Gold Series 4: Pyramid Edition

From Konami's product site:

The original Dueling legends are back!
Introducing Gold Series 4: Pyramids Edition, the biggest and best Gold Series ever!
Available only through hobby stores and distributors, each box of Gold Series 4 includes one 25-card pack plus 1 of 3 high-quality rubber Game Mats.

New 50-Card Set

Gold Rare foil cards are only available through Gold Series sets! Since 2008, each Gold Series has collected some of the most exciting cards ever created, and re-forged them with gleaming gold foil technology. Now Gold Series 4 does it again, with high-demand cards from across the years.

No matter what state your collection is in, there’s something for you in Gold Series 4:

* Powerful, hard-to-get cards are easier than ever to find, like Doomcaliber Knight and Tytannial, Princess of Camellias.
* Make your Deck shine with new Gold Rare versions of cards you might already own, like Gravekeeper’s Spy and Royal Oppression.
* Get Gold Rare versions of your favorite monsters from the TV series, like Obelisk the Tormentor and Five-Headed Dragon.

If you look at the other 3 Gold Series, none of them have cards that were released within almost a year of the gold series print. Infernity Archfiend was in the video game from May 2009 and the Gold Series it was reprinted in was from July 2010. Gold Series (May)2009 had cards from Phantom Darkness, which was released in February of 2008. So with this small trend we have to go on, you can expect that cards from these sets won't make an appearance in Gold Series 4:

Duelist Revolution
Starstrike Blast

Now, they did say that this will be the best Gold Series yet, so I'm sure it isn't impossible for a Duelist Revolution card to sneak it, but it seems pretty unlikely.

Gold Series 4 will have 18 Gold Rare cards and 32 common cards. The common cards have been following a couple of themes each year, so we also expect it to do the same this year. Gold series 3 had Amazons, Fairies, Blackwings, Worms, and a couple of Ice Barrier cards. Gold series 2009 had lots of Monarch deck cards, the original Six Samurai, a few Hero cards and their support, Phantom Beast monsters, and a few other miscellaneous cards. The very first Gold series simply had commons of a lot of popular cards. They weren't trying to follow a theme(I'm sure there weren't many themes back then anyway), so the selection looks pretty random.

Here in 2011, there are plenty of themes to make common reprints!
Lightsworn commons - Jain, Ryko(Turbo pack), Garoth(Turbo Pack), Lumina(CP), Gragonith
Psychics! - Krebons(Turbo pack), Snail, Mind Master, Doctor Cranium
Koakis - Crusader, Sandman, Guardian, Power Hand
Morphtronics
Aliens
And lots more.

The teaser on Konami's Website also mentioned old, hard to get cards for collectors. Things like Toon cards and Millennium Shield, cards that may have been short print or come from Jump and Manga promos and weirdo Fast Food promotions. Millennium Shield comes from a McDonald's promo, along with Goddess of the Whim, that was also advertised. Let's take a look at some other weirdo cards that could be commons:
Cosmo Queen - McDonald's pack
Frog the Jam - McDonald's pack
White-Horned Dragon - McDonald's and Manga
Beastking Barbaros - Jump

There are also lots of secret rare cards that get reprints as commons in Gold Series sets. I have a few in mind that I would love to see get rarity DOWNGRADES:
Victoria: SOVR
Core Transport Unit: ABPF
Koa'ki Meiru Bergzak: TSHD
Cactus Bouncer: ABPF
Ice Queen: SOVR
Greed Grado: ANPR
Hardened Armed Dragon: RGBT

Now onto the best part, the Gold Rares! There is always a debate on what should take up a Gold Rare slot and what shouldn't. We already have 6 cards that have been confirmed by Konami to be Gold Rares:
Doomcaliber Knight
Tytannial, Princess of Camellias
Gravekeeper’s Spy
Royal Oppression
Obelisk the Tormentor
Five-Headed Dragon
It really isn't a bad list at all. The other good thing is that a lot of massively reprinted commons like MST have already been reprinted, so we don't have to worry about those. So what kind of cards do I expect to see in this?

Archlord Krystia - Yes I am one of the ones that don't believe Krystia will be in the new structure deck.
Fossil Dyna Pachycephelo - Amazing card that deserves a reprint.
Gemini Spark - Very popular card right now to combine with Neos Alius. The only version of this is in common, so I hope it will get the Gold treatment.
Royal Tribute - Pretty old card that hasn't been reprinted in a while. Tribute found its way on the Semi-limit list, so apparently it is important enough for Gold foil.
Mind Crush - A few people have been asking me to trade them Mind Crushes and, of course, I tell them no. Not very many people main-deck it, but those who don't will use it in their side-deck. That may not give it a Gold slot, but it would be pretty nice.
Chaos Sorcerer - This is one of those mass reprints that everyone will probably hate. It is definitely being used enough to give it a slot.
Morphing Jar - Everyone will hate me for this one too, but Morphing Jar is another old card that should have been a Gold Rare a while ago.
Lyla, Lightsworn Huntress - Rising in price, the only Lylas you can get are from LODT. Granted the ultimate rare would look a lot better than the gold version, I can see this getting a reprint.
Lonefire Blossom - I would like to see at least one more plant in this besides Tytannial. Lonefire is my pick, but a gold Spore is also possible(and a lot less cool).

Of course, there are plenty of cards that people WANT to see in this that probably(hopefully) won't get included. Most of the time, it is because the card is too new to include in this year's Gold Series. Other times, the card just needs to stay rare to make it good. Some of them are even just a waste of a gold slot!
Pot of Duality (Too new)
X-Saber Hyunlei (Possible Gold Print. Highly prized.)
X-Saber Darksoul (TCG Exclusives get get gold prints?)
Solemn Warning (Too new)
Spore (Waste)
Card Trooper (Waste)
Dimensional Prison (Waste)
Pot of Avarice (Maybe. I would play Gold Avarice if it existed.)
Ally of Justice Catastor (Maybe. I guess not everyone has it, even though you can buy HA1 and a new SE is coming out soon.)
Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier (Too good! Just buy the special edition!)
Book of Moon (waste)

I'm really looking forward to the new Gold Series. The price did go up, which is a big turn off, but I will definitely put all store credit from winning towards it. All I really want are Doomcaliburs for Chaos decks, Xsabers for a Beast hybrid, and Fairies for my Cell Spam deck and Fossil Dyna for my Koakis. Everything else will become trade bait unless they release some real killer cards!