Join our Discord to discuss this article with fellow Duelists

Become a Patron to support us for 12 years of all-volunteer work

No card is ever safe on the Market.

From the past to the future, many cards see new innovations or even their theme receiving new support. From Six Samurai in past formats, like 2012’s Return of the Duelist format, to even Soul Resonator for the upcoming Ritual of Light and Darkness Deck as another way to access the new Kuriboh cards. This week is jam-packed with techs for upcoming Decks and old classics seeing sales. Let’s dive right into this week’s Market Watch.

Modern Techs to Flash in Style 

As the days go on, players have been picking up copies of Soul Resonator for the new Ritual of Light and Darkness (YGOrganization Translation) theme. If this card is Normal or Special Summoned, you can add any Level 4 or lower Fiend monster from your Deck to your hand, but for the rest of that turn, you can only Special Summon DARK Synchro Monsters from your Extra Deck, which isn’t an issue for a Ritual Deck. This card can search for both Gurifoh (YGOrganization Translation) from Chaos Origins and Multiplying Kuriboh! (YGOrganization Translation) from Limit Over Collection: The Heroes. Gurifoh can discard itself to either make the next battle or effect damage you take that turn become 0, OR Set a Quick-Play Spell or Trap that mentions Ritual of Light and Darkness from your Deck, and you can activate it the turn you Set it. Meanwhile, Multiplying Kuriboh! can Special Summon itself from the hand when your opponent activates a monster effect or when they declare an attack. Then once per turn when your opponent activates a monster effect on the field or during damage calculation when an opponent’s monster attacks, you can either add to your hand or Special Summon a Dark Magician or a monster with 300 ATK and 200 DEF from your Deck or GY while changing that opponent’s monster’s ATK to 0. This is great for having additional ways to add a copy of Gurifoh from your Deck to your hand.

With a new Lunalight card being announced in the new Legendary ARC-V Decks, Lunalight Gold Leo had a spike in price but slowly settled down. This yet-to-be-revealed new card allows you to Special Summon it from the hand at any time your Lunalight monster’s effect activates, and if your opponent activated a card or effect that same turn, it lets you add a Polymerization from your Deck or GY to your hand. Then if this unknown new monster is sent to the GY by a card effect, you can Special Summon another Lunalight monster from your GY or face-up Extra Deck. This pairs extremely well with Lunalight Gold Leo, as it lets you have an additional monster on your field for future Fusion Summons or Link Summons. With all that said, Gold Leo is one of the best cards ever printed for Lunalight, as if you Normal or Special Summon it, you can add 1 other Lunalight monster from your Deck to your hand, then discard 1 card. In addition, if a Lunalight monster is sent to your GY while Gold Leo is in the Monster Zone (even during the Damage Step), you can target 1 of them in your GY and add it back to your hand. This is great for recycling Lunalight Black Sheep or other Lunalight monsters that were sent to the GY by an effect or for a Fusion Summon.

As players are hoping and praying for new Eyes Restrict support, Relinquished Fusion and cards related to that have been going up slowly in price, along with quantity becoming limited. This card is the heart and soul for Fusion Summoning any Eyes Restrict Fusion Monster from the Extra Deck by banishing Fusion Materials from your hand, field, and/or GY. You can banish Relinquished Fusion from your GY to target 1 Effect Monster your opponent controls and equip that target to an Eyes Restrict Fusion Monster or Relinquished you control as if it were equipped by its own effect. The last time this card saw a reprint was in the Legendary Duelists: Season 1 in multiple Ultra Rare variants. I also hope to see new support for the whole “Eyes Restrict” theme used by Pegasus in the Yu-Gi-Oh! Manga/Anime.

With Miracle Ejector being released in the TCG via Blazing Dominion, this has caused plenty of Elemental HERO cards to rise up in price, especially EN Shuffle. EN Shuffle lets you shuffle an Elemental HERO or Neo-Spacian monster you control into your Deck (which counts Miracle Ejector as an option as it is always treated as a Elemental HERO card) to Special Summon an Elemental HERO or Neo-Spacian monster from your Deck with a different name. You can also banish EN Shuffle from your GY to shuffle either 1 Elemental HERO monster and 1 Neo-Spacian monster, or 1 Elemental HERO Neos, from your GY into your Deck to draw 1 card. This is useful for recycling any of your Elemental HERO monsters into the Deck for plays in later turns or putting Elemental HERO Neos back into your Deck for making Neos Fusion live once again.

Gimmicky FTKs are…well, gimmicky, and Time Wizard of Tomorrow happens to be part of one, as it is all luck-based. This card only needs Time Wizard and any Effect Monster as its Fusion Materials, and while you control this Fusion Summoned card, it can let you toss a coin once per turn, and you have to call it. You destroy as many monsters as possible on the field, and you inflict damage to half the total original ATK of the destroyed face-up monsters. If you call it right, your opponent takes the total damage, but if you call it wrong, you take the total damage instead. It is paired with Phantasmal Lord Ultimitl Bishbaalkin since it gains 1000 ATK for each monster on the field, including the tokens it can make via its own effect. This makes a devastating combo with Number 33: Chronomaly Machu Mecha and Number 6: Chronomaly Atlandis an easy way to burn the opponent. Anything can be possible with this Time Wizard, but only time will tell if Konami makes it able to be extremely consistent in the future to lean more into Joey Wheeler’s lucky side.

With Blazing Dominion and Chaos Origins affecting the market heavily, it wouldn’t be surprising if Beyond the Brave did the same when the Cover Theme of the set is revealed this month.

Classic And Retro Cards Spike Again

Plenty of classic and old-school cards have been seeing sales due to explorations of older formats and techs in many formats. Kagemusha of the Six Samurai happens to be one of the many cards, as its Super Rare from Astral Pack One has been nearly wiped off the North American Market. Mainly from memory, this was one of the many cards you would Special Summon via Asceticism of the Six Samurai by targeting a copy of Legendary Six Samurai – Kageki. By doing so, you can Special Summon a copy of Kagemusha from your Deck to then Synchro Summon a copy of Legendary Six Samurai – Shi En for a Spell/Trap card negator. When a face-up Six Samurai monster is targeted by a Spell/Trap or card effect, Kagemusha can switch the target of that Spell/Trap or effect to Kagemusha itself instead. For example, you can change Fiendish Chain’s target to it instead of another powerful Six Samurai you control.

Elemental HERO cards are always cards players will pick up due to how iconic they are from the physical card game and the GX Anime. Elemental HERO Gaia is the card that received the spotlight today as a great generic Elemental HERO Fusion Monster that simply requires 1 Elemental HERO monster and 1 EARTH monster as Fusion Materials, which was extremely useful in Diva HERO back in Edison format and is even in today’s format with the addition of Miracle Ejector. Even though this card can only be Fusion Summoned, an easy Miracle Fusion can Special Summon this card, and when it is Fusion Summoned, you target a face-up monster your opponent controls to halve its ATK, and Gaia gains the other half, racking up its ATK to become stronger.

For an old classic card seeing a handful of sales over the past, Dark Magician Knight has been noted to be a nostalgic piece for players who want every Dark Magician-related card. Even nowadays, Knight’s Title can be searched by Dark Magician of Destruction, and then you can use Knight’s Title to tribute the copy of Dark Magician of Destruction (as it is treated as Dark Magician while on the field and in the GY) in order to Special Summon Dark Magician Knight from your hand, Deck, or GY. On this card’s Special Summon, you target and destroy 1 card on the field, which can be useful for free removal from the field, but other options are better, like Red-Eyes Dark Dragoon for an Omni-Negate or Timaeus the United Magical Dragon for a Spell/Trap destructor during your opponent’s turn. Though, maybe in the future, we could see more retrains and cards related to this side of Dark Magician.

Trap Stun is making shockwaves recently in many of the Retro Formats as it negates all Trap Cards on the field. Having a spike in popularity is huge for a card like this, as it’s an iconic tech that I even had the chance to use over the past 10 years. With having fewer than 135 total listings on the North American Market, it would make sense that this card should see a reprint in the future. This honorable tech card is a turning stone since its release in Raging Battles as a way to shut off plenty of the best Traps in the game, from Royal Oppression, Icarus Attack and even to the full Solemn brigade, provided you use it beforehand. Hopefully, this card sees a brand-new reprint to give it an Ultra Rare finish, or even a higher rarity than just Secret Rare.

Red-Eyes Slash Dragon is one of the many Extra Deck iterations of Joey Wheeler’s famous Red-Eyes Black Dragon and was at the top of the game in the Duel Links format years ago. This card needs a Red-Eyes Black Dragon itself and a Warrior monster as its Fusion Materials, and when a Red-Eyes monster declares an attack, you can target 1 Warrior in your GY to equip it to Slash Dragon as an Equip Spell that makes Slash Dragon gain 200 ATK. This card can also negate and destroy any card or effect that targets cards you control by sending 1 Equip Spell you control to the GY, which is perfect for countering cards like Infinite Impermanence, Mystical Space Typhoon, and even S:P Little Knight. On top of all of this, if this card is destroyed by battle or card effect, you can Special Summon as many monsters that were equipped to it from your GY as possible, for regaining advantage on your field against the opponent so you can have a follow-up on your next turn.

The market never stops moving, and the players continue to explore other formats when they think the format is near its end and want to play something different. Soon, Blazing Dominion will be released to the TCG to shake up the meta by making Kewl Tune the top contender in the format, followed by other decks like Dracotail Branded, Yummy Fiendsmith, Vanquish Soul K9, and even Maliss. Only time will tell how things will turn out at YCS Columbus, Ohio, coming this month, but first, we have to get past the plenty of World Championship Qualifier Events these next few weekends.

Edited and co-written by Angryjon