The release of the Maze of the Masters expansion for Yu-Gi-Oh is fast approaching. Officially releasing next week (March 12th), many content creators have already been able to get their hands on this set slightly early. So far, there's been a range of reactions to this anime-focused expansion, with sentiment ranging from positive to lukewarm.
The set’s main focus is the new Odion archetype. Unsurprisingly, this revolves around the character of Odion and the cards he used from the Yu-Gi-Oh animated series. Unfortunately, the cards are not that groundbreaking in a competitive sense but they do offer players at the local level a chance to experiment with card effects we normally never saw in the anime.
First, we have the Man with the Mark. This card is the archetype’s core starter as you use it to search or set up the other pieces for your play lines. His ability triggers on either summon type (normal or special). As long as a card has the words, Temple of the Kings, on it then it's a fair target for his search.
The Man with the Mark also adds a layer of protection as Apophis monsters and any card treated as Temple of the Kings cannot be destroyed by battle or card effects -assuming you do have Temple of the Kings already on the field-. But from here, the card ends.
With no self-summoning or other floating effects, the card would need some help getting onto the board. Otherwise, the controlling player would have to use their precious normal summon to get the ball rolling. Now there are engines that can work around this but other than that, it’s just a nice bit of support in an archetype lacking a lot of it.
Rounding out the main deck monsters we also have the Merciless Scorpion of Serket and Anubis the Last Judge.
The former is pretty good at deleting monsters without any anti-destruction protection and its lack of “until end of turn” clause can see its attack power bloat to monstrous proportions. The latter is actually a good way to search out the Man with Mark should you not be able to start with it and has pretty okay reprisal against card destruction for back-row hate.
Anubis the Last Judge is also a level 10 monster that can summon itself from the graveyard as long as you have a mix of 3 cards of different names that are trap cards or are named Temple of the Kings. There are some rank 10 xyz monsters like Varudras or Gustav Max that do see play if you can find a partner for Anubis.
From here we go to the extra deck and the fusion monsters of Divine Serpent Apophis and Divine Scorpion Beast of Serket; two admittedly stat beefy monsters for being only level 6.
The Divine Serpent Apophis actually has effects that would normally be considered busted if it was in any other meta-defining archetype. The ability to recur 3 cards from the graveyard once every turn is bananas.
Not to mention it can even ping a card on the field for destruction each time you activate a trap card. It doesn’t even specify that the trap card has to activate from the field or not. This is all in a fusion package that can be cheated out by tributing two Apophis monsters.
As for the Divine Scorpion Beast of Serket, it’s the Merciless Scorpion of Serket’s bigger cousin. A slightly beefier statline and instead of card destruction, the divine scorpion banishes its targets instead. It even banishes a target upon summoning and immediately powers up.
This won’t do anything to archetypes like Maliss who like being banished in the first place but there are a lot less anti-banishment and anti-target cards than there are anti-destruction.
Like its cousin, the divine scorpion lacks the “until end of turn” clause making direct board removal or summon negation the more plausible way to deal with this monster once it gets going.
Going over to the back row, we have Treasures of the Kings, Defense of the Temple, and Dangers of the Divine, representing the archetype’s spell card line-up.
The Treasures of the Kings is basically Man with the Mark just with an extra step. Only needing to spot 2 set cards or a trap card in the graveyard -the latter of which is pretty easy to do nowadays- first, this spell card just lets you add any of the Odion archetype main monsters into your hand.
Treasures of the Kings also functions as redundancy should you be running the original Temple of the Kings and the latter sees itself being removed from play.
For Defense of the Temple, it's basically a diet and restricted version of Super Polymerization. Diet in the sense you don’t need to discard a card as cost to use it, restricted in the sense you’re locked into earth fusion monsters -which both Divine Serpent and Scorpion are-. It also lacks the chain protection and quick play speed Super Polymerization enjoys.
Additionally, it has a giant caveat of needing to use a monster that mentions Temple of the Kings in the text to become anything like Super Polymerization. Thankfully, when used within the archetype, it's not that big of a restriction.
Now we segue into Dangers of the Divine. Appropriately, Defense of the Temple can banish itself from the graveyard in order to add Dangers of the Divine into the hand. While it’s kind of obvious in hindsight due to the episodes featuring Odion, a Winged Dragon of Ra support card probably caught a good amount of people off-guard.
At first glance, the card looks pretty off-putting, and you wouldn’t be blamed for thinking that. Trading half your lifepoints to special summon a paper-mache tiger -albeit this one comes with a 4k statline attached to it- that can’t attack until the end phase of the next turn before bouncing back to the hand is a head-scratcher.
Dangers of the Divine does have quick-play speed and basically functions as an emergency Dark Hole that bypasses card destruction protection as the spell card specifically uses the word “send”. However, it’s still susceptible to any form of negation.
But should an intrepid player get this card to stick, it can set up an interesting interaction with the Immortal Phoenix line as the True Sun God spell card does exist.
Depending on what the official ruling interpretation will be, The True Sun God either overwrites Dangers of the Divine’s attack restriction for Ra or we just send the god card into the graveyard to bring in the Immortal Phoenix and eventually Sphere Mode.
Finally rounding out the Odion archetype we have the Verdict of Anubis and Apophis the Serpent. The former is a counter trap anti-spell/anti-trap card while the latter is another trap monster card with surprisingly good searching and floating effects.
For Verdict of the Anubis, its counter play speed means it is very good back-row hate. Should you have the original Temple of the Kings out, it can basically go online the same turn it’s set. However, it does come with the restriction of needing to control 3 ‘other’ spell/trap cards to function.
That said, if it does activate it can also destroy all the monsters it can from the opponent’s side of the field. As a cherry on top, apply burn damage for the combined total of all the monsters destroyed. It’s a neat little trick albeit a little slow due to its nature of being a trap card and its restrictions.
For the final card of the archetype, Apophis the Serpent is a trap card that summons itself as a level 4 normal monster that allows the player to set one of the other two apophis trap cards in the game -which can also be activated on the same turn- from the deck.
Apophis the Serpent already has one of the best staple effects in Yu-Gi-Oh as it can grab a card from the deck and even makes it playable right away given the nature of trap monsters. Should Apophis the Serpent be sent to the graveyard, it can still add another trap monster into your hand.
The card itself is extremely restricted as it forces you to play with its older cousins in the form of Embodiment of Apophis and Apophis the Swamp Deity. But a search effect that slides into a floating effect, not to mention the archetype’s built-in recursion from Divine Serpent Apophis is a pretty good card advantage overall.
The Odion archetype does what it sets out to do, bring back the flavor of an anime character to the game. This isn’t the first time Konami has done this as we’ve seen support for the more famed archetypes like Blue-Eyes, Dark Magician, Exodia, etc. get more and more modern support.
For now, it’s a neat little gimmick that’s sure to make players enjoy having fun at some expense of efficiency. Maybe down the line, this may be the start of a new wave of support cards as Konami can easily release a card here or there that makes Odion and his cards more and more competitive.
For those who want to read the actual card texts, you can go over to yugiohmeta.com. Those interested in the other cards from Maze of the Masters, an X (formerly known as Twitter) user by the name of Duel Daddy (@Duel_Daddy) has compiled a card list showcasing most if not all of the cards from the set here.