Yugioh Blazing Vortex Review – One Week After Release

Since Konami gave us the Yugioh Blazing Vortex Review, reactions have been relatively negative, and preorder prices have reflected as such. I have a rule that I apply on all product: if you are opening a box, you are probably going to lose value. There are exceptions to this, such as Rise of the Duelist, but a set like that only comes around once every few years, and in this instance the perfect storm of production delays and shortages has heavily influenced the fallout. ROTD included multiple relevant strategies such as Dogmatika and the less impressive Melffy archetype, and two highly sought-after staple cards in Triple Tactics Talents and Forbidden Droplets. In the instance of Yugioh Blazing Vortex Review, we do not have nearly as much to look at going into it. In a way, this set is very reminiscent of Savage Strike, which saw a handful of generic cards that would see immediate success, an archetype that, in a standalone deck, was lacking something, and an extra deck monster that has future potential.

Pot of Prosperity is the most impressive piece of this set, and its price tag reflects that. In a sense, this is a natural evolution of Pot of Extravagance because it gives a lot of rogue options that extra fuel to push them towards competitive play. This card is insane and the majority of the community agrees on that. There’s a handful of other less talked about cards that I want to address, however. For starters, Heavenly Zephyr – Miradora seems to be an evolution of Fantastical Dragon Phantazymay in the fact that it punishes your opponent for using their extra deck. Anytime a card has the text “The activation and effect of this card’s effects cannot be negated” you should expect the card to have some amazing abilities. Miradora is a Fiendish Chain for Extra Deck monsters with 2000 or more attack.

We have two easily comparable cards to Savage Strike, but the third piece is a little harder to compare. Underworld Goddess of the Closed World is a very unique Link 5 that can use a monster your opponent controls, and paired with I:P Masquerena I could see this Goddess decimating your opponent. While it may be a stretch to compare it to Borreload Savage Dragon I think it is very fair to suggest that like its predecessor, Underworld Goddess has upward potential. Borreload saw a $70 price tag at one point in time, and we could see a similar instance here.

In addition to Borreload Savage Dragon, Savage Strike introduced us to another Dragon archetype, World Legacy. Nobody needs to be reminded of how influential the archetype’s Link monsters have been in shaping competitive play, and I could see the new Armed Dragon support providing a similar (albeit lesser) effect. Armed Dragon Flash puts a level 3 dragon on the field, like how World Legacy Guardragon put a level 4 or lower dragon on the field. Thanks to the recent announcement from the OCG about a future product focusing on Wind Attribute support, the fact that flash summons a Wind monster could have some impact on a future format. War Rock Mountain also provides a similar service for earth warrior strategies, as it can fetch a War Rock Gactos from the deck. Immediately the Gouki archetype comes to mind as a way that these two cards could make a difference.

On a less impactful note, the S-Force archetype has great potential but needs more support in order to form an even remotely competitive strategy. S-Force Justify is really interesting on paper, but the entire archetype revolves around columns, and this is a mechanic that hasn’t really seen a ton of success in the past. That said, cards like S-Force Bridgehead help to push the deck in the right direction. While I wouldn’t actively go out and spend $300 on a deck core like some early preorders were asking, I would highly recommend picking it up if the idea of a column-based control deck appeals to you at all.

Sprigans also represent a really interesting archetype, like a hybrid between Zoodiac and Time Thief. Once again, there is some column-based effects, but even then, they seem far less difficult to utilize compared to S-Force. Sprigans Ship – Exblowrer is the most expensive piece of this strategy, and even then the entire core should cost you under $10. There is no excuse to avoid getting a core, especially once you’ve looked ahead at the next wave of support including Sprigans Brother and Sprigans Booty. All Sprigans cards except Exblowrer are common or super, so even if you’re late to the hype train I wouldn’t anticipate you spending too much on a core.

It wouldn’t be fair to talk about new archetypes without bringing up some cards that support existing ones. I’m really underwhelmed by the Eldlich cards, and don’t anticipate them making an impact. The Metalfoes cards are off to a good start, but do not do enough to justify having me rebuild a deck that revolves around vanilla pendulums. The new Fabled cards are neat and while I could see the deck gaining some limited traction on a small event level, I do not think they have enough to become a blip on the radar. I think the same could apply to Ancient Warriors, however I’m more confident in my expectations of them. Constellar and Dragunity received some cards that don’t don nearly enough to talk about, and Dream Mirror cards constantly disappoint me. Ojama Pink stands out, but the archetype will need a lot more for me to even consider looking at it. Tri-Brigade Kitt on the other hand is insane.

The very existence of Tri-Brigade Kitt card gives the archetype a 1-card Link 4 play. With the recent success we’ve seen from Tri-Brigade decks, additional good support like Kitt can’t be a bad thing, and shouldn’t be overlooked. Virtual World Gate – Xuanwu gives its archetype some additional Graveyard recursion, and Sacred Tree Beast, Hyperyton is another rank 9 option to put in their arsenal. I wouldn’t go as far to claim Wightbaking makes Skull Servant competitive, but a potential 20,000 attack from King of the Skull Servants is now a possibility. Machina Upclaspare is also an interesting card that provides the archetype with another special summon from the hand, and a foolish burial in an archetype that can benefit from both.

Honorable mentions for cards that seem interesting include Psychic Eraser Laser which acts as non-targeting removal for a single Extra Deck monster, Materiactor Gigadra and the possible archetype that is slowly being released, and Maha Vailo, Light of the Heavens for being a retrain of one of my favorite old school cards. If I see you using this retrain however, I’ll mock you because the card is terrible.

Yugioh Blazing Vortex Review is not a top-heavy set like people wanted, but that doesn’t mean we should write it off as a bad set. There are plenty of amazing cards here, and low value does not equal low impact. We could have benefited from a couple good OCG imports, and War Rock is certainly off to a disappointing start, but there is plenty of good things coming from Yugioh Blazing Vortex Review, you just need to look.

Article Guest Writer: Harrison Rodis