Year of the Dragon - Part 1.

Happy Chinese New Year, everyone! 2012 is Year of the Water Dragon, meaning that you should all look up your Year signs and see how this year will treat you. All mysticism aside, it looks to be Year of the Dragon for card games as well.

I was going to mention in my massive gift opening entry that it looks like Target's card game rack has been consumed by dragons. WoW, Yu-Gi-Oh!, and Pokemon all had dragons on their packs. (Alas, that entry remained in draft form largely due to poor timing- look up my YouTube if you're still interested.) After looking into it a tiny bit more, I found that this coincidence was just the tip of the iceberg.

Pokemon is really milking dragons hard, now. The latest Pokemon set, "Noble Victories," has Hydreigon, Kyurem, and Druddigon (*shiver*) as cover monsters. Later, the Reshiram and Zekrom theme decks will be coming out. No doubt there will be tins featuring Reshiram EX and Zekrom EX as well (and perhaps even Kyurem EX). These upcoming new releases are only the beginning.

In honor of the Year of the Dragon, the Pokemon TCG has officially made Dragon its own type. On one hand, it was necessary; it was very weird to have a Rattata doing double damage to Rayquaza. On the other, why? What the hell makes dragons sooo special that they need their own type in the card game? Moreover, what about other types that are completely different from their colors? If you're going to do this with dragons, do it for Ghost and Poison, too. (The alignment of Poison-types in the CCG has been sticky, to say the least.) "Because they're dragons" certainly does not mean that they deserve special treatment. I am sick of hearing that excuse.

In the next part of this article, I will elaborate on not only this mass-watering of dragons, but also on how the dragon has lost its identity. Look at how crazy people got when Twilight made its vampires sparkle; the only reason dragon-lovers aren't freaking out is because we've lost the sense of what a dragon once was. There will be more on this in part two, but at least I'm not the only one sick of dragons.


Yu-Gi-Oh! players - not the omnipresent dragon-collectors in that fanbase - are getting sick of dragon decks. The new dragon deck marks the fourth Structure Deck dragons have had to date. Most of the decks, as decks, have been mediocre at best on their own, but had cards useful when constructing one's own deck (such as Trade-In and Decoy Dragon in one, and common Mirror Force and Dragon Ravine  in the other). This new deck is the same way: Backbone of a Chaos deck, some Dragon support cards, some bad Dragon support cards (Lord of Dragons and Flute of Summoning? Why?), some Lightsworn cards, and other things that make it a horrible mish-mash of deck types. I see where they were going with it. Not too sure I like where it was headed.

I admit that I made a rush judgment on how much the two cover dragons might impact the game; to me, ANYTHING resembling Chaos will spell death for YGO. I remember those days. Chaos was why the banlist got created. The banlist remains slipshod, so I fear for the meta after these decks are released. It will also be VERY weird to see the double dragon deck alongside Zekrom and Reshiram decks and/or tins. Talk about being copycats. Live up to your old motto and be creative, Konami!

I cannot speak for World of Warcraft and M:tG. If you are basing off of a standard fantasy setting, some dragons are inevitable. WoW currently has a set called "Twilight of the Dragons." That sounds like a horrible harlequin romance novel...but I digress. It's about time we talked about what a dragon truly is, or at least what it once was.

Dueling Dragons. Again.

This blog needs more love. Luckily, Konami has done something that irked me enough to make a post.

 

So let's get this straight: YGO started the "Black Dragon VS White Dragon" thing, did it again in 5D's, Pokemon mooched it, now YGO's going back and doing it again just to be super-special-awesome hip. It's cool that we're getting REBD and BEWD in the same deck (YAY), but really? Reeeaaaallllyyy? The idea is bad on so many levels, especially with how they're doing it.

For starters, dragons have become truly bloated beasts in the fantasy industry. I daresay YGO's popularity helped stoke that particular flame. Counting this new dragon deck, the game has now had 4 Dragon-themed Structures in its history (not counting Seto Kaiba decks).

I'm not going to go into dragon aesthetics anymore. After trying the process out for myself, I have become convinced that they are just stringing random words together and putting "dragon" on the end. To 5D's' credit, the whole series had a Meso-American theme going; new dragons have no excuses for looking as twisted as they do. The new cover dragons suck in every sense of the word, unless the common supports somehow blow them out of the water.

The deck also has Chaos Sorcerer in it. While that particular Chaos monster has been off the banlist for a while,  its presence in this deck and the recent unbanning of "Black Luster Soldier- Envoy of the Beginning" are worrisome. If this is indeed a Chaos Dragon deck, then Chaos Emperor Dragon will either be in the deck or come shortly after. We're all screwed.

On the plus side, existing dragon decks will now have a spare Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon and several other cool reprints to play with. Hopefully things like Totem Dragon will get reprints, too.  Consider it a silver lining to the cloud. 

(Tangent: I can't believe they made Rescue Rabbit a Secret Rare. I realize it's a good card, but making good cards THAT rare is bad for the game. Up to your old tricks, I see.)

Marvel...BAKUGAN?! + Damn You, Nintendo.

Just wanted to update with something. Here's something.

Marvel VS Bakugan.Yes, that is a real thing. Discuss below. :)

Also, someone please get me this and/or the new Serperior Tin for Christmas. The cute little sculpted figures in both packages are SUPER-detailed. I particularly like how he box set shows Reshiram's wings working; they're segmented at the digits (no, Reshi is likely not feathered), sort of like Avatar's Banshees. I've really been digging that segmented wing style as of late, so sorry if I come off as begging, but...please?

PokeDream: OH GODS NO.

Possibly as revenge for playing DQIV yesterday instead of training my Pokeymanz, I had a horrible, horrible dream related to the franchise that almost made me wake up screaming.

The 3DS has a scrolling side-bar for apps and the like. In my sidebar were two programs I had never seen before...with good reason.

Each program had a box featuring either Latios or Latias that looked like it had been drawn in Paint. The little box with Latias sad 'please be my boyfriend!" in scribble font above the image. The Latios one said something along the lines of "I'm emo." I did not click into either of them, just WTF'd and woke up.

This little dream essentially proves my theory that, after Gen III, Pokemon became a hotbed of furry wank. For those of you who have not seen the Pokemon Heroes movie, Latias was indeed interested in having Ash as her boyfriend...or at least a "friend who happens to be a boy." It was open to interpretation, but really, the sheer amount of Lati-wank leads me to believe that the relationship was very deliberately planned on Game Freak's part.

Good GODS, how much has being in the furry fandom scarred me?! Hell, the little Lati pics even LOOKED like they had been drawn by furries.  Someone please kill me before Nintendo makes this idea real.

Can't sleep...furries'll eat me...

I'm Going Digital!

One day, I was looking on eBay for deals on Pokemon White for my friend. The 3DS drive was a success in that I managed to scrounge up almost enough in gift cards to buy the system. This meant I still had to gift my friend in another way. Still on the hunt for that Pokemon White, guys.

While I did find a few good deals on Pokemon White, I also noticed a suspicious amount of deals on Pokemon. Not toys. Not cards. Actual little bits of data for your Pokemon B/W game. The main creatures up for grabs were (likely cloned) event and shiny Pokemon. Others were selling literally ANY Pokemon you could ask for with a certain price. Some came with attached Master Balls if one paid a certain amount. They were cheap and came with free shipping, but the idea of selling data (let alone HACKED data) over eBay still made me WTF inside.

Alas, I had seen this trend before. Yu-Gi-Oh! has it even worse. People will actually pay decently high amounts for Pot of Duality in the YGO online game. Sure, the shipping's free, but am I the only one who  feels a little leery towards the idea of selling data on eBay?

Comment below. Vote on the upcoming poll. Peace!

NCS Aug. 7th - Kuro Loves Hidden Arsenal.

Yes, I have a confession: Along with tins, I love Konami for Hidden Arsenal. I love the shiny. I love the art. Hell, the themes in HA are actually PLAYABLE. Although the packs are slightly overpriced for having less cards, it's forgivable, especially with the new 3-pack Special Edition box. Three packs of awesome and promo cards that gel with it? Count me in.

For starters, HA has some of the coolest themes I have seen in a long time.  Flaming dinosaurs, ice dragons, awesome thunderbirds, and animal-plant hybrids, and mythological beasts abound in sets full of foil. Every card in these sets is geared towards an effective, aesthetically-unified theme. Said theme may or may not be supplemented by cards in bigger sets. One pack of Hidden Arsenal has more trade potential than a normal pack of YGO cards by virtue that someone, somewhere, will actually be looking for these cards for their own themed deck.

SPARKLE SPARKLE, CHARLIE!

And if they aren't? The spare cards are still useful simply because they are shiny. A useful foil, some supplementary HA cards, and a LOT of commons makes for an excellent lot if you know how to sell it. I've seen "Reptile Decks" marketed with Worms and a few common Reptiliannes. Kids love shiny cards, a fact that nets people amazing trades every day. One can use packs full of shiny cards to one's advantage.

Keep doing these, Konami. YGO's main selling point is its art. Mix awesome art with playable foils and a lot of sparkle and I will keep buying.

Pokemon HG/SS Reverse Holos Thus Far!

I'll let the pics speak for themselves:

 

5.5 pages' worth of awesomeness, and still not even halfway to getting all 123 cards in the set! I have the Legend cards already as well as all the Primes for the first set (from what I can tell). A BIG thank you to eBay user sephir08 for sharing his accumulated holos with me in exchange for shiny Legend cards he was after. There were over 30 in the lot!

Want a deal like that? Trade in your HG/SS base set (ONLY base set) reverse holos for something cooler! Rares like that really expensive Ninetales take priority. Offer MUST include nine or more HG/SS base reverse holos. I am also interested in the holofoil versions of the special HG/SS Energy cards with Johto Pokemon on them. You could get a great deal by helping this collection reach completion!

If you are interested in contributing to the collection, please send me an e-mail (ShadowKuroKarasu@gmail.com), G+ message (ShadowKuroKarasu), or Tweet (@kurokarasu) with the title/message "HGSS Collection Project." I will get back to you ASAP.

In regards to my DS issues: The 3DS will a price slash on August 12th, so I will be trying for that on the one day it is off. My friend will still get his copy of Pokemon White. I will be starting breeding projects like crazy, so if you missed out on Dream World Eeveelutions or want a female Droughtpix/Rainywag, keep your eyes on this blog. Each one of those will be GUARANTEED to have at least 1 IV in 31 and test as "relatively superior" all around (any lower will be GTS food). More great deals coming your way VERY soon!