2018 is going to be an exciting year of Dueling! The first new cards of the year will hit shelves on January 19th in Structure Deck: Wave of Light. This Structure Deck is based off the classic “Counter Fairy” strategy that uses Counter Traps and Fairy monsters with effects that care about Counter Traps. Think Bountiful Artemis! This Deck’s “boss monster” is a new form of Airknight Parshath, a key card from the earliest years of Yu-Gi-Oh! Click on “read more” to learn more about it and other great cards from the first month of 2018!

The original Airknight Parshath inflicts piercing battle damage and lets you draw a card when it dealt damage to your opponent. Sacred Arch-Airknight Parshath also inflicts piercing battle damage and gives you a new card from your Deck when it inflicts damage, but this time you get to choose the card! Any “Parshath” card or Counter Trap is fair game, and there are 2 new “Parshath” cards in the Deck as well: 1 Continuous Spell that protects your Set Spell/Trap cards from being targeted or destroyed by card effects and 1 Counter Trap that can negate the activation of a Spell/Trap Card or monster effect and then Special Summon a “Parshath” monster from your Deck or Extra Deck.



And did we mention that Sacred Arch-Airknight Parshath can be Special Summoned from your hand or Graveyard if you resolve a Counter Trap or negate the activation of a Spell/Trap Card or monster effect? Probably ought to mention that.

Eight days later, on the weekend of January 27th/28th, you’ll have your first chance at cards from Extreme Force, the first 100-card booster set of 2018! Extreme Force is home to the Mekk-Knights, a brand new monster theme that cares about where cards are placed on the field. If there are 2 or more cards in the same column, you can Special Summon a Mekk-Knight from your hand to your Main Monster Zone in that column. Some Mekk-Knight abilities will care about how many cards are in a column, others might just care that something else is in the same column. Mekk-Knight Blue Sky for example counts the number of your opponent’s cards in the same column and lets you add that many different “Mekk-Knight” monsters from your Deck to your hand.

Each Duelist who enters the Extreme Force Sneak Peek will receive a copy of World Legacy Scars, the Field Spell that works alongside the Mekk-Knights. It gives your Mekk-Knights a small ATK/DEF buff, lets you see more cards from your Deck by discarding “Mekk-Knight” and “World Legacy” cards to draw new ones, and has the ultimate ability to eliminate your opponent’s entire hand and Extra Deck all at once if you can assemble the 8 “Mekk-Knights” on your field or in your Graveyard!

The other major new theme in Extreme Force is the Mythical Beasts. Inspired by Mythical Beast Cerberus, these new monsters use Spell Counters to fuel their powerful effects. The twist? Each of them is a Pendulum Monster! Your monsters are monsters when you need to Summon and powerful Spells when you don’t, making this a very flexible strategy! While you can’t naturally Pendulum Summon these monsters since they all share the same Pendulum Scale, with a little help from some powerful cards from Pendulum Evolution, you might be able to find a way around that…

In addition, you’ll find new Cyberse monsters, more “Rokket” monsters along with their Field Spell that allows for mass Special Summoning, excellent new “Altergeist” cards, cosmically horrifying Flip monsters, Vendreads, “F.A.” monsters, Spirit monsters, and a huge collection of Link Monsters for Decks past and present!

Extreme Force launches at Official Tournament Stores on February 1st, and everywhere else on February 2nd. Things may be cooling down in December, but don’t go into hibernation, because the Dueling world is going to heat up again in January!