The first Yu-Gi-Oh! set that kicks off a new year is always interesting in particular when it is a Collector's Rare set as the one Konami released at the end of January 2024. As the name suggests, these sets are mostly designed with collectors in mind and they include a high rarity version of some sought after cards.
The first Yu-Gi-Oh! set that kicks off a new year is always interesting in particular when it is a Collector's Rare set as the one Konami released at the end of January 2024. As the name suggests, these sets are mostly designed with collectors in mind and they include a high rarity version of some sought after cards. As the name of the set suggests, the stars of the show are the 16 Rare and Ultra-Rare cards that can be found also as “Collector' s Rare” with their peculiar rainbow-coloured reflective pattern. Unfortunately, the pull rates of this type of sets have been so bad in the past that you had to open two or three Booster boxes for a chance to get at least one Collector' s Rare.
Maze of Millennia, however, is very different from all previous Collector's Rare sets for two main reasons. First, Konami decided to address the main stress point of previous sets and increased the pull rates of the Ultra Rares so that players are guaranteed to find four of them in each Booster box. Although the odds to get a Collector's Rare card have not changed, getting four Ultra Rares cards out of a box is really good, especially considering that some of the cards from Maze of Millennia are really valuable. As you may imagine, the second best aspect of the first set of 2024 is indeed Maze of Millennia card list.
Yu-Gi-Oh! Maze of Millennia is in fact a set filled with great reprints and with some very meaningful chase cards. In addition, this set includes some of the cards seen in the TV series that were never brought to the card game including Pegasus’ Eye of Illusion, Bonfire and Clorless, Chaos King of Dark World. Bringing these cards into the TGC was actually not an easy feat considering that their effect in the series was not always aligned with the rules of the game but Konami did an amazing job in ensuring these cards can actually be played. The set also includes a lot of reprints and new cards to provide support to many Archetypes including “Flame Swordsman” and “Earthbound” that are the two main highlights from the set.
If this would not have been already enough to make Maze of Millennia a really good set, we should also remind that the 84 cards of the set also includes one Quarter-Century Secret Rare card, the effect Synchro Monster “Junk Warrior”. This card have the foil treatment over the entire card surface plus a watermark of the "Yu-Gi-Oh! Card Game 25th Quarter Century" logo designed specifically to celebrate the 25th Anniversary of Yu-Gi-Oh! The Trading Card Game. As such, we will not likely expect to see this rarity reprinted once the celebrations are over thus if you are a collector, you probably want to get as many of these cards as possible into your collection while they are available.
Right out of the Pack: What Maze of Millennia set looks like
Maze of Millennia card list includes 1 Quarter Century Secret Rare, 11 Ultra Rare, 16 Super Rare and 57 Rare for a total of 85 cards. 45 out of 85 are reprints from older sets while 39 cards are brand new cards for the TGC (10 World premieres and 29 OCG imports). The remaining card is the new artwork Junk Warrior stamped as Quarter Century Secret Rare.
Booster boxes will include as usual 24 packs while each Booster Pack will feature 6 Rare cards plus 1 Foil card of a higher rarity meaning you should be able to pull 2 or 3 copies of all the Rares from the set by opening just a box.
In terms of gameplay, this set will provide new support to a number of Archetypes including Flame Swordsman, Earthbound, Illusion, Dinosaur, Arcana Force and Armored plus some good reprints for Supreme King, Altergeist, Majespecter and Rescue-ACE. Among these, Flame Swordsman and Earthbound are definitely the most interesting new additional to the TGC.
New Flame Swordsman Archetype
Starting from one of Joey Wheeler's iconic cards, Maze of Millennia is the first set to actually include game cards that are directly related to the "Flame Swordsman" (previously we only had "Dark Flare Knight" released in Power of the Guardian/Dark Revelation Volume 1). This new archetype is based on Fire Warriors and uses the effect of Salamandra to obtain the advantage on the opponent monsters during the battle phase. The aim is to add equipment cards and effects on your main Fusion Monsters to deal massive damage to the opponent and potentially OTK.
A good opening will start with “Fighting Flame Swordsman”, a Lv4 Effect Monster, that allows the player to search for a spell or trap card once summoned. The continuous Spell card “Flame Swordsrealm” is your ideal target and a must for the deck as it prevents the opponent from activating cards or effects when any FIRE Warrior monster is Normal Summoned AND it allows to summon “Ultimate Flame Swordsman” from the extra deck by sending Fighting Flame Swordsman to the Graveyard. Moreover, when Fighting Flame Swordsman goes to the GY players can also send another monster to the graveyard from the deck or extra deck with the aim to equip it back to their Fusion Monster. Best option in this case is to send to the GY the fusion monster “Fighting Flame Dragon” that can be equipped to Ultimate Flame Swordsman to increase its attack by 700 allowing him to attack twice per turn with 3500 ATK.
The quick-play Spell card Fighting Flame Sword the Normal Trap-card Flame Swordsdance will then offer some protection to your Warriors by negating effect or attacks that target them. Flame Swordsdance also allows to bring out your Fusion Monsters during the opponent turn as a reaction to any Monster being special summoned while changing one of their monster to face-down defensive position. Most important, this archetype can synergize well with a lot of other tech cards that can help Flame Swordsman to work more consistently.
New Earthbound Cards
Earthbound is an Archetype of Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's and ARC-V and it includes high-level DARK monsters of various Types. All these high-Level monsters are extremely powerful but they haven't seen consistent play so far due to the difficulty of summoning them and the need to control a Field Spell card to prevent them from auto-destructing themselves. The new Earthbound Prisoner and Earthbound Servant cards released in Maze of Millennia address these issues making the Archetype much more interesting to play.
Having a Field Spell card in play is still key for this Archetype but the newly released “Earthbound Prison” can be a great option to start with as it allows to Normal Summon one more Earthbound Monster per turn. The next card you would like to see in your hand is then the Lv5 Earthbound Prisoner Stone Sweeper that can be special summoned to find Earthbound Prisoner Line Walker or Earthbound Prisoner Ground Keeper. Walker will allow the player to fish for the new “Harmonic Syncro Fusion” Spell Card that can bring out not just one but two Synchro Fusion Monsters using the same materials. Ground Keeper, on the other hand, can be used to bring out “Earthbound Servant Geo Gremlin”, a Lv6 monster able to kick-off further Fusion Summons as a quick effect during the Battle Phase.
In both cases, the main aim of the engine of this Deck is to bring out “Earthbound Servant Geo Grasha” by using 1 "Earthbound" Fusion Monster and 1 "Earthbound" Synchro Monster. This new Lv10 Boss Monster has the ability to change ATK/DEF of any monster it battles to zero during damage step. Together with a chance to deal 3000 damage to your opponent's life points, if Grasha destroys a card in Battle, it can also destroys all opponent's controlled cards making very difficult for any deck to bounce back. Considering there is also more Earthbound support in “Phantom Nightmare” set, I am pretty interested to see if Earthbound can become a nice archetype to play.
What's more? Nostalgia cards with potential
Together with some new support and a few interesting new Archetypes, Maze of Millennia also includes a lot of cards that we only have seen played in the TV series. If you look carefully, among them you can find “Bonfire!” (first seen in Yu-Gi-Oh GX), a normal Spell Card that in the TGC allows to add any Lv4 or lower Pyro Monster from the Deck to the player hand and that can be pretty handy in a number of decks.
If you are not a fan of the light, you can alternatively look for “Clorless, Chaos King of Dark World”, a terrifying Lv12 Fusion monster that can destroy all your opponent's cards when summoned while gaining ATK/DEF equal to the number of materials used for its Summon x 1000. Clorless is definitely a good card and it can surely find a spot into any Dark World deck considering it can improve the strengths of this Archetype.
Maze of Millennia also includes the super iconic “Eye of Illusion” that we saw used by Pegasus in one of the very first episodes of the series. In the TGC, Eye of Illusion, is a quick-Play Spell card that can be used only if the player controls an Illusion or Spellcaster monster. Once played, this cards purpose is to protect your monsters from being destroyed in battle by triggering different effects including taking control of one of your opponent monster and re-directing the attack to it. Overall, the card looks quite balance and can be a nice little addition to any Spellcaster Deck, in particular if you are looking to find additional ways of protecting your monsters.
Final thoughts: how to navigate the Maze?
The main aim of Maze of Millennia is obviously to bring classic anime cards to the actual Trading Card Game and I think it is quite interesting Konami decided to do so in a collector's set. Of course, when you bring anime favourites cards with a lot of nostalgia into the modern game, you can expect they will be fun to play but not necessarily valuable for the competitive gameplay. This is clearly true for Joey’s Flame Swordsman archetype as well as number of other cards in this set although it is also typical in every new set of this hobby, not just in Maze of Millennia.
It goes without saying that there will always be just a few cards with high competitive/collectible value in each new set. In Maze of Millennia, for example, we can count in this category Bonfire, Transaction Rollback, Triple Tactics Thrust, Harmonic Synchro Fusion and Jet Synchron. The prices of these cards reflect clearly this situation with Bonfire - Collectors Rare trending over £80 and Jet Synchron - Collectors Rare) just below £30 at the time of writing. Considering the two Ultra Rare Bonfire and Triple Tactics Thrust are worth around £40, opening at least a Booster Box of Maze of Millennia would likely be worth it for any collectors considering also the increased pull rates we discussed at the beginning. Personally, I think opening a Booster box would be a good approach also for players considering the number of interesting cards and techs that can be pulled from the set. Boxes are also very appealing considering they are also on sale on Magic Madhouse at the moment....
Most importantly, Yu-Gi-Oh!’s Maze of Millennia is a set that brings to the game cards we have only seen 25 years ago in the anime and, as such, it can prove a lot of fun to collect! If you want to know more about the cards you can get from this set, you can find a detailed review of some of THE best cards of Maze of Millennia in “Top Picks from Yu-Gi-Oh! Maze of Millennia: Cards Everyone Wants”
