MW: Returning Strategies, Possible Future Pickups, and a Yummy Surprise?

With YCS Birmingham, England concluding this past weekend, let’s take a look at interesting changes in the dynamic of the market and game.

First off, we will be taking a look at a card many players have been wanting a reprint for so long, Phoenixian Cluster Amaryllis has finally received a reprint as a Platinum Secret Rare and Quarter Century Secret Rare in Quarter Century Stampede. Originally printed in Raging Battle as a Super Rare, it is a card that many have played in a variety of Plant Decks and First-Turn Kill Decks over 16 years. It was placed in the Forbidden section of the Forbidden & Limited list on May 21st, 2018 to prevent future FTKs from happening.

This card originally ranged up to $60 a single copy for a piece of Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D’s nostalgia as it was a card used by Akiza Izinski in multiple Duels over the course of Season 1 and 2. But after this reveal for a reprint, Phoenixian Cluster Amaryllis has made its way back down around the $35 price range. 

 

Piloting the Fire King Control Deck, Dinh-Kha Bui managed to win it all and took home the trophy from YCS Birmingham, as players rushed to grab their copies of Fire King Courtier Ulcanix. A centerpiece for the Deck as it allows you to destroy other FIRE monsters in your hand or face-up field to add a FIRE Beast, Beast-Warrior or Winged Beast monster to help get your engine online, such as, but not limited to, Legendary Fire King Ponix, Sacred Fire King Garunix, Fire King High Avatar Kirin, or Fire King Avatar Arvata. Even in the face of a threat like Infinite Impermanence or Effect Veiler, you can use Fire King High Avatar Kirin or Fire King Sky Burn to get around these targeting negation effects to keep going through your combo. If you do destroy Ulcanix herself, she allows you to Special Summon a copy of Fire King High Avatar Garunix from your Deck in Defense Position. Doing so sets up your play with Fire King Sanctuary on their opponent’s turn to quickly Xyz Summon into Garunix Eternity, Hyang of the Fire Kings, which destroys all other monsters on the field when it is Xyz Summoned.

Before YCS Birmingham, Fire King Courtier Ulcanix was around a stable $10 a copy, but after Fire King’s YCS win, she has now risen up to $18 and above per copy. It is an essential 3-of to boost the power of the Fire King Deck.

 

Weeks ago, I covered how Triple Tactics Thrust was hanging around the $10 and up mark for every copy, but it still stays at that price tag. This time, we will be looking at Triple Tactics Talent, which is an extremely powerful card that gives you 3 options, which ranges from simply drawing you 2 cards, taking control of a monster your opponent controls until the End Phase, or even looking at your opponent’s hand to shuffle 1 card from it back into their Deck. It is worth noting that the card is made up of 3 Forbidden Spells at the time of printing in 2020, that being Pot of Greed, Change of Heart (which is now Limited), and The Forceful Sentry. With all that in mind, who wouldn’t use it?

While it does have many printings like Triple Tactics Thrust, especially from the Rarity Collection series with 7 different rarities, each printing of Triple Tactics Talent over the past 5 years has hit above $10 and keeps going up with how impactful this card is and will be.

 

With players trying out Voiceless Voice and Ryu-Ge Decks, many have turned to a Dogmatika engine using Nadir Servant and Dogmatika Maximus. But one Deck that has been doing extremely well with this package is Ryzeal Mitsurugi. You can send your impactful cards into the GY like Herald of the Arc Light to search out 1 of your Mitsurugi Ritual Monsters or Ritual Spell, Tri-Brigade Ferrijit the Barren Blossom to draw a card and fix your hand by putting 1-ofs that you don’t want to see back on the bottom of the Deck, or even sending Eclipse Twins for your next turn plays if needed to be attached with Ryzeal Detonator. Along with this, Dogmatika Maximus has been the center of many Decks over the years as it helps many Decks. This card sends 2 of your Extra Deck monsters with different names to your GY to gain advantage and knowledge of what your opponent is playing as they also have to send 2 monsters from their Extra Deck to the GY. Whereas Nadir Servant is used to send one of your many pieces to add a Dogmatika monster with ATK equal to or lower than the sent monster. The only downside to each of these cards is that after you resolve their effects, it locks you from Special Summoning monsters from the Extra Deck, which is where the Mitsurugi engine comes into play to allow you to have extra cards needed to combat your opponent’s Deck.

Nadir Servant leads anywhere from 70 cents for the Ultra Rare copy from the 25th Anniversary Rarity Collection up to around $6 for the Rise of the Duelist Secret Rare copy. Meanwhile, Dogmatika Maximus only has 2 copies from the 2021 Tins of Ancient Battles at around $3.50-4 and the Rise of the Duelist Secret Rare copy up to around $24-25.

 

As players are testing around the Ryu-Ge Deck with the new cards from Alliance Insight, some have decided to utilize Galaxy-Eyes Cipher X Dragon in their Extra Deck from Ghost from the Past, a Rank 10 monster that is extremely easy to make with 2 Level 10s. During your turn, you can detach 2 materials from it so your opponent cannot target LIGHT monsters with card effects until the end of their turn. This can bait out an activation from cards like Effect Veiler or Infinite Impermanence, or if it resolves, it can protect Sosei Ryu-Ge Mistva from being targeted by them after you Ritual Summon this card, using its effect to destroy up to 2 cards you control to place that many Ryu-Ge Continuous Spells from your Deck face-up on your field. These Spells provide powerful effects for your monsters and can interrupt your opponent on their turn such as Ryu-Ge Realm – Dino Domains being able to negate an activation from a monster with less ATK than a monster with that Spell’s granted effect, or Ryu-Ge Realm – Sea Spires being able to target 1 card on the field to return it to the hand.

As Galaxy-Eyes Cipher X Dragon only has 1 print from Ghost from the Past, it has climbed up from $4.50 back in December to its now $5.50-6.50 price range. Being a useful utility card is great for protecting your monsters from being negated.

 

A nice segue into Sosei Ryu-Ge Mistva as it has been picking up a lot of traction in recent sales. Being the main card of Ryu-Ge, it has a lot of potential in the future when newer Continuous Spells for the Deck gets revealed. It adds any of your Ryu-Ge cards from your Deck, then it destroys itself for its Pendulum Effect. While a monster you control is destroyed by battle or card effect, and this card is in your Extra Deck, you can Ritual Summon Sosei Ryu-Ge Mistva by Tributing a Level 10 Ryu-Ge monster to apply the effect mentioned above. Alliance Insight has players eyeing Tensei Ryu-Ge Anva (YGOrg Translation) as it helps the Deck Summon out multiple Level 10 Ryu-Ge monsters to the field by being a Scale of 11. While this card is in the Pendulum Zone, it can negate any activation of a card or effect from your opponent in response to your Ryu-Ge Spell card or effect activation at resolution, and afterwards, this card is destroyed. Along with that, Tensei Ryu-Ge Anva helps the Deck to Ritual Summon Sosei Ryu-Ge Mistva at a faster rate since you can Tribute 1 Ryu-Ge monster in your hand or on your field, then when this card is Special Summoned, you can target 1 card on the field to destroy it, triggering Mistva’s condition to Ritual Summon if you destroy a monster. Afterwards when Tensei Ryu-Ge Anva is destroyed, you can place 1 Ryu-Ge Continuous Spell or Trap from your Deck, GY, or banishment face-up on your field.

With these recent implications from the Ryu-Ge support, Sosei Ryu-Ge Mistva is now up and around $34 a copy and selling many copies over the past few days.

 

The impact of Crystron has made its mark recently at YCS Orlando and Birmingham as many have made Day 2 or even made it into the Top 64 for the events. Tidal, Dragon Ruler of Waterfalls has been making huge waves across the game as it is being played in multiples in lists. Being able to discard itself and any WATER monster in your hand to send any card from the Deck to the GY is amazing for Crystron itself. This is because if you send cards like Crystron Smiger there, Smiger can then banish itself to add a copy of Crystron Inclusion to start up your combos. Tidal, Dragon Ruler of Waterfalls saw its meta rise back in 2013 with the Dragon Ruler Dragon pile Deck prior to getting banned in 2015, but now, it is back at full power at 3. 

Even with it having copies under $1 from Quarter Century Bonanza in Super Rare, Ultra Rare, and Secret Rare, players have been going after the Luxury Rarities and the Secret Rare version from the 2013 Collector Tins, which are all above the $2.50 mark, up to the $11.50-12 Quarter Century Secret Rare version, and the original Rare from Lord of the Tachyon Galaxy at $4.50. What a time for this card to see play once again in an amazing rogue Deck.

 

As players prepare for the future, many have been picking up Trishula, the Dragon of Icy Imprisonment as it has found a home in Dragon Ruler Decks. It lets you banish from your hand or field, 3 monsters with different names that can lead you to activate multiple of your Dragon Ruler monster effects when they are banished to add a Dragon monster with the same Attribute as the respective Dragon Ruler. Then if this card was Summoned this way, you can reveal and banish 3 cards, 1 from your Deck, mainly a Dragon Ruler, 1 from the top of your opponent’s Deck, and 1 card from their Extra Deck. This allows you to banish a 4th and final Dragon Ruler to get another Dragon of the respective Attribute, and get information on what your opponent is playing off their two banished cards.

Being originally an Ultra Rare from the Shonen Jump Magazine, Trishula, the Dragon of Icy Imprisonment was a special Subscription card that still holds a value of $2 over the past year, where as it was reprinted in both Battles of Legend: Armageddon and Battles of Legend: Chapter 1 that sits around $1.50-2 a copy for the Secret Rare, Ultra Rare, and Silver Ultra Rare versions.

 

As we approach closer to the release of Maze of the Masters, players anticipate what the new cards for Odion will do. With new cards based around Temple of the Kings and Embodiment of Apophis, players have been picking up as many copies of Silhouhatte Rabbit from Infinite Forbidden as it can Set 1 Continuous Trap from your Deck that can Summon itself as a monster. Then if a card in the Spell & Trap Zone is Special Summoned to the Monster Zone, you can target and destroy 1 Spell or Trap on your opponent’s field, which is extremely useful if you are going against a Deck that relies on a Field Spell like Tenpai Dragon. As it is also an Illusion monster, it has the best clause where if this card battles a monster, neither can be destroyed by that battle. If you Link Summon Rabbit with a card like I:P Masquerena, it becomes a card that cannot be destroyed by battle or card effect, so it would almost be on the same level as a Tower like monster.

Even though Silhouhatte Rabbit is still on the newer side, it has been sitting around the $15 mark for a few months now since the reveal of Odion, who again, is going to get support in Maze of the Masters.

 

As this is a late addition to this article, with the announcement of the new Yummy archetype, players went wild and bought out copies of Obedience Schooled. Being able to Summon 3 Beast monsters from your Deck, albeit with their effects negated, is great for this Deck because of the Synchro and Link capability the Deck can do. People have been trying many different builds of Yummy from Sky Striker to Fiendsmith to even playing it with Melffy.

 

Copies of this card were less than 50 cents but now they are on their way up to around $4-8 depending on the copy of the card from its Super Rare from Legacy of the Valiant and the 2014 Mega Tins, to its Ultra Rare copy from Battles of Legend: Armageddon. Even with a reprint coming in Justice Hunters, we have to wait and see what will happen with this card’s price.

Closing out this week was full of excitement from the Quarter Century Stampede reveals from YCS Birmingham, England to many exciting Decks getting the chance to shine at this major event. Now we wait and see what impact the Blue-Eyes White Destiny Structure Deck will have as it releases at Official Tournament Stores today of this post, and everywhere else on Friday!