing – Raikiri the Rain Shower to give Blackwings a Synchro that helps destroy other cards, Majester Paladin, the Ascending Dracoslayer for a Pendulum-related Xyz that summons Dracoslayers from the Extra Deck and searches Pendulum Monsters, Igknight Reload as a Reload for Pendulums that doesn’t make you go minus, Super Soldier Shield to give Black Luster Soldier some negation, Majespecter Tornado as a Trap to banish the opponent’s monsters, and Kozmo Strawman to summon your banished Kozmos and banish itself to summon a bigger Kozmo from hand. The Super Rares in this set gives us The Legendary Fisherman III to give an upgrade to the original monster after so many years, Beginning Knight and Evening Twilight Knight to give your BLS Rituals some bonus effects for using them as Ritual Material and an option to search your Ritual pieces, Vector Pendulum, the Dracoverlord as a new Normal Pendulum to negate the effects of your opponent’s Pendulum Scales, Majespecter Cat – Nekomata to search for any Majespecter card in the End Phase, D/D/D Wave Oblivion King Caesar Ragnarok as a boss Fusion for D/D/D to take your opponent’s monsters as equips to boost this card’s ATK, Graydle Dragon to give Aqua Decks a Level 8 Synchro to help pop cards for using WATER monsters as Synchro Material, D/D/D Duo-Dawn King Kali Yuga as a Rank 8 for D/D/D to negate the effects of other cards the turn this is summoned alongside a Heavy Storm Quick Effect and the effect to recover your Dark Contracts, Gateway to Chaos to help search your Gaia the Fierce Knight and Black Luster Soldier Ritual cards, Majesty’s Pegasus to tribute your WIND Spellcasters to summon Level 4 or lower Majespecters from Deck, Majespecter Cyclone as a Quick-Play Spell to help destroy monsters, Graydle Parasite to summon Graydles from Deck when you’d take a direct attack and revive your opponent’s monsters when your Graydles would declare a direct attack, Kozmo DOG Fighter to summon Tokens with similar stats during the Standby Phase and upon destruction summons a smaller Kozmo from Deck, and D/D/D Rebel King Leonidas to summon itself when you take effect damage and prevent you from taking more effect damage. Noteworthy Rares give us Samurai Cavalry of Reptier to destroy non-Pendulum Monsters this card attacks, Performapal Secondonkey as a potential way to send Performapals from Deck to grave or to add to your hand, Performapal Helpprincess as a free Special Summon from hand when you summon a Performapal, D/D Berfomet to adjust your D/D monster Levels to anything between 1 and 8, Majespecter Unicorn – Kirin to give Pendulums a Quick Effect ability to bounce your own Pendulums alongside the opponent’s monsters, Graydle Slime to pop your Graydle cards to Special Summon and revives a Graydle when summoned that way, Giant Pairfish to let you summon any Level 4 or lower Wyrm from Deck by discarding a monster, Toon Barrel Dragon as a Toon retrain of the original Barrel Dragon, Rank-Up-Magic Raid Force as another Rank-Up for the Raidraptor archetype, Super Soldier Ritual to Ritual Summon your BLS Rituals, more Kaijus with Radian, the Multidimensional Kaiju and Gameciel, the Sea Turtle Kaiju, D/D/D Wave King Caesar as a Rank 4 for D/D to summon monsters destroyed during the Battle Phase after it ends and searches more Dark Contracts upon going to grave, and D/D/D Oblivion King Abyss Ragnarok to give you another way to revive D/D monsters. Short Prints give us Pot of the Forbidden as a FLIP monster with the effect of four powerful Spells, Dr. Frankenderp to pay 500 on summon to look at the top card of Deck to potentially add it to hand if you want, Super Rush Headlong to give your monsters the ability to destroy your opponent’s monsters of a certain Attribute you attack, and First-Aid Squad to get a Normal Monster back to hand and summon itself as a monster when your Normal Monster is destroyed in battle. Noteworthy Commons give us Superheavy Samurai Thief to give the archetype a way to steal your opponent’s Spells/Traps or Pendulum Zone cards, Superheavy Samurai Transporter as a free Special Summon in the archetype for having no Spells/Traps in your grave,Superheavy Samurai Drum to revive a Superheavy Samurai on destruction, Superheavy Samurai Soulhorns to give your Superheavy Samurais the ability to double attack, Fluffal Wings to give you some draw power and send your Toy Vendor to grave, D/D Swirl Slime to let you Fusion Summon a D/D using your monsters in hand alongside itself and banishes itself from grave to summon a D/D from hand, D/D Necro Slime to give you a Miracle Fusion by banishing your Necro Slime and another Fusion Material, Performage Mirror Conductor to swap the ATK and DEF of monsters on the field, Performage Plushfire to float into your Performages in Deck upon its destruction, Majespecter Crow – Yata and Majespecter Fox – Kyubi to search your Majespecter Spells and Traps respectively, more Igknight names with Igknight Cavalier and Veteran, Graydle Aligator, Cobra, and Eagle to steal your opponent’s monsters when they’re destroyed in battle or with Spell, Trap, or Monster effects respectively, Deskbot 006 to help Deskbots complete their scales, Deskbot Jet to give Deskbots a Synchro that summons other Deskbots from Deck or give you a Scrap Dragon like effect, Shuffle Reborn as a nerfed version of Monster Reborn that can give you a little draw power, Majespecter Storm to help you return your opponent’s mosnters to Deck, Graydle Impact to give you some searching for Graydle monsters or a way to destroy your opponent’s cards and your own Graydles, Dark Contract with Errors to give D/Ds some Trap negation, Majespecter Tempest to negate your opponent’s Special Summons or monster effects, Grand Horn of Heaven to negate your opponent’s Special Summons and end the current Phase, Komzo Wickedwitch to become immune to destruction and banish itself from field to summon a bigger Kozmo from hand, D/D Savant Kepler to search your Dark Contracts on summon, Dark Contract with the Gate to search your D/D monsters each turn, Dark Contract with the Swamp King to let you Fusion Summon a D/D every turn, and Dark Contract with the Witch to give D/D some Quick Effect destruction and a 1000 ATK boost on the opponent’s turn. Overall a good followup to Clash of Rebellions and to help put the archetypes on another level. Performages get one of their strongest cards in Performage Plushfire, D/D get the cards to finally become a proper strategy in the TCG, Majespecters are a decent archetype for Pendulums to help take care of the opponent’s monsters, Kozmo becomes a massive force with Dark Destroyer, and we got a new generic Synchro in Scarlight Red Dragon Archfiend and the best Kaiju to use with Gameciel since it’s the weakest one. A great set overall as the end of an era for Ultimate and Ghost Rares.

Set Rating: 9/10

Breakers of Shadow

Release Date: January 15th, 2016
Cover Card: Enlightment Paladin
Sneak Peek Promo: Steel Cavalry of Dinon

Giving up Ultimate and Ghost Rares were a price that had to be paid if we were going to try and make this game more budget friendly. We’ve finally hit Breakers of Shadow, the set that changed the rarity spread of core sets that hasn’t went back to this very day as of writing minus some few changes, and the set that brought one of the strongest Deck’s in the game’s history that got nerfed just a few weeks after arrival. Breakers of Shadow is the set that guaranteed Super Rares and made both Ultra and Secret Rares easier to pull, so from this point forward I’ll start to treat the Super Rares like I have the Rares. This set also gave us support for Dracoslayer, Pendulum Magician, Majespecter, Performapal, Melodious, Odd-Eyes, Speedroid, Superheavy Samurai, Kaijus, and Kozmos alongside legacy support for Blackwings, Buster Blader, Deskbot, Ninjas, Toons, Atlanteans, Black Luster Soldier, Cyber Dragon, Gaia the Fierce Knight, Red-Eyes and Traptrix alongside the debut of the Dinomist, Destruction Sword, and Shiranui archetypes. Our Secret Rares give us Buster Blader, the Dragon Destroyer Swordsman as your anti-Dragon boss monster for the Buster Blader Deck, Solemn Strike to give us generic negation for Special Summons and monster effects, Ultimate Providence to negate any card just as long as you have the same card type in hand, Kozmo Dark Eclipser as a big boss monster that is untargetable alongside its Trap negation and floating effect on destruction to search a lower Level Kozmo, Kozmojo to give the archetype some banishing removal alongside destroying your Kozmos, Performapal Pendulum Sorcerer to destroy your cards to search your Performapal monsters, Cyber Dragon Infinity as a Rank 6 that can negate nearly anything in a Deck that can make Cyber Dragon Nova, and Traptrix Rafflesia as a generic Rank 4 that can let you use your Hole Traps from Deck. Ultra Rares in this set give us Buster Blader, the Destruction Swordmaster as a Buster Blader retrain, Shiranui Spectralsword as a Tuner that can use your Zombies in grave to help make Zombie Synchros, Odd-Eyes Gravity Dragon to give Odd-Eyes a Ritual that bounces the opponent’s Spells and Traps as well as makes them pay 500 LP when they use cards or effects, Enlightment Paladin as a generic Synchro that Magician Pendulums can use to recover Spells from the grave and any Deck can use to destroy opponent’s monsters in battle and burn the opponent for their monster’s ATK, Buster Dragon as a Level 8 Synchro to turn your opponent’s monsters into Dragons and equip your Buster Blader monsters with Destruction Sword cards easier, Shiranui Shogunsaga as a Level 8 Synchro for Zombies to banish your Zombies in grave for this to get a temporary ATK boost, Quaking Mirror Force to make your opponent’s Attack Position monsters to face-down Defense Position where they can’t switch their position just as long as your opponent declared an attack, Kozmo Tincan to help search your Kozmo cards in the End Phase and banish itself to summon a bigger Kozmo from hand, Neptabyss, the Atlantean Prince to send your Atlanteans from Deck to grave to search other Atlanteans as well as helps revive Atlanteans when Neptabyss is sent to the grave for a WATER monster’s effect, and Black Luster Soldier – Sacred Solder to return your banished LIGHT or DARK monsters to grave to banish the opponent’s cards and retrieve Level 7 or lower Warriors from grave to hand after it destroys a monster in battle. Noteworthy Super Rares give us Tuning Magician as a Level 1 Tuner that can Special Summon itself in Pendulum Magicians, Buster Whelp the Destruction Swordsman to search your Destruction Sword cards, Master Pendulum, the Dracoslayer for a 2nd Dracoslayer name that pops other Pendulum Scales, Dinomist Rex to negate targeting effects against your Dinomist monsters alongside having the ability to either attack twice or shuffle an opponent’s card from hand to Deck after it destroys a monster in battle and tributes another Dinomist, Majespecter Toad – Ogama to set your Majespecter Spells and Traps directly from Deck, Guiding Aradine to turn off the costs of your Counter Traps and helps search Counter Traps upon destruction, Twin Twisters as a Quick-Play Spell to destroy up to 2 of the opponent’s Spells and Traps at the cost of a discard, Kozmo Soartroopers to revive your Kozmos at a 1000 LP cost and can banish itself to summon a bigger Kozmo from hand, Interrupted Kaiju Slumber to destroy all monsters on the field to give each player a Kaiju and can banish itself from grave to search a Kaiju, and Chimeratech Rampage Dragon as a Fusion to give Cyber Dragons some backrow removal and another option to attack multiple times by sending Cyber Dragons from Deck to grave. Noteworthy Rares give us Performapal Guitartle to let you draw a card when you activate a Performapal in your other Pendulum Scale, Twilight Ninja Getsuga, the Shogun to be a monster easier to Tribute Summon in Ninjas and helps revive 2 other Ninjas from grave, Dinomist Pteran to protect your Dimomists from destruction and searches your Dimomist cards after destroying monsters in battle, Shiranui Spiritmaster to help Special Summon more Shiranui monsters and pop cards after its banished, Toon Buster Blader as a Toon retrain of Buster Blader, Dinoster Power, the Mighty Dracoslayer as a Fusion for Dracoslayers that helps revive other Dracoslayers and protects your Pendulums from destruction, Superheavy Samurai Beast Kyubi as a Level 9 Synchro for Superheavy Samurais that gains 900 DEF for your opponent’s Special Summoned monsters and attacks in Defense Position, Hi-Speedroid Hagoita as a Synchro that revives itself if you control other Speedroids, Goyo Defender as a generic Level 3 Synchro that summons other Goyo Defenders from the Extra Deck, Odd-Eyes Advent as a Ritual Spell for Odd-Eyes to summon any Dragon Ritual by using Pendulums in the hand, field, or potentially Odd-Eyes monsters face-up in the Extra Deck, two more Kaijus in Gadarla, the Mystery Dust Kaiju and Jizukiru, the Star Destroying Kaiju, and Fiendish Rhino Warrior to help send more Fiends from Deck to grave after it goes to the graveyard alongside giving your Fiends protection from any destruction effect. Short Prints give us Engraver of the Mark as a hand trap that lets you change the name of a card the opponent declares for a card effect, Zany Zebra to prevent Monster Zones from being used, Mistaken Accusation to prevent players from using cards or effects of a specific card on the field for the rest of the Duel if the opponent has more cards in hand and on field than you, and Bad Luck Blast to burn the opponent and yourself for half the ATK of a monster the opponent controls alongside 1000 more burn if the opponent destroys this card. Noteworthy Commons give us Performapal Monkeyboard to search any Level 4 or lower Performapal from Deck while in the Pendulum Scale, Solo the Melodious Songstress as a free Special Summon for Melodious and a way to float into other Melodious monsters after its destruction in battle, Score the Melodious Diva to turn an opponent’s monster’s ATK that battles a Melodious monster to 0, Blackwing – Harmattan the Dust as a free Special Summon if you control another Blackwing and can gain the Level of another Blackwing you control on summon, Twilight Ninja Shingetsu to rediect attacks and targeting effects to itself from other Ninjas and searches another Ninja from Deck upon destruction, Dragon Buster Destruction Sword as a Level 1 Tuner that can equip itself to Buster Blader monsters to lock your opponent from their Extra Deck and can Special Summon itself while equipped, Wizard Buster Destruction Sword to equip itself to a Buster Blader to turn off your opponent’s monster effects in grave and can send itself while equipped to recover a Destruction Sword card, Robot Buster Destruction Sword to equip itself to a Buster Blader to negate your opponent’s Spells and Traps that are already face up and can send itself while equipped to grave to boost the equipped monster by 1000 ATK, Dinomist Stegosaur for more destuction protection in Dimomists alongside destroying opponent’s monsters that battle your Pendulums, Dinomist Plesios to give Dinomists more targeting protection and a way to debuff the opponent’s monsters for the number of Dinomists you control, Dinomist Brachion for more Dinomist targeting protection and a monster that can Special Summon itself if the opponent controls the strongest monster on the field, Dinomist Ceratops for more destruction protection in Dinomists and another free Special Summon if all your monsters are Dinomist mosnters, Dark Doriado to place 1 EARTH, WIND, FIRE, and WATER monster on top of your Deck upon Normal or Special Summon, Deskbot 007 and 008 for more Pendulum Scales in Deskbots, Shiranui Samuraisaga as a Level 6 Shiranui Synchro, Aegaion the Sea Castrum to help destroy the opponent’s Extra Deck each turn or return the Extra Deck cards banished to the Extra Deck to destroy cards of the same type, Destruction Swordsman Fusion to give Buster Blader a Super Polymerization-like Fusion Spell that recovers itself, Karma of the Destruction Swordsman to give Buster Blader a way to banish the opponent’s monsters in grave, Draco Face-Off to help get either a Dracoslayer or Dracoverlord monster Special Summoned or in the Pendulum Zone while the other goes to the Extra Deck, Dinomist Charge to search your Dinomist monsters on activation and retrieve Dinomists that go from the field to the Extra Deck, Dragon’s Bind to prevent your opponent from Special Summoning monsters with ATK lower than the original ATK of a Dragon you control that has 2500 or less ATK and DEF, Destruction Sword Flash to banish all your opponent’s monsters if you control a Buster Blader related Fusion and banishes itself from grave to protect a Buster Blader from a targeting effect, Dinomist Rush to summon your Dinomists from Deck that’s destroyed during the End Phase, Shiranui Style Swallow’s Slash to tribute a Zombine to destroy 2 cards on field and banish a Shiranui from Deck, and Kozmo Delta Shuttle to send a Kozmo monster from Deck to grave to debuff a monster’s ATK and DEF by the sent monster’s Level times 100 and banishes itself from grave after destruction to summon a smaller Kozmo from Deck. Overall, this was a set that brought us a Tier 0 format. The new Performapals mentioned in this set alongside the previously released Performages and Performapals plus other good Pendulums created one of the most consistent Decks we’ve ever seen. Cyber Dragon Infnity also helped prove how much of a problem Tellarknight Ptolemaeus. The Deck was such a problem that we saw quick limits and bans to some cards in the Deck, including Performapal Monkeyboard, just a few weeks after the set released. After that, Performapals were still able to compete with other good generic Pendulum stuff and Extra Deck monsters, but we started to see Kozmo start to compete as well. Also, you can’t forget two good generic cards like Solemn Strike and Twin Twisters, plus how Dragon Buster Destruction Sword later became broken off cards that could equip it without its effect so it was abused outside Buster Blader. Traptrix Rafflesia was also a good Rank 4 to make Trap Holes more prominent in the meta in anything that could make Rank 4s, and this was a time where Rank 4 Decks were super popular. Neptabyss was great for Atlantean/Mermail, it just came at a bad time to be one of the top Decks, even if the Deck can still somewhat compete to this day. Overall a great set that created the need for an emergency banlist and still had cards that held up for the remainder of 2016.

Set Rating: 10/10

Shining Victories

Release Date: May 6th, 2016
Cover Card: Crystal Wing Synchro Dragon
Sneak Peek Promo: Magical Cavalry of Cxulub

Who would of thought we could bring Blue-Eyes back into the meta? We’ve hit Shining Victories to give the best wave of legacy support for any of the DM era archetypes. This set gave support for the Dinomist, Melodious, Performapal, Odd-Eyes, Raidraptor, Speedroid, Kaiju and Kozmo with legacy support for Blackwing, Blue-Eyes, Red-Eyes, Toon, Fire King, Geargia, Stardust, and Red Dragon Archfiend archetypes and the debut of the Amorphage, Lunalight, and Digital Bug archetypes. Secret Rares in this set include Amorphage Sloth as a nice one tribute monster to lock players from using their Extra Deck for anything that isn’t an Amorphage as well as prevent players from searching, Ghost Reaper & Winter Cherries to take out certain cards in the opponent’s Extra Deck, Crystal Wing Synchro Dragon as a Synchro for anything already using Synchros to give them some monster effect negation and the ability to run over any Level 5 or higher monster, Blue-Eyes Spirit Dragon as a Synchro for Blue-Eyes to negate graveyard effects alongside stopping summons of 2 or more monsters at once and sacrificing itself to summon a Level 9 or lower LIGHT Dragon Synchro from your Extra Deck, Drowing Mirror Force to return your opponent’s Attack Position monsters to Deck when they attack, Kozmoll Dark Lady to give Kozmo some monster negation and to banish itself to summon a bigger Kozmo from hand, Kozmo Dark Planet to give Kozmo some Spell negation and to float upon destruction into searching a smaller Kozmo, and Blue-Eyes Twin Burst Dragon as a Fusion of two Blue-Eyes White Dragons that can make two attacks. Ultra Rares give us Dragon Spirit of White as another Blue-Eyes monsters that banishes Spells and Traps and sacrifices itself to summon Blue-Eyes White Dragon from hand, Sage with Eyes of Blue to search your other Level 1 LIGHT Tuners and swap a monster on field for a Blue-Eyes from Deck, The White Stone of Ancients to summon a Blue-Eyes from Deck during End Phase if it goes to grave and banishes itself from grave to add a Blue-Eyes from grave to hand, Lector Pendulum, the Dracoverlord as a second Dracoverlord that negates your opponent’s Pendulum Scales, Amorphage Leechery to give Amorphages some Spell negation and another monster to lock the Extra Decks from summoning anything that isn’t an Amorphage, Lunalight Panther Dancer as a Fusion of Cat Dancer and any other Lunalight that is immune to destruction effects and can attack each monster the opponent controls twice each, Amorphous Persona to let you draw cards when Amorphages are tributed and helps Ritual Summon the Dracoverlord Ritual, Unwavering Bond to negate a Pendulum Monster’s effect or Pendulum Zone card’s effect, Stardust Sifr Divine Dragon as an alternative to Shooting Quasar that saves your cards from destruction once a turn and has monster negation that destroys another card on the field, and Hot Red Dragon Archfiend King Calamity as an alternative to Red Nova Dragon that prevents your opponent from using cards or effects the turn it is Synchro Summoned. Noteworthy Super Rares give us Amorphage Goliath for a big Level 8 Dragon that locks players for using the Extra Deck for anything other than Amorphages and banishes any card sent to grave that isn’t an Amorphage, Red-Eyes Toon Dragon as a Toon version of Red-Eyes that summons any Toon from hand, Amorphactor Pain, the Imagination Dracoverlord as a Ritual for the Dracoslayer/Dracoverlords that skips your opponent’s next Main Phase 1 and negates Fusion, Synchro, and Xyz monsters, Lunalight Leo Dancer as the boss of Lunalights that needs Panther Dancer and two other Lunalights that has targeting and destruction protection and can attack twice, Assault Blackwing – Chidori the Rain Sprinkling as a Synchro for Blackwings that gets stronger with more Blackwings in grave and revives another Winged Beast Synchro on destruction, Raidraptor – Ultimate Falcon as a Rank 10 boss for Raidraptors that’s unaffected by other card effects, Digital Bug Rhinosebus as the Rank 7 boss for Digital Bugs, Amorphage Infection as a Continuous Spell that buffs your Amorphages and searches Amorphages when other ones are tributed or destroyed, Pre-Preparation of Rites to search a Ritual Spell and a monster listed on that Ritual Spell, Cattle Call to tribute a Beast, Beast-Warrior, or Winged Beast to summon a monster of the same Type from the Extra Deck, and Kozmo Landwalker to protect your Kozmos from destruction by destroying other Kozmos and floats into a smaller Kozmo upon destruction. Noteworthy Rares give us Performapal Odd-Eyes Light Phoenix and Performapal Odd-Eyes Unicorn as more scales that are both Performapals and Odd-Eyes monsters, Speedroid Den-Den Daiko Duke as a Level 3 Tuner that banishes itself from grave to summon a Speedroid Tuner from hand or grave, Lunalight Black Cat as a monster that floats into other Lunalights upon destruction and can double the ATK of your other Lunalights on Special Summon, Amorphage Gluttony to give Amorphages a way to lock out non-Amorphage monster effects, Amorphage Greed to lock out non-Amorphage Traps, Amorphage Envy to prevent Chain Link 2 or higher from happening, Spirit of the Fall Wind to search any Flip Monster on Normal Summon, Bloom Prima the Melodious Choir as a Fusion for Melodious that can attack twice, Lunalight Cat Dancer as a Fusion of 2 Lunalights that has battle destruction protection alongside its ability to attack each monster the opponent controls twice by tributing a Lunalight and burning the opponent for 100 each time it attacks, Rank-Up-Magic Skip Force to Rank-Up a Raidraptor by 2, Fusion Tag to treat a monster as a Fusion Monster in the Extra Deck for a Fusion Summon that turn, Amorphage Lysis to debuff your opponent’s monsters for each Amorphage you have and replaces an Amorphage destroyed in the Scale with an Amorphage from Deck, and one more Kaiju with Thunder King, the Lightning Strike Kaiju. Short Prints have Angel Trumpeteer as a Level 4 Normal Plant Tuner, Dicelops to roll a die and resolve a specific discard effect based on the result, Finite Cards to make the hand size limit become 3, and Graceful Tear to give a card from your hand to the opponent and you gain 2000 LP. Noteworthy Commons have Lunalight Purple Butterfly to buff your Lunalights by 1000 ATK and banishes itself to summon a Lunalight from hand, Lunalight White Rabbit to revive a Lunalight on Normal Summon and help bounce the opponent’s backrow, Lunalight Black Sheep as a Polymerization searcher, Lunalight Wolf to give Lunalights a Miracle Fusion, Lunalight Tiger to revive your Lunalights, Raidraptor – Pain Lanius to Special Summon itself from hand and copy a Raidraptor’s Level, Master with Eyes of Blue to recover Level 1 LIGHT Tuners from grave to hand and swaps a monster on field for a Blue-Eyes in grave, Amorphage Wrath to prevent players from tributing monsters that aren’t Amorphages, Amorphage Pride to prevent players from taking effect damage, Dinomist Spinos to give Dinomists more destruction protection and the ability to tribute a Dinomist to either attack twice or direct attack, Deskbot 009 as a boss Deskbot that gains the ATK of other Deskbots, Digital Bug Corebage as a Rank 5 that can be summoned from detaching 2 materials from a Rank 3 or 4 Insect and can detach a material to put a Defense Position monster back into Deck, Rise to Full Height to double a monster’s DEF and change it to 0 at the end of turn and banishes itself from grave to target one of your monsters and only let your opponent attack it that turn, World Carrotweight Champion to revive itself by sending a Plant from hand or field to grave, and Fire King Island to summon your big FIRE Winged Beasts from hand or destroy your cards to search Fire King cards. Overall another decent set with a new meta Deck and a boost to another in Kozmo. Seeing Blue-Eyes become meta was a cool sight to see. Ghost Reaper is a pretty good, yet niche, handtrap. Crystal Wing Synchro Dragon became a staple for Synchro Decks for years to come. Finally, some decent Kozmo cards with Dark Lady and a Fire King variant became an option with Fire King Island. Pretty good set.

Set Rating: 8.5/10 

The Dark Illusion

Release Date: August 5th, 2016
Cover Card: Nirvana High Paladin
Sneak Peek Promo: Magical Something

We knew the Dark Magician set was coming at some point after all the other DM stuff. The Dark Illusion has come along to give us some Dark Magician cards to make that a Deck and we get the first Pendulum Synchro. Other archetypes from the time supported include D/D, Dinomist, Dracoslayer/Dracoverlord, Frightfur, Lunalight, Pendulum Magician, Odd-Eyes, Performapal, and Shiranui alongside legacy support for Archfiends, Blackwings, Buster Blader, Ninjas, Resonators, Toons, Numbers, and Trains plus the debut of Metalfoes, Triamid, Paleozoics, Aether/Empowered Warriors, SPYRAL, and Subterror archetypes in the TCG. Secret Rares give us Nirvana High Paladin as the first Pendulum Synchro that benefits from being used in Pendulum Magician, Coral Dragon as a generic Level 6 Synchro Tuner that discards a card to pop a card and lets you draw a card when it goes from field to grave, Dark Magical Circle to let you look at the top cards of Deck to get a Dark Magician or a Spell/Trap related to him and banishes cards when Dark Magician is summoned, Cosmic Cyclone to banish a Spell/Trap on the field at a 1000 LP cost, Pot of Desires to let you draw 2 cards similar to Pot of Greed at the cost of 10 cards being banished from the top of your Deck, Magician Navigation to summon Dark Magician from hand and a Level 7 or lower DARK Spellcaster from Deck alongside being able to negate a Spell/Trap by banishing itself from grave while you control Dark Magician, The Forceful Checkpoint to negate an opponent’s attack if they have a monster in their hand and then discards a monster from their hand at your choice, and The Hidden City to search for a Subterror monster on activation and helps you flip your Subterror monsters face-up. Ultra Rares give us Master Peace, the Dracoslayer as a monster you can Special Summon by sacrificing a Dracoslayer and Dracoverlord and has an effect to negate any card once a turn, True King Agnimazud, the Vanisher as a monster that can Special Summon itself by destroying 2 monsters just as long as you pop 1 FIRE monster with popping 2 FIRE monsters lets you banish a monster on field or in grave alongside popping it letting you recover a non-FIRE Wyrm from grave, Shiranui Solitare as a Lonefire Blossom for a Zombie Tuner with 0 DEF from Deck and being banished lets you summon another banished Shiranui, Block Dragon as a free Special Summon by banishing 3 EARTH monsters from hand or grave and searching up to 3 Rock monsters whose combined Levels equal 8 upon going from field to grave, Tyrant Red Dragon Archfiend as a Synchro that needs 2 Tuners and destroys all other cards on the field, Floodgate Trap Hole to set any monster your opponent summons face-down where they can’t flip it back up, Premature Return to summon a banished card face-down to your field by banishing a card in hand, Subterror Behemoth Umastryx with a FLIP effect to banish a card on field and an effect to Special Summon itself when you set one of your monsters that was face-up, Subterror Behemoth Stalagmo to discard a Subterror card for a draw 2 and the same Special Summon effect as Umastryx, and SPYRAL Super Agent to Special Summon itself if you call the correct card type (Monster, Spell, Trap) as the top card of the opponent’s Deck and destroys a Spell/Trap when Special Summoned off a SPYRAL effect. Noteworthy Super Rares give us Magician of Dark Illusion as a free Special Summon if you use a Spell/Trap on the opponent’s turn and revives a Dark Magician when you use a Spell/Trap, Magician’s Rod to search your Dark Magician Spells and Traps and tributes a Spellcaster when you use a Spell/Trap on the opponent’s turn to add itself back to hand, Triamid Sphinx as a free Special Summon when your Triamid card(s) is destroyed and otherwise can only be summoned with Triamid effects, Toon Dark Magician as a Toon version of Dark Magician that lets you discard a Toon card to summon a Toon Monster from Deck or search a Toon Spell/Trap, Amaterasu as a Spirit monster that banishes all other cards on field when flipped face-up, Spell Strider as a free Special Summon by banishing a Spell from each side of the field, Luna Light Perfume for a Monster Reborn for Lunalights that can also search a Lunalight monster, Metalfoes Fusion as a Fusion Spell for Metalfoes that can return to the Deck for a draw, Metalfoes Combination to revive a Metalfoes with a lower Level than a Metalfoe you Fusion Summon and searches a Metalfoe when it goes from field to grave, Number 81: Superdreadnought Rail Cannon Super Dora as a generic Rank 10 that can make a monster unaffected by other effects for a turn by detaching a material, and Paleozoic Anomalocaris as a Rank 2 that needs 3 Level 2s to summon and lets you detach a material if it has a Trap as material to pop a card on the field. Noteworthy Rares give us D/D Savant Thomas to recover a D/D face-up in the Extra Deck, Metalfoes Goldriver and Metalfoes Volflame as a Normal Pendulum that lets you pop a face-up card to set a Metalfoes Spell/Trap from Deck, Triamid Hunter to give you another Normal Summon for a Triamid monster while you have a Field Spell and swaps your Triamid Field Spells for another on the opponent’s turn, Triamid Master to send a Triamid card to grave to pop a set card and can swap Triamid Field Spells on the opponent’s turn, Metalfoes Adamante as a vanilla Fusion of a Metalfoes and any monster with 2500 or less ATK, Metalfoes Crimsonite as another vanilla Fusion of a Metalfoes and any 2 monsters with 3000 or less ATK, Illusion Magic to tribute a Spellcaster to add up to 2 Dark Magicians from Deck or grave to hand, Triamid Cruiser to search your Triamid monsters when sent from field to grave, Triamid Kingolem to prevent cards and effects from being activated when a Triamid battles and summons a Triamid from hand when sent from field to grave, Triamid Pulse to banish 2 Rock monsters and/or Field Spells from grave to pop a face-up card, revive a Rock from grave in Defense, or return up to 3 Field Spells from grave to Deck for a draw, Subterror Nemesis Warrior to send a Subterror from Deck to grave to then send itself and any monster on field to grave to revive a Subterror in face-up or face-down Defense Position with a Level equal to or lower than the sent monster’s Levels, SPRYAL Quik-Fix to search your SPYRAL GEARs on summon and lets you discard a card while you control SPYRAL Super Agent to revive itself, SPYRAL GEAR – Drone to look at the top 3 cards of the opponent’s Deck and reorder them, and SPYRAL GEAR – Big Red as an Equip Spell that revives a SPYRAL monster. Short Prints give us Wrecker Panda to send the top card of Deck to grave during Standby Phase for an ATK boost if the sent card was a monster and recovers the monster with the lowest Level in grave to your hand when destroyed, Fairy Tail – Snow to Special Summon itself from grave by banishing 7 cards from hand, field, or grave and flips an opponent’s monster face-down on summon, Card of the Soul to search any monster with combined ATK and DEF equal to your LP, and United Front to change a monster’s ATK and DEF to the ATK and DEF of a discarded monster at the cost of preventing you from attacking directly that turn. Noteworthy Commons give us Performapal Radish Horse as a free Special Summon if the opponent controls a Special Summoned monster and as many monsters as you, Blackwing – Gofu the Vague Shadow as a Level 5 Tuner who Special Summons itself from hand if you control no monsters and then you can summon 2 free Blackwing Tokens, Red Warg as a free Special Summon from hand if you Normal Summon a Resonator monster, Metalfoes Steelen and Metalfoes Silverd as more Normal Pendulums that pop your face-up cards to set Metalfoes Spells/Traps from Deck, Dinomist Ankylos to give Dinomists more targeting protection and banishes any monster destroyed in battle with a Dinomist, Triamid Dancer to put Triamid cards back in Deck from grave for a 500 ATK/DEF boost for all your Rock monsters while they remain on the field and swaps Triamid Field Spells during the opponent’s turn, Metalfoes Orichalc as a Fusion of 2 Metalfoes that gives your Metalfoes monsters double piercing and pops a card when sent from field to grave, Assault Blackwing – Sohaya the Rain Storm as a Level 5 Synchro that revives an Assault Blackwing on summon and can revive itself from grave by banishing another copy of itself from grave, Super Hippo Carnival to summon a Performapal Hip Hippo from hand, Deck, or grave alongside as many Hippo Tokens as possible that cannot be tributed, Dark Magic Expanded as a Quick-Play Spell that gives effects based on the number of Dark Magician or Dark Magician Girl on field or in grave with 1+ boosting a DARK Spellcaster by 1000 ATK for a turn, 2+ preventing the opponent from responding to your Spell/Trap Cards or effects and gives them destruction protection, and 3+ making your DARK Spellcasters unaffected by the opponent’s effects for the turn, Triamid Fortress to give Triamids effect destruction protection and recovers a Triamid from grave to hand when sent from field to grave, Magical Mid-Breaker Field to give the turn player’s monsters targeting and destruction protection from the opponent during their Main Phase 1, Metalfoes Counter to summon a Metalfoes from Deck when your card is destroyed and banishes itself from grave to add a Metalfoes from your Extra Deck to hand, Destruction Sword Memories to discard a card and summon a Buster Blader from Deck and Fusion Summon a Buster Blader, the Dragon Destroying Swordsman by banishing this card and the Fusion Materials from grave, Heavy Freight Train Derricrane as a free Special Summon for summoning an EARTH Machine and pops an opponent’s card when detached as material, Revolving Switchyard to discard a card to search a Level 10 EARTH Machine from Deck or upon summoning a Level 10 EARTH Machine can summon a Level 4 EARTH Machine from Deck as a Level 10, Dragodies, the Empowered Warrior to search any Spellcaster or Warrior from Deck during the End Phase if it’s destroyed by the opponent in your Monster Zone, Empowerment to summon an Empowered Warrior from Deck by discarding a card, Paleozoic Olenodies for Spell/Trap destruction and the ability to revive itself as a Level 2 WATER Aqua monster when a Trap Card is activated, Paleozoic Canadia to set an opponent’s monster on field face-down and revives itself as a Level 2 WATER Aqua monster when a Trap is activated, and Paleozoic Pikaia to discard a Paleozoic to draw 2 cards and revives itself as a Level 2 WATER Aqua when a Trap is activated. This set might of not gave us a new meta Deck out the gate, but it gave us some good generic cards and the beginning of the Metalfoes and Paleozic archetypes to take over, and the first of what would eventually become a Tier 0 strategy with SPYRAL. Pot of Desires and Cosmic Cyclone are both still great cards to this day, and Coral Dragon finds its use every once in a while. Blackwing – Gofu aged very well, even though it was still good on release for stuff like Ultimaya Tzolkin or Monarch tribute fodder. Floodgate Trap Hole has become one of the better Trap Hole cards after release. We got some good archetype support for Rank 10 Trains and a good Zombie card with Shiranui Solitare. Also, Dark Magician becomes somewhat of a competent and decent Deck from this set and The Hidden City is good in the future Guru Control, and Fairy Tail – Snow is just a good card. Overall it’s another good set.

Set Rating: 8.5/10

Invasion: Vengeance

Release Date: November 4th, 2016
Cover Card: Starving Venom Fusion Dragon
Sneak Peek Promo: Space Dragster

We are close to the end and are starting to really end this era off with a bang. Invasion: Vengeance is the third to last set of the era and gave us support for archetypes of that era like Aroma, Cardian, Cipher, Cyber Angel, Graydle, Igknight, Pendulum Magician, Metalfoes, Performapal, Phantom Knights, PSY-Frame, Qli, Superheavy Samurai, Tellarknight, Yang Zing, SPYRAL, Subterror, and Paleozoic alongside legacy support for Aliens, Frogs, Galaxy-Eyes, Red-Eyes, X-Saber, and Constellar plus the debuts of the Chemicritter, Crystron, and Predaplant archetypes. Secret Rares in this set give us Sauravis, the Ancient and Ascended as a Ritual Monster that serves as a handtrap that protects your monster from a targeting effect, Starving Venom Fusion Dragon as a Super Poly target against DARK strategies once that card returned, Fullmetalfoes Alkahest as a Fusion of a Metalfoes and any Normal Monster that can equip opponent’s monsters to it and use said monsters as Fusion Materials, Dark Requiem Xyz Dragon as a Rank-Up of Dark Rebellion Xyz Dragon that can detach a material while the latter is attached to change an opponent’s monster ATK to 0 and have this gain the lost ATK for the turn or to negate an opponent’s monster effect to destroy it and then gives the option to revive an Xyz Monster, Toadally Awesome as a Rank 2 that needs Aquas to summon to get a monster that detaches a material during Standby Phase to summon a Frog from Deck alongside its effects to send an Aqua from hand or field to grave to negate an opponent’s card or effect and set said card to your field and can recover a WATER monster from grave when it goes to grave, Dimensional Barrier to prevent the use of Ritual, Fusion, Synchro, Xyz, or Pendulum monsters for the turn, Vermillion Dragon Mech as a generic Level 9 Synchro that pops cards by banishing Tuners and recovers a banished Tuner when destroyed, and Subterror Nemesis Archer to shuffle an opponent’s set monster this battles into Deck and floats into a Subterror in face-up or face-down Defense upon destruction. Ultra Rares include Crystron Citree as a Level 2 Tuner that can revive a non-Tuner during the opponent’s Main or Battle Phase for an immediate Synchro Summon of a Machine using it and this card by banishing the materials instead of them going to grave, True King Bahrastos, the Fathomer as the WATER version of the previous True King that banishes up to 2 of the opponent’s Spells/Traps from the field and/or grave if summoned popping two WATER monsters and upon destruction can summon a non-WATER Wyrm from Deck in Defense Position, Metalfoes Mithrilium as a Fusion of any Metalfoes and any Pendulum that returns 2 Metalfoes cards from grave to Deck to bounce a card and upon going from field to grave can summon a Pendulum Metalfoes from grave or face-up Extra Deck, Meteor Black Comet Dragon as a Fusion of a Level 7 Red-Eyes and a Level 6 Dragon that upon Fusion Summon lets you send a Red-Eyes from Deck to grave to burn the opponent for half that monster’s ATK and upon going from field to grave can revive a Normal Monster, Crystron Quandax as a Level 4 Synchro Tuner that lets you Synchro Summon on the opponent’s turn and revives a non-Synchro Crystron upon destruction, Crystron Phoenix as a Synchro that only uses Synchros as material to get a monster that banishes all the opponent’s Spells and Traps on field and in grave on Synchro Summon and revives any other monster in grave upon destruction, Denglong, First of the Yang Zing as a Level 5 Synchro Tuner that searches a Yang Zing card on summon alongside sending any Wyrm from Deck to grave to modify this card’s Level to the sent monster’s Level and summons a Yang Zing from Deck when it goes from field to grave, Darktellarknight Batlamyus as a Rank 4 for Tellarknights to summon their LIGHT Tellarknight Xyzs from Extra Deck by using this as material after you detach a material from it and discard a card, Catalyst Field as a Field Spell that lets you Normal Summon a Level 5 or higher Gemini without tribute once a turn and also lets you Normal Summon a Gemini in addition to your Normal Summon or Set, and Subterror Behemot Ultramafus to set every other monster on field to face-down Defense on a FLIP effect and has the same Special Summon effect as the other Subterror Behemoths. Noteworthy Super Rares include Cyrstron Quan as a Level 1 Tuner that summons a non-Tuner from hand on the opponent’s turn for an immediate Synchro Summon of a Machine, Torque Tune Gear as a Union Tuner that turns an equipped monster into a Tuner, Cyber Angel Vrash as a Ritual Monster that destroys all Special Summoned monsters from the Extra Deck on the opponent’s field upon Ritual Summon alongside 1000 burn for each and to let this double attack this turn alongside the effect to negate and destroy a card that would destroy a card you control by shuffling a Ritual Monster from grave into Deck, Crystron Ametrix as a generic Level 5 Synchro that swaps all Special Summoned monsters the opponent controls to Defense Position on Synchro Summon and revives a non-Synchro Crystron upon destruction, Vola-Chemicritter Methydraco as a Rank 8 for Geminis that revives a Gemini on Xyz Summon alongside giving your Geminis targeting and attack protection while this has material and can detach a material after your Normal Summon a Gemini to make the opponent send a card from their hand or field to the grave, The Phantom Knights’ Rank-Up-Magic Launch to Rank-Up a DARK Xyz with no materials by 1 to another DARK Xyz by using the selected monster and this as material, Fullmetalfoes Fusion as a Quick-Play Fusion Spell for Metalfoes, Pot of Acquistiveness to return 3 of your banished monsters to Deck for a draw, SPYRAL Master Plan to search a SPYRAL MISSION once per turn and upon going to grave from field can search a SPYRAL Resort and any SPYRAL monster, SPYRAL Resort to search any SPYRAL monster once a turn and gives your SPYRALs targeting protection, and Paleozoic Opabinia as a generic Rank 2 that lets you use Paleozoic Traps from hand and can detach a material while it has a Trap attached to search a Paleozoic Trap. Noteworthy Rares give us Dragon Core Hexer as a Level 8 Dragon Tuner Normal, Superheavy Samurai Soulpeacemaker to equip from hand to a Superheavy Samurai and lets you tribute the equipped monster to summon any Superheavy Samurai from Deck, Poly-Chemicritter Dioxogre as a Gemini that has the Gemini effects to prevent Normal Summons of Geminis from being negated and a once per turn effect to banish a Gemini from grave to pop an opponent’s card, Meteor Dragon Red-Eyes Impact as a Gemini with the Gemini effect to prevent other Red-Eyes monsters from being destroyed by battle or card effects, Superheavy Samurai Ninja Sarutobi as a Level 8 Synchro for Superheavy Samurais that can attack in Defense Position and pop Spells and Traps on field while you have none in grave alongside 500 burn to the opponent, Flower Cardian Boardefly as a Level 6 Synchro that needs 2 non-Tuners to give your Cardians piercing and allows you to banish a Cardian from grave to prevent the opponent from using effects in their grave or Special Summoning from grave until the end of their turn, Aromaseraphy Rosemary as a Level 5 Synchro that boosts your Plants by 500 ATK and DEF while you have higher LP and gaining LP lets you negate an opponent’s card’s effects for the turn, Super Koi Koi to look at the top 3 cards of your Deck to summon any Flower Cardian monsters with their effects negated and Levels becoming 2 while the other cards are banished face-down and you losing 1000 LP for each, Red-Eyes Insight to send a Red-Eyes monster from Deck to grave to add a Red-Eyes Spell/Trap from Deck to hand, Burnout to banish a Chemicritter you control to summon 2 Chemicritters with different names from Deck, Nine Pillars of the Yang Zing as a Counter Trap to negate an opponent’s Spell/Trap Card or monster effect and destroys it and then destroys a Yang Zing monster you control, SPYRAL MISSION – Assault to let you draw when a card is destroyed by a SPYRAL and can be banished from grave to summon a SPYRAL from hand, and Saber Reflection to let you gain LP after you take battle or effect damage while you control an X-Saber and then sends it back to the opponent and lets you search any Saber card. Short Prints give us Pandora’s Jewelry Box as a Pendulum that while you have no cards in Extra Deck can destroy an opponent’s Pendulum Scale and give this to them in their Scale and as a monster lets you draw 2 during your Draw Phase while you have no cards in the Extra Deck, Fairy Tail – Sleeper with a FLIP effect to summon any monster from hand and lets you tribute a monster when the opponent uses a Normal Spell or Trap to change the effect to setting a monster you control, Quarantine to reveal an opponent’s set Spell/Trap during the End Phase, and Present Card to make the opponent discard their whole hand and draw 5 new cards. Noteworthy Commons give us Cipher Twin Raptor to Special Summon itself while you have no monsters and the opponent controls a monster summoned from Extra Deck alongside a discard effect to summon a Cipher from Deck, Cipher Mirror Knight to search a Cipher card if it’s in the grave during the End Phase and was sent there this turn, Flower Cardian Clover with Bear as a Special Summon by tributing a Flower Cardian to then let you draw a card and pop an opponent’s monster if it’s a Flower Cardian drawn, Flower Cardian Maple with Deer with the same effects as Clover with Bear only instead destroying Spells or Traps, Flower Cardian Peony with Butterfly as a Tuner with the Special Summon and draw effect as the previous Cardians with looking at the top 3 cards of the opponent’s Deck to put them back on top or bottom in any order as well as treating any Flower Cardian used as Synchro Material with this as Level 2, Crystron Prasiortle to destroy a face-up card you control to summon a Crystron Tuner from Deck and banishes itself from grave to summon a Crystron from hand, Crystron Smiger with the same effect to summon a Crystron Tuner from Deck and banishes itself from grave to search a Crystron Spell/Trap, Crystron Thystvern with the same effect to summon a Crystron Tuner from Deck and banishes itself from grave to search a Crystron monster, Crystron Rosenix with the same effect to summon a Crystron Tuner from Deck and banishes itself from grave to summon a Crystron Token, Raremetalfoes Bismugear with the same Pendulum Effect as previous Metalfoes and a monster effect during the End Phase after destruction to search a Metalfoes monster, Chemicritter Hydron Hawk as a Gemini Monster with the effect to discard a card and revive a Gemini in Defense Position, Chemicritter Carbo Crab as a Gemini Monster with the effect to send a Gemini from Deck to grave to add a Gemini from Deck to hand, Chemicritter Oxy Ox as a Gemini Monster with the effect to summon a Gemini from hand and change the Levels of all Geminis you control to the Level of the summoned monster, PSY-Frame Multi-Threader as a monster to act as PSY-Frame Driver in hand or grave and can discard itself to protect a PSY-Frame card from destruction, Graydle Slime Jr. as a Level 2 Tuner that revives a Graydle from grave and then lets you summon an Aqua monster with the same Level from hand, Aromaseraphy Angelica as a Level 1 Tuner that discards itself to let you gain the LP of an Aroma monster in grave and revives itself if you have higher LP and control an Aroma monster, Doki Doki to discard a Rock to summon a Rock with the same original Attribute Level from Deck in Attack or face-down Defense Position, Flower Stacking to place 3 Flower Cardians from Deck on top of your Deck and can be banished from grave to recover a Flower Cardian from grave to hand, Igknights Unite to destroy an Igknight card you control and summon an Igknight from Deck, “A” Cell Recombination Device to give a monster A-Counters equal to the Level of an Alien sent from Deck to grave and can banish itself from grave to add an Alien from Deck to hand, Sprite’s Blessing as a Ritual Spell that Ritual Summons any LIGHT Ritual, Crystron Entry to summon a Crystron Tuner from hand and graveyard and can banish itself from grave to change a Crystron’s Level to one you send from Deck to grave, Crystron Impact to summon a banished Crystron and change your opponent’s monster’s DEF to 0 and can banish itself from grave to protect your Crystron from targeting, Mare Mare as a Level 7 Tuner that can decrease its Level by 1 up to thrice a turn to summon a Mare Mare Token, Paleozoic Dinomischus to target a face-up monster to banish it and discard a card and has the same revival effect we’ve seen on previous Paleozoics, Paleozoic Marrella to send any Trap from Deck to grave and once again as the same revival effect on other Paleozoics, and Paleozoic Leanchoilia to return a banished card to grave and have the same Paleozoic revival effect. We had the foundation last set, but this helped make Metalfoes and Paleozoics legitimate meta strategies. We also got Denglong to be abused in future Decks not named Yang Zing. Toadally Awesome is a great Rank 2 for Aqua Decks and anything that can make Bahamut Shark. Dimensional Barrier is great to lock out certain summoning mechanics, but wasn’t future proofed for the addition of more summoning mechanics. We also got some of the more powerful SPYRAL cards in this set with Master Plan and Resort. Upon the return of Super Polymerization to the game, Starving Venom became one of the prime monsters to summon off it. It’s another good set before we get 2 more of the best sets in this era.

Set Rating: 9/10

Raging Tempest

Release Date: February 10th, 2017
Cover Card: Odd-Eyes Raging Dragon
Sneak Peek Promo: Fusion Recycling Plant

Hope everyone is ready to put Zoodiac into everything. We’ve finally hit Raging Tempest, a set with one of the best archetypes in the game’s history since it wanted to ignore what the entire Xyz Mechanic stood for. This set updated the game with support for the modern archetypes like Cipher, Crystron, Cyber Angel, Flower Cardian, Infernoid, Pendulum Magician, Odd-Eyes, Performapal, Ritual Beast, Shaddoll, Shiranui, Superheavy Samurai, Super Quant, Void, Dark Contract, SPYRAL, and Subterror archetypes with legacy support for Ancient Gear, Black Luster Soldier, Gaia the Fierce Knight, Galaxy-Eyes, Train, Wight, Lightsworn, and Magnet Warrior archetypes with the debut of the Windwitch, Shinobird, and Zoodiac archetypes. Secret Rares in this set include Brave-Eyes Pendulum Dragon as a Fusion between any Pendulum Dragon and any Warrior to make your opponent’s monster’s ATK become 0 on summon and make the effects of all monsters with 0 ATK become negated, Zoodaic Broadbull as Xyz to give Zoodiac access to search any Normal Summonable Beast-Warrior, Zoodiac Drident for another Xyz to give Zoodiac removal for face-up cards, Zoodiac Barrage to pop a face-up card to summon a Zoodiac from Deck and attaches to a Zoodiac Xyz when popped, Foolish Burial Goods to send any Spell/Trap from Deck to grave, That Grass Looks Greener to send top cards of your Deck to grave while you have more cards in Deck than the opponent, Full Force Virus to sacrifice a DARK with 2000 DEF to destroy your opponent’s monsters with 1500 or less DEF for 3 turns, and Sea Monster of Theseus as a Level 5 Fusion Tuner to summon off of Instant Fusion. Ultra Rares include Performapal Dag Daggerman to recover Performapals from grave and discard a Performapal for a draw, Windwitch – Ice Bell as a free Special Summon while you have no mosnters to also summon a Windwitch from Deck, Windwitch – Snow Bell as a Level 1 Tuner that Special Summons itself while you have at least 2 WIND monsters and no non-WIND monsters and gives a Synchro that uses it as material immunity from destruction effects, Zoodiac Thoroughblade to discard a Zoodiac for a draw and gives a Beast-Warrior that has its as Xyz Material piercing, Crystron Quariongandrax as a Synchro that uses 2 or more Tuners to then banish monsters the opponent controls and/or in grave based on the number of Synchro Materials and summons another banished monster upon destruction, Odd-Eyes Raging Dragon as a Rank 7 Pendulum that can make two attacks and detach a material to destroy all your opponent’s cards while it as an Xyz as material, Zoodiac Tigermortar as another Zoodiac Xyz that can detach a material to attach a Zoodiac monster in grave to a Xyz you control, SPYGAL Misty to draw a card if you declare the top card of the opponent’s Deck (Monster, Spell, Trap) correctly and can bounce your SPYRAL Super Agent and a monster the opponent controls, Windwitch – Glass Bell as a Level 4 Tuner that searches a Windwitch on Summon, and Dark Contract with the Entities to give effects based on the kind of D/D/D monster you Special Summon with Fusion giving you 1000 LP, Synchro making the summoned monster untargetable, Xyz banishing a card from field or grave, and Pendulum letting you draw and discard a card alongisde this card’s 2000 LP burn during your Standby Phases. Noteworthy Super Rares include Zoodiac Raptier as a monster that sends a Zoodiac card from Deck to grave on Normal Summon and gives a Beast-Warrior Xyz that has it as material the effect to detach a material to summon another Zoodiac Ratpier from Deck, Zoodiac Whiptail with a Quick Effect to attach itself from hand or field to a Zoodiac as material and gives a Beast-Warrior Xyz that has it as material the effect to banish a monster it battles after damage calculation, True King Lithosagym, the Disaster for the EARTH True King that banishes 3 monsters with different names from the opponent’s Extra Deck if summoned destroying two EARTHs and revives a non-EARTH Wyrm upon destruction, Crystron Sulfefnir as a free Special Summon from hand or grave by discarding a Crystron and then destroying a card after summon and upon destruction can summon any Crystron from Deck, Tierra, Source of Destruction as a monster that Special Summons itself by returning 10 cards with different names from your hand and/or field back into the Deck or Extra Deck and shuffles all other cards on the field, in the hands, in the graveyards, in the banished pile, and face-up in the Extra Deck back into the Deck on summon with none of this being able to be negated or responded to, Cyber Angel Natasha as a Level 5 Ritual that lets you gain LP equal to half the ATK of one of your monsters and can banish a Cyber Angel from grave to revive itself and take an opponent’s monster, Chaos Ancient Gear Giant as a Fusion of 4 Ancient Gears that has Spell/Trap effect immunity alongside locking monster effects from the opponent in the Battle Phase plus it does piercing and can attack all your opponent’s monsters once each, Heavy Armored Train Ironwolf as a Rank 4 Machines to let a Machine attack directly for a turn and searches any Level 4 Machine on destruction, SPYRAL GEAR – Utility Wire to place an opponent’s face-up card on top of their Deck if you control SPYRAL Super Agent, and Delta the Magnet Warrior to send a Magnet Warrior from Deck to grave and upon going to grave lets you banish 3 Magnet Warriors with different names to summon Valkyrion the Magna Warrior from hand or Deck while ignoring summoning conditions. Noteworthy Rares include Fusion Recyclilng Plant as a Field Spell that lets you discard to add a Polymerization from Deck or grave to hand and recovers a monster used as Fusion Material from grave to hand during the End Phase of the turn it was used, Envoy of Chaos to give a Black Luster Soldier or Gaia the Fierce Knight a 1500 ATK boost during the Battle Phase and can banish a LIGHT and DARK from grave to add itself from grave to hand during the End Phase, Spiritual Beast Tamer Winda to float into any Ritual Deck from Deck or Extra Deck while ignoring summoning conditons after the opponent destroys it, Shinobaroness Peacock as a Ritual Spirit that returns up to 3 of the opponent’s Spells/Traps to Deck on Ritual Summon while then summoning a Level 4 or lower Spirit from Deck and its End Phase bounce gives you 2 Shinobird Tokens, Shinobaron Peacock as another Ritual Spirit that bounces up to 3 of the opponent’s monsters to hand on Ritual Summon and then summons a Level 4 or lower Ritual from and and its End Phase bounce also gives you 2 Shinobird Tokens, Windwitch – Winter Bell as a Level 7 Synchro that burns the opponent for the Level of a Windwitch in grave times 200, Superheavy Samurai Stealth Ninja as a Level 7 Synchro for the archetype that can attack in Defense Position and revive itself during the next Standby Phase after destruction from a card effect plus the ability to half its original DEF to attack directly for a turn, Flower Cardian Lightflare as the boss Synchro for Cardians that needs 4 non-Tuners to summon to get a free Spell/Trap negate each turn alongside the abilities to negate the effects of monsters that battle your Flower Cardians and summons a Flower Cardian Synchro from the Extra Deck upon the opponent removing this card, Shiranui Sunsaga as the Level 10 Synchro for Shiranui that lets you return your banished Zombie Synchros to the Extra Deck to pop an equal number of the opponent’s cards on Special Summon and lets you banish a Shiranui from grave to save your Zombies from destruction, Zoodaic Boarbow as a Zoodiac Xyz that can attack directly, Lost Wind to negate the effects of an opponent’s Special Summoned monster and halves its ATK/DEF and also resets itself when the opponent Special Summons from the Extra Deck, and SPYRAL Tough as a monster to be treated as SPYRAL Super Agent while on field or in grave and lets you declare the top card of the opponent’s Deck and pop an opponent’s card if you call the card type right. Short Prints in this set include Metrognome that can change its Scale to the Pendulum Scale of another Pendulum Zone card, Fairy Tail – Rella to be the only possible target for Spell Cards or effects and can discard a Spell to equip an Equip Spell from hand, Deck, or grave that’ll bounce during the End Phase to this card, Terminal World NEXT to only allow players to use 3 Monster Zones and 3 Spell/Trap Zones, and Massivemorph to double a monster’s ATK and DEF at the cost of it being unable to attack directly. Noteworthy Commons give us Cipher Etranger to attach itself from hand or field to a Cipher Xyz you control and going to grave lets you search a Cipher Spell/Trap, Flower Cardian Cherry Blossom with Curtain to reveal itself in hand to draw a card and Special Summon both this and the card draw if it was a Flower Cardian with the downside of both cards going to grave if it wasn’t, Ancient Gear Hunting Hound to deal 600 burn to the opponent on Normal Summon and lets you Fusion Summon an Ancient Gear using monsters from hand or field as material, Zoodiac Bunnyblast to recover a Zoodiac monster from grave to hand on destruction and gives a Beast-Warrior Xyz that has it as material protection from Spell targeting, Zoodiac Ramram to Special Summon a Zoodiac from grave on destruction and gives a Beast-Warrior Xyz that has it as material protection from Trap targeting, Crystron Rion to summon a banished non-Tuner during the opponent’s Main or Battle Phase for an immediate Synchro of a Machine with the Synchro Materials being shuffled into Deck, Miscellaneousaurus to discard itself during the Main Phase as a Quick Effect to make your Dinosaurs unaffected by the opponent’s activated effects during said Main Phase and can banish itself and a number of Dinosaurs from grave to summon a Dinosaur with an equal Level as the banished monsters that’s destroyed during the End Phase, Eater of Millions to banish at least 5 cards from hand, field, or Extra Deck to Special Summon itself and banishes face-down any monster it battles, Wightprincess as another Skull Servant name that can be sent from hand or field to grave to debuff every monster’s ATK and DEF by their Level times 300 and on Normal/Special Summon lets you send Wightprince from Deck to grave, Ancient Gear Howitzer as a Fusion of 2 Ancient Gears that burns the opponent for 1000 each turn with it being unaffected by other card effects and floats into any Ancient Gear from Deck with summoning conditions ignored upon destruction in battle, Machine Angel Absolute Ritual as a Ritual Spell for any Cyber Angel Ritual to use any monster in hand or field as well as the option to shuffle Fairy monsters from grave into Deck, Recardination to add a Flower Cardian from grave to hand and then lets you Special Summon a Flower Cardian from hand ignoring summoning conditions and being sent to grave by a Flower Cardian effect lets you excavate the top 5 cards of Deck to add a Spell/Trap to hand while the other cards go back on top in any order, Shinobird’s Calling for the Ritual Spell for the two Shinobird Rituals, Shinobird Power Spot to let you add a Spirit Monster or Ritual Spell from Deck to hand when a WIND Monster returns to hand, Super Soldier Synthesis for another Ritual Spell for Black Luster Soldiers that uses 1 LIGHT and 1 DARK monster (1 from hand and 1 from Deck), Zoodiac Combo to attach a Zoodiac from Deck to a Zoodiac Xyz you control and can be banished from grave to return 5 Zoodiac monsters with different names to the Deck for a draw, Void Feast to send a Void Spell/Trap from hand or face-up field to grave to summon up to 3 Infernoid monsters whose combined Levels equal 8 from Deck ignoring summoning conditions, Symphonic Warrior Guitaar to discard a card to summon a Symphonic Warrior from Deck and on Normal Summon lets you revive a Symphonic Warrior, Symphonic Warrior Synthess with a FLIP Effect to search a Symphonic Warrior monster and can be banished from grave to summon a banished Symphonic Warrior, and Symphonic Warrior Miccs to recover a banished Symphoinc Warrior to hand and give you an additional Normal Summon the turn it is Normal/Special Summoned. Luckly the set known for the Zoodiac debut had a lot more to offer. We got some good cards with Foolish Burial Goods and That Grass Looks Greener to offer some new niches. Windwitches made their debut to help with a 1-card Crystal Wing Synchro Dragon. There’s cards with a ton of upside potential like Full Force Virus and “the best card of 2017” Sea Monster of Theseus. A bunch of other archetypes also got good support, especially Infernoids with a lone Trap to give a big boost, but after this set it was almost everything Zoodiac for a while. Loved 60 card Decks being more viable, though.

Set Rating: 10/10

Maximum Crisis

Release Date: May 5th, 2017
Cover Card: Supreme King Z-ARC
Sneak Peek Promo: Pendulum Switch

Well we finally hit the end of the era to wrap a nice little bow onto everything. Maximum Crisis is here, and it certainly isn’t going to end things on a wimper. This set gave us support for the recent archetypes like D/D, Dark Contract, Dinomist, Pendulum Magician, Nekroz, Odd-Eyes, Performapal, Predaplant, Raidraptor, Speedroid, Phantom Knights, Zefra, Zoodiac, Digital Bug, SPYRAL, and Subterror archetypes with legacy support for B.E.S., Buster Blader, Familiar-Possessed, Resonator, Artifact, Bujin, and Sylvan archetypes with the debut of the Phantasm Spiral, Supreme King, Lyrilusc, and True Draco archetypes. Secret Rares in this set give us Master Peace, the True Dracoslaying King as a monster to be able to be Tribute Summoned with Continuous Spells and Traps with being immune to the card types tributed to summon it and the effect to banish a Continuous Spell/Trap from grave to pop a card on field as a Quick Effect, Ash Blossom & Joyous Spring as a handtrap to negate cards that add cards from Deck to hand, Special Summons from Deck, or sends from Deck to grave, Supreme King Z-ARC as a final boss Fusion of the previous four Dimension Dragons, Ultra Polymerization to let you Fusion Summon and then revive the Fusion Materials after, Dragonic Diagram to pop a card from hand or field to search any True Draco or True King card, Duelist Alliance to search any card with Pendulum in the name when you have a Pendulum Scale, Unending Nightmare to continously pop face-up Spells and Traps at a 1000 LP cost, and Tornado Dragon as a generic Rank 4 that can detach a material to destroy a Spell/Trap as a Quick Effect. Ultra Rares in this set include Majesty Maiden, the True Dracophoenix with a similar effect to Tribute Summon as Master Peace and searches any True Draco monster when the opponent uses a card or effect, Ignis Heat, the True Dracowarrior with the same Tribute Summon clause and lets you add to your hand or activate a True Draco or True King Spell from Deck when the opponent uses a card or effect, Dinomight Knight, the True Dracofighter as nearly the same card as Ignis Heat just for Continuous Traps, Dreiath III, the True Dracocavalry to give your True Draco and True King monsters tarageting and destruction protection and upon leaving the field can summon a True Draco or True King from Deck in Defense Position, Mariamne, the True Dracophoenix as the WIND version of the True Kings that banishes the top 4 cards of the opponent’s Deck being summoned by popping two WINDs and searches a non-WIND Wyrm on destruction, Performapal Gatlinghoul as a Fusion of a Performapal and a Level 5+ DARK that burns the opponent for 200 for each card on the field and then pops one of their monsters to burn for the monster’s ATK, Zoodiac Chakanine for a Zoodiac Xyz that can detach a material to revive a Zoodiac, True Draco Heritage to let you draw cards for each card type of True Draco or True King cards sent to grave that turn alongside destroying a Spell/Trap upon going from field to grave and lets you Tribute Summon a True Draco in addition to your Normal Summon or Set on your turn, True King’s Return to revive your True King or True Draco monsters and destroys a monster upon going from field to grave and lets you Tribute Summon a True Draco or True King on the opponent’s turn, and SPYRAL GEAR – Fully Armed as an Equip Spell for SPYRAL Super Agent to boost it by 1000 ATK and banishes the monster that the Super Agent destroyed in battle alongside another card. Noteworthy Super Rares gives you Supreme King Gate Zero for a searchable 0 Scale with no downside, Zefraath to copy a Zefra’s Pendulum Scale by moving it from Deck to Extra Deck and lets you Pendulum Summon your Zefra monsters in addition to your regular turn’s Pendulum Summon, Fairy Tail – Luna to search a Spellcaster with 1850 ATK on Normal Summon and has a Quick Effect to bounce itself and an opponent’s monster unless they send a monster with the same name from Deck or Extra Deck to grave, Lyrilusc – Independent Nightingale to burn your opponent for 500 times its Level mainly as a card to copy its effects of for FTKs, The Phantom Knights of Cursed Javelin as a generic Rank 2 that negates an opponent’s mosnter’s effects and makes its ATK 0, Lyrilusc – Assembled Nightingale as a generic Rank 1 that gains 200 ATK times its materials and can attack directly for each material it has, True King of All Calamites as a generic Rank 9 that detaches a material to change the Attributes of all monsters on field to a declared Attribute and prevents effects of monsters with the declared Attribute from using their effects that turn, Waterfall of Dragon Souls as a Trap to search any Wyrm monster, Subterror Fiendess as a handtrap to negate an opponent’s card or effect and destroys it by discarding this card and setting a face-up Subterror monster you control, SPYRAL Sleeper as a Special Summon boss in SPYRAL with a Quick Effect to destroy a card you control and up to 2 cards the opponent controls, and Sylvan Princessprite as a generic Rank 1 that excavates the top card of Deck to add it to hand if it’s a Spell or Trap or sends it to grave if it’s a monster and also lets you send another Plant from hand or face-up field to grave to revive a Sylvan monster. Noteworthy Rares include Speedroid Rubberband Plane as a free Special Summon from hand when a monster is Special Summoned, Predaplant Ophyrs Scorpio to discard a monster on Normal Summon to summon a Predplant from Deck, Phantasm Spiral Dragon as the big vanilla boss of the Phantasm Spiral series of cards, Ariel, Priestess of the Nekroz to reveal Nekroz cards in hand to gain the Level equal to the number revealed and upon being tributed lets you search a non-Ritual Nekroz monster, B.E.S. Big Core Mk-3 as a classic B.E.S. monster that can be Special Summoned while only the opponent controls monsters and also gains the counters on Normal and Special Summon and can be banished from grave to return all B.E.S. monsters in grave to Deck, Magician’s Restage to revive a Level 3 or lower Spellcaster on activation and searches another Magician Continuous Spell upon going to grave, Pacifis, the Phantasm City as another Umi that summons a Phantasm Token if the opponent uses a card or effect and searches a Phantasm Spiral Spell/Trap when you summon a Normal Monster, Zefra Providence to search any Zefra card and banishes itself from grave to protect Zefras from destruction, Phantasm Spiral Battle that can be used from hand if you control Umi and destroys a card on field if you only control Normal Monsters, Subterror Final Battle to help flip your Subterrors face-up and face-down and be a reusable Trap, SPYRAL GEAR – Last Resort to equip to a SPYRAL from hand or field to give it destruction immunity and targeting protection from the opponent, and Bujin Hiruko as a Normal Pendulum that summons a Bujin Xyz using a different Bujin Xyz and its materials. Short Prints give us Familiar-Possessed – Lyna as the LIGHT Familiar-Possessed that searches a Spellcaster with 1500 DEF when summoned with its own effect, Set Rotation to set 1 Field Spell to your field and opponent’s field and prevents other Field Spells from being activated or Set while either card is Set, and Diamond Duston to summon Dustons from Deck to anywhere on field up to the number of cards destroyed at a time and summons itself from grave as your standard Duston monster. Noteworthy Commons give us Predaplant Darlingtonia Cobra to search a Polymerization or Fusion Spell when summoned off a Predaplant effect, Lyrilusc – Cobalt Sparrow to search a Level 1 Winged Beast on Special Summon and gives a WIND Xyz that uses it as material targeting protection from the opponent’s effects, Lyrilusc – Sapphire Swallow to be Special Summoned from hand with another Level 1 Winged Beast if you control a Winged Beast already and being used as an Xyz Material for a WIND Xyz lets you attach a Lyrilusc monster from grave to it as material, Lyrilusc – Turquoise Warbler to be Special Summoned from hand if you control no monsters and upon being Special Summoned from hand can summon a Lyrilusc from hand or grave, D/D Ghost as a Level 2 Tuner that upon going to grave lets you send a D/D or Dark Contract from Deck to grave with the same name as a card in grave and upon being banished lets you return another banished D/D monster or Dark Contract to grave, Supreme King Dragon Darkwurm to revive itself from grave while you have no monsters on field and upon summon lets you search a Supreme King Gate, Baobaboon to let you draw a card and return a card from hand to top or bottom of Deck on summon and upon destruction lets you summon any number of Baobaboons from Deck, Zoodiac Hammerkong as another Zoodiac Xyz that gives your other Zoodiac monsters targeting protection while it has a material, Magician’s Right Hand to negate the opponent’s first Spell each turn while you control a Spellcaster, Magician’s Left Hand to negate the opponent’s first Trap each turn while you control a Spellcaster, Disciples of the True Dracophoenix to return 3 True King or True Draco cards to Deck for a draw and the other similar effects to True Draco Heritage, Phantasm Spiral Crash, Phantasm Spiral Grip, and Phantasm Spiral Wave as Equip Spells to help you summon the Phantasm Spiral boss after Normal Monsters they’re equipped to meet certain conditions, B.E.F. Zelos to search Boss Rush on activation and summon your B.E.S. monsters from hand with a counter on them, True Draco Apocalypse to destroy your other True Draco or True King cards to halve your opponent’s monster’s ATK and DEF and similar other effects to True King’s Return, Phantasm Spiral Power as a Trap with similar conditions to Phantasm Spiral Battle only instead it negates a monster’s effects and debuffs its stats by 1000, Prologue of the Destruction Swordsman to summon a Buster Dragon from Extra Deck that’s destroyed at the end of next turn by sending a Destruction Sword card and Buster Blader monster from Deck to grave and banishes itself from grave to give you Destruction Sword cards destruction protection for a turn, Dinomists Howling to place 1 or 2 Dinomists from Deck to your Pendulum Zones and can tribute a Dinomist monster to bounce an opponent’s card, SPYRAL MISSION – Rescue to add your SPYRAL monsters from grave to hand and banishes itself from grave to revive a SPYRAL monster. Overall, I do get GX era vibes here ending the era off with two bangers. Any set with Ash Blossom was always going to get points, but there’s more here than that. We saw the Predaplant engine come from this set alongside the True Draco cards to help make True King strategies better and make a proper True Draco Deck. Tornado Dragon is a great Rank 4 Xyz that was added by the TCG. We got some good imports like Bujin Hiruko and Sylvan Princessprite. SPYRAL gets some of their better cards and Subterror gets some of the last pieces for Guru Control until we got Guru himself. Phantasm Spiral is a legit Deck. Zoodiac got a boost with the 2 new Xyzs. Pendulum Decks got a searcher for some of their generic cards in Duelist Alliance. Zefra became a legit Deck in this set. It’s a really good end to the era.

Set Rating: 10/10

In Conclusion

Well after a year and a half break from this, that’s another era of the game done. It’s probably one of the strongest eras for sets we’ve seen and it’s going to be hard to top. Having four basically perfect sets in my eyes is extremely good. Besides Secrets of Eternity, every other set was pretty strong with some meta updates that were somewhat significant. Even Secrets of Eternity deubted one of the archetypes from the era that held up the best. The first three Ghost Girls coming from this time period is pretty good as well, including the best one. This was a strong period for sets, even with the loss of Ultimate Rares and Ghost Rares. See you all when I get to and finish VRAINS and other Structure Decks hopefully.

Thanks for reading,

Crunch$G