Old Cards and Techs, Newer… Tricks

Welcome to the oddities of this market. This week, we have some interesting cards to talk about that have been getting bought out on the North American market and have been rising up in price over the past month. From Normal Monsters to techs with current and upcoming strategies, let’s dive into this week’s Market Watch.

Current and Upcoming Techs

First up, we’re going to talk about a Synchro Monster that only has one total print from Dimension of Chaos, Graydle Dragon. The main reason why this card is rising in price is due to its solo printing and as a tech in Atlantean Mermail due to the release of First Penguin. First Penguin has added more consistency to WATER decks, as you can discard 1 card to reveal 1 WATER Synchro Monster in your Extra Deck and add a WATER monster from your Deck to your hand with the same Type but 1 Level lower. This is important as you can reveal your copy of Graydle Dragon and add from Deck to hand a copy of Mermail Abyssteus, or you can reveal Deep Sea Repetiteur to add a copy of Atlantean Dragoons. Being able to add a piece of your starting plays without using your Normal Summon thanks to First Penguin has given WATER Decks new hope going into the future.

Another card that is being massively hyped up is the legendary Magician of Black Chaos MAX, due to the reveal of Cyberse Contract Witch. After all, players have always had a fascination with stopping their opponent from playing the game. If Contract Witch is Link Summoned or a monster is Special Summoned to a Zone Witch points to, you can add any Ritual Monster from your Deck to your hand by sending 1 Spell from your hand or face-up field. Not only is this perfect for any Ritual Deck like Nekroz, Megalith, or Mitsurugi, but you can also just add generic cards like Sauravis, the Ancient and Ascended for targeting protection, or in this case, Magician of Black Chaos MAX to stop your opponent from activating monster effects until the end of that turn. While you do have to Tribute a monster to use this effect, Magician of Black Chaos MAX can simply Tribute itself for it. This is even more problematic when paired with a card like Dyna Mondo, as Dyna can Tribute itself to revive Magician of Black Chaos MAX to then trigger Chaos MAX’s effect once more. Even then, you can also just Ritual Summon it during the opponent’s turn with Secrets of Dark Magic. This legendary Ritual Monster was only printed once in both the OCG and TCG from the 2019 Mega Tins in Prismatic Secret Rare and in the 20th Anniversary Legendary Collection in Secret Rare and 20th Secret Rare for the OCG. Maybe one day, we can see a reprint of all the Kaz Arts… but maybe we will never see a new print for these special cards again.

Due to the surge of Radiant Typhoon Yummy Tri-Brigade, Ancient Warriors Oath – Double Dragon Lord has been cleaned off the market as only having a single print from Rise of the Duelist, which now has slowly repopulated on the market. This is one of the many Link Monsters your Tri-Brigade monsters can access by banishing 2 Beast, Beast-Warrior, or Winged Beast monsters from your GY. Double Dragon Lord is an amazing end board piece, as you can quickly send 1 card from your hand or field to the GY to target and return 1 face-up card your opponent controls to the hand. This card is made early on in their combo after they revive their copy of Tri-Brigade Nervall from the GY with Tri-Brigade Springans Kitts’ effect, then you can use the Link-1 you would Summon using Nervall originally, like Linkuriboh or Salamangreat Almiraj and Nervall to access any Yummy Synchro Monster, as the Link-1 will be treated as a Tuner. Hopefully soon, we will see a new print for this amazing Link Monster, as it’s nearing 6 years without a reprint.

It’s only a matter of time before some of these cards see a reprint, but the question is how long will players have to wait for them?

Tournament Pack Oddities of the Normal Kind?

Plenty of Normal Monsters and non-Effect Fusion Monsters from the Astral Pack/OTS Pack Era tournament packs, and Speed Duel Normal Monsters have been seeing plenty of movements. Especially cards like the legendary Ocean Lord, Kairyu-Shin. This card was imported in the 2019 Speed Duel: Trials of the Kingdom set, along with many other Normal Monsters. Being a part of Umi Control, this is one of the options you can use for the Primite Engine along with Phantasm Spiral Dragon as the other target. The best use case with Kairyu-Shin is that it’s a Level 5 and can help access the K9 engine for K9-17 “Ripper” for a monster negate in the hand or GY, which can come up in most duels.

Another one of these cards that hasn’t seen a reprint since its import is Zombie Warrior from OTS Tournament Pack 1, while it was originally released in Vol.2 back in 1999 for Japan. This Level 3 non-Effect Zombie monster is magically over $70 in North America with no reprint in sight. This card took 17 total years to import and was used with Instant Fusion back in 2016 and 2017 for material for a Rank 3 or an additional Synchro Material if needed, but as of recent, it’s odd to see this along with many other cards spiking so hard in the recent months. With the new Pumpking cards from Maze of Muertos, this card could have some solace in the Deck for cards like Ghostrick Alucard or to help Link Summon Vampire Sucker, which can target and Special Summon 1 monster in your opponent’s GY to their field in Defense Position, and it becomes a Zombie monster, which allows you to draw 1 card via the other effect of Vampire Sucker.

Leading from Zombies to Fiends, Soul Hunter is another monster that has been on my radar, as its original print was Astral Pack 7 in 2015, which originally was printed in Booster 5 back in 1999 for Japan. It was only as of late 2023 that we saw players using this card with Ready Fusion in Unchained Decks to replace the missing copy of Unchained Soul of Sharvara, as it was Limited at the time, but now with it being Semi-Limited still, players moved on from using this tech. This card’s price on the other side has been slowly rising up due to collectors and players who want to use Ready Fusion in their lists for additional Xyz or Link Materials for their monsters. This would be another perfect reprint in a set like Battles of Legend as an Ultra Rare foiling or even in an OTS Pack again as a Super Rare upgrade to give players a foiled option of the card.

Finally, to end this shorter article, we happen to have Kamionwizard from Astral Pack 3, which was released in September of 2013 but originally released in Vol.2 in 1999 for Japan. This card has a home in past formats from its release in 2013 all the way into 2015/16 due to being an Instant Fusion tech for Infernity for their Rank 4 plays, such as Lavalval Chain, Evilswarm Exciton Knight, Abyss Dweller, Number 66: Master Key Beetle, and many more. Hopefully one day, we will see many of these old OTS Pack, Astral Pack, and Tournament Pack cards in general receive a reprint in the future for more accessibility for players who want to collect the older cards in the game for their collections.

Even with plenty of cards needing reprints, there are always going to be cards that players go after because of nostalgic memories, or even for techs in their past format or even current formats. Only time will tell when many of these will see the light of day again, even the OCG-Only Normal Monsters from 1999 as well.

This weekend in Sydney, Australia, will be the next YCS. To every duelist who is headed Down Under, we wish you the best of luck, and may the best mate win! For my prediction of what could win the event, it’ll probably be Vanquish Soul K9, or even a deck could creep in again like Maliss, even with the current hits on the Forbidden & Limited List.

Edited and co-written by Angryjon