Article #79: Absolute Powerless

First thing first, I would like to say a happy very belated birthday to DMComet, celebrating its freaking seventh birthday. It is surreal to me that I had not quit on the site for freaking 7 years, just unbelievable.

Anyway, to just make things all chained together to save some precious spaces on the internet, I will write my yearly birthday article with a first look analysis on the latest set, Absolute Powerforce. As usual per se on my first look articles, I will look at the card trends, list the useful cards, and brainstorm some deck types. A last word for my introduction is, don't let the name of my article fool you.

Card Trends and theme:
The biggest theme in this set is that there is no new theme. This, actually, does not happen for a while now. The last time where a set does not have a new theme include in it since Phantom Darkness (8 sets ago).

On the other hand, it does not mean that the set is all about “old cards”, it just means that most of the cards either support existing themes that cannot be released or have not been shown in anime before this set, and a lot of cards without specific theme attached to it. The set includes, in terms of theme, Reptiless, Gravekeeper’s, and X-Sabers. There are also cards used by Rex Godwin and other characters in the 5Ds anime.

At last, the set includes the namesake of the set, Savior Demon Dragon. Some other note in the set is there are a Normal monster, a Union, a Spirit, and a Ritual monster, that just does not happen anymore in Series 6 sets!

Deck Types:
Here are some of the new deck types that I think people could create after this set, competitive or not.
- Rex GodWIN (??)

For deck types that get boosts:
- Machine (for the structure deck)
- Demon type (with all the weird cards...)
- Reptiless/Reptile type/Alien
- Core Chimail (at least this set ones are decent, not that I recommend a deck based around 3 copies of a Magic card)
- X-Saber/XX-Saber
- Gravekeeper's
- Sea/[Umi] theme deck (they come so random)
- Anti-Dark deck!! (does it exist?)
- Any Ritual deck
- Dragon (??)
- Insect/Spider
- "Shield and Sword" deck

Useful cards :
As usual, I will write down a list of cards that I think that can help some deck. Of course, some of the cards on this list may be limited to be good in one or two deck. In addition, I would not say I make the best judgment when looking at cards on paper without much playtesting done at all.

- Orge of Bloody Tear
- Power Invader
- Dark Bug
- Sword Master (it's OK as a Tuner)
- Reptiless Naja
- Reptiless Vasuki (both Reptiless are hard to use, but playable)
- Priest of the Sun (it is a freaking "Cyber Dragon" after all!)
- Core Chimail Urknight
- XX - Saber Garsem
- GK's High Priest (although to me, unoriginal and nothing special)
- Shretsudder
- Pandaborg
- Codalos (a.k.a. mini Daedalus)
- Holy Light
- Cyber Dragon Zwei
- Ritual Majins Curse Enchanter/Precogster (hey, they are still very good for any rituals)
- Demonic King of Destruction - Garlandolph (a.k.a. can be very mean, only less than Demise)
- Drill Warrior (hey, I think this one is one of Yusei's better Synchro)
- Sun Draogn Inti/Moon Shadow Dragon Quilla (although you need to use them together in a specified deck...)
- XX - Saber Hyunlay (destroy, so it has to be good...)
- Treasure of Harmony (in Dragon Synchro...come on, White of Legend, Debris Dragon, Savior Dragon, Dragunities)
- Reptiless Anger (LOL)
- Viper Reborn (any reborn cards, Reptile type...a lot of usage, I guess??)
- Territory of Spider (somehow can be combo)
- Core Composite Beast Research Lab
- Machine Developer (a.k.a. future version of Miracle Jurassic Egg)
- Meteor Prominence (I don't know...I try to like this card?)
- Lair Wire (I know, my standard is getting lower and lower)
- Core Blast (for one thing, Core Chimails never have monster on field...)
- Machine King - B.C. 3000 (pretty fun card??)
- Alien Brain
- Forgotten Underwater Temple
- Conspiracy of Tuner (conspiracy, indeed)
- Claymore Dud (slow removal?)
- Reversal World

Now, of course, my choice of worst card in the set...and it is?

Black Rose Witch - The only thing plus for this card is that this card is a level 4 Tuner. Of course, the card is not the most terrible out there, it just that this card right now is a non-special summonable Normal monster (OK, it's a Tuner) 95% of the time, and the 5% of the other time when this card is an effect monster it will just die. I would also give some "props" to the Cyclers series...I just do not like them at all. I also want to choose [Power Supplier] to be utterly useless.

Also, to me, the Rex Godwin card are so GX-like to me and it's not even funny (a.k.a. cards that only work in anime because the Life is 4000, with a bunch of cards doing the same thing affecting 2-3 cards, or up to 9 cards in your deck). There are also a bunch of powerless card that to me does not do much. Those "limited" increase merger attack strength cards (Power Pickaxe, for example) is just....

So, there it is, another short first from-brain impression article from Baron.

Birthday Note, 7th edition
Well, again, this month marked the freaking 7th year that I put in some effort to the site. Of course, when measuring the amount of effort, I can pretty much graph it against time and there is a strong negative correlation coefficient. One thing is I truly now do not even have half the time I had few years ago, I can rarely even sit down in a computer without being so tired and do not want to do anything.

One thing I'm thinking of right now is my project for the last 4 years already: how to reorganize the site. Of course, the limitation comes from that my webmastering skills stuck at HTML 4.0 era, maybe Web 1.4 era, or, in shorter word, outdated. Do I like shriek's blog format better than my format right now? I do a little bit...minus the rigid structure and the dumb comments left on his blog (I am both grateful and ungrateful that DMComet does not have a lot of spammers, grateful as in I do not have to do as much, ungrateful as in looking at traffic on my site drooping exponentially).

Let's talk about the game, I guess...although I will write a lot about it in my annual review article.

1. I do not have any idea, really, on what's now in 5Ds. I will be honest, I do not watch it.
2. So how I write articles and card reviews? There is something call Janime and Wikipedia
3. Then, it's not like I can think of combos anymore with all these random card out of no where...do not have the brain juices

Oh well, going into the 8th year and counting down the date where I will just give up...

Coming next: Again, Fortune Ladies, when I have time to write it, that is.

- Baron, 11/13/2009

Webmaster: Baron and Spikes
Copyright 2003-10 AL & AL, ALL RIGHT RESERVED!
Site version v5.0