GAOV World Premieres

The Sneak peak for Galactic Overdrive has passed and I am sure it was a great success. Whether you admire your pulls or you think the card list was lackluster is irrelevant. The stage of the game we are in is all about new cards and fresh ideas. So many people say(somewhat untruthfully) that the surprise factor is back in Yugioh; and that fresh ideas and personalized builds is what wins games. For the most part,the world premiere cards of GAOV "try" to accommodate originality. Deciding if you want to use most of these is up to you.

GAOV-EN000 Noble Knight Artorigus Light? Check. Warrior for RotA? Check. Level 4 Normal for Rescue Rabbit and Advanced Ritual Art? Check. Awesome Art and Flavor text? Check. 1800/1800 stats? Wait what? Don't get me wrong, Noble Knight isn't a terrible card and fits nicely into his decks. There are many warrior variants, and Artorigus can be used in the newest one, Rabbit-Bushi-Xyz. Konami spoiled us with Alexandrite Dragon's 2000 ATK on a Normal, Light body. I will assume that Artorigus is balanced at 1800/1800 because he is a warrior monster and the sheer amount of warrior support that exists in the game. If you aren't interested in pure warrior decks, Artorigus and Rescue Rabbit also share a spot in another OCG deck: Sacred/Constellar. You can imagine Artorigus doing something in here similar to what Rabbit dide to Evolzar's, taking an already amazing boss and making him better. Constellar Omega can only be summoned with Light monsters and has an amazing quick effect. Of course, you can summon him with Alexandrite Dragon, but Artorigus gives you access to Blade Armor Ninja and even Heroic Champion Excalibur, the cover card of the next set. Perhaps more people will find ways to fit him into decks, such as Evocater Gemini and Lightray; for now, Rescue Rabbit has a new test subject.

GAOV-EN081 Ancient Dragon
Light Dragon
Level 4 1400/1300
This carded needed 2 things to make it great: 1) A reliable way to attack the opponent directly and 2) Somewhat meaningful results in the first boost. For example, in a Galaxy Eyes deck, you can use GA Photon Dragon to clear the field for Ancient Dragon's attacks. If Ancient boosted its attack by 600, it could have made another 2000 attack monster to sacrifice for another GA Photon Dragon. Instead, this guy only goes up to 1900 in the first strike, which is underwhelming. Konami had a chance to do something really cool with this card, but I am calling it a missed opportunity.

GAOV-EN082 Hieratic Seal of the Dragon King
Light Dragon Gemini
Level 6 0/0
This card is not to be dismissed simply because of the OCG version of the Hieratic deck. There are multiple new cards in GAOV for the TCG that encourage the use of this card over Luster Dragon #2 and Wattaildragon. In fact, many people are testing cards like Future Fusion and Feathrizer to throw Seal of the Dragon King into the graveyard as quickly as possible. Your reward for playing this? The ability to normal summon(gemini summon) into ANY Hieratic from any location, barring banished ones and more Dragon Kings. That could be:
Nebthet if you control more Hieratics and they still have cards.
Su if those cards are spells or traps.
Asar to further control the board.
If it could summon Sutekh, we would have a great variant of the Hieratic theme, but unfortunately, Sutekh is semi-nomi and can't be special summoned before his initial summoning procedure. Because of this, Seal of the Dragon King isn't really played in typical, swarming Hieratic decks because it simply isn't necessary. I can see the card becoming better if we get MORE cards to grab key Dragons(Sutekh) from the deck. And trust me, there are plenty of cards already that can do it.

GAOV-EN083 Evoltile Elginero
Fire Reptile
Level 2 0/0
Probably the last World Premiere card we will see for Evols; this new reptile continues with the tribute strategy that Najasho started. Instead of giving you "pluses", Elginero seeks to add consistency to the deck and fix a key issue with the ORCS version: Should I waste my Evo-Force/Enemy Controller now or continue holding it? You do maintain card advantage through Evo-Force. You lose 3 cards, Elginero, 1 Dinosaur and Evo-Force, and you gaing 1(1) card draw, 1(2) Evoltile to your hand, and 1(3) Evolsaur to the field, plus whatever effect your Saur has. It isn't much of a game winning monster, more so it gives you a turn to actually make a play. Running 3 is probably overkill in the Najasho deck, but there is almost no reason to run less than 1.

GAOV-EN084 Lightray Grepher
Light Warrior
Level 4 1700/1600
When I first saw this guy, before his effect was confirmed, I instantly fell in love. Seriously, Grepher for Light monsters and he is a World Premiere card? He's just asking to get cracked by the players. After his effect was confirmed, my hopes dwindled ever-so slighty. Then a Light(pun-intended) revealed itself to me(and other yugioh players) and Grepher seems to get better and better. Similar to his Dark counterpart, a wrong play with Lightray Grepher will destroy your hand and cause you to lose the duel. However, the plays that Grepher can supply in specific decks will create outs that were seemingly unheard of. I for one am testing him in my own Lightray variant, which I will post about at a later date. My version only runs 1 Grepher, but there are some Turbo Lightray decks on the internet that create Tele-DAD-like plays out of nowhere. Lucky for us, LR Grepher is a normal rare in the set, so we all get to do lots of testing with him.

GAOV-EN085 Tardy Orc
Dark Fiend
Level 4 2200/0
This is where the contempt lies with the players. Tardy Orc is made for a few things: 1) Deck Devastation Virus 2) Fiend support(Dark Necrofear, etc) 3) Dark support (Dark Eruption, Escape from the Dark Dimension, etc) 4) Skill Drain The part that makes it so undesirable is that (not only is it secret rare) it is a redundant card for the above "pros." Let's take a look at his closest cousin: Giant Orc. Giant Orc has the exact same stats. Same attack, same defense, same type and atrribute; one can even say they are the exact same monster in the art. As an "upgrade", Mr. Orc has achieved secret status from his new effect. He can attack every turn now, without Skill Drain, which is pretty cool, as long as you did not Normal Summon him that turn. There are some ways around this restriction. If you opponent conducts a Battle Phase on their turn, you can flip Ultimate Offering and summon him, possible stopping an attack. You can summon him with Summoner Monk, another dark monster. If you banish him for the plethora of new dark support (like Creeping Darkness), you can attack right away when you summon him with Escape from the Dark Dimension. Does this make the card cool? I would say so. Does it warrant his Secret rarity? Gotta say no on that. Next time, we'll go over the new spells and traps for GAOV. One of which I have been waiting for Konami to create for a long time.