Phoenix Saga

Phoenix Saga 不死鳥編 (Fushichō Hen)
Next:	God Apex Saga
Previous:	Reincarnation Saga

Phoenix Saga is the 5th block of card sets in the Duel Masters trading card game.

List of Sets

It is comprised of sets released between June 24, 2006 and February 17th, 2007.

• DM-19 Spectacle Nova
• DM-20 The Ultimate Nova
• DM-21 History of Devil Nova
• DM-22 The Dragonic Nova
• DM-23 The End of the Universe

It also features promotional cards from Year 5.

Timeline

• Ten thousand years have passed since the Cross Gears were sealed away and the world, now labeled "Old World", is still gradually being swallowed by the Space Rift.
• With the appearance of the Five Phoenixes (Supernova Venus la Saint Mother, Supernova Mercury Gigablizzard, Supernova Pluto Deathbringer, Supernova Mars Disaster and Supernova Jupiter King Empire) the five civilizations promote an increase of wealth and military power to compete with the Phoenixes.
• The first to start the military expansion were the Great Mecha Kings, who sent some to the Central Continent to take it from the Dreammates. However, not knowing the power of said creatures lead to their downfall. Thus, the Great Mecha Kings gave up that area and sent their soldiers to other parts of the world for resources.
• The Great Mecha Kings turn their focus on the Tyranno Drake race and invade their home: the Crystal Tower, which is a source of tremendous energy.
• Both sides seek a resource to maintain their armies. The Drakes, lead by Dolzabard, Superior Dragonic Phoenix, attempt to defend their home against the machine army.
• Despite their might, the Great Mecha Kings became too much for the Tyranno Drakes and they were overwhelmed, losing many of their number. The spectators of this event, the Grand Devils, take note of this as the remaining Tyranno Drakes make their way to Skull Castle, home of the Grand Devils. Noting the similarities between the two races, a desperate Dolzabard proposes an alliance. Facing a crisis in the evolving technology, the Tyranno Drakes and the Grand Devils form an alliance.
• In order to counter the Great Mecha Kings, the Grand Devils attempt to preform the art of resurrection via the Inferno Gate, to bring back to life old races. Despite the art being incomplete, they manage to bring back ancient creatures such as Jumasol, Bloodcurdling Fuuma and Alcadeias, Lord of Spirits, who, due to this in-completion, mutated into Death Arcadia, Devil Saint.
• With this resurrection art, the joint army of the Grand Devils and the Tyranno Drakes manage to exact their revenge against their enemies, capturing the attention of the Phoenixes.
• Not able to leave the situation alone, the Phoenixes act, sending troops to invade the home of the Grand Devils. There, they discover Death Arcadia who they realize never existed 10 thousand years ago. Growing in strength, Death Arcadia proves to be a match for the Phoenixes.
• By the actions of the Dreammates, events begin to unravel. They uncovered that the tear of time and space at the entrance of The Universe Gate had enlarged.
• From the expanded rift, small "Comet" Phoenixes begin to emerge. While small, they are still powerful Phoenixes.
• The new Phoenixes proved to be formidable adversaries against the Grand Devils forces, so much so that the Grand Devil/Tyranno Drake Collaboration use the Hell Hands to force ancient races out of the Inferno Gate. Doing so they revive the champions of the ancient world: Dragons.
• Its revealed that the true aim of the use of the Inferno Gate was the revival of the Dragons, however doing so inadvertently created the Apollonia and Poseidia Dragons, Light and Water Dragons who have never existed in the ancient world.
• With the success of the resurrection of the dragons, the Tyranno Drakes and Grand Devils attempt to fuse themselves and the Dragons together to become a new race entirely. With the birth of the Phoenix/Tyranno Drake hybrid: Supernova Apollonus Dragerion The Grand Devils and Tyranno Drakes march forward to unleash their new creation against the Phoenixes.
• With each Civilization now having their own Dragons, the Five Civilizations collaborate on ways to defeat the Phoenixes. By increasing their Military prowess, the Civilizations wage war against the phoenixes, but despite that, the Phoenixes' strength is unwavering. Even so, they refused to give up.
• However the worst Phoenix finally made its appearance in the midst of the battle. The source of despair, Supernova Black Hole Thantos drained the life force from the Five Civilizations, not only making the battle one-sided in favor of the Phoenixes, but also driving the civilizations's allied forces into despair.
• When all hope seemed lost, the appearance of hope Supernova Bigbang Anastathis revived the lost hope felt among the allied forces. And so, the final battle between Hope and Despair finally commenced...
• As a result, the battle between them distorted Time and space. The two Phoenixes destroyed one-another, causing a bright light before disappearing. The remaining Phoenixes scattered themselves across the world to find the light. And with their disappearances, marked the end of this era...

Details

Emphasis on the link between races appeared with many evolution creatures appearing. The Phoenix race, a race based on summoning over multiple races of creatures feature, as well as the Meteorburn ability.

Abilities such as Sympathy (allowing cards to cost less for each of your creatures that have a certain race in the battle zone) and Dynamo (allowing creatures to add power and abilities to other Dynamo creatures).

"Reanimation" cards, cards that bring creatures back into play from your graveyard into the battle zone were released on Inferno Gate.

Competitive Environment

DM-19 and DM-20 Stage

Bolmeteus Sapphire Dragon continued to appear through-out DM-19.

DM-19 was the first set to introduce a "Reanimation" card into the game, bringing forth faster ways to accelerate the deck, as well as play expensive non-evolution creatures for less mana.

Cards such as Dandy Eggplant or Lost Charger were used to send Bolmeteus Sapphire Dragon in the owners graveyard, and then using Inferno Gate to bring it back into play. "Sapphire Fang" decks that were previously common using the mana acceleration from Fighter Dual Fang to play Bolmeteus Sapphire Dragon faster were seen less because of this new deck strategy.

However, single color haste decks such as Water or Fire were still strong and commonly used due to their cheap and efficient creatures. While many shared races between the civilizations were introduced during the Phoenix Saga, only the Grand Devil race managed to make a small appearance in the metagame, with a Water and Darkness beatdown deck.

Following from previous Light, Water and Darkness control decks, a deckout deck also using fire was used during this time.

At this point in the metagame, each deck was seen as fairly equal, with each having a fairly balanced chance each other.

While the officials promoted decks based around the core Hybrid Races of the Phoenix saga, none of the Hybrid Races had managed to make a major appearance on the metagame, aside of the Grand Devils who appeared with a Water and Darkness beatdown deck.

DM-21 Stage

During January 2007, Bolmeteus Sapphire Dragon was placed directly on the Premium Hall of Fame, banning it to 0 copies, as well as other deck-out based cards; Lost Charger, Hell Slash and Future Slash. The deckout type of decks would not be seen again until much later during the Episode 1 metagame.

With those cards removed from the metagame, while mono-red rush did not gain any additional cards to strengthen the deckout, they were unharmed by the banlist.

Decks such as Guardian Removal, Bajula's Fang and Dragon Mana Destruction appeared in place of the former decks using Bolmeteus Sapphire Dragon.

DM-22 and DM-23 Stage

DM-22 brought the powerful Dragon creatures of Spell Del Fin, Light Divine Dragon, Necrodragon Guljeneraid and Infinity Dragon each bringing strong additions to the line of Dragon cards. Decks involving Spell Del Fin and Fighter Dual Fang appeared, known as "Del Fin Fang" as well as decks based around Guljeneraid and combos involving his graveyard usage.

To counter the usage of mana destruction decks, the LWD control decks began to use Guardian creatures such as Terse Ruth, Lightboom Guardian who appeared in DM-23 to counteract this.

Competitive Decks

• Bolmeteus Sapphire Dragon
  • Sapphire Removal
  • Sapphire / Seventh Tower (F/N)
  • Sapphire / Dual Fang (F/N)
  • Sapphire / Eggplant (D/F/N)
  • Sapphire Mana Destruction (W/F/N)
• Fire Rush (F)
• Zamaru (W/D)
• Deckout (L/W/D/F)
• Light / Darkness Aquan (L/W/D)
• Grand Devil (D)
• Guardian Removal (L)
• Dragon Mana Destruction
• Necrodragon Guljeneraid Reanimation (D)
• Infinity Dragon / Guljeneraid / Dark Lupia (D/F)

Important Cards

• Bolmeteus Sapphire Dragon
• Inferno Gate
• Cloned Nightmare
• Dandy Eggplant
• Bajula's Soul
• Aquan

Trivia

• While he might have been retired during this period, all booster packs of this set show Shobu Kirifuda instead of Teru in which the latter plays the role of the main protagonist at this period.