After being treated to one of the all time greatest Yu-Gi-Oh sets, it's time to slow things down and focus on the next deck builder set. Whilst many players have grown tired of these side-sets, which prove costly to build some rogue at best decks, we’ll look at Valiant Smashers and see what it can do to shake up the current meta.
Valiant Smashers Booster Pack Information
Valiant Smashers hit shelves of your local game store on 16th November. Fans of the common only format will be happy to hear that rares are the lowest rarity in this set. This means they won’t have to contend with Number 41: Bagooska the Terribly Tired Tapir in their quirky format. Each pack of Valiant Smashers will contain 6 rares and one foil card. The foils available are super rare, ultra rare, secret rare, collector rare and quarter century secret rare.
Just a note for those of you that want to max the rarity of your deck. The collectors rares that are available are the old style rather than the style that was used in the Rarity Collection set.
Now, let’s meet the 3 new archetypes that Valiant Smashers brings us.
Centur-Ions Archetype
Centur-Ions are a new synchro strategy coming in Valiant Smashers. They primarily focus on level 8 and level 12 synchro monsters. Most current builds are playing a relatively small engine of 16 Centur-Ion cards. This allows them to be splashed more freely with a whole host of decks as they find their place in the meta.
Where Centur-Ion differs from other strategies is their ability to interact on the opponent's turn. All Centur-Ion main deck monsters share the effect of being able to special summon themselves from the spell and trap card zone. When in the spell and trap zone they are treated as continuous trap cards hence they activate as a quick effect.
Memento Archetype
Memento is a play on words for this archetype, in this new strategy some old cards are retrained and parceled together to form a strategy. Konami went for a tried and tested way of ensuring the deck worked. As usual this resulted in a strong field spell that really helps out the deck. The deck is a combo control strategy that fills your graveyard up in order to summon the new boss monster Mementoral Tecuhtlica - Combined Creation. When going first the aim is to turbo out Techuthlica and use the remaining resources to get both traps in hand for the opponent's turn.
The deck offers some nice disruption on the opponent's turn. Stealing an opponent's monster mid combo will always prove difficult to play around. This deck also contains no extra deck monsters. This gives players freedom in what they want to play around with.
Some players are predicting that lightsworn may be a strong choice to pair with the Memento as the Memento monsters want to be sent to the graveyard. Memento offers some fun for players wanting to try a new strategy but does not seem like a threat to the meta.
Vaalmonica Archetype
Konami isn’t shy in giving us pendulum strategies out of deck builder sets. Vaalmonica offers a light and dark contrast. With this unruly host of fairies and fiends, we are treated to a fun new strategy. Both sides of this deck have to work together in order to fulfill its full potential. Vaalmonica uses counters to allow the deck to bring out strong link monsters whilst only using one material. The heaven and hell aspect has meant that many have started to test builds which incorporate the Dream Mirror archetype. Whilst pendulum strategies have struggled since the banning of Electrumite, Vaalmonica offers some fun quirks that players should enjoy testing.
Overall this set is unlikely to break the meta but as always it will be fun to see how players will use techs found in Valiant Smashers to win games at upcoming events.
As always, Valiant Smashers is available at Gathering Games both online and in our store. Stay tuned for our next blog post, where we will get you up to speed with Yu-Gi-Ohs Fire King structure deck.
Yu-Gi-Oh! - Valiant Smashers Booster Box
£59.75
£69.99
Description Take to the front lines and lead an all-out attack against your opponent with 3 new themes in Valiant Smashers! They belong in a museum, but instead the monsters of yesteryear rise again, and more powerful than ever, thanks… read more
