News: Monthly Bushiroad Spoils PR♥ISM Support, Izaya & Hadar Reprint

This month's issue of Monthly Bushiroad magazine has had its street date broken, and fan photographs of the magazine's contents have spoiled legacy support for the PR♥ISM subclan, coming up in Clan Booster 01: Academy of Divas. The magazine cover features Sendou Aichi as a PSY Qualia zombie, an aspect of the most recently serialized manga chapter that commercials for the issue have played up immensely. The issue has also given a glimpse at several upcoming Special Parallel prints of cards in Academy of Divas; these cards all have alternate artwork featuring humanized versions of the booster set's all-mermaid cast on a beach holiday.

PR♥ISM-Promise, Princess Labrador
ACT (Vanguard circle): Once per turn: [Choose a face down card named "PR♥ISM-Promise, Princess Labrador" in your generation zone, turn it face up] If you have a heart card with PR♥ISM in its card name, choose up to two of your rearguards, during this turn they get Power +5000 and "AUTO (Rearguard circle): If this unit attacks or boosts, at the end of that battle, put this unit into your hand."

The section on Bermuda Triangle also revealed that the upcoming "Duo Eternal Sister, Meer" will be an "evolution" (進化 shinka) with a new limit break ability.

PR♥ISM-Promise, Princess Leyte
AUTO: When this unit is put into your hand from a rearguard circle, if you have a PR♥ISM vanguard, countercharge 1/soulcharge 1, choose one of your units, during this turn it gets Power +4000, during this turn, you cannot normal call a "PR♥ISM-Promise, Princess Leyte." (You can call that card by card effects.)

PR♥ISM-Promise, Princess Celtic
AUTO (Vanguard/Rearguard circles): [Counterblast 1 cards with "PR♥ISM" in its card name] When this unit's attack hits a vanguard, you may pay the cost. If paid, choose one of your other rearguards, put it into your hand, and if you put it into hand, draw a card.

Duo Love Trump, Chulim (White and Black editions)
AUTO (Rearguard circle): [Counterblast 1, put this unit on top of your deck] When another of your units is returned to hand from a rearguard circle, if you have a "Duo" vanguard, you may pay the cost. If paid, search your deck for up to one card with the same name as the card you returned to hand, reveal it to your opponent, put it into your hand, and shuffle that deck.

At left are the Special Parallel prints of Lovely Day for a Walk Emilia, and Kukuri, who is labeled as the set's G-perfect defense. Kukuri's skill allows her cardfighter to countercharge 1 when they guard with her, if there is an existing copy of Kukuri in the drop zone after paying the cost for her skill.

The set includes several alternate prints of existing cards, including Miracle Voice Lawlis at right. These prints only exist in SP rarity, and are made as part of the second Bermuda Triangle Summer Vacation event, succeeding the swimsuit edition prints of Top Idol Riviere, Velvet Voice Raindear, Costume Idol Alk, Planet Idol Pacifica and Shangri-La Star Coral.






Lastly, the issue revealed an upcoming reprint of the promotional cards Psychic of Ash Hadar and Psychic of Dust Izaya. Made to commemorate the launch of Sovereign Star Dragon and Izaya's legion revival Psychic of Storm Rigel, the reprint will include two copies of both Izaya and Hadar, packaged with the next month's volume of Monthly Bushiroad magazine.

Today's Card Analysis: Psychic of Storm, Rigel

The Japanese card of the day is an addition to Dark Irregulars' group of Psychics, the legion grade 3 Rigel. Dark Irregulars fans will be surprised to find that Rigel's legion mate is none other than Izaya, a promo card first revealed in June of last year. Rigel's Japanese release in G-BT03: Sovereign Star Dragon on May 29th will fall a week short of their card-of-the-day anniversary.

Rigel, Hadar and Izaya are actually all psychics of dust (Jin 塵 "impurity") but while Izaya's dust is sanded (Sajin 砂塵) and Hadar's is ashen, (Haijin 灰塵) Rigil's is winded (Fujin 風塵.) Rigil is the wind to Hadar's fire and Izaya's earth. His setup skill is one of the best in the clan; once per turn Rigel can soulblast a card with the same name as a unit on the vanguard circle to soulcharge five, putting him within range of Dark Irregulars' first soul benchmark and halfway to their second. Bear in mind that the key soul thresholds at this time are six, ten and fifteen soul--just by riding normally and using Rigel's skill you should have at least seven soul amassed, giving access to Flying Librarian and other six soul-required skills. Being in legion doubles the number of potential soulblast targets, making the skill not especially good for pre-legion setup and instead helping to brute force one's way to the benchmark for Rigel's other skill.

Rigel's soulcharge 5 should be taken into consideration alongside two other units, his mate Izaya and the grade 1 Doreen the Thruster. Both of these units get +3000 power when a card is placed into the soul during the main phase (Izaya only while the vanguard is in legion) meaning that with Rigel's soulcharge these units will get a total +15000 power. Doreen becomes a 21000-power booster and Izaya a 24000-power attacker, so that if both are lined up it forms a 45000 power lane. If you instead choose to divvy them up across multiple rows, you then have the option of two 30~31000 power attacks rather than a single big one.

Rigel's legion counterblast 2 is where the endgame comes into play. When he attacks the vanguard and you pay the cost, if there are ten or more cards in the soul you can retire two of your opponent's rearguards; and if there are fifteen or more cards in the soul, you can retire one more on top of that. Ten cards in soul is perfectly acceptable as a benchmark between stride turns with Kiskil-Lilla and the Abhorrent One, but the main obstacle to the last part of this skill is that if you've already reached the 15 soul mark before your turn begins then you're better off striding into the Abhorrent One to end the game. The only reason you would use Rigel's skill instead of the Abhorrent One's is if you've already run out of copies of the latter, or to avoid decking out via triple drive. These properties mean that a savvy opponent can also gain a great deal of information depending on your actions; if they are at four damage and you refuse to stride but clearly have the soul count and deck remaining to stride safely, then it becomes obvious that you don't have cards of the necessary grade in hand to stride with, and if they've been keeping track of your drive checks that lets them infer a great deal more about what you have at your disposal. Regardless, the simultaneous loss of three regards or six across two turns may be too crippling for the opponent to come back from long-term.

As for what grade 3 Rigel pairs with best, Charharlot Vampir is an option but using Hadar has certain benefits. It allows you to repeatedly cycle triggers into the deck with two different grade 3s, and each time you ride over an in-legion vanguard it builds two additional soul at a net expense of -1 to your card advantage. If your rearguard soulcharge options are limited in a particular game but you draw both units, you can perform legion with Hadar on one turn, then on the next turn ride Rigel, perform legion again and soulblast the Izaya from Hadar's legion to reach a high soul count without relying on grade 1 and 2 support units.