Much of this year in YuGiOh has revolved around nostalgia. Shining Victories and The Dark Illusion booster sets have firmly revived the Blue Eyes White Dragon and Dark Magician archtypes from the beginnings of the game, while older monsters from the 5D‘s and GX eras have gotten plenty of love over the last 12 months. Now that the year is wrapping up, it’s time for another set of Mega Tins to compile all the best cards over that period, for a more economical way to compile what otherwise would be an expensive deck to build. With Yugi and Kaiba at the forefront of the sets this year, this means we’ll have an even easier time finishing off our retro builds, with some brand new cards thrown in for good measure.
As with every annual tin, each one has its own set of guaranteed promo cards outside of the three 16 card Mega Packs. As you would guess, Yugi’s tin focuses on the cards that his deck was famous for, with some new ones thrown in to make them more competitive to the modern game. Aside from Ultra and Secret Rare variants the old school Dark Magician design and Yugi’s God Card, Slifer The Sky Dragon respectively, the sought after Ebon High Magician from The Dark Illusion and Performapal Pendulum Sorcerer, the highlight of the Breakers of Shadow set are the real stars, ensuring you can get your hands on these cornerstone cards. Ebon in particular brings Dark Magician to the realm of Xyz monsters, allowing you to play Quick Play Spells and Trap Cards from your hand as long as it has Xyz material to use, protecting them from being destroyed on the field. Throw in its ability to Special Summon a Spellcaster when its destroyed, and you get a card that can spell disaster for the opponent.
In addition to these monsters, the set has two original cards that can only be found in this tin. D/D/D Flame King Genghis is a Fusion Monster that can only be summoned when fusing two D/D monsters, but Genghis gives you an easy way to bring them back. As long as you Special Summon D/D monster, the Flame King can bring back a D/D monster from the Graveyard once per turn. The hard part when it comes to this combo might be to keep him alive, but if he is destroyed, you can add a Dark Contract card from the Graveyard to your Hand, giving you a bit of retribution. Dragonox, The Empowered Warrior, can also make the Graveyard your playground, with its ability to Special Summon one Spellcaster with 2000 or less attack in Face Down Defense Position. Its meager 1500 attack and defense makes it easy to kill, but as a Pendulum Monster, it can also be played as a Scale 7 Spell on either side of the Pendulum Zone. When placed there, Dragonox can be discarded to end the opponent’s battle phase when they declare an attack. So basically, Negate Attack in Monster form.
Over on Kaiba’s side of the field, the power obsessed CEO of Kaibacorp has his own upgrades since the last time we saw him. While we would never expect Obelisk The Tormentor or his trademark Blue Eyes White Dragon to be left behind in a set like this, his new Synchro Monster, Blue-Eyes Spirit Dragon, is the highlight among the promo cards. As one of the top cards in the Shining Victories set, not only does it pack a punch attack wise at 2500, but once on the field via Synchro Summoning, it can negate the activation of effects in the Graveyard, which has become a popular tactic in recent versions of the game. Tributing it also lets you Special Summon any Light type Synchro Monster during either player’s turn, which can get you out of some serious jams if played right. The trick is knowing when to use it, since the monster is destroyed at the End Phase of the turn it was summoned.
Rounding out Kaiba’s promo cards are two original cards and an old favorite. Starting with Ghost Ogre & Snow Rabbit, a Secret Rare from the Crossed Souls set from 2015, this card is essentially a free Solemn card disguised as a monster. If it’s either on your field or IN YOUR HAND, you can destroy the card that was activated, allowing you to catch your opponent off guard. As far as the original entries, D/D/D King Gust Alexander is a Synchro card that has a similar effect to Yugi’s Genghis, but with more more flexibility and durability. With 2500 attack points, he can Special Summon a D/D Monster from the Graveyard when you Special Summon OR Normal Summon a D/D Monster. While he doesn’t have a secondary effect like Genghis’ Dark Contract ability, I’m liking Gust better since you can swarm much easier with his ability. Lastly, Aether, The Evil Empowering Dragon, is a Scale 4 Pendulum Monster with some nasty effects. By Special or Normal Summoning this level six monster, it allows you to flat out banish a monster on the field with no cost outside of what you used to summon it. Once in the Pendulum Zone, it allows you to destroy one card on the field once per turn by banishing an Empowered Warrior monster from your own Graveyard. Once it gets going, it looks like Aether would be a huge threat with the right support cards protecting it.
Rounding out the sets are the Mega Packs themselves, which each include three all star boosters. Containing highlights from the Crossed Souls, Clash of Rebellions, Dimension of Chaos and Breakers of Shadow sets, these cover a lot of ground. You’ll find plenty to love, such as the many Performapal cards, additional support for the Blackwing and Red Dragon Archfiend lines of monsters, and individual powerhouses such as the Odd Eyes Rebellion Dragon to name a few in the long list of viable cards. There’s no better way to catch up with the recent card releases than through this set. My personal pull highlights included Neptabyss, The Atlantean Prince, which single-handedly revived Atlantean and Mermail monsters earlier this year, and Jar of Avarice, which lets you recycle five Graveyard cards followed by a one card draw. If someone with luck as bad as mine can draw those, then there’s no reason why other pulls out there won’t be even better!
That about does it for the 2015-2016 YuGiOh season. What were your highs and lows, and what are your favorite cards from these sets? Sound off below and let us know!