Episode 1

Episode 1 (エピソード1) is the 10th series of Duel Masters card sets. It can be distinguished by the symbol.

List of Sets
It is comprised of sets released between June 25th, 2011 and June 23rd, 2012.


 * DMR-01 Episode 1: First Contact
 * DMR-02 Episode 1: Dark Side
 * DMR-03 Episode 1: Gaial Victory
 * DMR-04 Episode 1: Rising Hope
 * DMD-01 Start Dash Deck: Fire & Nature
 * DMD-02 Start Dash Deck: Water & Darkness
 * DMD-03 Strong Metal Deck: Explosive Dash
 * DMD-04 Strong Metal Deck: Strongest National Sport
 * DMX-01 King of Duel Road: Strong 7
 * DMX-02 Deck Builder DX: Hunter Edition
 * DMX-03 Deck Builder DX: Alien Edition
 * DMX-04 Full Foil Pack: Revival Hero - The Hunter
 * DMX-05 Full Foil Pack: Revival Hero - The Alien
 * DMX-06 Battle Royale! Heroes Victory Booster: Burning Gutsy Epic Battle
 * DMX-07 Battle Royale! Heroes Victory Booster: Roar of the Wild Battle

It also features promotional cards from Year 10.

Timeline
The battle between the Alien and Hunter races continue, until they reconcile and join forces against the new, mysterious Unknown creatures.

Details
Psychic Creatures and Hyperspatial Spells continued to appear after the "Awakening Saga". They started to feature a new ability, Psychic Link which allows 2 or 3 specific Psychic Creatures to link together and flip to a Psychic Super Creature.

As well as featuring Psychic Creatures with a large diversity of effects, it also featured strong support for a Water / Fire / Nature deck-type, focusing on Cosmo Cebu Lambda, the Super Electromagnetic.

A new card frame was introduced in DMR-01, after being previewed in the new cards printed in DMX-01, and notably featured civilization symbols over cards' mana value symbol.

Following the Visual Cards from the last block, Mode Change Cards were introduced and continued to feature additional artwork that passes through the cardframe.

A DASH Golden List was created that limits certain cards from being reprinted until June 2013, to keep the single-card sale of cardshop's strong.

Cards with a distinctive curry bread smell Katsuta Kirifuda, Curry Bread Boy and Katsuta Kirifuda, Curry Bread Master were released as promotional cards, as well as Metal Psychic Creatures in the Strong Metal DMD series of DMD-03 and DMD-04.

Old races such as Sea Hacker and Brain Jacker started to reappear.

DMR-01 Stage
The main centerpiece of DMR-01 was Gaial Kaiser. With its strong and aggressive synergy with Hyperspatial Shooting Hole, it could easily be compared to the previous marquee card Genji Double Cross, Blastdragon except it features a cheaper cost and an additional Hunter-summoning effect. It was featured in many Aggro decks involving Hyperspatial Spells as well as Mad Romanoff beatdown decks.

Also, the newly introduced Cyber N World was a key-card of decks involving Emperor Chirico and Cyber G Hogan. With the help of Powerful Beam, decks using the three civilization of Water, Fire and Nature were boosted.

With the Hall of Fame combo-ban restriction on Hyperspatial Vice Hole and Diabolos Zeta, Temporal Ruler, the Hyperspatial control decks using Water, Light and Darkness began to fall slightly. Aquan Jr.'s Delivery was used as a replacement for an advantage engine, but was still weakened.

Hyperspatial control decks using Light, Darkness and Nature were developed as well as Water, Darkness and Nature.

Variety of deck types in tournament settings were increased due to the increased focus on Psychic Creatures.

DMR-02 Stage
With the appearance of Eternal Meteor Kaiser, decks involving Emperor Chirico, Romanesk, the Dragon Wizard, Crest of Mother began to rise.

The addition of Volg Thunder and Zabi Mira, the Reviving Shaman lead to a new deck-out decktype. It also lead to a new Water, Light and Nature hyperspatial beatdown deck utilizing Hyperspatial White Blue Hole and Hyperspatial Green White Hole to lead with Gaga Packun, Io Enforcer. It then ran cards such as Chakra, Temporal Thunder Dragon and Untouchable, Temporal Hero to control the opponent.

The release of DMX-02 Deck Builder DX: Hunter Edition and DMX-03 Deck Builder DX: Alien Edition lead to an increase of Hunter and Alien decks. Cards such as Red ABYTHEN Kaiser and Crazy Carnival! Saint Chan-Merrie were released, as well as a new powerful Hunter version of the Bombazar, Dragon of Destiny card, Bolbalzak Ex.

At this time, some tournament formats involved decks only using cards from the Episode 1 environment. In tournaments, Fire/Nature rush, Volg Thunder deck-out and Crazy Carnival! Saint Chan-Merrie decks appeared, but decks utilizing mana acceleration, Cyber N World and Bolbalzak Ex were the top competition.

Darkness GUY, Zero Romanoff and Miracle Re Born were reminiscent of older "Romanoff Reborn" decks, but due to the use of rampant Cyber N World decks and its effect to shuffle the graveyard back into decks, there was not much activity by these decks.

DMR-03 Stage
With the release of Cosmo Cebu Lambda, the Super Electromagnetic and Intense Vacuuming Twist, the Water, Fire and Nature Aggro decks got a further boost, rising to the top of the competitive scene. However, at the same time decks using Emperor Chirico and Mad Romanoff, the Wicked God were still main tournament contenders.

After the Hall of Fame banning of Emperor Chirico, Mad Romanoff, the Wicked God and Crest of Mother as well as the restriction of Colorful Dance the "Chirico NEX" decktype was broken, as well as Hyperspatial Beatdown decks using the Fire civilization, and decks involving the graveyard.

When Chirico was banned, Cosmo Cebu Lambda, the Super Electromagnetic contained to be featured in more decks together with Bolbalzak Ex. These decks involved mana increasing creatures such as Poisonous Mushroom, Yattar Wan, Adventuring Fox and Dreaming Moon Knife, as well as using Evolution Totem and regaining lost cards with Cosmo Cebu maintaining mana and hand advantage.

DMX-06 Battle Royale! Heroes Victory Booster: Burning Gutsy Epic Battle released a new Psychic Creature, Jin, the Ogre Blade ~Crimson Rage~ which created a new combo deck titled Crimson Sorge. Involving Codename Sorge, Volg Thunder and the promotional card Game On! Kirifuda Family! a deck-out combo was formed and quickly raised to popularity.

With a rulings change to the timing of card effects and creature destruction, the Crimson Sorge deck-type was further strengthened by allowing it to only need 1 copy of Volg Thunder in its hyperspatial zone, rather then 4, allowing the deck to have more variety and options to summon.

At the same time, new Hyperspatial control decks were forming involving Aqua Attack (BAGOOON Panzer) and Berlin, Bell Gravekeeper. Water and Darkness rush decks that also utilizing anti-spell cards and aggro themed decks such as Fuuma Gorgonshack and Time Tripper, Shadow of Stagnation also arose in popularity to surprise the opponent.

DMR-04 Stage
Multicolored psychic creatures that appeared were the biggest highlight of the set. All 3 parts of the Psychic Super Creature of Gaial Ore Dragon, the Vainglory were used due to their versatility. Due to this, both beatdown and control decks were given a wide range of effects to use.

Having to deal with fast hyperspatial decks was a major part of the metagame, with Come On Pippi and Geo Crashing Miranda, the Dimensional Force were used together with Faerie Gift to bring out Victorious Meteor Kaiser.

軽量炸裂サイクル等の小型クリーチャーを何度も使いまわすことで新しいエンジンの道を開いた《激天下！シャチホコ・カイザー》等、更に超次元中心の環境を後押しした.

On the hand, No Questions! Ogre-maru Boy and Mr. Aqua were used to combat them. Codename Sherlock was used in decks with The Door of Miracle and Mystery and Savage Earth as well.

Overall, there has been an enhanced variety of decks introduced in Episode 1, with Miranda Gift, Crimson Sorge, N EX and Lambda beat all leading the metagame. Many of these decks used ways to amass large amounts of mana, further boosting themselves with Seventh Tower, summoning creatures from there mana zone with Goemonkey! Snake-Handed Boss and using Cyber N World to replenish their hand. Father Earth was used as a cheap and powerful card answer to these powerful creatures, replacing them with a weaker support creature from their opponent's mana zone. In additional, with many decks stacked with spells and multiple 4 copies of the same card, The Grave of Angels and Demons was used to destroy each copy of a card in play. With a full control of the battle zone, a Volg Thunder deckout deck was able to take advantage and complete its deckout combo.

Competitive Decks

 * Crimson Sorge
 * Volg Thunder Deckout
 * N EX
 * Chirico NEX
 * Lambda Beat
 * Hyperspatial control
 * Miranda Gift

Important Cards

 * Bolbalzak Ex
 * Cosmo Cebu Lambda, the Super Electromagnetic
 * Cyber N World
 * Eternal Meteor Kaiser
 * Hyperspatial Spells
 * Faerie
 * Emperor / Vice
 * Bolshack / Shooting
 * Faerie Life / Jasmine, Mist Faerie
 * Gaial Kaiser
 * Intense Vacuuming Twist
 * Volg Thunder