The New Black Luster Soldier and other new chaos cards

Once every few months, V-Jump publishes a pack of 5 new cards. Last pack was last December, so it’s time for a new pack! The V-Jump of August (which will contain the new F&L list, btw) will contain the next V-jump promo cards. And they’re all Chaos-related!

The new BLS, it’s BS

The main card everybody was looking forward to, is the new BLS: Black Luster Soldier – Envoy of the Twilight. And look at it, the art is awesome!

But then look at that effect:

Cannot be Normal Summoned/Set. Must be Special Summoned (from your hand) by having an equal number of LIGHT and DARK monsters in your Graveyard and banishing all monsters of 1 of those Attributes from your Graveyard, and cannot be Special Summoned by other ways. While face-up on the field, this card is also LIGHT-Attribute. When this card is Special Summoned: You can activate 1 of these effects, depending on the Attribute of the monster(s) banished for its Special Summon. You cannot conduct your Battle Phase during the turn you activate this effect. ● LIGHT: Banish 1 monster on the field, face-up. ● DARK: Banish 1 random card from your opponent's hand, face-down, until your opponent's End Phase.

This basically means that BLS will ONLY have an effect when it’s summoned by this condition (and only then). If you summon it with (for example) Monster Reborn, it will have no effect (booh!). Not only that, but having an equal number of Light and dark monsters makes it kind of annoying to summon, not to mention the fact that you have to banish all LIGHT or DARK monsters from your grave (booh!). It also has that condition that it’s both LIGHT and DARK (okay, that’s kind of normal, but easy to counter with Gozen Match). Oh yeah, and did I forget to mention that you have to skip your battle phase the turn you actually DO use the effect (BOOH!).

Tl;dr? IT SUCKS!

Light and Dark Gaia Knight

Just like BLS, Gaia the Fierce Knight has been re-used in many different cards (Swift Gaia the Fierce Knight (effect), Gaia the Dragon Champion (fusion), Gaia Kight the Force of Earth (synchro), Gaia Drake the Universal Force (synchro fusion), Gaia Dragon the Thunder Charger (XYZ) and now thus the Light and Dark Chaos monsters. Here comes Gaia, Knight of the Dark Nights and Gaia, Knight of the Bright Nights (oooh, look at the word play). (Wikia says Polar Nights and White Nights, but TCG print will determine the TCG name)

Both have similar effects, with opposing attributes. You can use both effects once per turn:

• Tribute one other DARK/LIGHT monster, to add 1 Lv. 4 LIGHT/DARK (resp.) warrior from your deck to your hand and then send 1 card from your hand to the grave.
• Banish 1 LIGHT/DARK monster from your grave to either boost your monster’s attack or lower your opponent’s monster attack.

These monsters are searchers and provide sufficient imagination for chaos warrior decks (though seriously, why the “-1” on their effect?). The first things that come to mind are Destiny HERO’s and Light Beat Warriors or Noble Knights.

New Primal Seed and new Exchange of the Spirit

This whole pack reeks of nostalgia. The provided spell card (Chaotic Seed) is a wink to Primal Seed, while the trap, Exchange of Dawn and Dusk (or First Light and twilight, depending on the translation) is a nod to the long-time forbidden card: Exchange of the Spirit.

The spell goes as follows: If you control a Light and Dark monster (or a monster that has both attributes), you can add 1 banished LIGHT or DARK warrior to your hand. They added the once per turn clause to prevent abuse (yeah, that’s the sole reason why Primal Seed is still limited in the first place).

The trap basically reads: Dump 1 LIGHT/DARK warrior from your hand to the grave to add 1 warrior of the opposing attribute and the same level from your deck to your hand. These two cards bring stability to the Chaos warrior deck. It ensures you have that right DARK/LIGHT warrior (Armageddon Knight, Dark/Light Grepher, etc), and allows you to recycle banished warriors, like D-HERO Malicious.

So how can you use these cards?

Well, its cards like these that give the opportunity to mix, remix and experiment! You can use these cards and…:

• Use them in a D.D. deck. Warrior lady is Light, Survivor is Dark. And these cards smell like pure chaos (hint: Chaos Zone).
• Mix them with Destiny HERO’s and Light Warriors like Neos Alius, Photon Thrasher and Noble Knight Gawayn. Destiny Draw remains a good engine.
• Mix Constellars with Destiny HERO: Pollux is a Light Lv. 4 warrior, Constellar Alrescha is a Lv. 6 LIGHT warrior. Diamond Dude is a Dark Lv. 4; Malicious is Lv. 6.
• Mix Lightrays with Dark Warriors. Lightray Gearfried is hard to get on the field, but once it’s there, it’s a boss!
• Remix Chaos Ninja Dragons. Remember the variant of Chaos Dragons that uses Ninja’s? Time to upgrade them with these cards, to easily search Golden Ninja and Ninja Grandmaster Hanzo. It adds a much-needed consistency to this deck.
• And you can probably think of other combinations I didn’t even think of yet.

Since I love Chaos decks, so I guess it’s time to experiment! Let’s hope the September F&L list isn’t too hard on the Chaos archetype (read as: let’s hope this B(L)S doesn’t cause the good BLS to become forbidden). And then let’s hope these cards (and Collapserpent + Wyburstar) gain a TCG-print soon.

That’s it for now, V out.

PS: Note: these are OCG-names and translated by fans. Names may change upon release in TCG.

PPS: Rest of Battle Pack 2 is now revealed as well. No further surprises noticed.

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