Friday, August 9, 2013

News: Extra Boosters 8 & 9 Announced, Stern Blaukluger to Recieve Crossride, Grade 4 to be Printed for Kagerou

This morning Doctor O  unveiled a new pair of extra booster sets through Twitter, VG-EB08: Champions of the Galaxy 「銀河の闘士」 and VG-EB09: Divine Dragon Progression. EB08 will be released on November 15th, while EB09 will be released on November 22nd. EB08 will feature cards exclusively for Nova Grappler, including long-awaited crossrides for Asura Kaiser and Stern Blaukluger, and cards from the manga.


Historically these two were the Novas' primary competitive vanguards prior to the Beast Deities taking over, and EB09 will conclude Asura Kaiser's long search for a supporting grade 3. Described as "the perfect booster for people just starting or have been fans for years!" EB08 will allow Nova Grappler cardfighters to build decks "of Real Robots based on the Blau Series," suggesting that these decks will consist solely of Blau support units in a revitalization of their BT04 play style.

EB08 will contain 17 reprints with 18 new cards for a total of 35 cards in all. In addition to a crossride for the legendary Asura Kaiser, the set also advertises "friends of Asura Kaiser" pointing to a supporting build for the deck comparable to Stern's. The set will contain 3 RRR/5 RR/8 R/19 C and 4 Special Parallel cards, in contrast to past extra boosters which have only provided 2 SPs per set with 2 RRR units.


Like Mystical Magus before it, VG-EB09: Divine Dragon Progression will feature primarily cards from the manga, this time focusing on Kai Toshiki's Kagerou cards from chapters 17-25. Gaiarth Dragon and Cruel Dragon are confirmed to be printed in the set, along with reprints of Berserk Dragon and Bellicosity Dragon. Most surprisingly of all, Kai's grade 4 "Transcendence Dragon, Dragonic Nouvelle Vague" will be printed in the set. Gaiarth Dragon (a portmanteau of "Gaia" and "Earth") was originally known as the grade 2 Dragonic Gaiarth in the manga, and unlike most grade 2s had the boost ability instead of intercept, but contributed 0 power when boosting and increased the critical of the boosted unit by 1 instead. Kai first used this card against Ren in chapter 17, where he used it to increase a rearguard Dragonic Overlord's critical.

Meanwhile Cruel Dragon was an 11000 power grade 3 that could be superior ridden from the hand when an opponent's rearguard was sent to the drop zone in the main phase, but it would also lose 3000 power for the turn when ridden in that way, so that Cruel would have just 8000 power offensively but then revert to its 11000 power defense on the opponent's turn. Kai used this again Aichi in chapter 22, as part of a combo with Berserk Dragon, Raopia and Hidden Dragon Striken that would give Cruel a total of 23000 power and 2 critical while Aichi was still at grade 2.

Finally, Dragonic Nouvelle Vague (French; Dragonic "New Wave") is the first real grade 4 in the game, predating Silvest. Kai used this unit to defeat Aichi in chapter 22. Like how Gaiarth did not have the intercept ability, Nouvelle Vague did not have twin drive. Instead, Nouvelle Vague canceled out both players' drive checks, preventing the opponent from gaining power from triggers, and from healing or drawing as a result of those triggers, and stopping them from increasing their critical through anything but card skills. The unit as it's currently designed is very difficult to use however, because lower graded units cannot be ridden over higher graded ones, so once a grade 4 is ridden there is no going back to grade 3, and consequently once twin drive is lost through riding Nouvelle it is lost for the rest of the game. The unit's base power was never shown, but it is generally suspected to be at least an 11000 power unit.

EB09 will feature 23 reprints and 12 new cards, with 3 RRR/5 RR/8 R/19 C and 4 SPs. Dragonic Waterfall may be one of those reprints, as it is Kai's finishing card in the manga equivalent to Aichi's Exculpate the Blaster and Ren's Phantom Blaster Dragon.