Because of our yesterday’s … escapade, I had HomeBase preparing for the first set of Dhampir students.

Originally, I wanted to bring them in in three batches of about 120 dhampirs each, but Lua quickly shot me down, saying that it might be too many. So instead we’d split them into at least for batches, first would be just under 50 dhampirs and if that goes well, the second one will be a bit larger and so on.

Also, I wanted to bring entire villages at one time, because I just thought it would be the most efficient, but Lua also said that it would be a bad idea. The Dhampir villages are still a source of blood lilies, which are required … well almost required, for most healing potions.

Yes, you can substitute them with other herbs, but blood lilies are the only herbs that can be easily grown. 

Sure HomeBase and other specialized facilities can grow healing herbs, but most of the time, they are gotten from dungeons by exchanging points for them.

And blood lilies don’t need that. They just need blood and Blood Magic. That is much easier than making a dedicated facility that has a high mana environment and other environmental controls.

I left the selection of who to bring and from what villages to Lua, because honestly, I just didn’t care enough. Because of that, Lua left for a second visit to a few villages. She was going to ask the villagers for their opinions and all of that.

I instead began looking at what I could do with Rainbow Life and Rainbow Veil.

Spoiler

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I got both yesterday and both of them are really powerful in their own ways, so I wanted to see if I could make some equipment based on them.

Rainbow Veil would go best with a weapon of some kind, and it didn’t take long for me to think of Unika and her arrows. Sure it would be a massive waste of cards, but I could install Rainbow Veil into each arrow and make what would essentially be skill sealing arrows.

I could probably do the same with Skill Drain as well, but I think Rainbow Veil might be better. Rainbow Veil is an Equip Spell, not a Continuous Trap, and it is single target, whereas Skill Drain affects everything. Rainbow Veil is also a lot more temporary.

For Rainbow Life, I need to make something that can either break or lose a ‘counter’ or something like that every time the effect activates. With the original trap, that resource is of course a card, but I can likely change that out for something else.

My first idea was mana. Changing ‘discard 1 card’ to ‘pay 1000 mana’ shouldn’t be too difficult and indeed it wasn’t. Then I just combined that with a magic stone that could pull mana from HomeBase’s mana pool and we were golden. Or I can make an alternative design which uses a regular magic stone instead, which the user will have to fill manually. That way, I can potentially sell it without giving people magic stones that pull mana from HomeBase.

The only problem is that the device ended up being a bit too large for my tastes. It wasn’t something you could wear on your person, but I’ll work on it more in the future.

Besides, I can just pass my design for Tahlia to take a look at. She will then show it to Laura and Fantasia, and Fantasia will likely show it to my monsters and in the end, my mediocre prototype will turn into something much better.

But that is for another day. Because I’ve been having a lot of fun opening packs lately and I plan on continuing it.

For today’s packs, I decided to go with the last packs for both Strike of Neos and Force of the Breaker before I surrender those sets to Laura’s onslaught of infinite Pack tokens for full completion.

There aren’t all that many cards I lack from those sets, but there are a few. As long as I can even get one of them … well one from each set, I’ll be happy.

Starting off with Strike of Neos. And let me just recap the results here to make it quicker.

So yeah. I got Aegis of Gaia and Elemental HERO Glow Neos as new cards. Everything else is a repeat.

Aegis of Gaia has a powerful healing effect, giving 3000 HP when activated. The only problem is, it inflicts 3000 damage when removed from the field. Now that doesn’t mean that it is useless, as I can combine it with something that will negate the damage, turning Aegis of Gaia into the biggest non-combat related healing card I have access to. 

And Glow Neos is a Neos fusion. It isn’t amazing, but it isn’t bad either. Maybe I’ll use it, maybe I won’t.

I guess I also got an Ultimate Rare Ancient Rules, but I already had the Rare variant, so for in terms of using the card, it isn’t new, but for my Collection, it is. Sadly it still is useless to me as I already play by the ancient rules.

Now, let’s do the same with Force of the Breaker. Ten packs, quick open.

… okay. This one is definitely worse than the previous one. Only one SR. Sure I didn’t have Tri-Blaze Accelerator, so I’m happy I got one, but from ten packs, I kind of expected two higher rarity cards.

Let’s do another ten because this quick opening method doesn’t take too much time, and I want more cards.

Okay. That is more like it. … just a shame I got two Captain Gold. I already got a few because they are in the Duelist Pack 6: Jaden Yuki 3, but those two are the first I got from this set. 

Radiant Mirror Force on the other hand is completely new. Didn’t have one yet, so I’ll gladly take one. Sure it is just worse Mirror Force, but new card is new card. Maybe I can give people Radiant Mirror Force instead of the regular one. Not to people that work for me, but to others I feel like giving a Mirror Force to.

And since that took like … not all that long, let’s do ten packs of Tactical Evolution the regular way, just to cap things off.

Well, Strike Slash is new. Sadly it isn’t all that good, because of how specific it is. … but on the other hand, like with Rainbow Veil, I can probably make arrows that have Strike Slash installed in them to make super arrows.

Next pack.

Repeat moment. Already have all of these. So let’s just go to the next pack.

Oh? Oh? Oh? Gift Card? That is so good! Here I was hyping up Aegis of Gaia, but Pack Opener is like: ‘Aegis of Gaia don’t have nothing on Gift Card.’ 

Sure I can’t heal myself with Gift Card, unless I have someone else to activate it, but most of the time, it isn’t myself that I’m worried about. And being able to heal anyone for 3k HP is great.

Oh and Phantom Dragonray Bronto is also new. But it is just a Gemini with an effect to raise its attack to 2300, but at the cost of turning itself into defense mode after attacking. So in short, it is a way worse Goblin Attack Force.

Next pack.

Now, I know what you might think. You might think Summoner’s Art is just as useless as Ancient Rules, but it really isn’t. Remember that ‘adding to hand’ means ‘adding to Collection’, so I can just get new cards with Summoner's Art. Sure it is limited to normal monsters, but that is still good. I can get unlimited Blue-Eyes White Dragons.

And Crystal Seer is also new, with an effect to ‘pre-see’ the next two packs I’d open, and allowing me to choose with one I want to keep. It is alright, but since I have unlimited pack tokens, it really isn’t worth it.

Next pack.

Okay. Nothing new here. Next pack.

Luckily this pack has two new cards. Snake Rain is … fine, I suppose. Kind of unneeded, as I can just send cards to the GY whenever I want for free, but maybe I can actually use it to rain snakes down on peoples’ heads. Then I’ll just say: ‘It's just a prank bro.’ when they get mad.

And Gemini Summoner is … not all that good. Gemini monsters already suck and this mediocre Summoner does not save them. Like really. Why is it limited to the end phase?

It already has a ‘Once per turn’, so let its effect be used during the main phase. At least then it would be decent. 

But let’s be honest here, since its effect only works with Gemini monsters and you have to pay 500 life points, it should be during your main phase and unlimited number of times. Sure someone would come up with an FTK involving the card, but if you can somehow FTK with Gemini monsters, you deserve to win on the first turn.

Next pack.

Got a second Crystal Seer, but that isn’t new and neither is anything else in this pack. 

Next.

Again, I already have Neos Alius. But you know what I didn’t yet have? Phantom Cricket.

Sure it isn’t all that good, but it is new and I have it. Besides, you never know when you need to have a tiny cricket monster sneak into somewhere.

… also, while I haven’t yet tested it, I’m decently sure I can use Beast Union with my monsters. So in theory, I could ‘possess’ Phantom Cricket, sneak into somewhere and then just undo the union to pop out.

But that is something to test later. Next pack.

Nothing new here. Last pack.

Well, Thousand-Eyes Jellyfish is new, but it is kind of bad. The summoning condition is too specific, and while the effect is decent, you can get access to it easier through other cards.

… but I didn’t really get any of the ‘big impact’ cards I wanted like Vennominon, Vennominaga or Rainbow Dragon, so how about 10 more packs, but this time in the ‘speedrun’ format. 

Actually, don’t answer that, as when you do, it will be too late, because I’m doing it.

Well, Hunter Dragon, Damage = Reptile and Common Charity are all new. They aren’t all that good, but they aren’t that bad either. Just alright.

I suppose something worth mentioning is the fact that Hunter Dragon is the best equip for Cyberdarks. The regular ones. The fusion has better targets, so having it for that is good.

Again, just a shame I didn’t really get any of the high impact cards, but maybe next time.

nro_8

Okay, I need feedback on the ‘speedrun openings’. What do you think of them? Are they awful? Should I never use them again? Should I use them more? Should I have more than ten packs per ‘speedrun’?

They are a lot easier for me (they take less time), so I can definitely have more of them, if you guys like them.