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Mind your own business, Norden

A new OCG Forbidden & Limited list dropped earlier this week and has caused commotion within the community as we saw the return of both Mind Master and Elder Entity Norden after they were both released off the Forbidden List and are now Limited with brand-new errata’s to each of them. As mentioned last week, we will be discussing both Attack Guidance Armor and Magical Trick Mirror in this Market Watch because they have gone ballistic on the market. This week also has many other surprises too and techs for the upcoming Toon threat in the future. So let’s dive into this week’s Market Watch to see what has changed.

Iconic Anime and Manga Cards

As an iconic card used by Seto Kaiba in the Manga and Anime, Attack Guidance Armor is almost sold out on the North American market. This card can be activated when a monster declares an attack, and you either destroy the attacking monster or target 1 other monster on the field and change the attack target to it and perform damage calculation. It’s a strong card for casual play or just to have in anyone’s collection, but the main reason why this card’s price is so high is that the 25th Anniversary Ultimate Kaiba Set was fully made-to-order, so only a certain amount of the product was ever printed.

Along with Attack Guidance Armor, Magical Trick Mirror has suffered the same fate, unlike Life Shaver. Magical Trick Mirror is a silly but extremely fun card to use. If your opponent’s monster declares an attack, you can target 1 Spell in your GY and Set it to your field. You can also banish this card from your GY to send a copy of Monster Reborn from your hand or face-down field to the GY in order to Special Summon a copy of Obelisk the Tormentor from your GY, and if you used that effect during the opponent’s turn, all monsters must attack that face-up Obelisk the Tormentor while you control it.

Nothing gets as iconic as cards like Pot of Greed, the Dark Sorcerer Dark Magician, and even the Legendary Blue-Eyes White Dragon, but Graceful Charity was noted to be going up in price due to plenty of past format play and collector purposes. Even with plenty of reprints for this card over the years, Graceful Charity is managing to hold well over $7 per every copy of this card. Being able to draw 3 cards, then discard 2 is absolutely insane and still is extremely powerful in today’s meta game. Players have been using this card constantly over the years in the Traditional Formats, in No Banlist formats for Deck thinning and Tearlaments, and even as recently as the Genesys Format as it sits right now at 40 points for the card.

It’s unknown when these iconic Anime/Manga cards will see another reprint, but it’ll be a great surprise for many, as it would be great to have another chance to obtain these cards for the players who missed out on the original run for them.

Bulk Diving For Days

Mind Master is one of the two cards being Errata’d on the recent OCG Forbidden & Limited list for July 2026, and it has changed the card fundamentally. Prior to the errata, Mind Master let you pay 800 LP and Tribute 1 Psychic monster, except “Mind Master”,  to Special Summon 1 Level 4 or lower Psychic monster from your Deck in Attack Position, and notably, this effect could be used as many times as you wanted. This new errata made it so it’s a “hard once per turn” effect, but now, you can Tribute the Mind Master itself as part of the cost. This can definitely help certain strategies, as it has become a Lonefire Blossom-like card for Psychics. Being a Level 1 Tuner also helps because it lets you run cards like One for One or Where Arf Thou? in your Deck, which could access cards like Noh-P.U.N.K. Ze Amin or any of the new Psychic monsters from Duelist’s Advance.

Madolchepalooza has been on my radar for a while now since it only has 1 print, and it has been seeing sales over the past months and rising in price with no reprint in sight. This card can be a useful Trap Card, as it Special Summons any number of Madolche monsters from your hand, but they are shuffled into the Deck during the End Phase. But… that downside isn’t really a downside, as in the Abyss Rising format, you would just use the monsters for material for Xyz Monsters such as Madolche Queen Tiaramisu, Leviair the Sea Dragon, Wind-Up Zenmaines, or other Rank 3s and 4s.

Players are eyeing future techs for going against Toons, and Veidos the Eruption Dragon of Extinction is going to be the main one run in Side Decks going into the future, especially in Decks like Blitzclique where they can destroy the card. This card can target a card in the Field Zone, destroy it, and then you can Special Summon this card to the opponent’s field. If this card is sent from the opponent’s field to the GY, you can destroy all monsters on the field, making it a perfect card to counter Toon World the Perfect World (YGOrganization Translation). This card was released a couple years ago in the TCG, and they were ahead of their time for a card like this, and now it’s finally going to be seeing mass play in the future.

Another card that was brought up was The Abyss Dragon Swordsoul for the same purpose. While in the hand or GY, if a card was banished by a card effect, like the effect of Toon World the Perfect World (YGOrganization Translation), you can Special Summon this card. When this card is Special Summoned, you can target 1 card in the Field Zone alongside a monster your opponent controls and banish them, which removes both Funny Dark Rabbit (YGOrganization Translation) and Toon World the Perfect World (YGOrganization Translation) if played correctly. Even though you would most likely need another form of disruption, they will have to find a way to get to another Perfect World to help complete their locks with Mind Scan (YGOrganization Translation). Even if they get to Mind Scan (YGOrganization Translation) and they see you have this in your hand, they would most likely call it, and if it’s paired with a Nibiru, the Primal Being, or Ghost Ogre & Snow Rabbit, it punishes extremely greedy players who will be playing Toons.

Finally, we have hit an interesting wave of sales, due to the next Chronicle Animations going to be based off and around Sinful Spoils, with new sleeves depicting Diabellstar the Black Witch, which was revealed this past Sunday. Many players have gone out of their way to pick up copies of Original Sinful Spoils – Snake-Eye because of this reason for new Sinful Spoils support and potential Snake-Eye support too. It is an amazing piece of FIRE support because you can send another face-up card you control to the GY to Special Summon a Level 1 FIRE monster from your hand or Deck, which bridges any Deck into Snake-Eye, but this also bridges Snake-Eye into Rescue-ACE, Fire King, and even T.G. thanks to T.G. Rocket Salamander. It can also banish itself from the GY to target a Snake-Eye or Diabellstar monster in your GY, to then add a Level 1 FIRE monster from your Deck to your hand, and then places the targeted card to the bottom of the Deck for additional recursion in any FIRE theme.

Over the next weeks, we will be seeing the first wave of Regional events for the 2026-2027 season, along with the North American World Championship Qualifiers in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and European World Championship Qualifiers in Brussels, Belgium, during the same weekend in three weeks’ time. But when it comes, we will finally see the impact from Chaos Origins on the TCG. Players are thinking the new Light and Darkness Ritual theme will be the Deck to beat next to Kewl Tune, while others think that Kewl Tune and Branded are still extremely strong and newer Decks will have issues entering into the new meta. But now that the Blazing Dominion Season is done, we await the massive events to take place to see who will be qualifying for the 2026 World Championships this year in Ariake, Japan.

Edited and co-written by Angryjon