Top Picks from Yu-Gi-Oh! Maze of Millennia - Cards Everyone Wants

As you may have read elsewhere in the blog, the first Yu-Gi-Oh! set of 2024 was the very interesting Collector's Rare set “Maze of Millennia”. The set is the ideal successor of the 2023 Collector's Rare set “Maze of Memories”, and, as such, it continues Konami efforts to bring to the actual TGC game a lot of cards we seen in the Yu-Gi-Oh! anime and that were missed from the game so far.

With respect to last year set, however, Maze of Millennia, is a much better set to collect as the pull rates of the Ultra Rare cards have been increased to guarantee to have at least four of them in each Booster box. This change has a massive impact on the value of Collector's Rare sets that was very criticized in the past due to the extreme difficulty of getting any of the high ranked cards that characterized these sets. Although Konami has not increased the pull rates of the Collector's rare cards themselves, making the related Maze of Millennia Rare cards easier to pull makes a lot of difference for both players and collectors. In the case of Maze of Millennia in particular, the change is also extremely important as some of the cards from this set are very playable and can have quite the value.

Considering how good the new 2024 Collector's Rare set is, we would like to review some among the best Maze of Millennia cards you can pull from your booster packs. If you are looking to also have a more detailed overview of the set, I would also suggest to read the Maze of Millennia collector's guide recently published in this blog.

Best Maze of Millennia cards (in no particular order)

1. Earthbound Prison (Field Spell card; Super rare).

Maze of Millennia includes a lot of new Earthbound cards from the Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's era and Earthbound Prison is an amazing addition to any deck that wants to exploit the powers of these high-Level monsters. At first, you may think that Prison may just be another Field Spell Card to allow the players to prevent their Earthbound Immortal Monsters to self-destruct.

In reality, this card has a lot of useful effects that can highly support an Earthbound deck. First, when Prison is activated, the player can choose any face-up Effect Monster the opponent controls and negate all its effects. Moreover, during the Main Phase players can Normal Summon one "Earthbound" monster in addition to one they would normally Summon or Set. This effect in particular is quite important to allow the players to summon multiple Monsters in the same turn and use them to bring out tons of Synchro Summon Monsters.

Last but not least, when Earthbound Prison is destroyed, your opponent will need to sacrifice half of their life-points and see all the effects of their face-up cards being negated until the end of the turn.

Earthbound Prison's is therefore an amazing multi effect cards that can really provide consistency to your Earthbound strategy. Interestingly, this card can also be searched (or retrieved from the Grave Yard) by Earthbound Prisoner Line Walker, a Lv3 Effect Monster also released in the set. Line Walker, together with the other two Earthbound prisoners released in maze of Millennia, are definitely designed to create a nice engine that can search for your Monsters and Field or Spell cards. The release of all these cards together with the additional support released in the Phantom Nightmare set, can definitely allow the players to create a very viable Earthbound deck to play.

One aspect to consider if you want to try the deck is to use the new “Harmonic Synchro Fusion” in your engine to benefit fully from the double summon effect of Earthbound Prison.

2) Harmonic Synchro Fusion (Normal Spell Card; Ultra Rare)

Harmonic Synchro Fusion (Normal Spell Card; Ultra Rare) is among THE most anticipated cards of Maze of Millennia. When played, this cards allows the player to send 1 Tuner and 1 non-Tuner Monster from the field to the Grave Yard in order to Special Summon both a Synchro Monster and a Fusion Monster that could be summoned using just those 2 monsters in the GY as material.

The first benefit of this cards is clearly to obtain more value out of your tuner and non-tuner Monsters on the field as you can essentially get a free Fusion monster in addition to the usual Synchro Monster you were planning to have. This added value is much more interesting considering the good selection of generic Fusion Monster available in the game.

The other great aspect of this card is its ability to be used in almost any deck. While it can be very effective in some deck like Earthbound Immortals this card has very good potential in any deck that uses Synchro Monster as a way to increase deck effectiveness and flexibility.

There are, however, two main limitations to Harmonic Synchro Fusion that should be considered. First, the effect of the card specifically requires a Tuner and a Non-tuner Monster. Although this may not be a common problem, there are decks (for example Earthbound) that will need to combine their main engine with a non-Tuner engine. Among the various options, “Runicks” is still one of the favourite options due to its consistency and the number of disruptive effects this archetype can trigger to support your strategy.

The other issue with this card is that it limits the player to only summon Synchro and Fusion Monsters from the Extra Deck the turn Harmonic is activated. Although it does not seems a big price to pay with respect to the value this Spell Card can bring, it is still a limit that may push your deck to evaluate alternative strategies.

3) Transaction Rollback (Normal Trap; Ultra Rare)

Transaction Rollback (Normal Trap; Ultra Rare) is another example of a generic card released in Maze of Millennia that can easily find its space in the current meta and take over a few games. There are two interesting effects on this card the player can use. First, a player can copy the effect of any Trap card in the opponent Grave Yard once Translation Rollback activates. Second, once this card is in the Grave Yard, player can banish it to copy the effect of any Trap Cards that they used previously. Both effects require the player to pay half of their Life Points but it is definitely worth it.

Although we may not generally see a lot of Trap cards in the current meta game (as it favours Hand Trap and disruptive effects), there are a few Decks that may have a lot of them and other that may still use some generic ones like Infinite Impermanence. In these cases, having a good generic counter-Trap like Translation Rollback to use against your opponent can be quite fun and effective. However, there are a few Decks that heavily rely on Trap cards to work and that can therefore fully exploit the double effect of this new Trap card. Among them, a “Labyrinth” deck can surely make good use of Translation Rollback to duplicate the effects of “Welcome Labrynth” and “Big Welcome Labrynth” to speed-up their engine.

In terms or ruling there are a couple of nuances to consider if you are thinking of using Translation Rollback. First, this card only “copy” the effect of another card thus does not require any cost other than half of your life-point. This also includes the fact you do not need to set it as any other Trap card if you are banishing it from the Grave Yard to trigger the second part of Translation Rollback effects. If you are mainly looking for this option, you may for example consider to use cards such as “Foolish Burial Goods” or “Beatrice, Lady of the Eternal” to send it there directly from your deck to the Grave Yard and have it ready for use.

4) Bonfire

Bonfire (Normal Spell card, Ultra rare) was one of the most anticipated cards of the set and current market prices clearly demonstrate that there is still a lot of interest for this card being it Ultra Rare or Collector's Rare. Interestingly, this is not one of the cards people remember from the anime and it actually takes a few minute to recollect that it was used by Fonda Fountaine in Yu-Gi-Oh! GX arc ... In terms of actual gameplay, however, Bonfire has a lot of value, in particular in the current meta.

Why? At a first glance, its effect is similar to “Reinforcement of the army” as it allows the player to add any Level 4 or lower Pyro Monster from their Deck to the hand. Although simple, Bonfire ability has very deep ramification in the game as it actually grants the player access to just over 80 different monsters that can then fuel a variety of different engines. This great flexibility would already be quite a nice advantage but it becomes amazing considering it can look for some key cards in the “Fire King” deck, one of the most promising meta deck currently.

If you play competitively, you may have already seen players using this card to find and Special Summon the Lv3 Effect Monster “Snake-Eyes Poplar”. Once on the board, Poplar is bound to look for the Normal Spell card “Original Sinful Spoils – Snake-Eye” that can look for “Legendary Fire King Ponix” or place “Rescue-ACE Hydrant” straight from the deck into your Spell & Trap zone.

The flexibility granted by Bonfire combines with the effectiveness of the "Diabellstar" engine and the newer Fire King deck can result in a very effective winning engine, hence the reason this card from Maze of Millennia is so interesting.

5) Triple Tactics Thrust (Normal Spell Card, Ultra Rare)

Triple Tactics Thrust (Normal Spell Card, Ultra Rare) is among the most versatile generic staple cards that cannot ever get enough reprints. In this specific case, TTT was only printed as a Secret Rare in the “Photon Hypernova” set in February 2023 and it has been understandable quite difficult to find considering its value in game and its high rarity. That's why getting it reprinted so quickly as a Ultra Rare in Maze of Millennia is definitely great.

Triple Tactics Thrust value in game is strongly linked to the current gameplay where hand traps are largely used (and sometime abused...). TTT role is to be one of the best anti-hand trap cards in the game allowing the player to set 1 Normal Spell or Trap card directly from the deck assuming the opponent has activated a monster effect during the turn. Alternatively, the Spell/Trap card can be added to the player hand if the opponent controls a monster.

As a staple card, Triple Tactics Thrust shines in any deck because its generic wording allows the player to search for a wide range of useful cards. Whenever an opponents plays for example an Ash or uses an interrupting effect to get an advantage, the player can answer by searching for their own engine defining cards turning the opponent's move into an advantage. The reprint in Maze of Millennia is likely to help making TTT more affordable for every player but it is very possible we will not see a further reprint for a while after this, thus is imperative to try to pull a few copies from Maze of Millennia till the stock last.

How to best collecting Maze of Millennia Cards

While I was going through the card list to pick the five I wanted to share in this article, I realized how difficult can still be to collect the cards from Maze of Millennia, even if the set released a few months ago. The main challenge, as usual, is that the most interesting cards are obviously the rarest of the set and some of them are also available in a Collector's Rare version. To give some perspective, three out of the five cards I mentioned above are currently in the market for over £20. Bonfire is the most expensive card among them with the Ultra Rare being sold for just over £40 and the Collector's Rare valued around £80.

Collecting Yu-Gi-Oh! card and sourcing the most useful one has never been an easy job but the high demand for the cards of this set for the current meta makes opening a Booster pack quite an exciting moment. Or a very frustrating one depending on what you will pull...

One of the aspect to ponder before considering how to collect this set is the improvement Konami has done to the pull rates. In the past, Collector's Rare sets have been quite criticized due to the chance of getting a Collector's Rare being around one card every two/three boxes. Moreover, the rates for Ultra Rares and Super Rares were also not great. Konami has graciously listened to these feedback and made Maze of Millennia a better set to collect by increasing the pull rates for the Ultra Rares to be at least four per box. At first, this may not seem like a major change, but it makes opening Maze of Millennia packs a much better experience, especially considering the value some of the Ultra Rares from this set have at the moment.

Considering these odds, there is a statistical chance to pull all of the 11 Ultra rare cards from the set by opening a total of three Booster boxes. There is also a very reasonable chance of getting at least one Collector's Rare out of three boxes making this option economically sound, considering in particular the fact the product is on sale on Magic Madhouse at the moment. Accounting for the current price and with a bit of luck, it can be actually possible to obtain more value for the cards you can pull from the packs with respect to the price you will pay for the boxes. Of course, there is no guarantee you will have the cards you are really after but the chances are there and you will sure get a lot of excitement by opening all those Booster Packs. 

You should also consider that the investment will grant you all the common cards and enough copy of the Super Rare cards to fill your collection or your decks if you are planning to use them. In case this approach may be suitable for you, my only final recommendation is to buy all boxes at the same time to maximize the chances they will come from the same case maximizing the chances to obtain all the cards of the set and perhaps the rarest among them. Good luck with the pulls!!