Battle Pack 2: War of the Giants is now out, bringing Sealed Pack Play back to the forefront of Dueling! “What is Sealed Pack Play?” you ask? It’s simple: You and your friends each get some Battle Packs and open them up. You build Decks out of the cards you just got and Duel! Sealed Pack Play is very different from regular Advanced Format Dueling because you’ll be playing with a lot of cards you might never even have heard of before! Here are four cards you definitely need to watch out for when you start Dueling with War of the Giants.

Truckroid

Though the monster card Truckroid passed through town without much fanfare when it was first released in Gladiator’s Assault, it’s now one of the most terrifying Level 4 monsters in all of Battle Pack 2! Truck your opponents by scoring just one win in battle with Truckroid, and it'll propel it’s ATK to levels normally reserved for Level 7 and higher monsters. By destroying an opposing monster with Truckroid and then equipping it once it lands in the Graveyard, you'll make a monster your foe must absolutely destroy at all costs!

Labyrinth of Nightmare

Named after one of the earliest booster packs, Labyrinth of Nightmare is exactly as its name implies: an absolute nightmare for your opponents! While Labyrinth of Nightmare’s in play, each player’s monsters will shift battle positions at the end of their turn. You can get around Labyrinth’s effect by not attacking and instead shifting your monsters to Defense Position on your own, so they’ll switch back to Attack Position at the end of the turn. But watch out! If you never attack, you’ll never win!

Spacegate

Sealed Pack Duels tend to go the distance, lasting many turns. Sometimes, you’ll be burying your opponent and all of their smaller monsters with attacks from your own smaller monsters. But if you see Spacegate on their side of the field, watch out! It gains a Gate Counter each time one of your monsters attacks or is attacked, and your opponent will be able to cash them in to Special Summon a monster from their hand whose Level is less than or equal to the number of Gate Counters!

Reverse Trap

ATK pumps and debuffs are an important part of Sealed Pack Play, and Reverse Trap turns them on their head! Nothing hurts more than having your super-powered 3050 ATK Maha Vailo reduced to 50 ATK by Reverse Trap. It doesn’t affect multiplication or division of ATK or DEF, so it can’t be used to block cards like Mirror Wall or Shrink. Also, it doesn’t actually change the ATK or DEF of anything. it just rewrites what other cards did. So if you wait to play your ATK pump till the Damage Step, you can’t be countered by Reverse Trap… during that battle anyway. 

There’s a lot more to learn about Sealed Pack Play, and in the coming weeks we’ll have Sealed Pack tips and combos you can use dominate your friends! In the meantime, Battle Pack 2: War of Giants is available now!

©1996 Kazuki Takahashi
©2011 NAS • TV TOKYO