Battle Spirits Saga: Expansion Set 01 (EX01)

Battle Spirits False Gods Are Coming…

But first Bandai has released Battle Spirits Saga Expansion set 1 to tied us over until the release at the end of the month. Now I really like Battle Spirit Saga and it’s very quickly becoming my favourite trading card game on the market right now however Elemental Spark unfortunately falls a little short of the mark. But I still think the game is great and the pre-release information concerning False Gods looks great, with every card having now been announced as well as the introduction of the new colour: Green.

So What Happened?

Elemental Spark is a bundle of 3 Dawn of History (set 1) packs and a bundle of 9 guaranteed promotional cards. The packs are great, but exist as their own standalone product, so how great of a selling point are these promotional cards? Well in my opinion they aren’t. Now don’t get me wrong, they are great cards, but none of them are cards I would only want one copy of in deck, which means buying at least 2, but more realistically 3 or 4 copies of Elemental Spark. I think these would be a lot better if Elemental Spark had released alongside Dawn of History, but many players will already have the cards from Dawn of History that they want making the three packs nice but just a foot note alongside what ends up being a quite expensive 9 cards for what they are.

But what do these 9 cards actually do? Are they the Battle Spirits Saga version of Magic the Gathering’s Power 9, the most infamous, never to be unbanned, cards in the game’s history? No.

4 of the new cards are 0-cost Spirits, one for each of the 4 pre-existing colours, with a level 1 effect of “This Spirit can’t attack” and a level 2 effect of “When Destroyed: Draw a Card” and they take 3 cores to get to level 2. At the end of the day, with 1000-2000 (level depending) you aren’t going to want them to be attacking. The point of these spirits is to be a 0-cost spirit that provides a reduction symbol of their colour, which does make them incredibly useful for climbing in a game, but only having a 1 copy of the colour(s) you want makes it very likely you’ll never see one in your hand, hence needing multiple copies.

The next 4 new cards are 2-cost, 1-reduction, Magic cards, again one for each of the 4 pre-existing colours. All 4 again have the same effect of “Main/Flash: Select one of your spirits. It gains 2000 BP during this turn. Draw a card if you have three or more [Magic Colour] symbols.” This again is a really nice effect, that again you want to maximise the chances of having it in you hand, needing multiple copies.

Lastly, we have Jewel Dragon Smagg, the ninth and final card. Although Red in colour, Jewel Dragon Smagg is the first and so far only card released to count as all 6 colours (even the unreleased Green and Blue). This card is a great resource recycler, especially if you summon it at level 2 or 3, even if it costs a flat 4 cores with no reduction and although you would definitely see benefits from doubling up on them in a deck, Jewel Dragon Smagg is the promotional card in Elemental Spark that is most usable in a deck with just the singular copy from one pack.

What Are You Saying? Is It A Bad Product?

Well, the simple answer is no. Elemental Spark is a great bundle of cards and has the added bonus of coming with 3 packs of cards meaning you are really getting 45 cards for your money, which is great. But I just spent this whole time saying what was bad about it! Yes I did, because 1 copy of Elemental Spark is bad, but just waiting to have 2 at once, or more, and suddenly it becomes a great consistency booster regardless of what colour or colours you play in your deck. As such I can’t recommend it enough as long as you have the money to get more than just one pack.

What’s Next For Battle Spirit Saga?

Over the past month or so Bandai have been slowly previewing all the new cards from set 2 as well as the upcoming Green starter deck. The biggest change coming to the game is the fact that “Tribal” decks will now, from the look of things, be valid deck options. “Tribal” is a term that became popular in Magic the Gathering circles for decks that take one creature keyword or ability/effect and have the entire deck built around that keyword or ability/effect. This is very similar to how YuGiOh! decks are built around archetypes and was something that Battle Spirits Saga’s first set, Dawn of History, only really facilitated when it came to card abilities/effects rather than Spirit types.

With all the Red Terrasaur, Dragonoid, Dragon and Emporer Beast Spirits, the Purple Serpent, Undead and Shadow/Dark/Nightling Spirits, the White Mecha, Ice Princess and Machine Beast Spirits and the Yellow Otherlander, Angel and Fabled Beast Spirits it looks like Tribal decks for these Spirit types will all be possible. We will likely have to wait to see how Green plays before knowing if any Green Tribal decks are possible, but I imagine they will be, although with a little more difficulty and jank thrown in.