MW: Adventures with Dragons, Wizards & Current Meta Trends!

When going through what players are playing and what is going on the market, it’s quite interesting seeing techs and options players have been resorting to the past few weeks of the format along with many relevant cards hitting this week’s spotlight.

Both Kamionwizard & Zombie Warrior are non-Effect Fusion Monsters from Astral Pack 3 and OTS Tournament Pack 1 respectively. Both of these cards are VERY expensive for their worth as they have no reprints in sight. Hopefully Zombie Warrior receives one soon in this year’s Battles of Legend (if it is on the shelf for Konami to do so), because of the new Skull Servant support in Alliance Insight as a cross promotion reprint as it’s one of the materials for this non-Effect Fusion. This card has hit up to $30 a single copy from its $18 price tag back in December. Kamionwizard on the other hand is a great Ready Fusion target for Spellcaster Decks that use Level 4s, or for past format Decks like Infernity with Instant Fusion. This single non-Effect Fusion hovers around $45 up to at least $70 from where it was months ago at $30.

With Fiendsmith being the best engine in the room, Ally of Justice Cycle Reader is being a great removal option against the engine. By discarding it from your hand, you can banish 2 LIGHT monsters from your opponent’s GY. This can hit important pieces of the engine like Fiendsmith’s Requiem and Fiendsmith Engraver before they can summon D/D/D Wave High King Caesar. Being from Duel Terminal, its original DT Parallel printing has hit up to $35 for Light Played copies as Near Mint versions are unobtainium, while OTS Tournament Pack 3 Supers are $7 from $1 last month, $2 from $1 for Hidden Arsenal 3 Super Rares, and finally $1 for the Hidden Arsenal: Chapter 1 Commons.

Powersink Stone has been a choice floodgate for Labrynth and Dark World players as it doesn’t affect their Decks in the way it does against Decks like Maliss and Ryzeal. Your opponent only has 2 chances with monster effects to remove it off the field, because after that, neither player can use monster effects for the rest of the turn. Even though both Common copies of this card are around $1, it’s a great mention for what it can do in certain Decks to stun your opponent enough so you can push through what boards they want to make.

With Maliss being at the front of the new meta, very few players have been opting to side Shadow-Imprisoning Mirror. This card’s price reflects this as it is $1 for the Turbo Pack 2 Rare, $5 for the Duelist League Purple Rare, and $6 for the Duel Terminal 7 and Duelist League Blue Rares. This price has been slowly moving up because of this sneaky tech that can catch players off guard if they aren’t prepared for it. Shutting down the effect of DARK monsters is really strong, especially now with Maliss, Yubel, and Memento in the top 6 decks.

As Ryzeal players adjust their Decks for Eclipse Twins, many have opted to run Starliege Photon Blast Dragon. When you control this Xyz Summoned monster, your opponent cannot target Xyz Monsters with 2000 ATK or more with card effects, which makes it extremely useful against hand traps like Effect Veiler and Infinite Impermanence. With its many copies from Legendary Duelists: White Dragon Abyss and Legendary Duelists: Season 2, it accumulated a price over time with the two regular Ultra Rares going for $5-6 and the colored Ultra Rares all sitting around $2-3 a copy. This is also joint with the new Tachyon support we will be receiving in Maze of the Masters this March so keep your eyes out on copies floating around.

Tales of the White Forest is another card making waves for White Forest players as it is the main searcher for any White Forest monster if you control an Illusion or Spellcaster monster. This card is also able to reset itself if it is sent to the GY to activate a monster’s effect. It is extremely powerful in the Deck even if you run just 1 copy of it as it’s a means to extend your plays enough to end on a board with more protection by getting to your Level 8 or 10 Synchro monsters. With the release of Elzette, Azamina of the White Forest in Supreme Darkness, it gives a great boost to this card by allowing it to grab a new name for you to extend and use into higher level Synchro Monsters. Being around the $3 mark from $1.50, it will be making waves more as we get closer to the Alliance Insight release as players wait for the final support for White Forest.

Kashtira still lurks in the depths of the rogue tier and is using Raidraptor – Arsenal Falcon as their Rank 7 option in this format. They use this card in tandem with Harpie’s Feather Storm since you can detach a material to Summon Mulcharmy Fuwalos from the Deck as your WIND Winged Beast target. Raidraptor – Arsenal Falcon currently sits around $10 a copy from $5 a month ago because of these developments to the meta.

With Melodious being a great rogue strategy, Herald of Orange Light has been going up per copy. Its Commons, Rares, and Super Rares all hit above $3 per copy while the Shatterfoil copies from Battle Pack 3: Monster League are up to $17 and more. Lurking in the light, the OTS Tournament Pack 7 Ultimate Rares are up and around $55 for being the highest rarity of the card. This 3-of for any Fairy Deck is useful for getting around any monster hand traps like Ash Blossom & Joyous Springs or others like Bystial Magnamhut or Bystial Druiswurm.

As Supreme Darkness gets closer, Crystal Beast players have been eyeing Snake-Eyes Doomed Dragon as a new Fusion Monster tech for their Deck. With this knowledge, it helps that Golden Rule places 2 Crystal Beast monsters from your Deck to your field as Continuous Spells and allows you to Summon a Crystal Beast with a different name from your hand or GY. This sets up your plays for the mentioned Snake-Eyes Doomed Dragon to move a monster from the Monster Zone to the Spell & Trap Zone for further plays or to remove a problematic card your opponent controls.

As players rush to pick up Gladiator Beast support, Gladiator Beast Tamer Editor has risen to up to $5 a copy with one print. This is still an essential card for your Deck since it can cheat out any of your Gladiator Beast Fusions from the Extra Deck. As a fan favorite Deck, they will always get support and this card gets stronger over time with each new wave. Supreme Darkness houses 5 new Gladiator Beast cards for your Deck with Gladiator Beast Gistel being a great starter to get 2 Gladiator Beasts out of the hand along with being able to activate their effects you started with. Since Gistel is able to search Gladiator Beast’s Comeback from Chaos Impact, it allows you to Summon and loop Gladiator Beast Equeste and Gladiator Beast Tamer Editor which has become the main heart and soul of the Deck. Along with the addition of Gladiator Beast Claudius, it allows you to Special Summon Gladiator Beast Tamer Editor during your opponent’s turn as a Quick Effect, with the downside that you cannot use it to destroy 2 cards with Gladiator Beast Gyzarus as Tamer Editor is not a Quick Effect. And finally, there is the new Field Spell, Flavian – Colosseum of the Gladiator Beasts. Even though it’s an alright option, it can hurt your hand economy so it only shines when you don’t have a need for Gladiator Beast Heraklinos’ effect. The End Phase effect pairs best with Gladiator Beast Charge for diversifying your interactions rather than Gladiator Beast War Chariot being redundant, since the ideal endboard would want to have one or two Gladiator Beast Domitianus. On the topic of Gladiator Beast War Chariot being a piece of your end board, its copies from Turbo Pack: Booster 3 and Ra Yellow Mega Pack are around $4-4.50 from around $1-2, while The Duelist Genesis Super Rares are hitting close to $6.50 from $1.50 months ago, and finally the Secret Rare version from Legendary Collection 2 are hitting around $15 a copy from under $10 a few months ago.

Over the course of the past months, Meteor Black Comet Dragon has been hitting new prices. Both Ultra Rare copies of the card from Invasion: Vengeance and Ghost form the Past have hit above $10 and have been going up over the past few months from around $5 back in October. Recently this card has had many purchases because of the reveal of Red-Eyes Metal Claw Dragon (YGOrg Translation) along with the support wave we saw in Rage of the Abyss with Red-Eyes Black Fullmetal Dragon. Konami is constantly building up Red-Eyes to be a rogue contender in the future and maybe one day we will see the Deck rocket into top tier status.

With more hype to Orcust, World Legacy Succession has risen above $2 from its $1 status. This card is the main target you Set off of Lib the World Key Blademaster during the combo. It is an extender for your Deck to get into your Link Monsters with higher Link Ratings, especially Enlilgirsu, the Orcust Mekk-Knight (YGOrg Translation) or to Summon back Galatea, the Orcust Automaton after linking it away. As the OCG has Apollousa, Bow of the Goddess still legal, TCG players have to improvise with running other Link Monsters in its place like Topologic Trisbaena or use the Azamina engine to Summon out Azamina Ilia Silvia to defend against Nibiru, the Primal Being. But it’ll be a while till we get this support released for the TCG so players have time to test and adjust their play.

With new support for Shining Sarcophagus coming in Alliance Insight, this card has been rising up to $25 because of Dark Magician Girl the Magician’s Apprentice (YGOrg Translation). Being the center of the Deck, Shining Sarcophagus gets you any card from your Deck that mentions the Sarcophagus itself. As we talk about the new Dark Magician Girl retrain, let’s take a look at the Magician Girls, specifically Berry Magician Girl, as players have flocked to picking up their copies from all 3 versions of The Dark Side of Dimensions: Movie Pack. Berry Magician Girl is $1.50 for the Ultra Rare, $2 for the Gold Rare, and over $3.50-4 for the Secret Rare copies, while Chocolate Magician Girl has hit $2.50 on The Dark Side of Dimensions: Movie Pack versions and $5 for The Lost Art Promotion copy.

Tenpai Dragon is still a threat to not mess around with. Players have been picking up their Tenpai cores again and using it as an engine to smokescreen into the Deck during game 2 or using it as a way to get to Hieratic Seals of Heavenly Spheres. Tenpai Dragon Paidra has been hit by this shockwave because of this, hitting up to $7 a copy from around $4 after the December Forbidden and Limited List, placing both Tenpai Dragon Chundra and Sangen Kaimen to 1. Be wary of this as this engine and Deck can swiftly win games and surprise people when they least expect it.

Next week, we will be covering the top cards from Supreme Darkness in the TCG and see where the players’ minds are as they gather their cards for YCS Orlando, Florida, which is coming February 1st and 2nd. What wonderful techs will we see at that event in a couple weeks? And what Deck will reign supreme in our brand new format?