Victory is at hand! Pt. 2

Continuing from the last post.

Psychics
In my opinion, Psychics have always been good, but lacked substance to make it a playable deck. Sure you could OTK, but playing a long and drawn out duel was against the Psychic archetype. EXVC answers this by giving psychics a new strategy in the form of RFP manipulation. Don't try to make it some kind of Macro or Chaos variant though, as most of the cards only work with each others own effects. The best card is Psychic Wizard of Silence. You remove from play any, read that, ANY psychic monster in your graveyard from play. When Wizard is sent from the field to grave, SS that monster. As of right now, the effect is mandatory, so you can do some of the most ridiculous plays imaginable with Wizard. Of course Overdrive Teleporter can't be Special Summoned, but it can get back just about any tuner, Armored Axon Kicker, or synchro monsters. And it even has 1900 attack for no reason whatsoever! Psychic Witch does the same except you remove a 2000 or less Psychic from your DECK when it is destroyed by anything and sent to the grave. Then you Summon it during your standby phase. Priest does it too as an Infernity Necromancer. You discard a card to remove psychics from your grave from play. Then when it gets removed from the field, you can summon any one of them. The new playstyle is like the ultimate deterrent. And if your opponent decides not to attack your monsters, you get to synchro for an equally as ridiculous synchro monster, Mental Over Archfiend. Level 9 so it loses cool points for that. 3300 attack so it gets those cool points right back. Then its effect gives it cool points on EVERY turn. Imagine EH The Shining, it gets cards from the rfp zone back to your hand when it leaves the field. Mental does that too, but you remove a card once per turn, then you summon them ALL when Mental gets removed. And guess what? The effect is Mandatory. So instead of The Shinging, Mental is like a Reversed Absolute Zero. Instead of Destroying Everything, it gives you everything. Then Psychics get their own Escape from the Dark Dimension and a trap that turns any psychic into a D.D. Warrior Lady. And Konami has already announced Psychic Beast as a TCG exclusive, the deck is already sounding amazing. Whoever said deck diversity is bad for the game needs to get their head examined.

Six Samurai
If you thought The TCG loves X-sabers, then you may have to agree that the OCG loves Samurai decks. Luckily, the monsters in the new set are not as explosive as STOA. Instead they provide help setting up and help getting over monsters. Because of this, the cards may not see play at all, but they are still support nonetheless. They do gain access to a new continuous spell card that uses Bushido counters, which can scare a lot of duelists. To use its effect, it has to go the graveyard and only counts the Counters on it. It also only gains 1 counter per summon. The effect is still decently powerful, as it allows you to summon a Six Samurai from your DECK with level equal to or lower then the counters. So imagine this, you have Mizuho, Shinai, Kagemusha, Kizan, and Dojo in hand. You really wish you had a Kageki to make a 1st turn Shi En. You won't be able to, but you can on turn 2. Activate Dojo. Summon Mizuho, Special summon Shinai, Special Summon Kizan. That is 3 counters for Kageki. Or if Kizan is in your graveyard, Use Mizuho to tribute Shinai and destroy something. Add Kizan and summon it. Three counters again. If you don't feel comfortable playing so many cards, they have a new trap card which punishes your opponent for not playing six samurais themselves. If you control exactly 1 face up Six Samurai monster(which is very easy), you can send up to 2 cards your opponent controls back to their hand. Ridiculous? Maybe. The argument going around right now is "good players can get out of any situation." Six Samurai just make it 10x more difficult.

Gladiator Beasts
Glads also go support in this pack as TCG exclusives, but to be honest, I don't know enough about Gladiator Beasts to comment about it. There is an all new Fusion monster with an unconfirmed effect. It is also hard to tell what makes it because of its color scheme. There is a lot of Fire, which means Laquari and some armor which could mean Samnite. There is also a new quickplay spell card which is supposed to be used AGAINST gladiators called Gladiator Taming. With Taming, you can take control of a gladiator beast for no reason at all. If you play Glads, you can use it as an enemy controller to change a monster's battle position. I think we are all waiting to hear about the fusion monster before we cast judgement on Glads as a whole.

As usual, most new packs are defined by world premiere cards. I can turn easy outs to decks into solid defenses that you can't get over. In STOA, TCG exclusives were effects that punished your opponent for trying to do things. EXVC may do the same but also introduces new strategies. Mara of the Nordic Alfar demands that you perform synchros with it from your hand. Reborn Tengu is a 1700 attaker that replaces itself from your deck when removed from the field(Oh yeah, it's mandatory). Full House is situational, but is made to stop your opponent from overextending. It is great in decks that play chainable cards like Fetters, Enemy Controller, Compulsory and Book of Moon. Psychic Shockwave is supposed to be like Starlight Road except with a Jinzo attached to it. If your opponent plays a trap card, you can punish them by summoning a Jinzo from your deck. Sound like fun? You bet!

EXVC looks like a blast. I didn't have time to talk about Karakuris, but I may add that in later tonight, so keep an eye out. Morphtronics got a big boost too. Deck Diversity is the name of the game.