Box Review: Burning Nova Published on July 8, 2018 by Jonesy9027

This is the 13th Main Box and was released on July 8, 2018.

Card List

Ultra Rare Cards

Super Rare Cards

Rare Cards

Normal Cards

What are your thoughts on Batterymen?

grucius says:

It definitely has potential, but it would be different from the old tcg build that was used to otk with

Stevie says:

A cool archetype, has potential. ’s ease of summoning condition and removal abilities are very powerful in a format like Speed Duel.

Jason says:

Weak core but industrial is a good boss monster

Mr. Cellophane says:

High potential! Battery man industrial strength looks really strong. Also has synergy with the hunder family in the box crimson kingdom.

Negative1 says:

Batterymen lack an inherent method to deal with the tier 1 decks, and as a result will not be relevant. For those trying to use the deck, will likely be a core card to protect your life points so that you only lose to fur hires on turn 4, not turn 2.

Yehhey says:

Like everything else in this set Batteryman have major potential had Konami included their consistency improving support . The way they are now they have no way to get out their ace monster Industrial Strength in a fast enough way where it impacts the game. If you’d like to build Batteryman I’d say wait until they release 9-Volt who will tie the deck together because now they cannot do much against the Tier 1 decks which are way too dominate for a rogue strategy to compete against.

AndyTsang says:

I think they can potentially be good, but the DL deck is missing some crucial support, such as Batterman 9-volt

look at god says:

I think the deck is too convoluted and doesn’t have a clear wincondition

superforms says:

Industrial Strength is the clear win-condition here, popping a monster and a spell/trap. Its summoning condition conflicts with its effect slightly, and you can’t use the effect without having two targets. You can target your own backrow though, so — which is already good against and as -bait — could see play to destroy 2 monsters.

Micro-Cell is the main starter, pulling out any other Batteryman from the deck. Pulling a Solar helps to set up Industrial, and AA or D helps set up for a Charger or Voltech Dragon tribute summon next turn.

Voltech Dragon can be hit by on summon even if you tribute a D since its effect to gain the effect is a Trigger effect, not continuously applied right away.

searches Solar and AAA, which is mainly good because of Solar, but burns a normal summon. is a much better Turn 1 play, since it thins the deck even more without using the summon. (You can also use the discarded Sea Horse for Industrial’s effect, but not its summon.) is a strong card to wipe out low-level monsters (which is very good early game against Fur Hires and HEROs, and good in general against Amazoness). is slow but versatile, working with Powerful Rebirth or any normal summon.

Batteryman C is garbage. Quick Charger is very slow, ironically, and Recycling Batteries wouldn’t be good here, but might be good later with the hunder family and Xyz summoning.

Overall, the deck seems like a worse deck. Very little is searchable, and the deck is slow to set up. If it can get set up it has an extremely powerful boss monster, but getting to that board state will be a struggle in such a fast meta.

What are your thoughts on the new Fire Fist support?

grucius says:

Dragon seems pretty decent as support but it would definitly still have problem with the backrow slots limited to 3 also the deck still miss a monster removal like bear was in the tcg

Stevie says:

Fire Fist Dragon + Tensen is a very powerful combo in tandem with Gorilla and the card support we already have. However I believe that we still need at least Fire Fist - Bear or Fire Fist - Tenki for them to truly be competitive.

Jason says:

still lacking some of it’s power cards but the new ones give fire fist a new playstyle

Mr. Cellophane says:

Dragon and Leopard are great additions but I fear the deck may still be too slow to compete.

Negative1 says:

The new fire fist support is just some 1800/1700 beaters along with . Without xyz monsters to go into, their swarming ability is underwhelming and results in a half-baked archetype that lacks an inherent method to deal with the tier 1 decks.

Yehhey says:

Again, we’re missing key cards here such as Fire First - Bear and Fire Formation Tenki to make this deck nuts. We got Gorilla in the Mini Selection Box but I doubt the majority of the player base has 3 and that would be required for the “best” builds, and even those “best” builds will fall short against the Tier 1 decks. The most interesting new Fire Fist card we got from this set is Dragon, because he is a quick plus when combined with Gyokkou where you can set either Tenken or the new Tensen and Kaiyo. He can also send dead Fire Formations to the grave to bring back a Fire Fist from the graveyard. The problem with this is that the Fire Formation traps aren’t too impactful on the game and can’t do a whole lot. Tensens 1000+ boost won’t matter much if Donpa destroys the monster you’ll want to use on it. Tenken only works during the Main Phase 1 so it can’t protect your monster in the Battle Phase vs Onslaught. Overall if you think this archtype looks cool you should wait to invest unless you’re okay with it being mediocre vs the Tier 1. I don’t even think most of the Fire First support from this set will be used even if they release the better stuff because it will be outclassed by that better stuff immediately.

AndyTsang says:

I have a lot of faith that, even if fire fists are not good after this box, they will see even more future support. Gorilla was in the mini selection box, but was missing here. We’ve already had 2 waves worth of fire fist support. Last deck to have three waves was ninjas and that was one of two tier 0 decks.

look at god says:

The monsters don’t really add much, but tensen is a cool card

superforms says:

The deck here seems to be: Gorilla and Gyokkou deal with backrow, Tensu, Buffalo, and Dragon help swarm, lots of monsters help search for the Fire Formation spell/traps, and Rhino swings over monsters. Tensen and Horn of the Phantom Beast help boost your monsters too, although Horn can’t be sent to the grave by any monster effect. Swallow also protects your monsters and gives access (along with Coyote), but might be better.

Overall, the searching is on the slow side and I don’t see a ton of good ways to search monsters (like grabbing a Rhino when you need to deal with a big threat). I think this will be a common low-rank deck for those that can access it, but I don’t know how effective it will be for competitive play.

What are your thoughts on the new Gem-Knight support?

grucius says:

Seems cool, there will be so many way to build decks around them.

Stevie says:

Gem-Knights finally receive their core card in Gem-Knight Fusion. I definitely think a Grass variant will have some form of success especially with the ability to steal games with Lady Lapis Lazuli’s insane burn effect.

Jason says:

not good

Mr. Cellophane says:

The new cards don’t solve the problem the first gem-knights had in that they take too many resources to work.

Negative1 says:

Before this support, Gem-Knights still suffer from two weaknesses: lack of consistency and lack of a goal. You could argue that the new support provides consistency, but they still lack a defined goal. Is their boss monsters their goal? If so then the deck only provides large beaters with high material investment. Other than possibly the addition of that can burn, there doesn’t seem to be a win condition here. Unlike heroes, this deck doesn’t have the speed and consistency to beat fur hires. Gem-Knights will likely emulate buijins in success; do half decent for a week then drop off entirely because they lack an inherent method to deal with the tier 1 decks.

Yehhey says:

Theres a whole lot of support here which we should have gotten when they were first introduced! Gem-Knight Fusion is finally here so we don’t have to use Poly and can swarm the field with fusions more easily. Besides that we now have Gem-Knight Zirconia which is an amazing generic beatstick we can use with the new Obsidian and Lazuli. In addition they gave us Brilliant Diamond whose pretty nuts if you ever resolve it to summon another fusion, and Lapis Lazuli who can burn for game if you need her to. This is great so I’ll just put these 3 new fusions with all the good fusions from the other set… wait a second? We only have 5 Extra Deck spots still? Well kiss that dream goodbye. Any potential this deck has is squandered by the lack of Extra Deck spots, and card economy issues if they don’t OTK. They gave us Beat for Furs, why not give Gem-Armadillo for Gem-Knights? Till then this fun deck is built to summon Brilliant Diamond only for it to get Canadia’d or Chaliced so you can’t use its effect and die the next turn.

AndyTsang says:

This box will give gem-knights the rest of the support they need. While i am not confident, I feel they will be a strong deck. I hesitantly say this deck will be on the tier list

look at god says:

I like it a lot and want to try a lot of different builds of it, I dunno what the best build will be, hard to say if it’s competitive yet or not

superforms says:

The interesting new cards are Lady Brilliant Diamond, Gem-Knight Fusion, Alexandrite, Obsidian, Lady Lapis Lazuli, and Gem-Enhancement. The other new fusions are garbage.

Lady Brilliant Diamond’s effect is easiest to trigger by using Lazuli or Obsidian in its fusion summon to put one of the other fusion materials back on the field.

Gem-Knight Fusion also works really well with Lazuli and Obsidian, since they give material back and can then be banished to get Gem-Knight Fusion back for another fusion.

Lady Lapis Lazuli deals solid burn damage every turn and can easily be revived with Gem-Enhancement or have its effect copied by Master Diamond. Probably the only Gem-Knight fusion that you’d run at more than 1 copy. Alexandrite helps search Lapis for the fusion summon. Protecting her for multiple turns is a definite win condition.

Citrine is decent against Amazoness since it can’t be banished, but can easily be swung over by a Queen or boosted Paladin.

Thanks to Gem-Enhancement, Fragment Fusion becomes more viable as well, as an additional way to fusion summon.

is another fairly easy special summon, which can help deal with larger monsters or at least burn through backrow.

Overall, this is a semi-toolbox deck with a lot of moving parts. The fusion monsters can be summoned/revived easily, Master Diamond can copy their effects, and the fusion material is intrinsically recyclable. This is probably the deck with the most potential to hit the tier list in this box, although it is incredibly weak to Treacherous Trap Hole and other forms of spot removal.

What are your thoughts on the new Lightsworn support?

grucius says:

Wulf will be definitly a big support for all the grass decks. Also celestial is gonna be a good cards removal.

Stevie says:

Celestia, Lightsworn Angel + Wulf, Lightsworn Beast are definitely huge additions to the deck. However without reliable ways to discard Wulf from hand and get the engine started such as Charge of the Light Brigade and Solar Recharge the deck will not be competitive.

Jason says:

celestia is good

Mr. Cellophane says:

Also high potential! Celestia and Wulf are great additions. Lightsworn Sanctuary and Glorious Illusion are fantastic to help you get back important cards you may have milled.

Negative1 says:

The only card that has any value from this wave of support is the new tribute monster , but only because it’s effect nets a +1 (since you went -1 to summon it) and you can theoretically search the card with . As a whole the archetype is not very good; Celestia is alright but having your deck rely on a tribute summon can only get you so far.

Yehhey says:

Celestia is the closest thing we have to a good Monarch. You can use her with Escalation of the Monarchs to blow up 2 cards on your opponents turn. Besides combos like that she is underwhelming because she requires you to run Lightsworns like Jain and Lyla and protect them for a turn to get her out, not to mention with downsides of milling so much with 20 cards in your deck. I don’t see much potential here, but if you can successfully resolve Celestia she can be devastating.

AndyTsang says:

Even with celestia and wulf, lightsworns are still missing too many power cards to be a real deck. This wave of support was also more archetype tied compared to before, where lyla can just be splashed into many decks.

look at god says:

It’s cool, but we don’t have the power cards yet.

superforms says:

is still the only good Lightsworn monster from previous support sets, although Garoth’s draw effect and Aurkus’ protection effect are worth considering.

Celestia is the new star, with an incredibly versatile effect. The main issue will be getting her out, but seems very useful to get her in hand. or can then help put her on the field.

Wulf is another very welcome addition to the archetype as a free beater when milled, but is almost completely dead in your hand. Could be used as discard fodder for Sanctuary and then revived with Illusion or .

Sanctuary is a completely power-crept Realm of Light, and a great way to protect your monsters from things like Donpa or . The graveyard-search effect is nice too, allowing you to grab a milled Celestia or Lyla.

Sabre is decent if it’s milled, but a pretty useless card if you actually draw it. Glorious Illusion is a worse Powerful Rebirth, but could potentially be used alongside Rebirth in a 30-card deck, since both give ways to tribute for Celestia.

Overall, Lightsworns actually have a deck skeleton now with multiple good monsters and support cards. There’s a lot of room in building Lightsworns because of the tendency to go beyond 20 cards, so it will be interesting to see if they’re best as a standalone deck or slotted in alongside other decks that have already used Lyla’s mill effect (like Bujins and Archfiends).

What are your thoughts on the new Madolche support?

grucius says:

More then anything else i like the counter trap that negates the monster effect even without destroing them. Also about the archetype it could have potential thanks the field and the spell continuos that helps a lot the deck to make plus advantage on cards also there is the sercher. We still miss big cards of this archetype.

Stevie says:

While the Madolche’s have strong floater abilities with Ticket + Chateau, they are lacking both of their playmakers in Magiliene and Hootcake. I do not think they will be competitively viable with the card pool as long as Onslaught, Fate and Masked HERO have the ability to ignore their continuous spells.

Jason says:

potential

Mr. Cellophane says:

This deck will probably see casual play but won’t be competitive as long as there is no quick way to summon Puddingcess.

Negative1 says:

They are cute and I love them all, but not enough to play them. They lack an inherent method to deal with the tier 1 decks.

Yehhey says:

Incomplete like everything else. Mew into Puddingcess or Mew into Messengelato to search Ticket or Chateau is nice, but I think we can all agree Donpa into Dyna is way better. We needed Hootcake and Anjelly for this deck to be relevant.

AndyTsang says:

Madolche Nights has potential.

look at god says:

Chateau and Ticket are cool cards, but I’m not sure if we have enough of the good madolche monsters yet

superforms says:

Puddingcess is kinda busted with damage calculation destruction of any card your opponent controls (similar to Sage or , but way more versatile). The main issue will be getting her out.

Chateau is a really nice field spell too, allowing you to consistently recycle resources. Ticket synergizes amazingly well with Pudding on the field.

Mewfeuille works perfectly with Messengelato, but that requires you to have both in hand. Mew is also a great way to get Pudding out. Buttlerusk is garbage.

Lesson, Waltz, and Palooza are garbage.

Tea Break is interesting and usefully a counter trap (so few things can respond to it). You could bounce a Mask Change and then destroy the monster before they can again. Against Traps like it’s even better, buying you a turn before the banishing starts. Useless in scenarios like trying to negate a Mayhem on an empty field.

Nights is really good, stopping Fur Hires on Turn 2 with a single card (leaves their monster though), and with Pudding on the field it only gets better.

Older cards that synergize: Just Chickolates; Chouxvalier and Cruffssant are garbage. (Cruffsant does work with Ticket to get you a search, but that’s really slow.) Chick is a lockdown card like , but also negates effects, which is very useful against Fur Hires. Unfortunately Fur Hires also run a ton of tribute monsters, so at best you’re slowing them down.

Overall, there are a lot of strong effects here. Some that recycle resources, boost ATK, or buy you an extra turn; unfortunately, I don’t see a ton of ways to abuse those effects. The deck definitely centralizes around Pudding, but there aren’t many ways to get it out quickly. For this deck to be successful, it seems like it will need a strong power play that makes all the disruptive effects worthwhile, and right now I don’t know what that would look like.

What are your thoughts on Lavals?

grucius says:

Dont see them so competitive exept with the lightsworm engine. Lavals will be better when synchro will be out.

Stevie says:

Lavals is probably the most incomplete archetype they gave us. The deck is missing core cards from the TCG, and will play liuke an incomplete mess.

Jason says:

trash

Mr. Cellophane says:

Boring effects. Terrible synergy.

Negative1 says:

They have only 1 card of interest in as it has a mill 5 effect. The rest of the cards seem underwhelming. Other than that, they lack an inherent method to deal with the tier 1 decks.

Yehhey says:

No thoughts, they’re not a deck yet just a skeleton of one.

look at god says:

I don’t see them doing anything

superforms says:

Laval Miller being destroyed by battle sets up a Burner summon. Swordsman sets up Cannon’s effect as well.

Blaster has a really nice effect, but requiring a Laval in the grave already kinda sucks. The ATK boost is permanent though and it sets up a lot of the other Laval effects.

Phlogis and Kayenn help really boost ATK too (especially if milled off of Blaster); this deck has no shortage of ATK-boosting options.

Whirlflame is a nice Amazoness counter that sets up Blaster (also stops Canadia, which would reset ATK boosts, and TTH, which would be devastating since this deck has little-to-no recovery options outside of something like Powerful Rebirth).

Searing Fire Wall seems very easy to trigger, but I don’t really see the use for it at the moment. Molten Whirlwind Wall is another ATK boost, and a nice Damage Step card.

Overall, this deck just revolves around making the monsters big. There’s little defense, no real searching, and would rely on outside recovery. Should be a fun beatdown deck, but will definitely need a lot of help to become competitive.

Are there any other cards that you expect to have a significant influence on the current meta?

Stevie says:

Horn of the Phantom Beast dominated the TCG for a time period. I definitely see it having a huge impact on Duel Links.

Jason says:

dust tornado

Mr. Cellophane says:

We finally reached the peak of the lvl 4 attack power creep with our first 2000 beater, Megalosmasher X, and it’s a dinosaur! I would expect this to see play in dino decks but it’s far from enough to make dino decks relevant.

Negative1 says:

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooope.

Yehhey says:

Dust Tornado is the only card that has any value right now in this meta, but even then Cosmic Cyclone does the job better because you don’t need to wait a whole turn to use it. Besides Dust I’m confident cards from this set will not be used in THIS meta, but theres many more meta to come.

AndyTsang says:

I think Kycoo will make Spellbook mirror less cancerous, or more cancerous. Really depends on how you define it xD

look at god says:

No.

superforms says:

Horn of the Phantom Beast: Interesting in Bujins or an updated Hazy deck, but more so Bujins. 30-card Grass builds will still want to run Restart and Offerings to the Doomed, meaning that draw power relies heavily on Yamato. Horn + Sinyou helps you draw cards repeatedly in a deck that has a tendency to give up some Draw Phases.

Magician of Faith: Will almost certainly become degenerate somehow, but with Duel, Standby!’s nerf it will be much more difficult to revive Tea Burn with this card. Definitely a card to keep an eye on, however.

Elemental HERO Rampart Blaster: Won’t have a significant influence, but worth mentioning this card has an errata that says it can only attack directly if your opponent controls no monsters, but the card text on the box page is not updated to reflect that. May be a gimmicky OTK deck with Titan Showdown or it may be pure garbage, depending on how the effect works in game.

Are there any other cards with significant future potential?

Stevie says:

Dust Tornado is a solid card if only for the reason that it gives more outs to cards like Onslaught in decks that need it in addition to cyclone. Magician of Faith will only continue to get better as the card pool increases. Kycoo the Ghost Destroyer is also a very interesting card.

Jason says:

kycoo, thunder sea horse

Mr. Cellophane says:

Keep an eye on Treasure Panda in case we get any normal type tuners with 5DS like Tune Warrior.

Negative1 says:

: I believe this card has the most future potential out of all of the cards in this set. We already have the hunder family cards in the game from crimson kingdom, so I imagine this card will be formidable if we ever get xyz monsters

: AUTODUEL HYPE

Finishing thoughts: I noticed there was no question about the elemental hero support, but in short the cards suck and don’t change anything. Nothing in the box synergizes with the already established hero deck and all of the new fusion monsters are either too specific to be consistent or do not help you generate advantage. , , and do not fix the issues elemntal heroes already have, namely their low speed and stats; is a highly situational draw 2 which means you have to compare it to ; the result is you throw all of the elemental hero cards in the dumpster and play the better engine. The hard truth about this box is that it came out too late; all of the cards in here could have made a big impact if they came out earlier, most namely , , , and , but will collect dust until someone makes a youtube deck with them. As it stands, this box is not worth investing in except if you are a whale and want to meme with gem-knights.

Yehhey says:

Yes. Tons. This set might as well have been called “To Be Continued” because its just so unfinished. I can see Industrial Strength, Thunder Sea Horse, Kycoo and maybe Celestial being serious contenders down the line, just not now.

Final Thoughts: Save your gems. This might be the worst main box we’ve gotten in a long time. If you’re bored of the current card pool and want to spice things up you can have a lot of fun on a budget with some of the super rare cards from this set like Evocator Chevailer if you’re Gemini fan. It should be easy to get 3 and he will make your Gemini deck way better than before.

look at god says:

kycoo, horn of phantom beast, wulf, thunder sea horse

superforms says:

Thunder Sea Horse: Can search the other 2 copies of itself first, but that’s really slow. The hard OPT and no Special Summoning clause really hold the card back for now.

Kycoo the Ghost Destroyer: Future potential; would have been great for Spellbook mirror matches, but that ship has sailed.

Evocator Chevalier: The main combo here is with Supervise in a Gemini-focused deck, but it also works with Kunai and Metalmorph. In a Canadia meta, however, this seems dead-on-arrival since Equip cards are extremely bad right now. May be good in a future meta with Gemini Spark and better Gemini monsters.

Treasure Panda: Future potential with new summoning mechanics.

Tell us your own thoughts on the box in the comments below!