Starting May 12, 2010, the newest expansion of the Pokemon Trading Card Game (TCG), Unleased, will be released. This set will feature more than 90 cards including six new Pokemon Prime cards, including Tyranitar and Steelix. Also being released are the legendary dogs, Entei, Raikou, and Suicune, which will appear in pairs on Pokemon Legend cards. The new theme decks will be Chaos Control and Steel Sentinel. The theme decks will sell for about $12 while booster packs are $3.79 per pack. For more information, visit www.pokemon.com.

This set features his most famous (and infamous) cards for a grand total of 40 to collect. That also makes this the largest Duelist Pack to date. It will feature a new Blue-Eyes White Dragon effect monster as well as five Ultimate Rare versions of his most forbidden cards like Pot of Greed and Cyber Jar. Some of these cards even feature brand-new art, like the XYZ-Dragon Cannon and Vorse Raider.

If that wasn’t enough to give you an edge, two of the biggest monsters ever created in the game, Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon and Dragon Master Knight, have been included. Players will have the chance to get popular but rare cards like Fiend’s Sanctuary. Each pack will contain a tip card to help you re-live some of Kaiba’s greatest moments in dueling.

Again, this Duelist Pack will be released April 20th and sell for about $2.

Some new cards have been released into the world of Yu-Gi-Oh! Let’s see what’s in store for all you trading card fanatics out there…

The Duelist Pack Collection Tin 2010 is perfect for players that want to add popular cards to their collections and test their luck at booster packs. Included in the tins is the “Starlight Road” card, 3 packs of “Duelist Pack-Yusei 2″, 1 pack of “Ancient Prophecy”, and a special 3-card all-foil pack with three of Yusei’s favorite cards from the animated series. A beginner’s guide is also included.

A new structure deck called Machina Mayhem includes 11 brand-new cards and gives players the cards they need to play big monsters to dominate the game. This structure deck introduces the “Machina” series of Machine-type monster which you can equip to other machines to pump them up. Machina Mayhem includes “The Big Saturn”, a card from the Yu-Gi-Oh! GX manga and is one of the biggest Machines to grace the game. The deck is 40 cards, including one Ultra Rare and 2 Super Rare foil cards, and is available for about $10 at most hobby and retail stores.

And a quick congratulations to Satoshi Kato from Tokyo, Japan who out-played the field of 716 other players to claim the title of champion at the Shonen Jump Championship at Nashville.

Then we got into the box. My half of the packs featured Jace, the Mind Sculptor’s art and a card unknown to us. We were sad to find that there are only three different pack designs when there are usually four. My second pack of the box, my third for this new set, gave me a very nice surprise. Jace, the Mind Sculptor himself! This is the only planeswalker for the set, and the card I was wanting the most. This guy alone pretty much made whatever else appeared in the box not matter at all to me. I did get a few nice rares, like Abyssal Persecutor and another Novablast Wurm, along with a foil and non-foil copy of a rare land.

So you could imagine my surprise when, as I return home, to see a package with a few more packs and a couple intro packs. Thank you very much, Wizards! The vampire intro pack seems very interesting. I’ve been working on a vampire deck (which I’ll be talking about in an upcoming Deck Building 101 article), and this pack is filled with some very nice additions to any mono-black deck. The blue-green Mysterious Realms is one I haven’t checked out at length, but I am hopeful that it provides some nice landfall abilities.

Overall, I’m still very excited for this set and glad it’s finally released! It’s a great distraction from the looming Grand Prix and Pro Tour season that’s gearing up and kicks off in a little town near me called Oakland, CA. Happy playing everyone, and if you pull something awesome in a pack, leave me a comment! I want to know what everyone’s getting.

There are 17 commons, 7 rares, 4 super rares, and 2 ultra rares. A strategy tip card will also be included in every pack.

Players will get several abilities in the game like being able to attack other players and monsters, using non-attack actions like healing their HP (hit points), adding items to their character, and taking on side quests. Users can customize the starter decks that come with the game, and booster packs can be bought using in-game points they earn while playing. There’s also a trade lobby so users can trade cards in real time or just make a post saying what they are looking for.

iTCG has a facebook fan page that you can become a fan of to view artwork, meet other players, and talk about the game. The iTCG site is located here. It looks like a great game for anyone that wants to play a trading card game but can’t afford the costly packs and decks.

First up, there’s Path of the Planeswalker. This is a solid 200+ page graphic novel featuring the webcomics that can be found on the Wizards of the Coast website as well as a new story only to be found in the book. For those who haven’t read any of the comics, each one focuses on two or three of the five main planeswalkers, Jace Beleren, Ajani Goldmane, Liliana Vess, Garruk Wildspeaker, and Chandra Nalaar, and the adventures they have. This book is going for about $15 in bookstores now, as it was released January 5th. Graphic novel and Magic: the Gathering fans should pick this up and add it to their collection.

Next is the all-foil booster packs. This isn’t much different than normal booster packs except that every card is foil. The cards come from the Alara block which consists of Alara Reborn, Shards of Alara, and Conflux. These will hit store shelves on January 8th. If anyone gets them, let me know what you think! I’m really curious. Keep in mind, these will only be available for a limited time.

Worldwake and M11 comes this year, as well as Rise of the Eldrazi. Worldwake will be making waves starting February 5th. Prerelease events will be January 30th and 31st. For those that love the spoilers, those will start appearing on January 18th on magicthegathering.com, so keep a look out for them. The fun thing about M11, the core set for this year, is that it will stay in Standard with M10 until the October cycling, when M10 will be ‘demoted’ to Extended only.

A new duel deck set, Phyrexia vs The Coalition, will be released on March 19th. Phyrexia, the mono-black army, will face off against the Coalition, who represent the five-colors of magic. Duel decks are really fun because they allow two players to split the cost and each get an amazing preconstructed deck made to play right out of the box.

Whew! That’s a lot of excitement for the first half of this year! Keep on the look out for all these exciting products and whatever else the Wizards of the Coast team will come up with.

Pokémon Rumble, a new game, combines board game and trading card game aspects in an all-included game set. The set comes with a playmat, 16 exclusive foil cards with the Rumble logo, 14 energy dice, 1 target die, and 14 player markers. Each player gets 2 markers, so this game is set for up to 7 people to grab the box and play! Everything is done on the mat and nothing extra is required, so it literally is a play right out of the box game, perfect for curious first-time players that may not have the means to buy packs and make full decks. The game is also designed as an accompaniment for the up-coming WiiWare game, Pokémon Rumble. This game has an MSRP of $9.99.

Trading Card Game fans get four new collector’s tins this holiday season. Each tin comes with four booster packs and either a Charizard, Garchomp, or Rayquaza Lv. X foil card. The Arceus Collector’s Tin debuts December 16 and contains a rare Lv. X Arceus card as well as the booster packs. No matter which you’d pick, you’ll be getting a spiffy tin and a nice boost to your collection. Each has an MSRP of $14.99.

Coming soon is Pokemon TCG: Platinum – Arceus. This is to help with the release of the TCG’s Platinum update. There will be new starter decks (about $11.99 each) and booster packs ($3.79 each). It will provide some new cards for current players, and starter decks are always a welcome thing for new players.

Well, that’s it for now everyone!

Stardust Overdrive features monsters from all of the Yu-Gi-Oh! animated series’, including Stardust Dragon and Majestic Star Dragon. This Special Edition is available at card and hobby shops today, so go on out and have a ball.