Divine Evolution Saga

Divine Evolution Saga (神化編) is the the 8th series of Duel Masters card sets.

List of Sets
It is comprised of sets released between April 25th, 2009 and June 26, 2010.
 * DM-32 Evolution Saga
 * DM-33 Rising Dragon
 * DM-34 Cross Generation
 * DM-35 Neverending Saga
 * DMC-49 Force of Dragon
 * DMC-50 Perfect Angel
 * DMC-51 Force of Dragon Entry Pack
 * DMC-52 Perfect Angel Entry Pack
 * DMC-53 Legend Chronicle Shobu
 * DMC-54 Legend Chronicle Rival
 * DMC-55 CoroCoro Legend 7
 * DMC-56 The Samurai Legend
 * DMC-57 The God Kingdom
 * DMC-58 Mad Rock Chester

It also features promotional cards from Year 8.

Timeline
With the Gods beginning to grow evil, Ultimate Evolutions were released. The sworn enemies of White Knight and Reapers appeared, as well as NEX and Lupia creatures also arriving from the Fire Civilization.

War between the White Knights and Reapers escalates, with the introduction of their two "Kings", White Knight HEAVEN, Lord of Spirits and XENOM, the Reaper King. The gods, fearing these kings, created the King of the Gods to counter both the Light and Darkness.

Rising NEX, the Enlightened was awakened to be used against the Gods. The Origin race continued to be involved, supporting both God and the Ultimate Evolution creatures.

NEX convinced the White Knight and Reapers to come to a truce in order to stop the Gods from destroying the world using Heracles, Birther of Gods. The Romanoff forces arrived and aided NEX in fighting the Gods.

White Knight and Reaper managed to summon their trump creatures, Cobalt Ulpherion, the White Knight Lord of Spirits and Ballom Monarch, Lord of Dark Reapers. Evolution Creatures continued to rise and form the Ultimate Evolution MAX.

Original Heart, Ancient Blackmoon Fortress managed to create the Original Gods, led by Atom, the Divine Core. In order to fight these new creatures, they formed their own Ultimate Evolution MAX, Romanoff Kaiser NEX, the Super Enlightened. It eventually manages to overpower the Gods and win the war. With the magic of the White Knights, a last attempt to explode the Original Heart was stopped, finally securing peace for the world once again.

Details
Many effects based on Evolution were in these sets, leading to the Ultimate Evolution and Ultimate Evolution MAX abilities. High costing God Link creatures also featured throughout, leading to a series of cards with a High-risk but also High-return elements.

Cards in these sets often focused on higher power on creatures rather then using control.

Old races such as Fish and Living Dead re-appeared which were often thought to have been discounted and forgotten about by players.

Each Civilization had a race they focused on more than others. Light was Light Bringer, Water was the Cyber archetype, Darkness was Parasite Worm, Fire was Fire Bird and Nature using Dreammate.

Grave Evolution creatures were seen as very powerful due to not needing additional cards in your hand or battle zone to evolve from. The popularity of these cards continued though the sagas after their release.

More Heroes Cards were printed and featured more cards with Characters from the anime being printed on the artwork.

DM-32 Stage
The decks continued to follow a wide variety of decks in the metagame. Various Water Cyber Evolution Creatures appeared, such as Emperor Tina gave strength to the mono-Water Civilization decks.

With Death March, Reaper of Death and Worm Gowarski, Masked Insect the Darkness / Nature Grave Evolution rush decktype began to form causing multiple forms of rush decks to appear.

While DM-32 released Emperor Chirico and many new deck types based on it were created, it did not yet lead to a powerful decktype.

A rulings change involving the Shield Trigger interaction between Marshall Queen and Memories of the Planetary Dragon led to it being the main deck in the competitive scene for a long period of time.

DM-33 Stage
With Soulswap in the Hall of Fame and Crest of Mother restricted to 1, it led players to experiment with the newly released Sanctuary of the Mother. However, due to it requiring an evolution creature decks were made using King Alcadeias, Holy Gaia and Romanesk, the Dragon Wizard.

In these decks, Emperor Chirico and Amaterasu, Founder of the Blue Wolves created great compatibility by arranging strong creatures and "put in the battle zone effects".

The new Hall of Fame changes were declared on December 19. 2009. The restriction of King Alcadeias, Holy Gaia, Perfect Galaxy, Spirit of Immortality weakened the "Galaxy Control" deck. With the restriction of Inferno Sign and addition of Inferno Gate on the premium banlist also lead to a decline of "Reanimate" decks.

This caused the mono-water rush and Dolgazer based decks to lead again.

DM-34 Stage
With Bolshack Cross NEX released, the Chirico / Romanesk deck was enhanced. The additional Emperor Maribel to the Water rush decks caused problems for Dolgazer, due to bouncing back Kirino Giant and slowing them down.

Since decks involving Soul Advantage had shifted to Hand Destruction decks involving Jenny, the Dismantling Puppet, a rise of decks utilizing Baiken, Blue Dragon of the Hidden Blade and Shinobi creatures arose to counter it.

With Fire/Nature, Water and Grave Evolution rush decks no long apparent on the meta, the Hydro Hurricane deck gained popularity in the metagame.

DM-35 Stage
The national tournament Master Class shown that while Emperor Chirico decks were thought to win, instead 1st and 2nd place were taken by anti-meta control decks: Water/Darkness/Light and Light/Darkness/Nature respectively. This 1st deck used Belfegius, Emperor of Death and Svengali Crawler which caused a small lock on your opponents creatures.

May 15, 2010 announced additional changes to the Hall of Fame, completely banning King Alcadeias, Holy Gaia and stopping the King-Queen lock. Water decks also started to fall in usage With Paradise Aroma being limited to 1 copy.

This lead to Mad Romanoff and Graveyard decks to rise in the meta-game once again. However, in a later May tournament the first place was taken by a Bolmeteus Steel Dragon control deck, second place being a deck based on Fernando the 7th, Emperor of Mystic Light and the third and fourth place taken by Beginning Romanoff, Lord of the Demonic Eye decks.

Competitive Decks

 * Mono Water Rush / Beatdown (W)
 * Dolgazer / Shinobi (W/N)
 * Marshall Queen / Memories combo deck. (L/W)
 * Chirico Romanesk (L/W/F/N)
 * Chirico King Alcadeias lock (L/W/D)
 * Hydro Hurricane (L/W/D)
 * Heavy Death Metal (D/F)
 * Meta Control (L/W/D, L/D/N, L/W/D/N or L/W/D/F)
 * Mad Romanoff / Miraculous Meltdown (D/F)
 * Bolmeteus Control (L/W/F)
 * Sir Viginia / Inferno Gate (D/N)

Important Cards

 * Emperor Tina
 * Romanesk, the Dragon Wizard
 * Emperor Chirico
 * Amaterasu, Founder of the Blue Wolves
 * Crest of Mother
 * Perfect Galaxy, Spirit of Immortality
 * Dolgazer, Veteran of Hard Battle
 * Rose Castle
 * Submarine Fortress Lair
 * Lord Reis, Spirit of Wisdom