Since the launch of Ladder Season 1 on April 29, 2022, Diablo II: Resurrected fans have been wondering just how long we have to play this season. The funniest thing about this is the answer is super easy to find. Despite this, so much speculation is out there on an end date. No, it is not August 25, 2022. Read on to find out the answer.
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by Phoenix Desertsong  Dwarves fans in Magic the Gathering may be able to live the dream of playing Dwarf Tribal in Standard with Magda, Brazen Outlaw from the Kaldheim set. This Legendary Creature is just two mana to play (1 colorless, 1 Red) and gives all other Dwarves +1/+1. Also, whenever a Dwarf you control becomes tapped you create a Treasure token.
Treasure tokens are neat enough, giving you an artifact that allows you to sacrifice it for one of any color of mana. It gets better with Magda, though, as you can sacrifice five Treasure tokens in order to search your deck for any artifact or Dragon card and put it onto the battlefield! Already, the wheels are turning for Commander players eager to brew a mono-Red Dwarf deck. The problem in Standard is that before any other Dwarves are revealed in Kaldheim, only four Dwarves exist in Standard. They are Rimrock Knight, Seven Dwarves, Staunch Shieldmate, and Torbran, Thane of Red Fell. The good news is all four of these Dwarves are playable to different degrees. Rimrock Knight is an aggressive 3/1 two-drop that also has the Adventure Boulder Rush, which gives a target creature +2/+0 at instant speed. That seems like an auto-include in any Dwarf Tribal deck. Seven Dwarves is a card that you can play seven copies of in a deck, and each copy pumps other all other Seven Dwarves by +1/+1. Magda would be happy to have these guys in the fold. The other two are the one-drop 1/3 Shieldmate, who becomes a heck of a lot scarier with Magda on-board, and Torbran. As we’ve seen in mono-Red Torbran is very good and his commitment to needing 3 Red mana in his 4-mana casting cost isn’t an issue here. He makes each of your red sources deal 2 additional damage, making Dwarves already a deck to be reckoned with so far. Any additional Dwarves in Kaldheim will make Magda significantly better, and we’ll return soon to cover those Dwarves, as well. Early in the Kaldheim spoiler cycle, we did get to see a Dwarf exclusive to the Theme and Collector boosters, Warchanter Skald. He’s a three-mana White Dwarf who plays into the equipment theme. Whenever he becomes tapped, if he’s enchanted or equipped, you get a 2/1 Red Dwarf Berserker creature token. Not bad at all! Magda is a good playable Legendary already, albeit it’s hard to say how competitive it would be. However, being able to tutor up artifacts or even a Dragon is pretty spicy, especially when it goes directly into play. Standard is full of interesting Dragons, especially Leyline Tyrant and Terror of the Peaks, but neither of them has haste. Korvold, Fae-Cursed King could technically be cheated into play with this effect, but then you couldn’t hard-cast him from hand. Interestingly, Gadrak, the Crown-Scourge, a three-mana Dragon who can’t attack unless you have four artifacts in play, however, may actually be playable in this Treasure happy deck. He also creates Treasure tokens himself for each nontoken creature that died in a turn, including your opponents. This formerly unplayable 5/4 flier suddenly looks interesting, except he doesn’t seem worth cheating into play with Magda’s ability whatsoever. Magda, Brazen Outlaw in Pioneer and Modern In Pioneer, Magda, Brazen Outlaw picks up help in both Red and White, especially thanks to Kaladesh and Aether Revolt. Aerial Responder is a solid 3-drop creature with flying, lifelink, and vigilance. Depala, Pilot Exemplar gives you another Lord that’s Vehicle-friendly, playing to the artifact-theme of Magda. Of course, the best Dwarf in Pioneer is Sram, Senior Edificer, who draws you a card each time you cast an Aura, Equipment, or Vehicle spell. Toolcraft Exemplar helps with that plan, too. While Depala is nice at pumping your Dwarves, it’s most likely that you want to look to cheap Equipment instead with that plan. In Pioneer, though, the Dragons are strong with Glorybringer and Stormbreath Dragon probably your best options with Haste. It’s well worth sacrificing five Treasures to get either of those Dragons! Modern doesn’t add much to the Dwarves, but it adds incredibly to the Equipment stock, plus you could even play the Mirrodin-block and Modern Horizons Swords, plus Stoneforge Mystic (who isn’t a Dwarf but who cares). You also get the option of playing Thundermaw Hellkite, which absolutely demolishes decks with lots of fliers. The potential core already exists for Standard, Modern, and Pioneer Dwarf Tribal lists, and that’s before you ever see the rest of the Dwarves in Kaldheim! Dwarf Tribal in Commander The only issue with Magda, Brazen Outlaw in Commander is that many of the best Dwarf creatures exist in White. That means that Depala, Pilot Exemplar, for better or worse, is a strictly better Commander than Magda. Even Mono-Red has a better option with Torbran giving all of your Red sources of damage those extra 2 points of hurt. She’s plenty good, but pretty much doomed to be one of the 99, and one of the 59 even in Brawl! That being said, Magda, Brazen Outlaw is a fun Dwarf Tribal card that will definitely see play in some context. Magda is hopefully just one of many fun, potentially powerful tribal synergy cards we will see in Kaldheim! by Phoenix Desertsong, Magical Gatherer & Trading Card Game Enthusiast  For Magic the Gathering competitive veterans, Birthing Pod was one of the most powerful (and polarizing) cards ever printed. As a way to cheaply and quickly tutor bigger and better creatures from your deck, Birthing Pod decks dominated both the Standard and Modern scenes for quite some time. Eventually, the Pod was banned in Modern, pushed in Legacy where it never quite took off, and of course has become a solid card in Modern.
Since the Modern banning of Birthing Pod, we’ve seen several “fixed” versions of the card. The most obvious was Prime Speaker Zannifar, a very good Legendary creature who had a few flings with competitive play, and is also excellent as a Commander. To a lesser extent, Fiend Artisan from the Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths served a similar function, but on a very brittle body to begin with, so its competitive scope has thus far been a bit limited. With the release of Kaldheim spoilers, though, Magic players were greeted with a new artifact that is yet another “fixed” version of Birthing Pod. However, despite their being some new restrictions to this card, it’s not quite as “fixed” as it would first appear. Let’s dig into this very spicy Pyre of Heroes. Pyre of Heroes VS Birthing Pod Without further ado, here is what makes this artifact, Pyre of Heroes, different from Birthing Pod. 2, T: Sacrifice a creature: Search your library for a creature card that shares a creature type with the sacrificed creature and has converted mana cost equal to 1 plus that creature's converted mana cost. Put that card onto the battlefield, then shuffle your library. Activate this ability only any time you could cast a sorcery. First of all, the Pyre limits you to a specific creature type. As we’ll see in a moment, Birthing Pod didn’t have this restriction. But, before we get into the pros and cons of Pyre of Heroes, let’s see what the card that inspired it does and circle back to comparing and contrasting them. Birthing Pod was a four-mana Green artifact. The ability was somewhat inspired by a very powerful Sorcery called Natural Order, so powerful that it became banned in pretty much every competitive format except for Legacy, Vintage, and Commander. It allowed you to sacrifice a Green creature you control, then put any Green creature from your library into play. Of course, it was limited to Green creatures, but that didn’t stop it from being a ridiculous card. What made Birthing Pod special is that it’s functionally colorless, thanks to the Phyrexian mana costs associated with many New Phyrexia set cards. So, instead of paying the Green mana, you could instead pay 3 colorless mana and 2 life to cast Birthing Pod. While in Commander the Birthing Pod is restricted to Commanders with Green in their color identity, this is not the case in ordinary Constructed decks. Yes, pretty much every Birthing Pod deck played Green creatures with powerful enter-the-battlefield abilities, but you could run any deck with Birthing Pod in it. Plus, it wasn’t restricted at all to Green creatures. Still, what Birthing Pod does is powerful, but seemingly very narrow when you first read the card at face value. (1}{Green/Phyrexian Mana), (Tap), Sacrifice a creature: Search your library for a creature card with converted mana cost equal to 1 plus the sacrificed creature's converted mana cost, put that card onto the battlefield, then shuffle your library. Activate this ability only any time you could cast a sorcery. While Birthing Pod did place deck-building restrictions on those pilots who wished to play it, there are so many creatures that naturally “curve” into one another that Birthing Pod simply created a ridiculous value engine, especially in the late game. The fact that its activation cost doesn’t even require colored mana makes it even more ridiculous. About the only safety valve built into this card is that you can only use the ability whenever you would be able to cast a sorcery (a.k.a. your own turn). Of course, there are ways that you can get around the restriction of tapping it once per turn. But, Birthing Pod is so powerful that one activation per turn is plenty enough to make it a busted card in competitive play. It’s not quite as bad in Commander, where having only a single copy limits just how often it actually comes into play. Of course, in Commander where the card pool is so huge, there are enough redundancies of this sort of effect that playing a “Birthing Pod” style deck is easy to do. All that being said, what makes Pyre of Heroes so special? First of all, it costs just 2 to play and 2 mana to activate. Yes, it is limited to searching a creature of the same creature type, but with how much Wizards of the Coast has pushed tribal decks, that’s not nearly as much of a restriction as you might think. Also, many creatures have one or two subtypes, making it easier than you’d think to find “tribal” cards that all work together. Is Pyre of Heroes More Like Aether Vial Than Birthing Pod? In effect, I see Pyre of Heroes as being more similar to a powerful artifact called Aether Vial. This isn’t a comparison that I saw mentioned early on when the Pyre was first spoiled. The Vial is a one-drop artifact that has made many tribal decks possible in Modern, Legacy, and Vintage. For reference, here is what Aether Vial does: At the beginning of your upkeep, you may put a charge counter on Aether Vial. (Tap): You may put a creature card with converted mana cost equal to the number of charge counters on Aether Vial from your hand onto the battlefield. In many ways, Aether Vial and Pyre of Heroes have more in common than they do at first glance. Of course, Aether Vial isn’t at all limited to tribal decks - the popular Death and Taxes archetype in Modern, Legacy, and Vintage is far from tribal for example). The idea here is that Pyre of Heroes can serve a similar purpose in purely tribal decks. Today’s Magic scene is littered with tribal decks, such as Warriors, Soldiers, Elves, Goblins, etc. Especially in Standard, Pyre of Heroes seems like a card begging to be included in many decks. One Standard deck extremely popular prior to the release of Pyre of Heroes is Dimir Rogues, which is a deck as you would expect runs Rogue creatures. Of course, seeing a seemingly obvious place for a card to contribute begs the question if it actually works within the context of the deck. With Rogues, the deck actually wants to keep its creatures in play in order to grind out value by milling cards from the top of an opponent’s library, or even your own library depending on the circumstances. You could build a version of the deck that would be built around Pyre of Heroes, but it would be somewhat awkward. Many other top decks in Standard aren’t Tribal at all, such as Gruul Adventures, Mono-Green Food, Temur Ramp, etc. However, Tribal themes have continued to be played up in recent Standard-legal sets, and whatever Kaldheim has to offer can mean brand new decks to brew around with Pyre of Heroes as a key value engine for consistency. What Magic the Gathering Tribes Benefit the Most from Pyre of Heroes?The most popular tribes in competitive Magic, especially when it comes to formats other than Standard, are Elves, Goblins, Dragons, and Merfolk. Elves probably don’t have a need for the Pyre, Merfolk already have Aether Vial, and Dragons don’t curve out from one mana up to really be consistent in most competitive formats (although it is doable in Commander thanks to a deep card pool and Changelings who we will get to in a moment). Goblins are the one deck that may seem to benefit the most from Pyre of Heroes, as sacrificing Goblins for value is a theme of the deck to begin with. Thing is, Goblin decks are explosive enough to win the game without an added value engine like Pyre of Heroes. You could have builds, Red/Black builds for example, that become more consistent with Pyre of Heroes, but it would take a lot of testing to prove if those builds would be competitive enough to keep up with fast formats such as Modern. Where Pyre of Heroes could really shine is the Pioneer format, which has a much smaller card pool than Modern, and the Historic format on Magic Arena which has an even smaller card selection. Neither of those formats have access to Aether Vial, but do have access to cards like Fiend Artisan and Prime Speaker Vannifar that would potentially give the Pyre of Heroes some redundancy. Both Merfolk and Elf Tribal decks in those formats could be nicely boosted by Pyre of Heroes. What tribes could benefit most in Modern to me would be Allies, Slivers, and Changelings. Allies are probably the most interesting to me since Aether Vial has never really made them a winner in Modern, despite their massive support in Magic. There are enough synergies that have made them powerhouse decks in Commander, but not consistently in Modern. Yes, Allies decks have won events before, but they have often been relegated to “rogue” status. Slivers are a powerful enough deck to sometimes win an event out of the woodworks, but never consistently, even with the power of Aether Vial. Changelings are extremely deadly in Commander, and since they are all in the Modern card pool, give you plenty of options to work with. Both are at their best when you can play all five colors, which makes them often inconsistent and awkward in Modern. Pyre of Heroes, like Aether Vial, bypasses many of the mana-fixing issues that beleaguer these decks. For me, the best decks for Pyre of Heroes are tribal decks that operate best when they use the best cards they have in either four or five colors. That’s extremely easy to do in Commander, so I can see Pyre of Heroes being a staple in so many decks, as it’s purely colorless. A couple of other tribes that come to mind are Humans, Elementals, Vampires, and Zombies, but we’ll get into why I don’t immediately jump to those tribal decks in a moment. Pyre of Heroes as a “Win More” CardMany times that a card with an effect that’s been explored before is spoiled, people flock to it immediately because it’s both familiar and new. In many decks that want this sort of tutor effect, the decks are already able to find consistency with existing cards (such as Aether Vial or other tutor/recursion effects) or are synergistic within their tribes already that Pyre of Heroes is sort of just there as a “win more” card. For example, many decks have used the powerful tutor Collected Company to great effect, including Humans, Merfolk, and recently even Zombies. The aforementioned Slivers and Allies have also used Collected Company to great effect on the fringes of competitive play. As I’ve already mentioned, four and five color decks, which Humans and Elementals lend themselves to, can benefit from Pyre of Heroes. But, I’m not sure that there’s much that Pyre of Heroes can do at sorcery speed, which also costs you a creature, that Collected Company doesn’t do at instant speed, even with the obvious chance that “Co-Co” can whiff. Company decks are also very limited in that they have to play three-mana or less creatures, but in a way, that makes them inherently more consistent to begin with. Another place that I’ve considered Pyre of Heroes being good is in decks that don’t mind sacrificing, such as the aforementioned Vampires and Zombies. Clerics are another tribe that can actually benefit from sacrificing. Sacrifice-themed decks probably do well to consider Pyre of Heroes, but again, those decks (better known as Aristocrat decks) already have solid engines to power their strategy. As such, Pyre of Heroes becomes a card that’s nice to consider, but “win more” cards aren’t always good and can end up being dead draws at certain points of the game. Pyre of Heroes as a Budget Replacement for Birthing Pod (Or Even Aether Vial?)Besides four and five color tribal decks that benefit from a colorless tutor, Pyre of Heroes could also fill two other voids. One, decks that could play Birthing Pod, but don’t want to spend the extra $60+ for the play set can instead play Pyre of Heroes. The tribal restriction can actually streamline deck building choices as well as the consistency from playing tribal synergies. Colorless lords like Adaptive Automaton help that cause, too. The other voids are decks that would but can’t play Birthing Pod because of it flat-out being banned, like in Modern, or have color restrictions, such as in Commander. For example, can you imagine Mono-Brown Tribal, such as Myrs or even Constructs having access to a Birthing Pod-type effect? I’ve certainly thought about it, and Pyre of Heroes gets to benefit from artifact synergies that can abuse its tap abilities, too! I can see Wizard Tribal benefitting too, as well as other decks that may not tutor creatures as well, especially in Red and Blue - whereas White, Black, and Green naturally have many creature tutors available. Also, many colorless tutors exist, but they happen at much higher mana costs, such as Planar Bridge. Early game consistency created by Pyre of Heroes, especially in decks that can easily get back the sacrificed creatures, could be the key to helping some previously clunky decks create value where it would’ve been hardly possible before. In any case, Pyre of Heroes should be a solid budget replacement for Birthing Pod, plus give tribal decks a new weapon. Whereas Tribal decks have often won by power and toughness boosts and enter-the-battlefield synergies, Pyre of Heroes gives tribal decks an additional tutor while also enhancing the boost and ETB effects. It’s also a pseudo-draw engine that cashes in early-game plays into more value. Yes, I even expect tribes that like lots of their kind in the graveyard, such as Rogues and Zombies, will eventually develop builds that utilize Pyre of Heroes. All in all, I could write for days about Pyre of Heroes just from a speculative standpoint. I can’t wait to see some of these potential brews I’ve conceptualized actually played in real life Magic. We will definitely be revising this article in the future to see just how Pyre of Heroes fares in actual gameplay. Pyre of Heroes is one of the more fascinating “rabbit hole” type cards we’ve seen in quite some time. I’d love your thoughts on this card. Am I on to something with my esoteric ramblings about tribal deck consistency? Please let me know what you’re thinking about this and other Kaldheim cards! Happy magical gatherings! DISCLAIMER: Portions of LifeSuccessfully.com Magic the Gathering related content are unofficial Fan Content permitted under the Wizards of the Coast Fan Content Policy. The literal and graphical information presented on this site about Magic: The Gathering, including card images, the mana symbols, and Oracle text, is copyright Wizards of the Coast, LLC, a subsidiary of Hasbro, Inc. The content on this website is not produced by, endorsed by, supported by, or affiliated with Wizards of the Coast. by Phoenix Desertsong, Old School Duelist  Cascade has always been one of my favorite mechanics in Magic the Gathering since the days of the Alara Reborn set. Bloodbraid Elf was the first card to become a competitive staple with the mechanic. Now, Apex Devastator from Commander Legends takes Cascade to a brand new level. What does Cascade do exactly?
When you cast this spell, exile cards from the top of your library until you exile a nonland card that costs less. You may cast it without paying its mana cost. Put the exiled cards on the bottom of your library in a random order. Yes, ten mana is a lot to cast a card. But, not only do you Cascade once when you cast him, but rather four separate times consecutively. The initial reaction from many Commander players was that this card was simply too high a mana cost to be much use to any competitive deck builders. But, is that actually true? Cascade has been a pretty good strategy in Commander, thanks to cards printed exclusively in Commander products such as Yidris, Maelstrom Wielder, as well as Maelstrom Wanderer printed in Planechase. Commander Legends took Cascade to a brand new level with a handful of new cards, including a couple of Legendary Creatures. We’ll take a look at these potential Commanders in particular and how Apex Devastator fits in with them. Averna, the Chaos Bloom and Apex Devastator A three-mana, three-color creature, Averna costs just one Green mana, one Red mana, and one Blue mana to cast. While Averna doesn’t cascade herself, her ability does directly impact other cards with Cascade in a big way. Typically, when you Cascade, any lands that you reveal are sent back to the bottom of the library. Averna now gives you the option to put a land card from among those revealed cards into play tapped. Obviously, Averna, the Chaos Bloom allows you to quickly mana ramp up to your larger cascade spells, such as Apex Devastator. But, the Devastator offers a unique opportunity to put into play not just one, but up to four land cards into play in one fell swoop. With several other key Cascade cards printed in the set all falling well below the nine-mana threshold of Apex Devastator, you can cause a ridiculous Cascade of Cascade effect, as cards played with Cascade are still technically cast. Apex Devastator appears to be an immediate auto-include in any Averna decks. Imoti, Celebrant of Bounty and Apex Devastator The second, and perhaps even more powerful of the two Cascade Commanders in the set, is Imoti, Celebrant of Bounty. This five-mana Blue/Green Legendary Creature is a mere uncommon and has Cascade herself. Being that Imoti lacks Red in her color identity, it seems she is better suited as a complement to other Cascade Commanders. However, I believe her effect covers the potential weakness of her inability to access cards outside of colorless, Blue, and Green. Any card that you cast with a converted mana cost of 6 or more automatically has Cascade when Imoti is in play. This is a perfect combination with another Commander Legends Legendary Creature called Brinelin, the Moon Kraken. The 8-mana Kraken doesn’t have Cascade itself, but has an ability that whenever you cast the Kraken or a spell that costs 6 or more mana, you can return a nonland permanent to its owner’s hand. This is good both for reusing your own Cascade creatures or obviously bouncing opponent’s cards. Apex Devastator is an auto-include in Imoti decks, since Imoti lends herself to playing many six-mana or higher cards. Being able to potentially cast four cards with that high mana cost all in a row - all of which can gain their own instances of Cascade with Imoti in play - is probably a game-ender in Imoti’s favor. While ten mana is certainly a lot, Cascade decks tend to have plenty of ramp tools available to them. It doesn’t hurt that many of the mana ramp spells and mana rocks get cast for free by Cascade triggers on a regular basis. You very likely won’t wait until your tenth turn to cast Apex Devastator. One last deck that can definitely use Apex Devastator is the Hydra Tribal Commander Gargos, Vicious Watcher. As Gargos makes Hydra spells cost 4 less to cast, this 10 mana behemoth suddenly costs just 6, but still offers his Cascade ability as a 10-drop. That’s some serious value. Many other Commander decks are giving Apex Devastator a shot as a potential blowout card. Of course, Cascade triggers are inherently random, meaning you have as much of a chance as hitting a one-mana card as an eight-mana card. But, free card advantage can never be overlooked. How would you use Apex Devastator? by Phoenix Desertsong, Old School Duelist  Guardian of Tazeem from Magic the Gathering’s Battle for Zendikar set may not look incredibly exciting, but this rare Sphinx creature had potential to be a pretty sweet weapon in control decks. The Guardian is a 4/5 flyer for 3UU, already solid stats for a mono-Blue creature. It also has a Landfall ability. Whenever a land comes into play on your side, you tap a target creature an opponent controls. If that land is an Island, that creature doesn't untap during its controller's next untap step.
The cool thing about the ability is that the land in question doesn't have to be a basic Island. So, if you have dual lands such as Breeding Pool, Hallowed Fountain, or any other nonbasic land that has the land type Island, you get to freeze creatures for a turn each time you play one of them. Best of all, if you happen to make all lands Islands - such as with Stormtide Leviathan or the Enchantment Prismatic Omen if you're also in Green - every land you play has that effect. What held back Guardian of Tazeem from competitive play is that it was vying for deck space with Icefall Regent in Standard. The Regent can keep a creature tapped down as long as it's on the battlefield. While on paper the Guardian of Tazeem can tap down a lot more things, having to depend on a land-drop makes it less consistent. Also, the Regent being a Dragon made it fit better into many Dragon-centered strategies at the time. The only competitive play that Guardian of Tazeem has seen over the years was in occasional Azorius Aggro deck lists. Even in decks that relied on staying ahead on tempo and winning the game in the air, it was still relegated to sideboard action. About the only consistent home for Guardian of Tazeem came years later in Commander, with the printing of the Sphinx tribal lord, Unesh, Criosphinx Sovereign. As Unesh makes Sphinx spells you cast cost 2 colorless mana less, pretty much every mono-blue Sphinx becomes playable in that context. Like many creatures who have been useful but on the fringe in competitive play, Guardian of Tazeem has found its niche in Commander. The Guardian has also found a home as a tempo piece in Patron of the Moon and Meloku, the Clouded Mirror decks, which involve a lot of Islands leaving and entering play on a regular basis. As generally weak as Battle for Zendikar was as a set, the Guardian of Tazeem was far from one of its weaker cards. by Phoenix Desertsong, Old School Duelist  Chameleon Colossus has always been a fairly valuable Magic the Gathering card. It was originally printed in Morningtide and saw some play in Standard back then. With his versatility and power level, the Colossus has remained popular in tribal decks in casual “Kitchen Table” Magic, EDH, and even Modern.
The price of Chameleon Colossus dropped over time thanks to reprints in Archenemy, From the Vault: Twenty, and Commander 2015. But, thanks to increased play in Modern sideboards and new Tribal decks popping up in Commander all the time, all printings of Chameleon Colossus have been on a steady rise in demand. Chameleon Colossus in Elves For years, Chameleon Colossus saw a lot of play in Elf decks, thanks to the fact that he's a Changeling. The protection from black is also very useful, as a good deal of popular removal cards are black. That was especially true during his early days in competition. It also means decks with primarily black creatures can't block him. Since the Colossus can double its own power as many times as you can pay 2GG, he can deal a ton of damage, too. So, he made a great versatile companion to Elves decks since he counted as an Elf himself. While Elf decks aren’t nearly the force they once were in competitive play, Elves have never stopped being a popular tribe. But, with the printing of Craterhoof Behemoth in Avacyn Restored, Chameleon Colossus became pushed to being a sideboard option in Black-heavy matchups. Chameleon Colossus in Modern Sideboards While Chameleon Colossus is a strong, efficient creature, four mana creatures that don't have an immediate impact on the board don't see much play in Modern. But, fortunately for the Colossus, he has that protection against black going for him. As it turns out, most of the best removal spells in Modern are still predominantly black. So, has he found any home besides Elves sideboards? Red/Green Scapeshift decks began to adopt a single copy of the Colossus in the sideboard, as did Gruul Land Destruction and Tooth and Nail combo decks. These seem like somewhat odd places for him to go. But, having 4 toughness means he's out of Lightning Bolt range, plus much of the other best removal - Dismember, Fatal Push, Terminate, etc. - can't touch it. All of these decks also depend on keeping a threat on the board, which Chameleon Colossus certainly is. Four mana to double his power and toughness is very doable in these decks. Plus, Protection from Black means that Chameleon Colossus can block major threat creatures like Death's Shadow all day. For what it's worth, the Colossus can also block Bloodghast, Gurmag Angler, and Tasigur, the Golden Fang, not to mention any other Black creature that sees play in Modern. So, just to have a fairly difficult to remove wall against big Black creatures is worth playing Chameleon Colossus in the sideboard of a number of Modern decks. Chameleon Colossus in Commander / EDH According to EDHREC, Chameleon Colossus is played in over 3400 EDH decks. Being a Changeling, it's not surprising that he's found his way into a number of tribal decks. The protection from Black also means that he's somewhat tricky to remove and also can block big Black creatures from getting through on the ground. Most recently, Chameleon Colossus has been picked up by popular Tribal Commanders such as Ayula, Queen Among Bears (obviously, Bear Tribal) and Morophon, the Boundless (all sorts of Tribal). For years, the Commander deck playing Chameleon Colossus the most was Reaper King. This is somewhat unsurprising, since as a Changeling, he automatically counts as a Scarecrow, which Reaper King boosts by +1/+1. Reaper King also has another ability that whenever another Scarecrow enters the battlefield under your control, you destroy a target permanent. So, not only does the Colossus become a 5/5 for 4 mana, but he takes out a permanent when he enters. That makes him and any other Changeling an automatic play in the Reaper King deck. Kaseto, Orochi Archmage has also given Chameleon Colossus a home. Not only is the Colossus perfect for the Snake Tribal deck. but Kaseto can make creatures unblockable. If that creature is a Snake, Kaseto also gives it +2/+2. With the Colossus's ability to double his power and toughness, he can deal a whole ton of damage that can't be blocked. Ouch. Arahbo, Roar of the World, the Cat Tribal Commander, has also taken full advantage of Chameleon Colossus. Not only is the Colossus a very big Cat, but Arahbo can give the Colossus +3/+3 at the beginning of combat, plus he can give him trample AND double his power and toughness. On top of the Colossus being able to double his own power already, you get a very massive trampler. Major ouch. Other Commanders who like to have Chameleon Colossus in the deck include Ezuri, Claw of Progress, Atogatog, Seton, Krosan Protector, Xenagos, God of Revels, Ishkanah, Grafwidow, Gishath, Sun's Avatar, and more. Should I Run Out and Buy a Copy of Chameleon Colossus? Really, any printing of this card is worth having in your Magic the Gathering card collection. If you’d like a cheap foil copy, the From the Vault: Twenty version is worth considering. Anyone who plays Green in Commander or casual play should pick up at least a copy of Chameleon Colossus. It fits into many tribal strategies and will always find homes in casual and Commander decks somewhere. by Phoenix Desertsong, Old School Duelist  Void Winnower from Magic the Gathering’s Battle for Zendikar set is quite an odd Eldrazi. All “can’t even” and other “odd” jokes aside, the mythic rare Winnower is pretty unique in its abilities. Nine mana for an 11/9 body is already pretty good. Being unable to be blocked by creatures with even converted mana costs gives it a rather unusual form of evasion.
But, Void Winnower goes even beyond that, preventing opponents from casting spells with even converted mana costs. Obviously, this is a Limited bomb that you can likely drop before turn nine in the typical draft or sealed deck, thanks to all of the colorless mana ramp available in that set. But, how good is it in Constructed? For starters, creature tokens can’t block Void Winnower, since they have a 0 CMC. According to an official judge ruling from Wizards of the Coast, 0 is considered even. Mathematical debates aside, it’s going to be fairly tough to chump block this guy. Then again, plenty of removal options exist at odd converted mana costs, so there are definitely ways to deal with this behemoth. What Void Winnower seems best at is being a metagame answer to the big even converted mana cost spells in Standard. At the time of Void Winnower's release, these were Ugin, the Spirit Dragon at 8 mana and Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger at 10 mana being the chief concerns. With Eldrazi Ramp a legitimate deck archetype, especially in Modern, Void Winnower became a legitimate candidate for sideboard play. It can randomly hose a number of decks if their key cards have even converted mana costs. Void Winnower Makes Things Not Even in Pioneer While Void Winnower made a few Top 8 appearances in 2015 and 2017 in Modern, it took awhile for the true power of Void Winnower to be realized. This was a card that for years could be had for as little as a couple of dollars. But, in 2019 with the invention of the Pioneer format - which includes cards from Return to Ravnica forward in its card pool - Void Winnower would soon find new life. It took until 2020 with the release of Fires of Invention to truly see Void Winnower suddenly become a competitive powerhouse. Fires of Invention is a silly enchantment that gives you the ability to cast just two spells in a turn, but it can be any spell with a mana cost equal to or less than the number of lands you control. That means by turn 9 you can play the Void Winnower and another card in one turn. By that point in the game, it’s going to be tricky to stop the Winnower from taking over the board. Void Winnower in Commander / EDH In EDH, Void Winnower is a “just say no” card that will lock some Commanders out of the game. It’s a pretty mean card in the format. While someone will probably find an answer to it in a multiplayer game, it will wreak havoc while it remains in play. It may come down to using Swords to Plowshares on it and gaining the controlling player 11 life. The fact it can help your team get through for extra damage is also another big consideration. Also, because it's colorless, Void Winnower can be included in a wide variety of decks. Naturally, the Commanders that will want to use Void Winnower the most are those that can sometimes cast him for free (Rakdos, Lord of Riots and Animar, Soul of Elements) or cheat him into play (Mayael the Anima and Jhoira of the Ghitu). Also, with the release of Commander Legends, Void Winnower found a new home in Belbe, Corrupted Observer decks. Belbe’s ability can net you a ton of colorless mana, making Void Winnower easy to cast. It also helps that Commander Legends also released Apex Devastator, a ten-drop Green creature that cascades 4 times - literally allowing you to play 4 spells that cost 9 mana or less for free in a row straight from your deck. Void Winnower is an obvious include in any deck that features the Devastator. Pretty much any Commander deck can make use of Void Winnower if you can somehow get him into play on the cheap. Because it doesn't have an on-cast trigger, it's actually a big threat and always worth putting into play no matter how you do it. Void Winnower is definitely a keeper. How would you use Void Winnower? by Phoenix Desertsong, Old School Duelist  Tainted Remedy is a Magic the Gathering card from the Magic Origins set. Time and again, this Enchantment has been compared to Sanguine Bond, a card that was once worth $10 before it was reprinted into dust. Because of how valuable Sanguine Bond became, Magic finance speculators have loved this card for years. So, what's so great about this card?
The card Tainted Remedy does something similar but something that's a bit different than Sanguine Bond. Whereas Sanguine Bond is an instant win combo with Exquisite Blood. That's because they did opposite things. Sanguine Bond would make an opponent lose life whenever you gained life and Exquisite Blood had you gain life whenever your opponent lost life. If you control both of these Enchantment cards on the field at the same time, they create an infinite loop which allows you to drain any and all opponents of all of their life totals, giving you an easy win. Tainted Remedy instead gives you the ability to build a deck that lets you play cards that would ordinarily gain life to instead cause your opponent damage. Early on, it wasn't hard to see Tainted Remedy as a sideboard card to thwart decks that gain tons of life, especially in Modern and Legacy. It also has a great synergy with Beacon of Immortality. The Beacon allows you to double a target player's life total, and with Tainted Remedy in play, it instead deals damage equal to twice that opponent's life total instead. It makes for a deadly two-card combo, especially in a typical one-on-one duel. While the Tainted Remedy combo with Beacon of Immortality isn’t quite as foolproof as the Sanguine Bond and Exquisite Blood combo. But, if you can pull it off, it’s extremely effective. The question is, would Tainted Remedy be a card that would see competitive play as the Bond/Blood combo did during its time in competitive Standard play. As predicted, Tainted Remedy did see some sideboard play, as seen in some U/R Prowess lists in Standard. Tainted Remedy even popped up in Modern a bit, too, as seen in this Abzan Midrange deck. But it wasn’t adopted to the degree that many thought it would be. Still, there’s been enough casual and Commander interest to keep this card on a steady rise over the past two years. Tainted Remedy in Pioneer With the release of Aria of Flames in Modern Horizons, Tainted Remedy found a new deck. While the deck never took off competitively in Modern, the invention of the Pioneer competitive format - which has a much more limited cardpool for deck builders to work with - brought new interest in playing with Tainted Remedy. The Aria of Flames and Tainted Remedy combo isn’t an instant win. But, since Aria of Flame gains each opponent 10 life when the Enchantment enters play, it puts your opponent at a severe disadvantage when you also have Tainted Remedy in play. An Aria of Flames deck also plays many other burn spells, which will allow you to finish off an opponent without having to put another copy of Aria of Flames into play. Tainted Remedy in EDH / Commander While Tainted Remedy hasn't taken off in competitive play, there are enough people building decks with it in EDH (more popularly known today as Commander) to give it a value of a few dollars on the secondary market. In particular, Tainted Remedy sees play in decks led by Selenia, Dark Angel, Mogis, God of Slaughter, Mathas, Fiend Seeker, Kaervek the Merciless, and Kambal, Consul of Allocation. In particular, Tainted Remedy is a great Enchantment in a Mathas, Fiend Seeker deck because of the Legendary Creature's ability. Mathas' creates bounty counters on opponent's creatures. When creatures with bounty counters on them die, each opponent draws a card and gains 2 life. But, Tainted Remedy would make each opponent take 2 damage instead. Because of how narrow its effect is, Tainted Remedy isn't a card you'd see being reprinted to death as Sanguine Bond has. What it does is pretty unique and it can hose a lot of decks that depend on lifegain effects. It’s one of those stash-away cards that could become competitively relevant all of a sudden if the right lifegain combo deck comes along in Modern or Pioneer. While Tainted Remedy likely doesn't have a price ceiling of $25 or more like Exquisite Blood, it’s not impossible for this to be worth more than a few dollars per copy in the next few years. If there’s a great combo piece to go along with Beacon of Immortality printed in the future, this card's value could rise quickly. In any case, Tainted Remedy is a great card to have in your Magic the Gathering collection. Updated 11/17/2020 by Phoenix Desertsong, Nostalgic Video Gamer  Raptor: Call of the Shadows was one of my favorite PC games growing up. It was a top-down vertical scrolling shooter by Apogee Software & Cygnus Studios from 1994. Sure, I probably wasted far too many hours playing it, but it was fun! It’s similar to another classic game called Major Stryker, which I also enjoyed immensely as a kid. For whatever reason, Raptor has really lived on unlike many of its contemporaries. Heck, there are YouTube streamers who still even play it on livestream! This Raptor longplay on stream by cs188creations is super awesome. It’s 2 and a half hours long, so don’t feel pressured to watch the whole thing. But, you can get the whole experience by watching it. He played it on max difficulty WITHOUT SAVING! Yeah, he died a couple of times, but that’s what you get from going hardcore! Like many older games, there were some cheats that made the game easier. These included skipping levels and a “god mode.” But, I always preferred to play the old fashioned way. I pretty much only played on MAX difficulty - Elite - but I always saved the game after every wave! Pros of Raptor The soundtrack for this game was so good that I’d find myself humming tracks from it all the time! There’s even a playlist or two of the Raptor: Call of the Shadows OST on YouTube! Despite there only being three episodes with nine levels each, the game has surprising amounts of replay value. There are also some cool easter eggs that I forget how to get at now. The selection of equipment and weapons in Raptor: Call of the Shadows is also pretty expansive for such an old game. But, there are a few weapons which are clearly better than others, like the Auto-Track Minigun and the Twin Lasers. The graphics were superb at the time and it was critically acclaimed by gaming experts. Really, Raptor’s a great game to play when you just want something straightforward where you blow stuff up!  Cons of Raptor Honestly, I don’t think there’s anything I dislike about Raptor: Call of the Shadows. I will say that there’s a Windows version from 1999 that had some serious issues with its controls. Since then, there’s been a version released on Steam which is fine and an iOS version of the game, as well. The only other knock I have against the game is it’s not packed with quite as many levels as other similar games. But, the quality of its 27 levels makes up for whatever replayability value it loses from having such a small number of levels.  Overall, it’s really fun to watch other people play Raptor that have such a nostalgic fondness for it like me! At one time in 2015, it looked like there was going to be a sequel to Raptor: Call of the Shadows, but it never came to be. If you’re looking for a classic game to fire up, this is definitely one that’s worth a couple hours of time for the serious retro PC gamer!
You can find the DOTEmu 2010 version available for download on Amazon or the newer 2015 release on Steam. Games similar to Raptor: Star Defender 4 & Alien Stars by Awem Studios  How to Know What Your Pokemon and YuGiOh Cards Are Worth
As a successful reseller of Pokemon and YuGiOh cards on EBay, Amazon, and ComC, I can tell you that it takes a lot of hard work. How do you know which cards will sell VS the cards that won't sell. Here are some tips on how to successfully sell Pokemon and YuGiOh cards on eBay. How to Check Current Prices for Yu-Gi-Oh Cards For Yu-Gi-Oh cards, I tend to use the values that are listed on the TCGPlayer.com website. When you look up a card on TCGPlayer.com, it gives you a low value, a medium value, and a high value. TCGPlayer also has a Market Price, which tracks the last few average actual sales for that card. If the Market Price is close, equal to, or higher than the Mid price, it's usually a sign that the market is strong for that card. If it's significantly lower, then you'll have to price that card lower to help sell it more quickly. The low value is the lowest "near-mint" price that a seller on the TCGPlayer seller network is currently listing that card for (near-mint being a card that has no noticeable defects or play-wear). The low price is the absolute minimum that I would list a card for sale. But, the Market price is a safe price to use if you don't mind waiting for cheaper listed copies to sell. There's also another great price guide resource for Yu-Gi-Oh called Yu-Gi-Oh Prices. This site not only shows you various recent price listings from TCGPlayer, Amazon, and EBay, but also shows you price trends. This way you can see cards that are falling in price or rising in price. How to Check Current Prices for Pokemon Cards For Pokemon cards, you'd likely want to use Troll and Toad. While Troll and Toad is mostly known for Magic the Gathering cards, they also sell a great many Pokemon cards, as well. TCGPlayer does sell some Pokemon cards, but not to the degree that Troll and Toad does. The list price on Troll And Toad is generally around the price you'll see cards listed for on EBay anyway. You will find that a large number of holographic cards in Pokemon tend to only sell for about $0.50 to $1 USD. However, if you go onto EBay and find that card is actually selling for around 2-3 dollars, then it's perhaps worth a shot to sell it. On the other hand, 50 cent holos are usually better off being sold in groups of 5 or 10 as a lot, as bidding wars can ensue and end up netting you more than the lot is actually worth. If the lot sells for less than the individual Troll and Toad prices overall, as long as you make profit after fees and shipping, then you've still made out. This is simply because those holos are considered "bulk" to most people and moving them at all is a plus. All in all, Troll and Toad is the best and easiest way to see if you have a card worth $5 or more. Check eBay Completed Listings and Lowest Buy-It-Now Prices Once you've identified which cards are worth selling, you'll want to double check the completed listings on EBay to see what previous users have purchased that particular card for. Don't be too discouraged if the price is much lower than you'd expect. Sometimes buy-it-now is not used, and cards can be won at auction for far lower prices than they typically retail for. This is useful information, though, because it will tell you what the market will currently bear for that particular card. Next, check what the current lowest buy-it-now prices are (price + shipping) and see how they stack up with the completed listings. Card values can fluctuate wildly at times, but generally they stay within a range. The greatest part of looking at the completed listings is identifying what cards simply don't sell. If you see far more auctions that end without a sale than those with a sale, chances are that card isn't in particularly high demand. You may want to hold onto it and list the ones first that have the highest percentage of successful sales. It's usually pretty easy see at a glance what's selling and what isn't. Just be sure to check the auction end dates, as some cards completed listings' results will have end dates from several months ago. Chances are, if that card hasn't sold in months, it's better to hold onto it, or put it as part of a lot (more on that later!) Now that you know a card should have a good chance of being sold, the easiest way to actually sell a card on EBay is to simply list it for the lowest price. However, that is not always the best option. By checking the completed listings, you may find that people are willing to pay a bit more for a card than the lowest price currently sits at. All you have to do is wait for the cheaper copies to sell. Also, check the feedback of the seller with the lowest price. If they have little or no feedback, or have a rating below 97%, you can feel safe listing your card for perhaps a bit more than they have it for. What Cards Actually Sell? This is now the toughest part of selling cards. It's easy to find a card price and list it for around that number. However, what actually sells versus what doesn't? Believe it or not, Yu-Gi-Oh and Pokemon are somewhat similar in this regard, due to both collectible value and play-ability in competitive environments. Collectible Value & "Rotations" In both Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh, the cards from the first few sets of each Trading Card Game tend to have a fairly high collectible value. Even Yu-Gi-Oh cards that are banned in competitive tournaments, such as Heavy Storm or Change of Heart, or older Pokemon holos from Base Set like Charizard and Blastoise, still see lots of sales occur on EBay and other sites. It's players' particular fondness for certain cards that they used to play with or collect that drives up the value of older cards. The other cards that tend to have a lot of collectible value are what are referred to as "staples" which are cards that most competitive players in either game use in the majority of their decks. In Yu-Gi-Oh these include cards like Raigeki and Mystical Space Typhoon, which see play in most decks. Even though these cards are today heavily printed at common rarity, their original printings were not common, and as they are shiny holographic versions, they are highly sought after. In Pokemon, however, besides cards like "Pokemon Catcher" and some Supporter cards in recent years, there are not nearly as many staples as there are in Yu-Gi-Oh. This also lends itself to the fact that in Yu-Gi-Oh, besides what is on the official tournament ban list, you can use any card ever printed in the game. However, in Pokemon, outside of casual league play, only the sets from the past couple of years are considered legal. For example, cards of the Heart Gold Soul Silver series are no longer recognized as usable cards in competitive decks. While there are many advantages to this "rotation" strategy for both competitive and sales reasons, it can leave you with a LOT of worthless cardboard. Playability The one major similarity in selling Yu-Gi-Oh and Pokemon "staples" is that when they are being played in pretty much every deck at that time, even common and uncommon cards (Trainers and Supporters in Pokemon, Spell and Trap cards in Yu-Gi-Oh) can fetch $2-3 a piece, if not more. Some staple uncommons in Pokemon can list for over $10 USD! The important thing is to recognize their value to players and collect them to sell if you're not playing to play with them and move them quickly! The major difference in selling Yu-Gi-Oh and Pokemon "staples" however, is the fact that once those trainers and supporters rotate out of the Pokemon competitive scene, they become just like your Caterpie and Nidoran: bulk commons. In Yu-Gi-Oh, however, even though Lightsworn decks don't see nearly the play that they once did, staple monsters, even in common printings like Lyla and Ryko, still sell for $2-$3 a copy because of their utility in other decks. Dark World Dealings is a hot card for the Dark World deck, but because of their usefulness in other decks, such as Chaos Blackwings and Zombies, they also go for about $3 a piece. Yu-Gi-Oh "staples" retain their value far longer than Pokemon's. So if you have Pokemon staples that you're not using, it's a good idea to move them ASAP. The Liquidity of Cardboard At this moment, you may be asking yourself, what can I do with all of these older cards that I'm apparently stuck with? There are always bulk lots to consider, but first let's take a look at the most important concept in selling cardboard, liquidity. There are advantages and disadvantages to dealing in either card game. The liquidity of Yu-Gi-Oh cards tends to be higher than that of Pokemon's, merely because Yu-Gi-Oh is a highly competitive game. Many players are just looking for one or two cards to finish their deck or to take it to the next level. In Pokemon, even the more competitive players are more collectors by nature. Even if you have some of the nicest looking holos from the newest set that aren't necessarily tournament playable, they likely will sell for more than you'd expect at auction. For older sets, this is where using sites like TCGPlayer and Troll and Toad come in handy. They do the price research mostly for you. While you still need to check completed listings on Ebay to confirm that a card listed at $20 on those sites will actually sell for that when you go to list it, generally they set prices that high due to having the demand for that particular card. The major difference between Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh from a liquidity aspect is that Yu-Gi-Oh reprints cards like crazy. Pokemon does not. In fact, usually all Pokemon does is create promo versions of certain cards (and these do have some value). With Yu-Gi-Oh, a card previously only available as ultra rare, becomes super rare, then rare, then common, especially if it's a card that sees tons of play. One thing Konami clearly does a lot of is see what cards actually get played. Many times, if they see certain ultra rare or secret rare cards from older sets no longer seeing much competitive play, they get them reprinted as common in their structure decks or reprint sets! From a collector's standpoint, this is immensely frustrating, because they see their once very rare cards go from valuable to valueless. The good news, though, is that even as common (cards such as Dark Armed Dragon, for example) still sell, but at highly deflated prices. Pokemon, on the other hand, has its rarer cards keep their value quite well. They don't usually reprint cards, except as promotional cards in collector's tins. They have, however, reprinted very powerful cards as Mewtwo EX as promotional cards, but they announce these reprints very soon after the set that they are released in comes out. Reprints in Yu-Gi-Oh just sort of happen at will based on whatever cards they think will see play in tandem with upcoming releases. While there are actually very good reasons as to why Konami decided to reprint certain cards for accessibility reasons, it makes selling the older cards very, very difficult. Older Pokemon holos, though, like even a Zapdos or Blastoise, can fetch between $5-$10 easily. Holos from the increasingly rare Skyridge and Aquapolis sets can fetch between $10-$20. Simply being out of circulation for awhile increases their value, especially if you're looking for near-mint to mint copies! This is to say, Pokemon card selling requires more patience, but the card values are far more stable, and the liquidity of selling cards of certain popular Pokemon (Charizard, for example) or ultra rare card types (EX, level X, shiny, gold star, etc) remain fairly constant. While certain EX cards currently in Black and White will see a drop in value after "rotating" out of competitive play, they will still be sought after by many collectors. Many Yu-Gi-Oh cards have been reprinted to death, however. Look at cards like Dark Necrofear that used to be extremely high-dollar cards. While Dark Necrofear has not yet hit bottom as a mere common reprint quite yet, the number of promotional printings it has had is astounding, and because it doesn't see much competitive play anymore (despite still being a pretty useful card!) older copies can sell for as low as $1! If you're lucky to have a 1st edition copy, you may eek out $3-5. However, holographic cards simply aren't worth what they used to be in Yu-Gi-Oh. They also don't sell all too well if they're not in top-tier decks. Selling in Playsets, Bulk, and Lots One of the most common ways to get rid of low-dollar cards is to sell them in playsets. In Yu-Gi-Oh, you can have three of any given card in a deck (unless it is restricted, limited or semi-limited on the official tournament ban list from Konami). In Pokemon, you can have a maximum four of any given card outside of basic energy cards. Granted, you can also sell playsets of high-value cards, as well, to get the most out of one sale. Listings with multiple cards in them always sell better than single cards. I have personally found, though, that listing two or three of a card, even those that you can only legally play one of in a deck, is still a good strategy. Yes, you may not get exactly what those cards are "worth" when you consider list prices, but they are far more likely to sell. Money is always more valuable overall than pieces of cardboard, so as long as you're profiting on less liquid assets, you're ahead of the game. This is the easiest way to put lots together, and has proven profitable for myself and thousands of other sellers again and again. There is, of course, the chance that play-set lots will sell for far lower than they would sell individually, but this is a risk you'll have to take. The best way to protect yourself from this is to NEVER start an auction at $0.99 with free shipping. I only ever use the buy-it-now option, and choose a price that's 5 to 10 percent lower than the lowest current available price (calculating for both price + shipping) and offer free shipping, If I do my research correctly, 9 times out of 10 that item will sell for either market value or about 10 to 15 percent below, a reasonable loss at which to make a sale. There are also the bulk lots you can do, by grouping together random lots of holos, commons, and uncommons. I have personally NEVER been a fan of these "random" auctions as most of the time people just get ripped off. Some sellers that provide lots, however, will always give you your money's worth, if not more. They're not all bad, certainly, but there are plenty of shady ones out there. If you're going to do a lot, my advice is to actually list the cards in said lot, even if it's random, so that at least the buyer has an idea which cards they have a chance of receiving. Honesty is the best policy, as it is in everything. Whenever I have put up lots, I simply name the cards the winner will receive. These sell better than any other lots, and provide a way to get rid of bulk holos and rares as a value-added bonus. There is of course, nothing wrong with selling off bulk commons and uncommons with a random rare thrown in. As long as you don't put in too many duplicates (excluding duplicates of common cards you know see play) you should get generally positive feedback. Bulk lots are the cheapest way for players to build up a collection. Just make sure they're getting a good value. If you know you've given them a good value while still leaving room for a healthy profit margin, you're all set. Pokemon vs Yu-Gi-Oh: Which Will Sell Better? Overall, if you know your card prices, and you know what sells, both Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh sell about the same. Pokemon you may find yourself selling in lots more often than in Yu-Gi-Oh, but there's plenty of market out there for both trading card games in singles and playsets. Just keep in mind a couple of major points. Novelty is Money Whenever a set is first released, cards that get super-hyped tend to sell for far higher values than they will after the set has been out for a bit and supply of singles has increased. This is one reason that a lot of card players and dealers alike attend pre-release events, to get their hands on cards that the general public can't go out and buy yet. These are your cash cow cards, and if you feel that card won't be highly sought after when the release date hits, sell high. Knowing what cards are really needed in the current competitive scene, though, is very, very important. Those are the ones that sell the most, bar none. Top-Tier Deck Lists One easy way to know what cards will quickly sell is by looking at winning deck lists in their respective games. Top Yu-Gi-Oh lists are everywhere, and top Pokemon lists are as well. Just by Googling top decks for Yu-Gi-Oh or Pokemon, you can tell what cards are seeing lots of play. Take special note of any holographic cards that see a lot of play, those are the ones that will sell the best! Selling off a Collection For many of you reading this, you may be looking to liquidate your collection or know someone who would like to sell off the bulk of a collection. I personally do not like the idea of selling off a collection all at once. While it's certainly doable, and plenty of people buy collections all of the time, if you do it right, selling off the more valuable singles, then selling off the bulk is probably the better way to go. There's nothing wrong with having a bidding war over a collection (happens all the time!) but bear in mind that sorting through a collection properly enough as to get the highest sale price can take just as long as selling off singles and bulk lots. If you have binders and binders of cards that you know aren't going to sell singly for more than $2-$3 and you have only a couple of big money cards, then it's probably OK to go this way. Just remember you have to include shipping costs, as well, which can get hefty when selling a collection! Best practice is, though, to sell off the bigger cards first, then sell the rest in one big lot. While you can always sell to gaming vendors, keep in mind that they need to turn a profit off of what they buy. Buy lists are definitely worth looking at, because if a vendor has a high buy price for something, chances are you could sell it for more on EBay! So while selling to a game store or vendor is OK, if you're selling off a whole collection, you're better off selling it yourself. Here's one thing, however, that you need to consider in Yu-Gi-Oh VS Pokemon. In Yu-Gi-Oh, there are a lot of "junk" cards that no one wants, whereas in Pokemon, holos of even the less popular Pokemon are wanted just for collection purposes. When you're selling a collection, keep that in mind, because Yu-Gi-Oh players buy collections to boost their trade binders, whereas Pokemon players and collections buy collections to either resell or just to boost their own collections. So if you're trying to sell a whole collection in Pokemon, it may be worth just bulking the whole thing together as long as you list all of the valuable stuff in it. In Yu-Gi-Oh, players are looking to win as cheap as possible, so getting all of the value you can out of singles is the better way to go, and perhaps keep a few bait cards to sell the rest off! Just be honest, and you'll be fine. Flipping Cards for Profit vs Liquidation This entire article has been based on the assumption that you are looking to flip cards for profit. If you are simply looking to get rid of the "money cards" or even a whole collection, everything said here still applies. However, if you're willing to take a bit lower of a profit margin, or really just want some fair value, there are a few things to keep in mind. 1. Selling the entire collection in bulk is OK if you really need the money now and you don't want to be in it for the long haul. It's also OK if you're helping a friend out so they can get money for something else. Just bear in mind to research the prices of the bigger stuff so you KNOW you'll get a fair price, rather than just stick some arbitrary number up there (25 cents a card or something). But that's just what I suggest. 2. People can make a nice little profit as a hobby buying singles on the cheap and reselling them for a premium. Bargain hunters are all over EBay, and if you're desperate to move things, put them about 2/3 of what they usually go for, and they'll snap them right up. Keep in mind that the most liquid parts of your collection (the things every one is looking for) are what you should always look to move first. The rest of it is what collection buyers will buy up, simply to restock their binders, or simply out of looking to get a lot of cards quickly and cheap. 3. If you do decide to sell off a collection, bear in mind that people going to buy them rarely will want to pay market value for it. Yes, cards are only worth what people are willing to pay for them, but there are ways to squeeze extra dollars out of them. Bear in mind that most collections won't be full of $50-100 gems or even $20 hot sellers. If you know that your collection is full of binder filler, you can afford to take below market value for it. Just keep that in mind. The reason that I have made this article so profit-oriented is that I simply see people selling off their cards all of the time by simply not doing their homework and using the excuse "I just want to get rid of them!" Flipping cards for profit is a great way to sustain the trading card collection hobby and there's a nice little economy built around it. Just be sure that you're get a fair deal, and keep in mind you can take a loss if you'd like, but more often than not, your cards are more valuable than you think! Do you have any more tips on how to sell trading card games like Yu-Gi-Oh and Pokemon on eBay? Let us know in the comments! Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons by Phoenix Desertsong, Old School Duelist Toon Kingdom makes a competitive Yu-Gi-Oh Toon deck build possible. Yu-Gi-Oh. I used to play this trading card game with about the same frequency as breathing. Then, the game became all about one or two top archetypes at a time. Each would have a shelf life of about a month. After that, everything got reprinted... except some random common from like 2005 that was never reprinted and became like 10 bucks a pop. The rest of the decks could be had for a week worth of lunch money. OK, perhaps that's a slight exaggeration. But, due to the extremely erratic nature of Yu-Gi-Oh’s metagame, investing in Yu-Gi-Oh cards long-term has often not been a smart play. That is, unless you wheel and deal like a Dark Magician… (That was lame, I'm sorry.) So, why in the holy name of Dark Magician Girl would I be returning to write about the duel monsters? Toon Kingdom.  Nostalgia does strange things to our recollections of intrinsically worthless things. Toons were my introduction to Yu-Gi-Oh with the Pegasus starter deck. As much as I loved the concept of them, they cost you most of your life points just to play them. In the early days of the game their sheer power level was enough to win your local tournament by accident on occasion. But as the game grew and the power level of many other cards went berserk, Toons became a fond memory, a deck you built "Just For Fun." But, Toon Kingdom...is certainly a game changer in making Toons competitive! First introduced in the Yu-Gi-Oh GX anime, Toon Kingdom teased duel monsters fans with a potentially dangerous new way to play Toons. But they never printed it into the actual card game, until Dragons of Legends 2. They would reprint it as a rare in 2018, too, in the Legendary Duelists: Ancient Millenium set. The reprint gets you a crappier-looking version of the card for about half the price of a secret rare Dragons of Legends version when going by 2020 prices. What's particularly nuts about this version of Toon Kingdom is that it's actually better than the anime version. Compare: When you activate this card, remove from play the top 5 cards of your Deck. This face-up card's name is treated as "Toon World". If a "Toon" monster you control would be destroyed by battle, you can banish the top card of your Deck instead. With this: When this card is activated: Banish 3 cards from the top of your Deck, face-down. This card's name becomes "Toon World" while in the Field Zone. Your opponent cannot target Toon monsters you control with card effects. If a Toon monster(s) you control would be destroyed by battle or card effect, you can banish 1 card from the top of your Deck, face-down, for each of those monster(s) instead. Oh my. The original Toon World? Activate this card by paying 1000 LP. How exciting. But, to play the lovely Toon Dark Magician Girl or Toon Blue-Eyes White Dragon, you had to have this Toon World continuous spell card on the board. But now, Toon Kingdom makes them almost indestructible. There is an important distinction between the anime and “real world” versions of Toon Kingdom. The original Kingdom banishes the top 5 cards of your deck, BUT they are face-up. The new version only banishes 3, but they are face-down. Because they are face-down, you can’t do anything with them. No Different Dimension shenanigans. Once they’re banished face-down, they’re gone forever. I think the trade-off is worth it, though, just because you have Toons that basically can’t be destroyed by battle or by card effects. They can’t even be targeted by card effects. Even the classic Raigeki doesn’t kill them, as long as you banish one card for each one that would otherwise be destroyed. Another major distinction is that Toon Kingdom is a Field Spell in “real life” whereas the original was a Continuous Spell Card. This means you can use Terraforming to search it out, not just Toon Table of Contents. Since you’ll be banishing cards from your deck left and right, redundancy is important. So now the question is, are Toons now suddenly tournament-playable after so many years? Let’s see what other Toon support Dragons of Legends 2 has unleashed.  Toon Ancient Gear Golem? This is a cute card. Ancient Gear Golem was a really powerful monster back in the day. Is it going to see play? Probably not. Toon Rollback lets you attack a second time! Sounds good enough, but no one’s taking anything out to make room for it in their 40. Shadow Toon sounds pretty awesome. You can inflict damage equal to the ATK points of an opponent’s creature right to your opponent’s face. But it's a bit too situational. Toon Mask? It's a free Special Summon, even out of the deck! But like Shadow Toon, it's totally dependent is what your opponent is playing. Toon Briefcase? The Briefcase is pretty sweet, though, as it’s sort of a Trap Hole that returns the monster to the deck. Comic Hand is a Snatch Steal if you have Toon World/Toon Kingdom.  Mimicat, though? We have a winner! If you control "Toon World" and a Toon monster: Target 1 card in your opponent's Graveyard; if it is a monster, Special Summon it to your side of the field, or if it is a Spell/Trap Card, Set it to your side of the field. You can only activate 1 "Mimicat" per turn. A Monster Reborn that can bring back spell or trap cards!? WHAT!? Give me a playset right now!  Dragons of Legend 2 isn't the only newer set to provide good Toon cards, though. With the Shining Victories set, in came a powerful new Toon monster: Red-Eyes Toon Dragon. Yu-Gi-Oh players know how busted Red-Eyes Black Metal Dragon became. This is a pretty strong Red-Eyes Dragon, too, letting you Special Summon any Toon monster other than another "Red-Eyes Toon Dragon" from your hand once per turn.  With the Dark Illusion set, Toons keep getting better. Toon Dark Magician may be the best of the Toon monsters printed so far! The best part about this Dark Magician is that he can summon a Toon monster directly from your deck! He also has the ability to search out a Toon Spell or Trap card from your deck, including Toon Kingdom! It also doesn't hurt that he can attack your opponent directly for 2500 ! In particular, you're going to want to get a Red-Eyes Toon Dragon. You can then use the Toon Dragon's ability to summon yet another Toon Dark Magician from your hand and repeat the process! In effect, you can combo off a bunch of summons in one turn just like the classic Six Samurai decks and many other competitive decks today. We’ve established that Toon Kingdom and Mimicat are the main draws here. Red-Eyes Toon Dragon and Toon Dark Magician make for a great top-end boss monsters to build around. Most of the other cards are cute and sound good on paper, but don’t quite make the cut if we're going for consistency and overall power. So, what’s a cool new competitive Toon deck going to look like? Tons of people brew Toon decks constantly. But there are so many permutations, and there doesn’t seem to be an optimized, competitive Toon build out there quite yet. You’d want to start with a deck list like this: Monsters (16) 3x Toon Cannon Soldier 3x Toon Gemini Elf 3x Toon Masked Sorcerer 2x Toon Mermaid 2x Toon Cyber Dragon 3x Toon Dark Magician 3x Red-Eyes Toon Dragon Spells (17) 2x Comic Hand 3x Mimicat 3x Pot of Duality 3x Toon Kingdom 3x Toon Table of Contents Traps (7) 1x Bottomless Trap Hole 2x Call of the Haunted 2x Dimensional Prison 2x Toon Briefcase Toon Summoned Skull is a classic Toon monster that usually sees play in Toons, but Toon Cyber Dragon is a newer option you can play instead. The Cyber Dragon is probably better, though, since you can Special Summon it in the same way you could a regular Cyber Dragon. The monster line-up doesn’t look overwhelming, but since they can all attack directly if your opponent doesn’t control a Toon, they don’t have to be overwhelming on power. Also, remember that you can just banish a card face-down if they would be destroyed. There’s enough defensive cards in the deck to deal with any major offensive threats from your opponent. Answering Great Reader Feedback About Building a Toon Kingdom Deck Over time, I’ve received some great reader comments about building their own Toon Kingdom decks. One reader suggestion is to use the continuous Spell card Field Barrier to protect your Toon Kingdoms. I feel this would be a good card to consider for the sideboard, especially against decks with enough firepower to continuously blow away cards in your Spell & Trap Zones. Another reader suggestion is to use a different draw card in place of Pot of Duality. This is because you can’t Special Summon monsters in the same turn as playing Pot of Duality. However, this wouldn’t be the first Special Summon happy deck to play Duality. This is because Duality lets you choose one card from among the next three. You could use Upstart Goblin instead of Pot of Duality, which gifts your opponent 1000 LP to draw you a card. This isn’t my favorite option, but Upstart Goblin has been used for years with much success. There are other options, such as Jar of Greed. But since you can unleash some powerful direct attacks with Toon monsters, the life gain for your opponent may be a moot point. Will a Toon Kingdom Deck Be Able to Win at Local Tournaments? Frankly, I don't see Toons winning anything serious anytime soon. But, they have a chance in being a lot of fun and winning on the pure strength of Toon Kingdom on occasion. I just can't see them being consistent enough to be worth sleeving up for an actual Advanced-level tournament. While this isn’t a competitively optimized list, it is a place to start your Toon Kingdom deck. You can substitute whatever Toon monsters you find most useful. Also, keep in mind you have your XYZ monsters and Link Monsters at your disposal, something that Toons never had before. As an archetype, Toons are continuing to look a lot scarier with each new set release that includes them. Will Toons ever again become consistent enough to actually win tournaments as they could in the early days of Yu-Gi-Oh? That’s quite hard to say, considering you could end up banishing all of your Toon Kingdoms by accident. That is unlikely, though, with how many ways you have to tutor them out. Also, there's enough copies of your monsters and support cards to keep from burning through all of them. While I don’t plan on just building Toons myself and playing Yu-Gi-Oh again, it’s been a lot of fun to watch Konami continue to give one of the original Yu-Gi-Oh deck archetypes new life. You never know what they’ll reprint or support next. Of course, you can always play a Toon deck on Duel Links. But, that's a whole different article! Updated 4/22/2020 Here are some other Yu-Gi-Oh trading card game articles you may enjoy:
- Yu-Gi-Oh Blackwings Deck Profile - Can a Gladiator Beast Deck Still Be Competitive? - GOAT FORMAT! - Intro to the Format - Fire Princess Burn - Old School Yu-Gi-Oh! Deck Profile! - The Legendary Fisherman - Old School Yu-Gi-Oh Deck Profile
by Phoenix Desertsong; Pokemon Master! 
As we delve into the many sets of the Pokemon Trading Card Game in our Pokemon TCG Investing series, we will often notice a trend of popularity surrounding a certain Pokemon. Whenever he appears in a set, collectors seem to flock to him. That Pokemon, of course, is one of the original Pokemon, Charizard.
To better understand this phenomenon, let’s backtrack a little bit and take a look at the most popular Charizard card ever from a set known as Base Set. We will focus on the 1st Edition version of the card. We’re not even going to talk about the rarer Shadowless and the more common, yet still valuable, Unlimited Edition printing. Those are some great investments, right? Yes, but to best understand why Charizard is such a big deal, let’s look at the Charizard card most serious collectors can afford if they budget right. Base Set Charizard is the Most Iconic Pokemon Trading Card of All Time Obviously, the Charizard #4 Base Set holo is the MOST ICONIC of all Pokemon cards. Of course, it should be, as it was the primary chase card in the 1999 Base Set, when Pokemon was at its height of popularity. At the time, Charizard was one of the most popular and feared Pokemon. In the original Red and Blue Game Boy video games, his original form of Charmander was the hardest of the original three starting Pokemon to raise. But, if you stuck with him, and evolved him to Charmeleon, then Charizard, you had a powerhouse of a Pokemon that could ride you all the way through the Pokemon League. Back in 1999, Charizard was the one card every kid wanted. His card was one of the most powerful at the time in the Trading Card Game. So, of course, many kids played with the cards and didn’t take proper care of them. That includes the beloved Charizard. So, because of this, as copies have been snapped up by collectors, many of them are in less than your ordinarily desired condition. There aren’t nearly as many near-mint condition Charizard #4 cards out there as you may think. As collectors looked to standardize the conditions of their cards in order for future resale, PSA has received a glut of Charizard cards over the years. So, the range of graded copies from 1 to 10 is immense. In 2020, the submissions haven’t slowed down. Even since I began my research for this series back in June 2019, about a thousand more copies were sent in for grading by just a few months later. Now in early 2020, even more copies across all conditions have been sent in. I've revised the population count for this article twice now. Look at this population report for 1st Edition 1999 Base Set Charizard Holos from Pokemon Price:
(Population Counts as of 4/3/2020) Talk about a range! Still, a lot of people early on knew that the first Pokemon cards were going to be a fairly good investment. As many serious collectors did with baseball cards, a few collectors did well to grade pack-fresh or near-mint raw copies to preserve their value. That’s why there are so many in high grade. What is My Charizard Card Worth? Of course, as kids become adults and wonder what their cards were worth, some people send them in just to see what those cards may get. That’s why you see so many poor conditioned Charizards graded. Many of the Charizard holos sent in for grading now are simply in order to establish a professional grade. The card is so popular that the cost of grading only adds to the value of the card, regardless of the eventual grade. While this isn’t the case for more than 99.9 percent of trading cards out there, the Base Set Charizard card (first edition or not) is so iconic that even poor condition PSA 1 through good and excellent condition PSA 5 cards can still fetch $40! PSA 6 can fetch $60 or more. PSA 7’s fetch $80 to $100 or even more on a good day. So, if you have a base set Charizard laying around already, it’s going to be worth getting graded. However, buying them raw to get them graded is very risky. Not only are you taking a risk of getting a grade of 7 or less, but there are a TON of fakes out there. This makes the grading process even more important, as it weeds out fakes. But, if you have genuine copies laying around, they are certainly worth grading, even if you have no plans to sell them. Of course, when it comes to long-term investments, you are looking towards the already graded higher grade options. While a PSA 7 is probably fine just to have, the return on investment from appreciation really begins at PSA 8. There is a wide range of sales on these, anywhere from $90 to $150 to even north of $200! That’s partly due to the high population (2411). But, if you buy on the lower end and wait to post it for a Best Offer on the higher end of the sales range, there is room for substantial profit. What Makes an Investment-Grade Charizard Card? PSA 9 - or graded Mint condition - is where the investment game gets the most interesting. With Charizard #4, it is the grade with by far the highest population (3975), but also the biggest market. This is where the market value becomes around $200, but if you watch the auctions, you can score copies in the $150 range. So, the game here becomes buying the PSA 9s as low as possible to sell as high as possible. There’s a nice potential return on investment here if you are looking to buy and flip. Of course, PSA 10 is for the long-term hold. $1300 to $1350 has been the fair market value in mid-2019. But, when the market is slow, you can grab copies for $1000 or less. In late 2017 and early 2018, they were going for as much as $2100! The population is also one-tenth of the PSA 9 population, so scarcity is a big factor in making this card the best investment. Because of this card, Pokemon collectors consider Charizard cards among their top targets in top condition. That’s why whenever you are looking to collect Pokemon cards, the Charizard cards will often be the hardest to obtain. Whenever a new set is released, the Charizard cards are going to often be highly sought after targets. Of course, you should collect the Pokemon that you like the most. But, if you are most interested in getting the most popular and best long-term investment, Charizard happens to be your best bet when it comes to Pokemon trading cards. You can learn about four of the most wanted Charizard trading cards here. by Phoenix Desertsong, Pokemon Master!  Pokemon TCG: Sun and Moon Unified Minds brought several memorable Tag Team GX Pokemon cards to the Pokemon Trading Card Game. Can you get anymore of a classic pairing than Slowpoke and Psyduck GX, both original first Generation Pokemon with both Water and Psychic abilities? The Tag Team combo alone is enough to make collectors want this card PSA graded for their collections. But, are Slowpoke and Psyduck good enough to also be a competitive card in the Pokemon TCG?
There are actually FOUR versions of this Tag Team GX Pokemon. There’s the #35 “base card,” the #217 Full Art, the $218 Alternate Full Art, and the #239 secret rare Rainbow Foil. The secret rare #239 Slowpoke and Psyduck GX card is the key card you want to own, as it’s the rarest possible version. How Good is Slowpoke and Psyduck Tag Team GX in the Trading Card Game? Slowpoke and Psyduck form a Tag Team that comes into play with 250 HP, a solid number for a Tag Team Pokemon GX card. They have two attacks, Ditch an Splash and their GX attack Thrilling Times GX - which can only be used once per game. Ditch and Splash costs just two Water energy to use. It does 40 damage for each Supporter card you discard from your hand. So, it can potentially do a lot of damage. The Thrilling Times GX attack depends on a coin flip. It does only 10 base damage, but if the coin flip is a heads, it deals 100 additional damage. It’s important to note that this attack only requires the same 2 Water energy to use as Ditch and Splash. But, there is a second part to this attack. If you have at least 6 additional Water energies attached to Slowpoke and Psyduck GX, you get to flip TEN coins. You then deal 100 damage for each heads. Because the GX attack is so dependent on being able to flip 10 heads, this is definitely a finisher attack While it’s pretty much a guaranteed finisher, eight or more Water Energy is a huge commitment. So, how good is Slowpoke and Psyduck Tag Team GX in actual game play? As it turns out, there are Slowpoke and Psyduck GX decks, but they are built almost exclusively around the Ditch and Splash attack. The Tag Team pairs well with Keldeo GX, and Lapras #36 from Unified Minds to recycle a copy of Misty’s Favor every turn. Misty’s Favor is key to the deck since it’s a Supporter card that fetches up 3 Supporter cards. It’s a nice little engine. So, Slowpoke and Psyduck become a key attacker in the deck. It turns out to be a very playable GX card. While Slowpoke and Psyduck Tag Team GX isn’t yet a major hit among PSA-graded Pokemon card collectors, it’s clear that there’s interest. It’s a playable card in the trading card game and a classic pairing of two Generation 1 Pokemon. Because it includes one of the more recognizable Pokemon in Psyduck, this is a card with a bright future among collectors.
by Phoenix Desertsong; Old School Duelist 
One of the key cards in Yu-Gi-Oh’s second North American set, Metal Raiders, Thousand Dragon is a secret rare still highly sought after by collectors because of its nostalgic value. It has been reprinted at common several times, including Starter Deck Joey, Dark Beginnings 2, Legendary Collection 4, and the Speed Duel Starter Deck: Duelists of Tomorrow, and once at rare in Millenium Pack 1. Still, as one of Joey’s favorite cards from the early Yu-Gi-Oh anime and one of the more powerful cards in the first couple of sets, Thousand Dragon gets a ton of collector love.
Thousand Dragon is a basic Fusion monster, who lists Time Wizard and Baby Dragon as his fusion materials. He has 2400 ATK and 2000 DEF, solid numbers for a fusion monster from those materials. Having these two monsters and a Polymerization could mean big trouble for opponents in the early days of casual Yu-Gi-Oh play. Of course, someone could answer him with a Dark Magician, Blue-Eyes White Dragon, or Serpent Night Dragon. But, removal was at a premium in those days, with Fissure and Dark Hole the most common answers, and Raigeki tough to come by. He was never a very competitive card, but he was fun and quite rare to pull.
Even unlimited edition copies can still fetch a few dollars if they are graded and authenticated by PSA. The PSA SMR report lists PSA 8 copies for $20 and PSA 9 copies for $30. On eBay, the PSA 9 copies can fetch even $40. If you happen to have one graded a Gem Mint PSA 10, you may expect $100 - although completed listings fall closer to $75. These aren’t bad numbers, but 1st edition is where the long-term value of this card lies. First edition PSA 8 examples have an SMR price of $75, PSA 9 examples around $150, and PSA 10 can command a whopping $450. One sold in September 2019 for over $650.
As of 10/25/2019, here is where the population of these graded cards stands: Unlimited - 14 PSA 8, 36 PSA 9, 32 PSA 10 First Edition - 12 PSA 8, 33 PSA 9, 62 PSA 10 Interestingly, there are many more 1st edition PSA 10 examples in existence, but it’s easily the more desirable card. If you’re purely a collector, a PSA 9 or PSA 10 unlimited edition example is fine. If you’re looking for ROI, definitely hunt for the 1st edition PSA 10. It’s a nice card to own just to have a piece of Yu-Gi-Oh history in your possession.
by Phoenix Desertsong; Pokemon Master! 
Pheromosa and Buzzwole Tag Team GX is the #1 card in the Unbroken Bonds set for the Pokemon Trading Card Game (TCG). It also has a Full Art version, an alternate art Full Art, and a Rainbow Foil version. This Ultra Rare GX card is powerful in many ways, but its GX attack is particularly potent. Let’s break down just how good this GX Pokemon is in the game, as well as this card’s collectability.
Because this GX Pokemon card is a Tag Team, if it’s knocked out, your opponent takes 3 Prize cards, rather than the typical two prizes for a regular GX Pokemon. But, because it’s a Tag Team between Pheromosa and Buzzwole, its power level is much higher than an ordinary GX Pokemon card. This Tag Team features two decent attacks, plus a particularly nasty GX attack. This Tag Team GX Pokemon is Grass-type and two times weak to Fire attacks with no Resistance. It has 260 HP, which is pretty good, although low mid-end for Tag Team GX cards. The retreat cost is just two colorless Energy. Breaking Down Pheromosa & Buzzwole Tag Team GX’s Attacks First, we’ll talk about the first two attacks. The first of Pheromosa & Buzzwole GX’s attacks is Jet Punch. It costs a mere Grass Energy to use and deals 30 damage to the opposing Pokemon. But, it also deals 30 damage to a benched Pokemon. It's a nice simple attack. The second attack packs a wallop for just two Grass Energy and one Colorless Energy. It deals 190 damage. While that sounds incredible, the drawback is that during your next then, it only deals 60 damage. This means to get it back to 190, you can't use it for a turn. The GX attack is what really makes.this card shine. Keep in mind you can only use one GX attack per game. So, especially with this one, you need to make it count. This Tag Team Pokemon's GX attack is called Beast Game GX. While it only does 50 base damage, the other effects are incredible. If this attack knocks out an opposing Pokemon, you get to take an extra Prize card. Then, if you have seven more energy than this attack requires, which is only a single Grass energy, then you instead take three extra Prize cards. Properly timed, this attack can win you the game. Is There a Good Pheromosa and Buzzwole Tag Team GX Deck in Competitive Play? Understandably, Pheromosa and Buzzwole Tag Team GX is a powerful card in competitive TCG play. The fact that it can theoretically take all six prize cards at once is a huge deal. There are various decks built almost entirely around Pheromosa & Buzzwole Tag Team GX. Not surprisingly, they are quite good. The Pheromosa and Buzzwole deck dominated Champions League Chiba in Japan and not surprisingly also was the tournament's winning deck.
In the Pokemon games themselves, Pheromosa is an Uber-tier Bug & Fighting type Pokemon. So, competitive players of the Pokemon Sun and Moon games can tell you he was a great choice for this Team Up. Buzzwole is also a fine competitive Pokemon with the same typing, also playable in the Uber competitive tier of the video game. although it’s relatively under-used. Fans of these Pokemon are probably happy to see this tag team
How Collectible is Pheromosa and Buzzwole Tag Team GX? From a collector's standpoint, you may think that Pheromosa and Buzzwole Tag Team GX is a valuable card. In the early going, it's actually very inexpensive. But, collectors clearly see that this card has a future, as 61 have been submitted to PSA for grading, 46 of which have returned a Gem Mint 10. For any modern Pokemon card, that's the only grade that brings any sort of price premium. The Full Art versions of Pheromosa and Buzzwole Tag Team GX have fared better. The regular Full Art version numbered 191/214 has 18 PSA 10 graded copies which currently exist. The alternate art Full Art version numbered 192/214 has done better, with 29 PSA 10 graded examples in existence. Interestingly, the Rainbow Foil secret rare of Pheromosa and Buzzwole Tag Team GX - numbered 215/214 - is not more expensive than the alternate art 192/214. With 33 PSA 10 examples (out of 56 total PSA submissions), it’s likely to hold the most long-term value. That’s because it’s more condition-sensitive. So, despite currently having a fair amount of PSA 10 copies already, it's the rarest version of this card. Of course, Pheromosa and Buzzwole are hardly iconic Pokemon. Despite its incredible game-winning power, you can own a copy of the GX card for a very reasonable price. As is always the best advice with modern graded cards, if you are looking at investing in Pokemon cards as an investment, you’ll want to go with the rarest version (in this case the Rainbow foil) in PSA 10. If you just want to collect, however, a PSA 9 Mint graded copy of any of these cards will suffice. by Phoenix Desertsong, Pokemon Master  Kingdra GX is a powerful ultra rare Pokemon card from the Pokemon TCG set Dragon Majesty. This Pokemon has three attacks, including the GX attack that can only be used once per game. Kingdra has been a popular Pokemon for years and has had many cards that have proven powerful in the competitive Pokemon TCG metagame. This Kingdra card is powerful and has seen some play..
Kingdra GX has some staying power with 230 HP. All three of Kingdra GX’s attacks require only a single Energy to use. Hydro Pump doesn’t even require a Water Energy, although it does only base 10 damage. However, for each Water Energy attached to Kingdra GX, the attack does 50 more damage. 60 damage for a single Water Energy is pretty good. Reverse Thrust only deals 30 damage, but it allows you to switch out Kingdra GX. This can be quite useful in a variety of situations. His GX attack, Maelstrom GX, deals 40 damage to each of your opponent’s Pokemon. It’s a pretty brutal attack, but since you can only use one GX attack per game, it is quite situational. The other downside to Kingdra GX is that he is a Stage 2 Pokemon. You have to spend a bit of time building him up in order to reap the benefits of his suite of attacks. So, while powerful, Kingdra GX is not as deadly as some other Kingdra cards, but still formidable enough to be a heavy hitter in a somewhat competitive deck. Are the Kingdra GX Full Art Cards Good Investments? There are also two other versions of this card, the full art secret rare from the same set, and the full art promo version. Interestingly, despite being rarer than the base ultra rare, they tend to sell for about the same price. The Kingdra GX SM155 promo is an attractive “rainbow foil.” If you’re an investment-minded collector, this is probably the version of this card to have the best bet for future return-on-investment. Overall, the Kingdra GX from Dragon Majesty is playable and attractive to collectors. But, as this card is rather plentiful and has three different versions to choose from, it may not be the best investment if you’re looking for profit. But, if you just want to collect this card, all three versions are very affordable and even some PSA-graded mint copies can be had for cheap if you watch for them. by Phoenix Desertsong; Old School Duelist  Long ago, my brother and I were very much into collecting YuGiOh. His favorite cards were the Elemental Heroes, as he was a big fan of the YuGiOh GX anime series. Interestingly enough, the Elemental Heroes have actually aged quite well, as have their counterparts, the Neo-Spacian cards. While Elemental Heroes have gone in and out of the competitive scene (here’s to you Neo-Spacian Aqua Dolphin!) the cards have actually remained quite relevant in YuGiOh Finance!
YuGiOh Prices is perhaps the greatest YuGiOh Finance resource there currently is. They track the Top 100 Most Expensive Cards that are metagame-relevant. As of February 2019, the top card is Ultimate Rare Cyber Dragon, which is probably not a surprise to anyone. Not only is Cyber Dragon a great deck archetype, but it’s an iconic YuGiOh card - which also happens to be from the YuGiOh GX era. Despite its many reprints, Cyber Dragon has three printings that have appreciated over time, the original Ultimate Rare printing in Cybernetic Revolution, the secret rare Collectible Tin printing, and the Dark Revelation 4 Ultra Rare printing. In just the past year (feb 18 to Feb 19) both the DR4 Ultra Rare and CRV Ultimate Rare have risen in average price by 140 percent! But, among the Top 100 Meta-Relevant cards are a number of Elemental HERO cards: Elemental HERO Air Neos Elemental HERO Bladedge Elemental HERO Bubbleman Elemental HERO Neos Knight Elemental HERO Shining Flare Wingman Elemental HERO Shining Phoenix Enforcer Elemental HERO Flame Wingman Outside of Bubbleman, seeing seven Elemental HERO monsters in the Top 100 Most Expensive Cards is actually pretty surprising, isn’t it? Well, like Magic the Gathering and Pokemon, YuGiOh is a Trading Card Game with a HUGE casual player base. Beyond being iconic to fans of the YuGiOh GX anime, the Elemental HERO cards, especially the Fusion Monsters, are just nice to look at. (Elemental HERO Thunder Giant was also on this list, but recently fell off. We'll still look a look at him in this article, though, as he's an interesting card.) So, let’s take a look at the finance implications of each of these Elemental HERO cards and figure out which printings are the best investments for your YuGiOh binder. Elemental HERO Air Neos - Strike of Neos Printed only in Strike of Neos, this Elemental HERO fusion has both ultra rare and ultimate rare printings. While ultimate rare cards are typically far more valuable than their ultra rare counterparts, this is not the case with Air Neos. Whereas the Ultra Rare version is up 123% over the past year, the ultimate rare is only up 98% in the same time. Both versions have an average price around $65, with 1st edition copies going for a bit more. Ultimate rare YuGiOh cards are notoriously condition sensitive, so Near-Mint ultimate rare copies of this card will be more valuable in the long run. From a playability standpoint, Air Neos does have a good ability. He has a base 2500 ATK, but when your Life Points are lower than your opponent’s, Air Neos gains ATK equal to the difference. That’s pretty bonkers! Unfortunately, he returns to the Extra Deck at the end of the turn. It’s still a VERY powerful ability, nonetheless, so it makes sense that players want this card around to play in their casual HERO decks. Still, Air Neos is difficult to summon since it requires specific monsters to be Fusion Summoned. Fortuantely, a card from Savage Strike called Neos Fusion allows you to get around not only his summoning restrictions, but also having to shuffle him back into the deck that turn! So, if you can get him onto the field, Air Neos is extremely deadly in the right situation. Elemental Hero Bladedge - Elemental Energy A casual fan favorite, Elemental HERO Bladedge is a key to one of the original boss Fusion Monsters, Elemental HERO Wildedge. On its own, it's a 2600 ATK monster with the ability to inflict piercing battle damage to monsters in defense position. It's also an EARTH-type Warrior monster, which is useful in certain deck builds. Really, it's the collectible appeal of this card that's putting it into the $20 range. Elemental Hero Bubbleman - Elemental Hero Collection Bubbleman is easily the most competitive of the six HEROs we’re looking at here. He’s seen top deck play as recently as October 2018. Not only is he a Level 4 monster, but he’s the only card in your hand, you can Special Summon him from your hand. If you control no cards and have no cards in your hand when he’s summoned, you can draw 2 cards. That ability is actually pretty relevant, not to mention all of the Fusion monsters Bubbleman facilitates Summoning. Being a competitively relevant card, even common printings of Elemental Hero Bubbleman have appreciated in price between 2018 and 2019. His original rare printing in Cybernetic Revolution is still relevant, as well - up 47% in a year! His ultimate rare printing hasn’t fared nearly as well, though. What puts Bubbleman on this Top 100 cards list, though, is his secret rare printing from the Elemental Hero Collection. It’s up 80% in the last year and keeps appreciating.With an average price of $27, they’ll dry up fast when players decide they want a full playset (three copies) of this particular card! Elemental HERO Neos Knight - Extreme Victory Like Air Neos, Elemental HERO Neos Knight is considerably more valuable in Ultra Rare than in Ultimate Rare! Up 87% year-over-year, Neos Knight has an affordable average price of $13. The ultimate rare averages $11, despite being considerably rarer, and is only up 30% over the past year. Unlike Air Neos, Neos Knight doesn’t have to return to the Extra Deck at the end of the turn. Here’s what he does: “This card gains ATK equal to half the ATK of the Warrior-Type Fusion Material Monster used to Fusion Summon this card, other than "Elemental HERO Neos". This card can attack twice during each Battle Phase. If this card attacks or is attacked, your opponent takes no Battle Damage.” Not only can Neos Knight be an extremely powerful beat-stick, but he can attack TWICE in the same battle phase. The downside is that he inflicts no Battle Damage. But with 2500 original ATK, you’re really just using this guy to clear the path for your other monsters to do the rest of the work. The other downside is you need to fusion summon him, although you don’t require a Elemental Hero Neos (or a Gemini-summoned Neos Alius) to summon him. Neos Knight has popped up in competitive decks in the past, particularly Qliphorts in mid-2016. But it sees the most play in the online game YuGiOh Duel Links. Still, with Neos Fusion making this guy a lot easier to summon in a pinch, Neos Knight is much more viable than it was before! Elemental HERO Shining Flare Wingman - Elemental Energy One of the original big boss Fusion Monsters of the Elemental Heroes deck, Shining Flare Wingman is the Fusion between Elemental HERO Flame Wingman and Elemental HERO Sparkman. He gains 300 ATK for each "Elemental Hero" card in your graveyard. Also, when he desteroys a monster by battle and sends it to the graveyard, you inflict damage equal to that monster's ATK in the graveyard to your opponent. Ouch. No wonder that the Ultimate Rare printing of this card was pushing $60 in March 2019. The Ultra rare original printing is also moving up. Elemental HERO Shining Phoenix Enforcer - Enemy of Justice Shining Phoenix Enforcer is an extremely powerful Elemental HERO fusion monster. Just read this: “Must be Fusion Summoned and cannot be Special Summoned by other ways. This card gains 300 ATK for each "Elemental HERO" card in your Graveyard. This card cannot be destroyed by battle.” Unlike some of the other Elemental HERO cards we’ve mentioned, Phoenix Enforcer’s ultimate rare printing is actually by far his most valuable, followed by his ultra rare printing in the same set. The ultimate rare is up an insane 983% in the last six months to an average price of $58! The ultra rare is “only” up 188% to an average of $14 While Shining Phoenix Enforcer is difficult to summon in a competitive environment, casual HERO players love this guy because he is easily a finisher for the deck. He’s also an important card in the YuGiOh GX anime. There’s a lot to like about this card. Elemental HERO Flame Wingman - The Lost Millenium Jaden Yuki’s signature card from the GX anime, Flame Wingman has been a favorite of YuGiOh collectors since the day he was released in The Lost Millenium. But, his original ultra rare printing has actually bottomed out recently. Collectors seem to be favoring two other printings. Interestingly, it’s not Flame Wingman’s rarest printing - the Elemental Hero Collection secret rare that put it on this list - that’s seeing the most action. Rather, it’s the Legendary Collection 2 Mega Pack Secret Rare (up 58% to $9.50) and the Lost Millenium Ultimate Rare (up nearly 100% to $24). For this card to double in a year, with a lot of that movement in the past month, this should be an important target for any Elemental HERO collector. Honorable Mention: Elemental HERO Thunder Giant - Dark Revelation 3 Thunder Giant is actually a pretty good fusion monster. He’s easier to summon and doesn’t leave the field like the Neos fusions. Even though he has to be Fusion Summoned, it’s not required to have “Elemental Hero Sparkman” and “Elemental Hero Clayman.” Thunder Giant has 2400 ATK and is a Level 6 monster. He also has a fairly good ability: “Once per turn: You can discard 1 card to target 1 face-up monster on the field with original ATK less than the ATK of this card; destroy that target.” So, this is a pretty sweet card for a HERO player. But, there are a lot of printings of this guy - being a popular card from the YuGiOh GX anime. Which is the best? In the case of Thunder Giant, the Dark Revelation 3 Ultra Rare is the most valuable. It has an average price of about $80 and is up 43% in just the last three months. It’s a great investment for the serious HERO collector. Like with Pokemon, YuGiOh is a game with a huge casual player base but also a strong collection base. By identifying the printings of each card that are appreciating on a regular basis, you can make smart decisions that will make your YuGiOh card collection a good investment. While YuGiOh Finance hasn’t taken off the way that MTG Finance has, it may get there eventually. So, don’t worry about reprints of your favorite cards, as long as you know the key printings for each popular card. Any YuGiOh finance questions? Comment below, and we’ll do our best to answer them! by Phoenix Desertsong, Old School Duelist  In February 2019, the most expensive Yu-Gi-Oh card was the Shonen Jump 2010 Prize Card, Stardust Divinity. The second most expensive was the Shonen Jump 2013 Prize Card, Grandopolis, The Eternal Golden City. Neither card can even be used in a Duel, due to the fact that each can win you the match if it attacks directly. In February 2019, a copy of Stardust Divinity was listed for $19,999 on eBay. What Does Stardust Divinity Do? Stardust Divinity is a Level 10 Fairy-type Synchro Monster that requires 1 LIGHT-attribute Tuner and 2 or more non-Tuner Fairy-Type monsters. It can’t be Special Summoned except by Synchro Summon. If this monster attacks your opponent directly and reduces their Life Points to 0, you win the Match. Like Grandopolis, the Eternal Golden City, which we’ll look at next, there are replica copies available on the market, as well.  What Does Grandopolis, The Eternal Golden City Do? In January 2019, a copy of Grandopolis was for listed for sale at $18,999.99 USD on eBay. This listing made Grandopolis at the time the most expensive Yu-Gi-Oh card for sale.. Grandopolis is a Rank 8 XYZ monster that needs 3 Level 8 monsters to summon. It has 2800 ATK and 3500 DEF. He must be Special Summoned by Xyz Summon and no other way. If Grandopolis attacks your opponent directly and reduces his or her life to 0, if one of the original Xyz Materials was a Machine-type monster, you win the Match. While this is somewhat difficult to actually pull off, because it can win the match, like Victory Dragon and other similar Shonen Jump Championship prize cards, it can never be used in an official Duel. There’s a replica of Grandopolis, The Eternal Golden City out there that was released in 2014. One replica copy was graded by Beckett Grading Services as a Gem Mint 9.5 and sold for an undisclosed best offer on eBay. There was another Grandopolis replica listed on eBay in January 2019 for $1200. If you absolutely want to own a Grandpolis, the Japanese version is available for $10 - $15 on eBay.  What’s the Next Most Expensive Yu-Gi-Oh Card?
The runner up for the most expensive Yu-Gi-Oh card is another Shonen Jump Championship Prize Card. This is the 2017 Shonen Jump Championship prize card, a Link monster called Iron Knight of Revolution. Like Grandopolis, it also cannot be used in a Duel. Iron Knight of Revolution requires 3 Machine-Type effect monsters to successfully Link Summon. When this Extra Linked card attacks your opponent directly and reduces their life points to 0, you win the Match. In many ways, this is probably the superior monster. In any case, a copy of Iron Knight of Revolution was listed on eBay for $11,999 in January 2019. What’s the Most Expensive Playable Yu-Gi-Oh Card? For a long time, the most expensive playable Yu-Gi-Oh card was Crush Card Virus. This is actually still the case in 2019. Two copies of the Shonen Jump Championship 2007 ultra rare printing were listed on eBay for about $3,000 - one of which was in lightly played condition and the other in near-mint condition. Another two copies of the Shonen Jump Crush Card Virus were listed on eBay for $4,995 each. Of course, if you really want to own a Crush Card Virus, a Gold Series 2008 copy sells for a little over $35. But in February 2019, the surprise unbanning of Cyber-Stein in a late January 2019 Forbidden & Limited update caused the Shonen Jump prize card to be listed for about $10,500 on eBay. Of course, Cyber-Stein has a rare printing in Dark Beginning 2 which sells for as low as $13, plus with the Extra Deck limited these days to 15 cards and no one really playing that many fusion monsters, Cyber-Stein was no longer broken enough to worry about. It’s still fun to summon a Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon, though - even at the cost of 5000 Life Points. What’s the Most Expensive Card in Yu-Gi-Oh History? There are many other expensive Yu-Gi-Oh cards out there, but reportedly a one-of-a-kind Black Luster Soldier printed on stainless steel is the #1 most expensive card in the game’s history. It was the prize given to the winner of the first-ever Yu-Gi-Oh tournament ever held in Japan back in 1999. According to Gemr.com, in 2016, the stainless steel Black Luster Card was valued at around $10 million and reportedly sold at one point for $2 million! The most expensive Black Luster Soldier that you can buy otherwise is the Duel Terminal 7 rare printing which you can buy for roughly $5 in 2019. In January 2019, the most expensive Yu-Gi-Oh card in competitive play was the Ultimate Rare printing of Cyber Dragon from Cybernetic Revolution, a card that was selling at the time for around $100 USD. by Phoenix Desertsong, Old School Duelist  Once one of the most popular decks in Yu-Gi-Oh, Destiny Heroes returned to modern Yu-Gi-Oh in 2018 with the Legendary Hero Decks. Because it was included in the decks, it was decided to return Destiny Hero - Disk Commander from the Banned and Restricted List to Unlimited status. This means you can now play three copies of one of the most powerful Destiny Hero cards of all time in your deck… But, wait, there’s an errata?
That’s right. There was no way that a monster that could draw you two cards every time it returns from the graveyard to the battlefield could be brought back into play without some serious limitation on its effect. So, Konami continues their rather frustrating trend of nerfing old cards just to make them legitimate cards that can be played in tournament decks without severely warping the competitive game. The “new” Destiny Hero - Disk Commander after errata is extremely different from the original version. This little Level 1 Warrior monster originally read like this: “When this card is Special Summoned from the Graveyard, draw 2 cards.” Wow, that sounds pretty busted… It was. There’s a reason why Destiny Hero decks dominated Yu-GI-Oh for a long time. That is some nuts card advantage. So, how can they make it fair enough for it to return from the banned list? Here is the Disk Commander Errata: “Cannot be Special Summoned from the GY the turn this card was sent to the GY. If this card is Special Summoned from the GY: You can draw 2 cards. You can only use this effect of "Destiny HERO - Disk Commander" once per Duel.” Wow, that’s a lot of deck. Let’s break this down. Cannot be Special Summoned from the GY the turn this card was sent to the GY. OK, this bit is understandable. This makes the effect a bit more fair, right? You can draw 2 cards if you Monster Reborn this guy, but you can’t do it until next turn, OK? If this card is Special Summoned from the GY: You can draw 2 cards. That sounds awfully familiar. So, if that’s all, that’s not too bad of an errata. Let’s all run three copies of Disk Commander! Oh, wait, there’s more… You can only use this effect of “Destiny HERO - DIsk Commander” once per Duel. Ick. You mean we can only draw two cards ONCE? Hmm… well, that makes playing three copies rather pointless, doesn’t it? You can see why this errata was made. It’s a double-whammy, but there are many reasons why this is necessary. First of all, it’s easier to Special Summon monsters from the GY more often than ever. Drawing two cards is still obviously quite good, and being a Level 1, there are plenty of reasons to want to play this card just as material to summon a Synchro, XYZ, or Link monster. But if its effect is only good once per turn, is it still worth playing? I say yes. If you are playing a dedicated Destiny Hero deck, it’s totally worth playing one copy of Disk Commander, pitching it to Destiny Draw to draw two cards. Then, there are a myriad of ways to take advantage of him being there and Special Summoning him. Also, Elemental Hero Stratos was returned to one copy per deck in September of 2018, so he’s an obvious monster to choose with Stratos’ ability. Destiny Hero - Disk Commander is still worth playing even with this double-edged errata craziness. There is pretty much zero reason to play more than one copy in my opinion. It’s easy to hate the errata, but there’s good reasoning for adding both of those restrictions on his effect. While he hasn’t seen competitive play since the initial return of Destiny Heroes in 2018, he’s still a fun card. by Phoenix Desertsong, Old School Duelist  Foucault’s Cannon is a Normal Pendulum Monster from the Duelist Alliance expansion set for the Yu-Gi-Oh Trading Card Game. This is a Level 5, DARK-attribute Spellcaster-type monster, meaning it also requires a Tribute to be Normal Summoned. While 2200 ATK isn't great for a Level 5 Monster, it's at least respectable. It was one of the first of a few Pendulum Normal Monsters released, along with Flash Knight and Dragon Horn Hunter. It's also a Normal monster that has a Pendulum effect, something that had never been seen before! During the End phase that this card is played in a Pendulum zone, you can target one face-up Spell/Trap Card on the field and destroy it. This, of course, includes other Pendulum Monsters. When this card was released, there were also tons of relevant face-up Spell and Trap cards in play in the metagame. Overall, this is a fairly good effect. With Spellcasters a fairly viable archetype all of their own, it seemed this monster might have some potential. But, as more of the ARC-V sets were released, it quickly became outclasses. Still, in a vacuum, this isn't a bad monster at all. Spell & Trap destruction is certainly very splash-able and Pendulum Normal Monsters certainly would get better and better. Foucault’s Cannon also has a Pendulum Scale of 2, making it a great lower-end scale in a Pendulum-heavy deck. Due to seeing basically zero competitive play, it’s a very inexpensive super rare card. Still, it's worth looking at for its place in the early history of Pendulum monsters. It's certainly not the worst monster out there.
by Phoenix Desertsong, Old School Duelist  The first of the Yu-Gi-Oh ARC-V expansion sets, Duelist Alliance, introduced a brand new card type to the card game: Pendulum Monsters. After players were introduced to the Pendulum Summoning mechanic with the Space Time Showdown Super Starter Deck, we got to see the mechanic in full force in the Duelist Alliance set. Here we’ll take a look at the Sneak Peek Participation Promo, Dragon Horn Hunter. It would turn out to actually be a decent monster! What’s particularly interesting about Dragon Horn Hunter is the fact that he’s a normal Monster, a Level 6 DARK-Attribute Warrior with 2300 ATK and 1000 DEF. These stats are nothing special. However, as a Pendulum Monster, when he lives in one of your two Pendulum Zones he has a Pendulum Scale of 3 and gains this effect: “All Normal Monsters gain 200 ATK. You take no battle damage from battles involving Normal Monsters you control.” That’s a very good effect. Dragon Horn Hunter really pushes you to play Normal Monsters. As it turns out, there’s an easy way to search out this card: Summoner’s Art from Tactical Evolution. Also, being a DARK-type monster is good, as it can provide the necessary DARK component for many other cards. It also means that playing classic Normal Monsters such as Summoned Skull - also a potential target for Summoner’s Art - becomes far more plausible. The greatest con to this card is obviously the fact that he relies quite heavily on the Pendulum mechanic. You’re going to need to push out high-level Normal Monsters to simply overpower your opponent if this guy is going to make much of a difference. The ATK boost he gives isn’t much, but taking no battle damage from battles involving your Normal Monsters could make a Normal Monster based Pendulum Summoning deck a realistic option. As it turned out, Pendulum decks with Normal Pendulum Monsters would turn out to be competitive. As we saw with the Space Time Showdown Starter Deck, Normal Monsters were being pushed with the advent of the Pendulum Summoning mechanic. In 2016, this card was good enough to appear in some competitive Pendulum Magicians decks at a single copy. While it didn’t stay relevant in competitive play for long, as it would become outclassed with future sets, there were a couple of lists that took full advantage of this creature’s power. Overall, Dragon Horn Hunter was a good role player for a time in some builds of Pendulum Magicians, a deck that would go on to evolve into one of the better deck archetypes in all of Yu-Gi-Oh! For a Sneak Peek promo, that was a pretty good time in the spotlight. by Phoenix Desertsong, Old School Duelist  While Flash Knight may simply be a rare card from Yu-Gi-Oh’s Duelist Alliance expansion set, this Pendulum Monster would prove himself to be rather useful. He’s a Level 4 Light-Attribute Normal Monster with 1800 ATK and 600 DEF, easily search-able with Reinforcement of the Army. The most important part about the Flash Knight is the fact that he has a Pendulum Scale of 7. Combined with a creature like Dragon Horn Hunter in your opposite Pendulum Zone, you then have the ability to summon Level 4 to Level 6 monsters with ease at the beginning of each of your turns.
Was Flash Knight going to be a good option for a deck based around Pendulum Summoning high-level Normal Monsters? While the range is a bit limited, topping out at Level 6 as previously mentioned, there are plenty of strong Normal Monsters that fall in between those levels. In fact, the Knight did see some competitive play, including some Regional Top 8 Draco Performapals decks like this one. For only a mere rare, the Flash Knight actually proved himself to be a fairly useful monster. He was useful enough just as a scale, and having 1800 ATK isn't too shabby, either! As one of the first ever Pendulum monsters, the Knight held his own for awhile before being outclassed by flashier, badder Pendulum monsters. But let us never forget the exploits of this brave Level 4 Knight! by Phoenix Desertsong, Old School Duelist  Battle Fader is a monster that’s been around since the days of Absolute Powerforce. It was a monster that was still being played a great deal when I was still playing competitive Yu-Gi-Oh. Since then, Battle Fader has been reprinted a great many times, including in ultra rare and secret rare! Even with so many reprints, the foil versions of Battle Fader are still sought after enough to keep their price from falling too low.
While Battle Fader hasn’t seen consistent competitive play since 2016, it does see the occasional play in Domain Monarch and even Cubic decks. Of course, it still sees play in local tournaments, as well, as a card that can play many different roles. How does Battle Fader work? Here’s what Battle Fader does, using the latest errata: When an opponent's monster declares a direct attack: You can Special Summon this card from your hand, then end the Battle Phase. If Summoned this way, banish it when it leaves the field. Not only does Battle Fader negate the attack, but it ends the battle phase altogether. It also doesn’t target, so it gets around monsters that can’t be targeted with abilities or effects of cards. Unfortunately, if it leaves the battlefield in any way after being summoned this way, such as effects that would return to hand, it gets banished. This is to prevent players from simply recycling Battle Fader to continuously negate attack after attack. However, one of the coolest things you can do with Battle Fader is to play a deck that plays Imperial Iron Wall. This continuous trap card prevents cards from being removed from play. This means that it will instead go to your graveyard or your hand, meaning you can reuse it. Iron Wall was pretty popular when this card was first released, and actually still sees play in True Draco decks in 2018. Can Battle Fader be negated? Let’s cover some common spells and traps that could interact with Battle Fader. One common question is how Book of Moon works against Battle Fader. Really, it doesn’t, because Battle Fader’s ability to negate the attack and end the battle phase resolves before it’s actually face-up on the field. So, Book of Moon doesn’t negate Battle Fader, only puts it face down. The same is true for Forbidden Chalice. It’s also important to note that Skill Drain, which is an extremely popular way to shut down effect monsters, can’t stop Battle Fader’s ability. Other trap cards that miss the timing to stop Battle Fader include Breakthrough Skill and Solemn Judgment. However, Solemn Warning, which negates the Summon entirely, can prevent Battle Fader’s ability to end the Battle Phase. Besides Solemn Warning, the best ways to stop Battle Fader are Majesty Fiend and Vanity’s Emptiness. Majesty’s Fiend stops effects no matter where they are, so Battle Fader can’t be Special Summoned from the hand at all. Vanity’s Emptiness negates any Special Summons, but as of this writing, it’s forbidden in tournament play. So, in official tournaments, Solemn Warning and Majesty’s Fiend are really the best ways to stop Battle Fader. Which is Better? Battle Fader VS Swift Scarecrow Swift Scarecrow is a nice little hand trap monster that gives you the same effect as Battle Fader. However, since Battle Fader is a level 1 monster that you can Special Summon and use as material or tribute fodder to Summon a better monster, Battle Fader is going to typically be the superior card. Other Similar Cards to Battle Fader If you’re looking for a Battle Fader alternative besides Swift Scarecrow, there are a couple of other monsters that do something similar. There’s Speedroid Menko, which lets you Special Summon it in Attack Position when an opponent declares an attack. While it doesn’t negate the attack or end the battle phase, it does put all of your opponent’s monsters in Defense Position… except for Link Monsters, of course… So, against Links it’s pretty bad, because it’s only 100 ATK. Still it’s a cool card and it’s Level 4 and 2000 DEF. Construction Train Signal Red can be Special Summoned by his effect when an opponent’s monster attacks. But, if you do, you change the attack target to this card and proceed to damage calculation. While he can’t be destroyed by that battle, you can still take damage. However, he can be Special Summoned in Defense Position, and he has 1000 ATK and 1400 DEF. Also, he’s a Level 3 Earth monster. So, there are some cool things you can do with him. If you want to just stop attacks, there are the Kuriboh monsters! There’s Kuriphoton that lets you take no damage if you send it from the hand to the Graveyard, if you pay 2000 LP to do so. Of course, there’s also the old school Kuriboh cards that can negate attacks or prevent battle damage… Kuriboh only lets you not take battle damage. Winged Kuriboh lets you take no battle damage the turn that he’s sent from the field to the graveyard. But none of these guys get you a Special Summon, although there is The Flute of Summoning Kuriboh! Also, there’s the Link Monster Linkuriboh (which can actually use Battle Fader as material.) What Decks Play Battle Fader? Because it’s essentially a free Summon, Battle Fader makes awesome Tribute fodder in Monarch decks and is also great material for Ritual Monsters, Synchro Summons, Rank 1 Xyz Monsters, and even Link Summoning! (Linkuriboh, anyone?) Battle Fader has seen competitive play since 2010, way back to Shonen Jump Championship Edison in Gravekeeper Burn and Quickdraw Dandywarrior. In both those decks it helped set up Synchro plays. It saw play in Frog Monarchs as Tribute fodder. Over the years, it’s seen play in Chain Burn, Chaos Dragons, Dragon Rulers, Hieratic Dragons, Mythic Rulers, and a wide variety of other Monarch decks, plus others. It’s just a really versatile card. How would you play Battle Fader? by Phoenix Desertsong, Old School Duelist  Once in a while, we’ll pick a random card with YGOProDeck’s database to build around for fun. Today, it’s Pacifis, the Phantasm City! This isn’t bad at all, since it’s part of the Phantasm Spiral archetype! This Field Spell is pretty sweet! And there’s a deck out there we can tech!
First, we’ll look at Pacifis itself. It’s a field spell that counts as “Umi” while it’s face up on the field. For our purposes, though, this won’t matter so much. “You cannot Normal or Special Summon Effect Monsters the turn you activate either of this card's effects (even if this card leaves the field). Once per turn, if you Normal or Special Summon exactly 1 Normal Monster (and no other cards): Add 1 "Phantasm Spiral" card from your Deck to your hand. If your opponent activates a card or effect (except during the Damage Step), and you control no Tokens: You can Special Summon 1 "Phantasm Spiral Token" (Wyrm-Type/WATER/Level 8/ATK 2000/DEF 2000).” This is a really powerful card. As we’ll see, we’re really only going to be Special Summoning Normal monsters a lot of the time. So, this isn’t really an issue. The Phantasm Spiral support cards are actually quite good, too, so that first effect is actually extremely important. The second ability is also particularly awesome. I mean, who doesn’t want a free 2000 ATK and 2000 DEF monster that’s level 8? So, how do we build around this? Let’s take a look at a June 2017 regional Phantasm Spiral deck that actually fared quite well. Except… we’re going to make a couple of quick changes for it to be legal with the May 2018 Forbidden and Limited List. The changes are actually in our favor. Monsters 2x Ash Blossom & Joyous Spring 3x Ghost Ogre & Snow Rabbit 3x Kabazauls 3x Megalosmasher X 3x Phantasm Spiral Dragon 3x Rescue Rabbit Spells 1x Dark Hole 3x Fossil Dig 3x Heat Wave 3x Pacifis, the Phantasm City 1x Phantasm Spiral Crash 2x Phantasm Spiral Grip 1x Phantasm Spiral Wave 2x Pot of Desires 1x Raigeki 3x Terraforming 2x Unexpected Dai Traps 3x Phantasm Spiral Battle 1x Phantasm Spiral Power 3x Quaking Mirror Force 1x Skill Drain 2x Solemn Strike 1x Solemn Warning Extra Deck Xyz 1x Abyss Dweller 2x Bahamut Shark 1x Castel, the Skyblaster Musketeer 1x Evolzar Dolkka 1x Evolzar Laggia 1x Gem-Knight Pearl 1x Number 38: Hope Harbinger Dragon Titanic Galaxy 1x Number 39: Utopia 1x Number S39: Utopia the Lightning 1x Steelswarm Roach 2x Toadally Awesome 1x Tornado Dragon In the original list piloted by Michael Craig at the Seattle, Washington Regionals, he ran one copy of Maxx “C” and 2 Dark Holes. At the time, Rescue Rabbit was limited, as well. We gotta cut the Maxx “C” and the 2nd Dark Hole. But, Rescue Rabbit is unlimited! As it turns out, triple bunnies is actually a huge improvement for this deck! Let’s break it down. Creatures Breakdown A lot of this deck focuses around Phantasm Spiral Dragon, as we’ll see. There are a ton of ways to Special Summon him with the Phantasm Spiral Spells and Traps. He has 2900 ATK, which is PLENTY good! He also has 2900 DEF, which is actually pretty above average. He’s going to be one of your main beatstick monsters in this deck, obviously, as well as a way to Xyz into some Rank 8 Xyz monsters, especially Number 38: Hope Harbinger Dragon Titanic Galaxy. We have five hand-traps in the form of two Ash Blossom & Joyous Spring and three Ghost Ogre & Snow Rabbit. With these we can shut down shenanigans from the deck and effects on the field. Ash Blossom is the one most people play, but both are great. Rescue Rabbit is really awesome in this deck because he grabs our level 4 Normal Monsters in Kabazauls and Megalosmasher X. Being Water attribute and Dinosaur type, these monsters help us access some great Rank 4 Xyz monsters. Kabazauls is a pretty ancient 1700 ATK monster while Megalosmasher is a far more recent 2000 ATK level 4 beatstick. Really, they exist for Xyz summons, but they can do damage if you need them to. Playing 3 Rabbits gives us more consistency, which is cool. Spells Breakdown Let’s get the obvious ones out of the way. Dark Hole and Raigeki help us keep the board clear. Terraforming is obviously to get our Field Spell. Pot of Desires helps us draw out of bad hands, even with that steep 10 card banishment cost. The rest we need to look at more closely. Three copies of Fossil Dig help us dig out our Dino monsters. With three Rabbits, we may able to trim a copy, but we can always grab that third Kabazauls or Megalosmasher X. Heat Wave is actually one of the better spells in the deck. This card can only be activated at the start of Main Phase 1, but that’s OK. When you play it, neither player can Normal or Special Summon an Effect Monster, until your next Draw Phase. That’s actually extremely brutal for most decks, but not this one. Unexpected Dai is another way to Special Summon one of our Level 4 Dinos to play. It’s another consistency card, but this one is only good if you control no monsters. Still, it’s going to be good in a lot of situations. Now we’ll get into the Phantasm Spiral spells. We already covered the field spell in Pacifis. Phantasm Spiral Crash is an Equip Spell that gives the equipped Normal Monster the ability to inflict piercing battle damage. Then, when that monster deals battle damage to an opponent, you can Special Summon a Phantasm Spiral Dragon from your hand, deck, or graveyard and equip it with this card. If that wasn’t good enough, you can then switch an opponent’s monster from Attack to Defense position. You can only use this effect once per turn, because otherwise that would be pretty silly. Phantasm Spiral Grip is similar to Crash, except this deck runs two copies instead of one. Grip gives the monster 500 ATK and if that monster destroys a creature by battle, you can Special Summon a Spiral Dragon and inflict 1000 damage to your opponent. This one may actually be better in some cases as you will likely run over a lot of things. The last one is Phantasm Spiral Wave. This one is particularly strong because it makes the equipped Normal Monster unable to be destroyed once per turn. If it’s battled that turn, at the end of the Battle Phase, you can do the Spiral Dragon summoning thing. While that Dragon can’t then attack like with the other two, your opponent then has to discard a card. So, it’s still a decent card. Traps Breakdown First, we’ll get the staples out of the way. Two copies of Solemn Strike and one copy of Solemn Warning deal with summons that need to be nipped in the bud right away, and with Strike, problematic monster effects. Skill Drain is really good in this deck, and it’s too bad we can only run one. It hoses so many decks. We also run three copies of Quaking Mirror Force. If you don’t know what it does, this is how it reads: “When an opponent's monster declares an attack: Change all your opponent's Attack Position monsters to face-down Defense Position. Monsters changed to face-down Defense Position by this effect cannot change their battle positions.” This is fine because we actually want to beat on opponent’s monsters with our Phantasmal Spiral support. It’s bad against Link monsters, though, who are immune to it. Still, it’s a strong card. Phantasm Spiral Battle is a pretty awesome Trap card, as it can be activated from your hand if you control an “Umi” field spell, which Pacifis just happens to be! If you control only Normal Monsters, you can blow up one card on the field. Then, you can banish this card from your Graveyard, you can target one Normal Monster on the field and equip all Phantasm Spiral Equip cards you control to it. While very situational, it can help you live the dream of summoning all three Phantasm Spiral Dragons in one turn. The last card is Phantasm Spiral Power. Here’s what it does: “If all monsters you control are Normal Monsters (min. 1): Target 1 Effect Monster your opponent controls; until the end of this turn, it loses 1000 ATK and DEF, also it has its effects negated. If "Umi" is on the field, you can activate this card from your hand. You can banish this card from your Graveyard, then target 1 Normal Monster you control; equip 1 "Phantasm Spiral" Equip Spell Card from your hand or Graveyard to that Normal Monster.” Being able to deal with a bigger Effect Monster is great, being a hand trap is better, and recycling an Equip Spell is awesome! You only need one, but it’s great! How Competitive Are Phantasm Spirals? Before Link Summoning, this deck could be pretty good. It has a nice little Xyz Summoning engine and really messes with other decks’ strategies. That being said, it’s extremely reliant on its engine. But, when it works, it’s really tough to stop. If you tweak the Extra deck to include Links, though, it’s probably going to hold its own. Outside of the meta hand trap creatures, this deck is very cheap to build. Would you build Phantasm Spirals? |
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