Whenever I’m anywhere that sells cards, like a card shop, comic shop, or even just the drugstore, I always look to see what they have (and maybe pick up a pack or two). Anyway, when I was at the Shadow of Infinity Sneak Preview, I couldn’t help noticing that the card shop ran out of Jaden Duelist Packs within a few hours. People obviously want them, but what’s inside that’s so exciting?

The reprints of popular Elemental Hero cards are a natural draw. Instead of opening pack after pack of The Lost Millennium or Cybernetic Revolution and hoping for a streak of good Jaden-luck, you can pick up some Jaden Duelist Packs and be guaranteed to find Elemental Heroes. But there are some new, never-before-released cards in the packs as well, and that’s appealing, too. I’m going to give you a look at the new cards in this Pack: what they are, what they do, and some ideas on how to use them in your own decks. If you’re a fan of the Elemental Heroes, then you’ll want to keep reading, because all of the new cards are designed to add new strategies to Elemental Hero decks.

Let’s start with the new monster! It’s a brand-new Elemental Hero Fusion monster, and here it is.

Elemental Hero Steam Healer

Warrior/Fusion/Effect WATER

Level 5

1800 ATK / 1000 DEF

“Elemental Hero Burstinatrix” + “Elemental Hero Bubbleman”

This monster cannot be Special Summoned except by Fusion Summon. When this card destroys a monster as a result of battle and sends it to the Graveyard, increase your Life Points by the ATK of the destroyed monster."

This new addition to the Elemental Hero Fusion pantheon is good in lockdown or life gain decks. Capable of taking out monsters like Don Zaloog and Breaker the Magical Warrior, Steam Healer can gain you some serious advantage if it stays on the field and gets in a few good hits. If you’re running life point-costed cards like Confiscation, this monster’s a nice way to compensate. Try combining it with Chain Energy! Chain Energy’s tax on playing cards will put your opponent on the defensive, and Steam Healer will threaten to create even more of a disparity between life point totals.

That 1800 ATK lets Steam Healer take out a host of current monsters, but Cyber Dragon and D. D. Survivor will give it a bit more trouble. Of course, there are plenty of ways to bump up the Healer’s ATK rating. Skyscraper is practically a staple for any Elemental Hero deck anyway, so if you’re an Elemental Hero fan, you probably already have a few. If not, it’s only a rare in (you guessed it) the Jaden Duelist Pack! Skyscraper will make an attacking Steam Healer a 2800 ATK behemoth, big enough to destroy Mobius the Frost Monarch or Jinzo with ease. And remember that when it does, you’ll get a massive life point boost, thanks to the Healer’s effect!

Card advantage in battle, goodbye pesky opposing monster, with a side of +2400 life points, you say? I’ll have that, please. No, I don’t need to see the dessert menu.

There are plenty of other ways to increase Steam Healer’s ATK value, so don’t focus solely on Skyscraper. For example, Rush Recklessly is one of the best. It’s seen a bit of play lately, and its ability to destroy Spirit Reaper on the opponent’s turn makes it pretty viable in today’s environment. Its status as a quick-play spell is even better when we’re talking about Steam Healer, because the moment the opponent can get at a Cyber Dragon or something of equal size, he or she will probably want to take down your shiny Hero Fusion monster. When your opponent sends that Dragon at your Healer, you can flip Rush Recklessly to beef up your steamy pal and send that Dragon packing. You trade your set spell for the opponent’s big attacker and you net a hearty helping of life points in the process.

For the collector and Jaden fan, this is what the set’s all about. Yu-Gi-Oh! GX cards are drawing a lot of attention, and this is one of the newest and coolest. Visually, it’s one of the most impressive monsters ever printed, and let’s face it, there’s nothing like having a trade binder full of the new bling. That’s exactly what Steam Healer is. With a secondary market price of $25 and rising, it’s currently one of the most sought-after cards available.

Now for the spells! There are three new spells in the Jaden Duelist Pack, and all of them are geared toward the Elemental Heroes. Cards like Skyscraper, Miracle Fusion, and Reinforcement of the Army are already more or less a standard in an Elemental Hero deck, but take a look at some of these and see if they’ll suit your build.

Burst Return

Spell Card

You can only activate this card while there is a face-up "Elemental Hero Burstinatrix" on your side of the field. Return to the owner's hand(s) all monster(s) on the field that include "Elemental Hero" in their card name, except "Elemental Hero Burstinatrix".

Some Elemental Heroes are more popular than others, but this new Jaden Pack offers some support for the lower-tier Heroes. It makes them more playable and gives you more options as an Elemental Hero duelist. Burst Return will allow you to overextend with a big field presence and then retract that overextension when you’re finished attacking or bossing around your opponent. That can be really good news, especially if you think your opponent might be holding Dark Hole and you’d rather not lose all your monsters. It’s also really useful if you’ve got a few Elemental Heroes out and want to summon another, but you don’t want to risk losing them all to Torrential Tribute. Instead of leaving your monsters vulnerable and taking a chance with another summon, you can take them all back (except for Burstinatrix) and then bring a new monster to the field. That can be especially valuable when you’ve got several low-level Elemental Heroes on the field but you want to do a Fusion summon with minimal risk.

Bubble Illusion

Quick-Play Spell Card

You can only activate this card while there is a face-up "Elemental Hero Bubbleman" on your side of the field. During this turn, you can activate 1 Trap Card from your hand.

Bubble Illusion adds to Bubbleman’s arsenal. Like Makyura the Destructor, Illusion lets you break the rules of the game by playing traps when you would otherwise be unable to do so. Though Illusion only limits you to one activated trap, you can do some impressive things with it.

At its simplest, Bubble Illusion makes traps faster. While most traps that see play are very powerful, they have that turn of buffer time in which they can’t be activated and are vulnerable to destruction. Maybe you’re in a position where you could win the game next turn with Ceasefire, or maybe you’d prefer to cut off your opponent’s traps sooner rather than later with Royal Decree. Whatever your need, Bubble Illusion allows you to shield your traps from destruction and play them immediately after they’re drawn. That’s two powerful advantages that break the core rules of the game, and anything that breaks the rules is always worth investigating.

Bubble Blaster

Equip Spell Card

You can only equip this card to "Elemental Hero Bubbleman". Increase the ATK of the equipped monster by 800 points. If the equipped monster would be destroyed as a result of battle, destroy this card instead, and make the Battle Damage to the controller of the equipped monster 0.

This equip spell gives Bubbleman 1600 ATK, which is respectable enough in today’s game—much tougher than its original 800—and that higher ATK will help ensure that Bubbleman sticks around longer. Its second effect is like a bulletproof vest, making Bubbleman far more difficult to eliminate. When you’re depending on Bubbleman to remain on the field for cards like Bubble Illusion and Bubble Shuffle, a safety net is always welcome. That’s exactly what Bubble Blaster is. Bubble Blaster is also kind of fun to say.

Of course, this card can also be equipped to Elemental Hero Neo Bubbleman. While two attackers with 1600 ATK or more will still be enough to destroy a Blaster-equipped Bubbleman, the Neo version will ensure that both of those attackers are destroyed in the process, regardless of how much larger they are. That’s a daunting choice for an opponent to have to make, since it will be difficult for him or her to gain any card advantage through battle. The temptation to back off and not attack is usually overwhelming, keeping those Bubblemen around even longer.

You can do some other neat tricks, too. For instance, you could summon out Elemental Hero Neo Bubbleman, give him a Bubble Blaster, and then kamikaze him into a far larger monster. The Blaster will be destroyed, but Neo’s effect will smash the monster that it battles with. Then, in the second main phase, you could give Bubbleman another Blaster to make life even harder for your opponent.

Don’t forget that Skyscraper will also make a Blaster-wielding Bubbleman of any variety a 2600 ATK beatstick bubblewand. That’s big enough to take down virtually any monster that sees serious play right now, and death by Bubble is fairly humiliating for your opponent. I already talked about the fact that Elemental Hero Steam Healer makes great use of Skyscraper. Thanks to Bubble Blaster, Elemental Hero Bubbleman can do the same, and since Bubbleman is one half of the Steam Healer fusion, that works out rather conveniently from a deckbuilding point of view, don’t you think?

We’ll round out our look at the new cards with a trap card. Want to see it? Sure you do! Bring on the trap!

Clay Charge

Trap Card

You can only activate this card when an "Elemental Hero Clayman" on your side of the field is selected as an attack target. (If it is face-down, pick up and show the card to your opponent.) Destroy the attacking monster and the selected "Elemental Hero Clayman" to inflict 800 points of damage to your opponent's Life Points.

Elemental Hero Clayman has the distinguished title of “brick wall” for the Elemental Heroes. Every superhero team needs a brick: the Fantastic Four have Thing, the X-Men have Colossus, and the Elemental Heroes have Clayman. Its 2000 DEF makes it an awesome monster to set on your opening turn, and its thick hide will often keep you alive in situations where your opponent has gotten the better of you.

But then, there’s that Cyber Dragon. It’s beautiful, shiny, a friend to the outnumbered, and so gosh-darned big. Apart from Cyber Dragon, a handful of other cards in today’s tier-1 competition have ATK values high enough to put the boots to Clayman, and that’s where Clay Charge comes in handy. When you know Clayman is going to be destroyed, Clay Charge ensures that at least the attacker is going to go down with it. That’s great news for you and bad news for Mobius the Frost Monarch and Mystic Swordsman LV2! Your opponent really, really wants to keep those cards on the field and won’t be happy to see them go.

Sure, Sakuretsu Armor could deal with that pesky attacker too, but you can only run three in your deck. Not only can Clay Charge act as a much-needed source of monster destruction, but it also dishes out a fair chunk of damage while you’re at it. Because Elemental Hero decks are usually Fusion-based, they’ll often deal a big smack of damage in the mid-game, but the late game can be troublesome sometimes. On occasion, the team just doesn’t have enough oomph left in it to finish an opponent off. That’s when Clay Charge is at its best, transforming from a piece of somewhat conditional monster removal into a game-ending blast of damage.

And who doesn’t want to finish off an opponent by blowing up Elemental Hero Clayman? Clay everywhere, all over everything! That’s exactly what we want to see! Yeah!

Whether you’re a serious collector, a Jaden fan, or an innovative and creative deck builder who’s looking to create a cutting-edge strategy, you’d probably better get out there and scoop up some Jaden Duelist Packs while they’re still there to be scooped. Come to think of it, I haven’t been able to get my hands on any yet. What do you think? I should probably stop typing this, trot on down to the card shop, and see if they’ve gotten them back in yet . . . yeah . . . hmm . . . Hey, see you next week!