Battle Pack: Epic Dawn Set Review

Battle Pack: Epic Dawn is a special pack brings together all the best cards through four generations of Yugioh challenging players to make a sealed deck from their booster pulls.

Set Name: Battle Pack: Epic Dawn

Format:  Sealed Pack Format

Game: Yugioh

Release Date: May 28, 2012

What is this set about?

Battle Pack: Epic Dawn (Epic Dawn for short) is a 200+ card set with a fairly competitive card pool. All cards in this set are reprints of the most popular cards played which is good value already. Epic Dawn is designed in a way that all cards you pull from the pack are ready playable so expect some generic effects. There will be no effects that directly support specific archetypes. In that sense, Epic Dawn is comparable to Magic the Gathering’s Core Sets. The point of this is to encourage sealed pack play which pushes the focus to flexible deck construction and dueling skills. Each pack only contains 5 cards- one of which is rare and one random card comes in starfoil. Players would need at least 10 packs to obtain a decent card pool to make a deck from.

Highlights

There are many good cards I am unable to list but I’ve narrowed down to the top 10 cards in my opinion:

Tour Guide From the Underworld – This is the prime card of late 5D’s and early Zexal era. This card is still in high demand because of its easy XYZ summoning.

Caius the Shadow Monarch – Arguably the best Monarch of the bunch. Ever since the Dark Emperor Structure Deck went out of print, obtaining this card is extremely difficult and costly. Thankfully this reprint gives players an affordable option.

Morphing Jar – The reprint of a classic Yugioh monster. Morphing Jar remains competitive even today.

Fiendish Chain – A hyped card that once went for $60 back in the 5D’s era. It is a powerful trap card now made available as a common.

Pot of Duality – The once super expensive ‘staple’ card is reprinted once again for players. This is basically the Pot of Greed of advanced format.

Gem-Knight Pearl – This is actually the only card that is not a reprint so it is a new card. However it did appear in duel terminals. 2600 ATK for a rank 4 vanilla XYZ monster is not bad to have around.

Skill Drain – A staple of anti-meta decks. Skill Drain is devastating against pretty much any decks including your own in this particular sealed pack format.

Dark Magician of Chaos – This card is banned but still very valuable in traditional format. In a set like this, DMoC would be the best “2-tribute” monster to include.

Forbidden Lance – A super flexible card that can weaken your opponent’s attacker or protect your own monsters from effects. It makes a good side deck for any situations.

Blackwing – Zephyros the Elite – One of the last Blackwings to be printed and it boasts a powerful effect of self-bouncing and reviving. Konami had to modify its effect to prevent any infinite loops.

Is this set worth my time?

Dedicated advanced format players would stay away from this set because certain banned cards are reprinted and these players would’ve already possess the staple cards for advanced format. However, most other players will want this set a lot. Players wanting to start their own XYZ monster collection may do so easily with this set as well.

Strengths: This set is packed full of good cards for everyone. There are hard to find cards, valuable cards, and deck staples which are too many to name. Forbidden cards are available for players who want old favourites like Raigeki to have a second go in the modern dueling field. Sealed pack format is a fun way to have a unique duel every time.

Weaknesses: Epic Dawn comes awfully close to being that perfect dream pack but several factors made it fall short of that.

• First off, 220 cards is too much for a Yugioh set. That number is more into the Magic territory.
• Next, there are weaker common cards to balance this set but this is expected.
• I am perplexed at the fact that Konami left out Synchro monsters in set even though there are tuner monsters included.
• It is debatable whether certain cards should be included or not. I find several cards actually being unplayable in this format due to lack of support.
• The inclusion of forbidden cards did not affect the balance of this format in any significant way. However it does interfere with the whole purpose of the sealed format which places an emphasis on skills rather than what you possess.
• Looking from an angle, starfoil cards are flashy with their semi-transparent star design glitter but it does little compare to the usual foil cards.

Rating: Despite its shortcomings, Epic Dawn is still an amazing reprint set beating out the Gold Series in my opinion. It may be costly, but I recommend investing in this set in bulk because it is easy to obtain valuable playable cards. You are guaranteed a rare each pack and the starfoil card itself may be a rare as well. This isn’t just for building a sealed deck but it is a perfect opportunity to obtain cards you thought you never dreamed of owning before (Morphing Jar in my case).

If Konami really wants this sealed format to work, they have to cut down on the set size, eliminate the banned and hard to play cards, and add more utility staples. If all goes well, there will definitely be a Battle Pack 2.

Thanks for reading. Feel free to leave a comment if you agree or disagree with something in my review. What kind of deck did you end up building with your packs? (or given the card pool here, what would you have built?) Find out my  build after cracking open 15 boosters on the next page.