News: VG-BT12: Binding Force of the Black Rings Unveiled, New Link Joker and Shadow Paladin Cards, Pale Moon, Dark Irregulars et al.

This morning VG-BT12: Binding Force of the Black Rings (黒輪縛鎖 lit. Black Ring Binding Chain) was announced for a Japanese release on July 6th. Featuring support for the revived Shadow Paladin clan and the Link Joker clan that will be introduced in TD11: Star-Vader Invasion, BT12 will introduce Link Joker's new "Lock" mechanic. (Although presented as "Lock" phonetically, the kanji 呪縛 used for it means "Spell" or "Curse.")

The set will contain 102 types of cards with 1 reprint, currently believed to be Blaster Dark Revenger from TD10: Purgatory Revenger. It will also support the Pale Moon, Dark Irregulars, Narukami and Gold Paladin clans. Careful scrutinizing of the promotional images reveals cards resembling Great Silver Wolf Garmore, Divine Seal Dragon Dungaree and Mad-Eye Basilisk. The Link Joker units have been noted to resemble existing units from other clans, so far with Blaster Blade on the cover image for TD11, Spectral Duke Dragon on one promotional image for BT12, and Silver Thorn Dragon Tamer, Luquier on the other promo image. Furthermore, the artists for these Link Joker units are the same as their originals, Suzukigorou and Masa.

Notably, as the images for the Garmore and Dungaree lookalikes have United Sanctuary and Dragon Empire nation boxes, it appears that modern promo materials are now eschewing the standard practice of using Sanctuary templates to conceal a unit's nation prior to release. Because of this, the image for TD11 which showed a US nation likely points to Link Joker being from the United Sanctuary. However, due to now counting a version of Luquier among its ranks, Link Joker may be a composite clan with multiple nations contributing to its card pool.

In addition to the new "Lock" mechanic, the image at left advertises that BT12 will also introduce new crossride and break ride units. With Garmore and Dungaree as the speculated crossride candidates, and the Link Joker clan which is already embraced by many cardfighters as an appealing new group of antagonists, BT12 is shaping up to be one of the most anticipated sets of 2013.