Join our Discord to discuss this article with fellow Duelists

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

Gambling in the Bermuda Triangle? As If

Over the past week, we’ve seen a few reveals so far with a new Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon retrain for the purest of Blue-Eyes players, and we even saw the final two themes from Deck Build Pack: Glorious Victors, those being XenovaderΔ and Raise Moon. Both themes are based around different gimmicks, one of which is focused on banishing your cards face-down and using them as your Deck, and the other of which is focused on gambling your Deck to see if you will win big with your next draw and shutting down any effect that lets the opponents search by making them simply draw 1 card instead. We will be looking at some of the cards players have been picking up for these themes, so let’s dive right into this week’s Market Watch.

Different Dimension Gambling

Our first stop today, we will be looking at the cards that players have been picking up for the new XenovaderΔ theme. They mainly deal with banishing your own cards from your Deck and/or GY face-down and use it as a secondary Deck. One of the main monsters that can push for a game is Gren Maju Da Eiza, as while it’s on the field, its ATK and DEF become 400 x the number of cards you have that are banished, and with most players trying it out with the 60-card version of XenovaderΔ, it can reach a cap of over 20,000 ATK, but it’ll never reach that high, hopefully.

The card that helps with consistency the most for this Deck over the course of the Duel happens to be Gizmek Orochi, the Serpentron Sky Slasher. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen this card be picked up by the players, as it was used mainly in Orcust and Gren Maju Decks first for additional ATK power and for its great removal effect. You banish the top 8 cards of your Deck to Special Summon this card from your hand or GY, and during your Main Phase, if you didn’t use its effect to Special Summon itself that turn, you can banish 3 cards from your Extra Deck face-down to target and destroy 1 face-up monster your opponent controls. Being a great form of removal as well as another monster that banishes cards from your Deck face-down makes it extremely powerful for advancing your game plan to get to 40 or more face-down banished cards for Emptiness Devouring XenovaderΔ Jahannam (YGOrganization Translation).

Small World is a generic search card for the Deck as they all don’t share the same Level, Attributes, ATK, and DEF, but they all are Psychic monsters. Now, why Small World? It reveals 1 monster in your hand, then it chooses a second monster in your Deck that shares only 1 of the same Type, Attribute, Level, ATK, or DEF and banishes the revealed monster from your hand face-down. This then adds from your Deck to your hand a different monster that shares only 1 of the same Type, Attribute, Level, ATK, or DEF as the monster chosen from your Deck, then you banish that chosen monster face-down. It’s extremely useful for the XenovaderΔ theme because you can reveal Burial Summit XenovaderΔ Helheim (YGOrganization Translation) and banish it face-down from your hand, then choose a copy of Made Tempest XenovaderΔ Ploutonion (YGOrganization Translation) from your Deck and banish it face-down after you have added a copy of XenovaderΔ of Sky Sheol (YGOrganization Translation) or any other that isn’t a WIND XenovaderΔ from your Deck to your hand. Even though this card is complicated, it will see play within the XenovaderΔ Deck for consistency.

The silver bullet has returned with Artifact Lancea. This card can tribute itself from the hand or field to prevent either player from banishing cards, and it is the bullet to stop XenovaderΔ, as if they can’t banish, they can’t get their resources going. This is the main reason why many will use Gizmek Orochi, the Serpentron Sky Slasher, as a way to chain to Artifact Lancea in order to get a few cards banished from their Deck before it resolves.

XenovaderΔ has plenty of potential in the future; it all depends on what the last card does for the Deck, and what their future support holds to push the Deck even further.

Enter The Casino Of The Raise Moon!

Raise Moon is a Deck based around drawing cards to simulate a gamble-like style Deck of “You keep going, you will win, big or bust.” One of the cards that players dread in the format is the biggest help and hindrance against it, that being Droll & Lock Bird. With the house of the archetype Raise Moon Sky Cielo – No More Bets, she can go after any card or effect the opponent activates that includes an effect that adds a card(s) from the Deck to the hand and transform it into the following effect at resolution: “Draw 1 card”. So if paired with either Droll & Lock Bird or Protector of the Sanctuary, your opponent will not draw and lose out on advantage. But the downside of this theme, with it wanting to draw all the time, is it also can lose to the card itself, so be very wary about this Deck as it is a high-skill-ceiling Deck, especially with the “You cannot search for cards during the rest of the turn/the entire Duel” locks being thrown around.

Within the Raise Moon Deck, you can have the option to play Number 7: Lucky Straight, as it requires 3 Level 7 monsters for its Xyz Summon. You can detach 1 material from this card to roll a six-sided die twice, and this card’s ATK becomes the larger number x 700 until the opponent’s next End Phase, but if the total roll was exactly 7, you can apply 1 of 3 effects. You can send all other cards on the field to the GY, Special Summon 1 monster from your hand or either GY, or draw 3 cards and then discard 2. Having a Divine Arsenal-like effect or a way to Special Summon a monster is great and all, but drawing 3 cards to discard 2 helps thin your Deck out, even if it doesn’t trigger your Raise Moon monster effects when they are drawn, as they will miss timing.

And lastly, a card that will be getting reprinted in the set finally is Number 76: Harmonizer Gradielle. With Raise Moon being multi-Attribute, it works amazingly well because it is also treated as the monster attributes that are attached to it and cannot be destroyed by battle or by the activated effects of monsters with those attributes. This card can also quickly target a monster in the opponent’s GY, detach an Xyz Material from itself, and then attach that target to Harmonizer Gradielle as material. This allows you to swap out attributes needed for specific matchups. By having 2700 ATK, it’ll be hard for some Decks to attack over it, along with No More Bets and Squeeze Jackpot letting you have more ways to defend your LP when needed.

This weekend will be the first YCS of the 2026-2027 Season with new prizing, like the Day 2 Pack, but also brand-new metal Dice Sets that are in Gold for the 1st Place Duelist, but also in multiple colors for 2nd to 8th. We are currently awaiting the next Prize Card for the season. I do expect Light and Darkness Ritual to win with either the Branded or Clown Crew engine, but we could see Kewl Tune take another win before it’s taken out back. But for all the Duelists who attend this major YCS, I wish you the best of luck, and may the best Duelist win!