[MW] Shooting Stars on the Galactic Market With Aliens

As reprints fade into silence, the giants return to claim their due.

Normally, the market doesn’t have this many abnormalities, but after this past weekend, many have shined through the cracks. Many of these cards have had missed reprints over the years or have been or will be seeing mass meta play over the past months. Let’s dive into everything and talk about what is going on this week.

For the first part, we will be looking at cards that don’t have a reprint since their release and have been rising up in price, and a good place to start is looking at Shooting Majestic Star Dragon. This cover card from Dawn of Majesty hasn’t seen a reprint since its release, and many players picked up copies of the card for the Legendary 5D’s Decks, which contain new cards for the Junk Warrior and Synchron strategies. Even though this card needs Majestic Dragon and a non-Tuner monster, including a Dragon Synchro Monster, you can use a copy of Converging Wills Dragon, as it becomes Majestic Dragon while on the field or in the GY. Once per turn, you can choose 1 Effect Monster your opponent controls and negate its effects permanently. In addition, this card gains 1 additional attack each Battle Phase for every Stardust Dragon or Synchro Monster with “Stardust Dragon” in its text. This makes it so this 4000 ATK beatstick can OTK your opponent out of nowhere. Finally, when your opponent activates a card or effect, you can quickly banish this card (until the End Phase) to negate the activation of that card/effect and banish that card. 

Next up, Cosmic Fortress Gol’Gar and Code A Ancient Ruins are an Alien duo that haven’t seen a reprint since their release in Crimson Crisis. Gol’gar is the only Synchro Monster to the Alien theme, and it is an extremely powerful monster for them. This card needs an Alien Ammonite and 1 or more non-Tuner Alien monsters for its Synchro Summon, which is rather restrictive. It’s worth it, however, as it can target any number of face-up Spells/Traps on the field to return them to their owners’ hands and place A-Counters on monsters currently on the field equal to the number of cards returned. On top of this, you can, once per turn, remove 2 A-Counters from anywhere on the field to destroy 1 card your opponent controls. This allows you to fuel Code A Ancient Ruins’ ability to Special Summon 1 Alien monster from your GY or debuff your opponent’s monsters with Cosmic Slicer Zer’oll, forcing the opponent’s monsters into Defense Position, and neither player can activate their effects while they have A-Counters.

For the last strange oddity, we will look at Joker’s Straight from King’s Court. The listings on the NA market are less than 20 copies between the Ultra Rare and Collector’s Rare versions, while on the EU market, there are more quantities, but the price is still above $8/€7. This is a card that is the center of the Poker Knight monsters, as you can discard 1 card to Special Summon 1 Queen’s Knight from your Deck and add a copy of King’s or Jack’s Knight from your Deck to your hand. Then after this card resolves, you immediately Normal Summon 1 monster. This is useful, as it allows you to Normal Summon your searched King’s Knight to now let you Special Summon 1 Jack’s Knight from your Deck. This helps set up a Tribute Summon for an Egyptian God monster, the Fusion Summon of Arcana Knight Joker, or the Link Summon of Arcana Extra Joker. With this card, it sets up many options for the Poker Knights, and during the End Phase, you can shuffle a LIGHT Warrior from the GY into the Deck to add this card back to the hand.

It has been odd that these cards haven’t seen a reprint since their releases, as they are a part of fan-favorite strategies, and hopefully in the future, we see them receive a proper reprint to lower the price points.

Next up are a couple meta-relevant cards like Maliss <P> March Hare, as many players have been jumping back to play this Cyberse Link Deck. Only from Alliance Insight, this Secret Rare has been a key extender for many of the combo lines for the deck. By banishing 1 Maliss card from your hand or GY, you can Special Summon Hare from your hand, which triggers many of your Maliss cards, from the monsters that Special Summon themselves to even Maliss in the Mirror to banish another Maliss card from your GY and add another card of the same type (Monster/Spell/Trap). When Hare is banished, you can pay 300 LP to target 1 of your banished Maliss monsters and add it to your hand, which recurs a banished Maliss <P> Dormouse or a Link Monster that is stuck in banishment if you don’t have access to Maliss <C> GWC-06.

Next happens to be one of the Trap Cards that have been dominant in DARK, FIRE, and WATER Decks, Dominus Impulse. While your opponent controls a card, you can activate it from your hand, but you cannot activate LIGHT, EARTH, and WIND monster effects for the rest of the Duel by doing so, which is a fair balance for the card, as it negates any card or effect that is activated that includes the effect to Special Summon a monster(s). Having such a counter is extremely strong in the current game, where it’s all based around multiple combo lines, from stopping Mitsurugi Ritual, Dracotail Rahu/Dracotail Ketu/Dracotail Faimena, or even Lollipo★Yummy Way and the other Yummy Synchro Monsters. The upside is that if you have a Trap Card in your GY, it destroys the negated card, which could benefit the player using it.

Despite being in Rage of the Abyss and the 2025 Mega Tins, this card’s value has been rising with the return of Maliss to the current meta as a potential deck in the top 5 in the format. Maybe we will see an additional reprint that will be extremely easy for players to have access to, but only time will tell.

Finally, the card that was the most shocking to see not reprinted in Phantom Revenge is Red Nova, as it is a great card to Special Summon off of Kewl Tune Cue, as it can Special Summon any Tuner from your hand, Deck, or GY, with the downside of locking you into only being able to Special Summon Tuners for the rest of the turn. Why is Red Nova important for Kewl Tune? Well, if it is used as a Synchro Material for a Synchro that needs 2 or more Tuners, you can Special Summon 1 FIRE Fiend monster from your Deck in Defense Position, letting you access a copy of Kewl Tune Reco. When Kewl Tune Reco is summoned, you can add 1 Kewl Tune monster from your Deck or GY to your hand that isn’t a Level 3 for further extension in your combos. Outside of Kewl Tune using this card, Resonators can use this card extremely well, as they are all centered around Red Dragon Archfiend and the new support from Blazing Dominion, as you can Special Summon Soul Resonator straight from your Deck to let you add 1 Level 4 or lower Fiend monster from your Deck to your hand.

It is strange that this card didn’t see a reprint in Phantom Revenge, but they could be keeping it for a piece of cross promotion between another set and Burst Protocol. Hopefully we will see in the next few months if that comes to fruition.

This weekend, there will be a North American Remote Duel YCS happening, but sadly Phantom Revenge won’t be legal for it like it was originally planned due to the recent delay. Outside of that event, there will be a few regionals as well going on into this holiday season!

Edited and co-written by Angryjon