Article #58: Gladiators, Samurais, Heroes vs. Aliens, Cloudians, Roids

Since Konami decided it's time to release a new set 2 months after the last set...well, again, the latest new set is here. First, again thanks to all people (Mr. XYZ from NWBBS, hide's site, ocg-card.com, shriek/Manjynome Thunder, and all those that pull booster packs early) that makes this early translation possible. , As usual, I would type my first impression article on the set. At the end of this article, I would have overview on the latest "big" tournaments and also talk about my v6.0 plan.

Gladiator's Assault - First Impression:

Card Trends and theme:
85% (68/80) of the set can be divided into boost for 6 types of cards: Six Warmasters/Samurais (6), Amon's Cloudians (18), Evil Judai's latest toy Hero (9), Sho's toy a.k.a. Vehicroids (4), the namesake of the set Gladial Beasts (20), Dual Monsters from last set (5), and at last, the ScrinsAliens (6). This is, I would say, the largest number of deck themes boost in 1 set with considerable amount of cards each. Of course, this also led to the narrow focus for this set: for those who like the other themes, too bad, the rest of 12 consider of 2 Normal monster "boost" and 10 just random "fillers".

The theme of Cloudians, as one can read from the effect, is around the Fog Counters. The more amount of Fogs those monsters made, the more confuse opponent is (not execute that way in the effect in the real game, but whatever...) and those small clouds and weathers will somehow win the game from [Eye of the Typhoon] (if you ask me, the Cloudians are just too weak...even if most cannot be destroy in battle)

The other new theme in the set is of course the Gladiators. The "baton pass" mechanic (I will admit it, I did copy this term off Wiki) let the Gladial Beast exchange for each other and having some nice CiP effect.

As for other, there are 2 "kuso" cards that Konami wants the Johnnys out there to just find a way to play with them...

Deck Types:
Here are some of the new deck types that I think people could create after this set, competitive or not.
- Cloudians
- Gladial Beast
- Evil Hero/Evil Judai's deck a.k.a. "I mixed more and more junks into my deck"
- Bamboo Sword Abuse

For deck types that get boosts:
- Alien
- Vehicroids theme
- "Dual Abuse"
- Six Warhamstersmasters/Samurais
- Gem Beast (not really...)
- Normal weenie
- Antique Gear (XD)
- Neospacian
- Gambler!! Goblin Bidding (NOTE: no such deck exist in this game, it's just that finally the 3rd crazy Goblin was released), etc.

Useful cards :
Obviously, we would now look at the useful (not necessary GREAT!!) cards that I believe could be consider to add to deck (no matter theme or every decks...). It goes down from the cardlist.
- Evil Hero - Hell Gainer
- Cloudian - Eye of the Typhoon
- Cloudian - Ghost Fog/Sheep Cloud
- Cloudian - Acid Cloud/Cirrostratus/Altos (similar effects, although stats KILLS)
- Truckroid/Stealthroid/Expressroid (all could find their use in Roid deck)
- Gladial Beast - Alexander/Spartics
- Gladial Beast - Bestouri/Raquel/Dicaeri
- Slave Ape
- Legend Gambler
- Councilor of Shien - Enishi/Relic of Six Warmasters
- Alien Telepath/Alien Hypno
- Elemental Hero Plasma Viceman
- Evil Hero Flame Wingman Inferno Wing/Evil Hero Thunder Golem Lightning Golem
- Super Composite Beast - Raptenos
- Gladial Beast - Geordias
- Contact Out (a.k.a. "De-Fusion" for Neos only...)
- Dark Fusion (because you NEED this card to play Evil Heroes!!)
- Summon Cloud/Cloudian Squall
- Dungeon of Gladial Beast - Colossus, Combat Weapon of GB - Halberd, Resting Gladial Beast
- Rainstorm (OK card)/Ascending Air Current (winning condition...sad...)
- Release of Rock Fossil (although outside of Megarock Dragon it have no use)
- Disarm/Parry
- Armor of God-Speed (godly)
- Radiance/Darkness Absorbing Magic Mirror (it's now time to say goodbye, to Destiny Light-Dark)
- Mirror Force - A Cell Bursting Virus

Of course, my first look at the set stop here. Well, the list is kind of long, of course. That's because the boosts in this set is actually useful (for once...), although I would have hard time finding spaces to put in all those Alien boosts...

(Drumroll): Unlucky Report: While I can abuse Giftcard and Gift of Greed (and Misrevive a little bit...), there is just no way now opponent having the chance of attacking 2 times is good...

Heck, I mean, there's a card making the "useless" card in Bamboo Sword to good use in this set! So not choosing it from last set is a good choice to me...

Latest Metagame (Japanese):
Not much had change from the last time I talked about the metagame. The main deck types change a little bit. Horus is all but gone now (since LnDD is just better alternative), coming back is more Burn and Demise-Dozer (a deck that finally gets more play anyway). And people are mixing and matching between deck types, so Baboon-LnDD, Baboon-Emperor is not uncommon.

Of course, from the latest result from 2 big tournaments (that determined who represent Japan in World Championship), Gadget purely dominate the scene (5/8 in Top 4 for West and East Japan is just...bad). Second to that of course is Emperor and LnDD variants, and those 3 other deck types (Beatdown, Burn, and Demise) show up here and there.

Just in case you asked...TAEV just didn't show up at all...

Site Version 6.0:
Although I had not even reveal any parts or beta test of my latest design of the main page (and all the other pages in the site...since I'm changing the menu), here is what you will expect:
1. Go to Yahoo homepage and seeing the "flipping tab"? Yes...I'm adding that to the site
2. A LOT of Accordians...and I mean a LOT of them (what is "Accordian"? Well, it's just a table with a bunch of collapsable panels)
3. Nope, still no search engine...unless someone have knowledge of programming a search engine, until then, the card "database" will still be the old style PDF/TXT files
4. Other ideas? Not really...I will of course again reorganize every sub-pages...some of them just look ugly right now.

- Baron, 7/19/2007

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