RARITY COLLECTION II, DUEL LINKS in VR, and Classic Video Game Collection Announced for YU-GI-OH!
Konami is not done celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Yu-Gi-Oh! trading card game. Last month, they announced the 25th Anniversary Rarity Collection II (a follow-up to the amazing Rarity Collection released just a few months ago) and then this last week they announced goodies for fans of virtual duels. Let’s get to talking.
Rarity Collection II has become a little divisive in the community. This was shocking because of the love that we duelists threw out there for the first set. First, what is Rarity Collection II? It’s a 79-card set with every card different from the original Rarity Collection. Once again, every card will be available across seven different holographic rarities but this time, each pack has nine cards with twice as many Ultra and Secret Rares per pack which in turn increases the chance of you getting at least one luxury rare card. Seems like a slam dunk, right? Well, the problem is with the announced cards.
The list of cards announced for Rarity Collection II includes the following:
Accesscode Talker
Magicians’ Souls
Silent Magician
Silent Swordsman
Droll & Lock Bird
Ghost Ogre & Snow Rabbit
Ghost Mourner & Moonlit Chill
Fantastical Dragon Phantazmay
Primitive Planet Reichphobia
Primeval Planet Perlereino
Pressured Planet Wraitsoth
Peaceful Planet Calarium
I:P Masquerena (alt art)
Rescue Cat (alt art)
Apollousa, Bow of the Goddess (alt art)
Yeah, a lot of those cards are not exactly cards that fans care about. Unfortunately, the first impression that duelists have received of Rarity Collection II is that there are far fewer cards to help them in a competitive environment and there aren’t really many nostalgic cards revealed either. Now, there are some genuinely good cards like Accesscode Talker in there, but fans were hoping for much more like S:P Little Knight and Diabellstar to combat how expensive the secondary market is for those cards.
It’s important to note that many are correct that the first round of reveals need to build the most hype. However, there is the possibility that those cards will be revealed in the future to not impact the current sales of sets like Age of Overlord which is still relatively new. I wouldn’t hold my breath for that, but one can dream, right? You’ll be able to purchase Rarity Collection II on May 24 with each pack having an MSRP of $9.99 and the below breakdown of rarities:
2 Secret Rares (each with an individual 1-in-4 chance of being upgraded to a Platinum Secret Rare or Quarter Century Secret Rare)
4 Ultra Rares (each with an individual 1-in-6 chance of being upgraded to a new “Prismatic”-style Collector’s Rare or new “Prismatic”-style Ultimate Rare)
3 Super Rares
More recently, Konami made two additional Yu-Gi-Oh! announcements that have me excited. First, Yu-Gi-Oh! Early Days Collection will be a digital game collection for the Nintendo Switch and PC. This will be a collection of the earliest Yu-Gi-Oh! video games including ones that have not previously been released in the West. The first official title revealed for the Early Days Collection is Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters 4: Battle of Great Duelists for the Game Boy Color. Interesting enough, Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters 6: Expert 2 for the Game Boy Advance was confirmed for Japan, but is missing from the U.S. announcement. Sadly, no release window has been provided, but I would guess this summer.
That brings us to possibly the most exciting of the announcements. Konami showed off Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Links Presents SOLID VISION EXPERIMENT which is essentially Duel Links in VR and I am very excited at this prospect. This might be the closest we get to the hologram games that duelists have dreamed of from the beginning. I’ve been struggling to justify getting VR, but being able to play Yu-Gi-Oh! in VR would probably be a huge push. Sadly, there’s not much more information regarding this VR project, but hopefully by the end of the year we’ll hear more.
