So much has been happening on the market this week to the point that some of the most wanted cards have been falling in price over the past month. With players taking a break from the game, selling off their cards, or even taking an interest in other formats like Genesys and Time Wizard formats, the game has seen better days, as players are fed up and annoyed with the Pile Decks and Link Combos going around right now that are running around in the meta. Let’s dive into this week’s Market Watch and see what has been going on.

Past and Current Format Movements

Angelechy has been getting plenty of love over the past weeks as players have been including the engine into plenty of their Decks like Elfnote, Primite, Synchron, and Light and Darkness Ritual. This has caused their first opening move, Angelechy Opening to e4, to get picked up over several weeks. It is completely different in terms of card design, as this card can be activated directly from your hand during the Standby Phase of your opponent’s first turn, provided they go first. This card lets you place 1 Angelechy Field Spell from your hand, Deck, or GY to your field face-up, and if you do, you Special Summon 1 Level 2 or 7 Angelechy monster from your Extra Deck, and then place 1 Angelechy monster from your Extra Deck in your Spell & Trap Zone as a Continuous Spell, but you can only Synchro Summon till the end of your next turn. This is completely fine since you will mainly run Synchro Monsters in the Deck. The majority of the time, you will Special Summon Angelechy Enlisted to your field, and place Angelechy Bastion, which then places a copy of Angelechy Shatranga from your Extra Deck to your Spell/Trap Zone, which then adds an Angelechy Trap from your Deck or GY to your hand. Soon, we will have the second wave for Angelechy from Beyond the Brave. Better be prepared for what is to come.

Players always have a fascination with past formats, and Edison is one of the many formats, as Dark Grepher has been rising up in price over the past few months since it hasn’t had a reprint in some time. The last time it saw a reprint was in 2018’s Dark Saviors, which was over 8 years ago, and the price really is telling its time for a new reprint. It’s shocking such an iconic card skipped out on a Quarter Century Secret Rare, as it has seen play in countless formats since its release in Phantom Darkness. This card can be Special Summoned from your hand by discarding a Level 5 or higher DARK monster, and along with that, you can discard 1 DARK monster from your hand to send any DARK monster from your Deck to the GY. For the veterans who remember, you would discard a copy of Dark Magician of Chaos or Destiny HERO - Malicious to Special Summon this card, then discard a 3rd DARK monster to send Plaguespreader Zombie to the GY, then banish your Malicious to let you have exactly 3 DARK monsters in your GY in order to Special Summon the legendary Dark Armed Dragon. You can then banish DARK monsters from your GY with Dark Armed Dragon to destroy cards your opponent controls. Doing this fuels your Dimension Fusion, which makes both players Special Summon as many banished monsters to their field as possible at the cost of 2000 of your LP, but with Dark Armed Dragon, it also removes potential threats off the field to swiftly end the game.

Salamangreat is getting more support in Immortal Phoenix, and Salamangreat Circle just keeps getting better. It lets you either add any Salamangreat monster from your Deck to your hand or target a Salamangreat Link Monster you control to make it unaffected by monster effects that turn, except its own, provided you used a monster with its same name as its Link Material. This card has universally been the best consistency piece for the theme since it is an in-archetype Reinforcement of the Army. This lets you search for Salamangreat Gazelle or the new Salamangreat Markhor (YGOrganization Translation) for extending your plays, and with Markhor, if it is Normal or Special Summoned, you can add 1 Salamangreat Spell/Trap from your Deck or GY to your hand, essentially recycling your Salamangreat Circle back to your hand for follow-up plays if needed.

With the new Dark Magician support releasing to the TCG, players have been including multiple of their in-archetype cards like Magician’s Rod to the Light and Darkness Ritual Pile Decks. With multiple different Common and Super Rare prints, they have all been rising in price, since the usage of this card lets you access any Spell/Trap that mentions Dark Magician in its text. This allows you to search for the new Dark Magical Curtain or older support cards like The Gaze of Timaeus and Dark Magical Circle. Having more ways to get to Dark Magical Curtain is amazing, since it Special Summons 1 DARK Spellcaster from your hand or Deck, but also lets the opponent Special Summon a DARK Spellcaster as well. With all that said, a recent EU Exclusive Demo Progression Set released and it reprinted many of the most wanted Dark Magician cards like Magicians’ Souls and Magician’s Rod, so players are hoping it’ll be ported to the other places within the TCG.

Hopefully, we see reprints to some of these cards within the next months to help the access of these cards. Salamangreat Circle is a great option to throw into a future Tournament Pack, while Dark Grepher is an odd card to reprint, as it would have to fall into a reprint slot of a set, since it already comes foiled. With the rest, we either have to wait for an early reprint set for the TCG or next year's Mega Tin or adjacent replacement.

Falling And Rising Market Stars

The first card that has been going down in price is the powerhouse Black Chaos. This card can place a Continuous Trap that mentions Light and Darkness Ritual from your Deck or GY to your field but also can only be Special Summoned from your hand by shuffling a Warrior or Spellcaster Ritual Monster from your hand or GY into the Deck. While on the field, this card is unaffected by your opponent’s activated effects while any Ritual Spell is in your GY, and it can banish 2 cards your opponent controls, which is extremely useful removal. This card has mainly been seen being sent off of Magicians’ Souls at times or searched with Mind Shuffle and Ragged Ritual of Rites for certain combos within the Deck.

Another card that has fallen from grace happens to be Fallen of the White Dragon. As Branded variants and the Deck itself are phased out of the current meta, this has caused this Fallen of Albaz counterpart to literally fall in price. This card is always treated as Fallen of Albaz, and it can send 1 monster that mentions Fallen of Albaz from your Extra Deck to the GY to Special Summon itself from your hand, but you cannot Special Summon from your Extra Deck for the rest of the turn, except for Level 8 Fusion and Synchro monsters. On this card’s Normal or Special Summon, you can Special Summon 1 Ecclesia monster from your hand, Deck, or GY, which could be used to get Incredible Ecclesia, the Virtuous for Synchro plays (such as Stardust Dragon - Victim Sanctuary, The Three Champions of Swordsoul, or Ecclesia and the Dark Dragon), or to gather endboard pieces with Dogmatika Ecclesia, the Virtuous, which can search for 1 Dogmatika card from your Deck to your hand like The Fallen & The Virtuous, Dogmatika Fleurdelis, the Knighted, or the retrain Dogmatika Fleurdelist, the Thunderbolt. Being extremely versatile for plenty of Decks that can use it, I think it’ll be wise to pick up copies of this card for future uses.

Pulling the Rug is a major staple in Edison Format, but players have adapted it into the modern Genesys Format as well. This Counter Trap can negate the activation of a monster effect when it is Normal Summoned and destroy that monster. This card has mainly been used to tech against Fairy Tail, Vanquish Soul, and even the Red Dragon Archfiend Deck with plenty of effects that activate on Normal Summon. In Edison, this card is mainly used against Decks playing Monarchs, Blackwings, and some Lightsworn monsters as well, so it is a card some decide to play on their sideboard for those specific match-ups.

With this weekend being YCS Paris, France, many players have been hoping and praying for the new Forbidden & Limited list to be released, but with none in sight, plenty are hoping it’ll be shown either at the end of Day 2 like they did a couple of times in the past or even the day after the event so we usher into a new format for Beyond the Brave’s release. Like every article before a major YCS, I definitely think that a version of Light and Darkness Ritual, Kewl Tune, or Elfnote will win, and also to everyone attending YCS Paris, France, this weekend, we wish you all good luck, and always, may the best Duelist win!