Not wanting to be left behind by its physical counterpart, Yu-Gi-Oh Master Duel seems to be paving its own path for releases.
First as a disclaimer, please know that this information is coming from the community over at MasterDuelMeta.com. As far as we know from our own efforts in digging into this announcement, Konami has yet to release any official statement. Subsequently, without any guarantees, there exists the probability that anything discussed in this article may be subject to change.
Blue-Eyes Manifesting its Destiny
Starting off, it looks like Master Duel is skipping the introduction of Ryzeal and Maliss from Crossover Breakers and heading straight for the Blue-Eyes White Dragon support. This support appeared on paper in the structure deck (Blue-Eyes White Destiny) released last February and some choice cards -so far- from Maze of the Master.
Out of the 5 cards shown in the announcement, we can already see Blue-Eyes Ultimate Spirit Dragon taking the forefront.
In the physical Trading Card Game (TCG) Blue-Eyes Ultimate Spirit Dragon can be seen in a lot of player’s extra deck. This card even sees play in the most hallowed of Yu-Gi-Oh events, the Yu-Gi-Oh Championship Series (YCS) and the World Championship Qualifiers (WCQ).
The card itself is a standard boss monster. It boasts a respectable stat line and comes with a single effect negation from the field. Ultimate Spirit Dragon makes for an excellent spearhead to help its controller run through an established board.
Should it make it to the field, it can help disrupt counter plays that banish targets from the graveyard of its controller; looking at you Called By The Grave.
So far, Blue-Eyes Ultimate Spirit Dragon is the only card revealed to be from the Blue-Eyes White Destiny structure deck. We’ll have to wait and see for any official word if the rest of the blue-eyes archetype support cards, like Spirit with Eyes of Blue, for example, will make it to Master Duel.
Maze of the Master Sweeping into Master Duel
With the prominence of the Ryzeal and Maliss archetypes in the physical TCG, it was most likely a safe bet that they would eventually come to Master Duel. For now, that payout will have to wait a little longer as instead cards from the soon-to-be-released Maze of the Master will be joining Master Duel instead.
With Maze of the Master being advertised as an anime-focused expansion set, we can see cards like Dragluxion and Seventh Tachyon coming in to support the Galaxy-Eyes archetype that was featured prominently in the Zexal era of the animated show.
With Seventh Ascension and Bonfire already in Master Duel, Seventh Tachyon already on its way, the moment the Ryzeal archetype is released into the digital space, it’ll have a lot of its consistency tools at its disposal right out the gate.
Other cards from the announcement are XYZ-Hyper Dragon Cannon and The Duke of Demise, cards that were used back in the original animated series under Kaiba and Bakura respectively.
With cards from Maze of the Master coming to Master Duel, it does beg the question, will the recently revealed Odion archetype cards make it as well?
Master Duel does have its own banned/forbidden list and without Ryzeal and Maliss’ existence, the meta on the digital front seems to be firmly in the grips of last year’s most divisive archetype, Snake-Eyes, alongside all of its variants.
In the physical TCG, Ryzeal and Maliss aside, we have seen a representation of Blue-Eyes White Dragon and other rogue strategies. Perhaps with the release of Ultimate Sparkle, we may see the same kind of movement in the digital meta scene.