The Raging Tempest Special Edition brings two preview cards from the upcoming booster pack Maximum Crisis, and we’re already seeing their impact here in Las Vegas.

First up, there is a new Zoodiac card! Zoodiac Kataroost can return a Zoodiac card from your Graveyard to your Deck, allowing you to recycle your Zoodiac Ratpier or Zoodiac Barrage. If it’s used as an Xyz Material, the Xyz Monster can detach an Xyz Material to negate monster effects that target it. This completes the trio with Zoodiac Bunnyblast and Zoodiac Ramram, which negate Spell and Trap Cards.

The card we’re seeing the most of though, is Baobaboon. This card is a fantastic Deck thinner and hand fixer, and can get you more copies of itself with ease. First of all, when it’s Normal or Special Summoned, you get to draw a card, then place a card from your hand back on the top of your Deck. Then, if Baobaboon is destroyed (by battle or card effect) you can Special Summon any number of Baobaboon from your Deck. You can get two of them at once if you want, so you can prepare for an Xyz Summon for example. Or, you can Special Summon them one at a time so you can make the most of their effects. Since you’ll shuffle the Deck after each new Baobaboon, their effects won’t make you draw the same card each time. And unlike cards like Giant Germ, you have less risk when drawing multiple Baobaboon – just use one of their effects to put the extra one on top of the Deck.

We’re seeing a lot of Baobaboon in Decks like Zoodiac and Metalfoes. They can use Zoodiac Barrage or the Metalfoes effects to destroy their Baobaboon and trigger the effects. Baobaboon also helps those strategies to cycle their hands, keeping cards like Zoodiac Combo or Metalfoes Counter in the Deck where they can be more useful for other card effects. Baobaboon can also serve as a good answer to Zoodiac Drident, since Drident’s effect would just result in more Baobaboon on the field. Even if they have Zoodiac Whiptail, that alone won’t be enough. Drident will go up to 1200 ATK, and both it and Baobaboon will be destroyed. Even if Baobaboon is banished by Whiptail, its effect will still trigger since it doesn’t need to go to the Graveyard. (NOTE 5/8/17: The previous sentence is incorrect. While it is true that Baobaboon will still be able to activate if it’s banished instead of sent to the Graveyard upon being destroyed, it won’t be able to activate if it’s banished after losing a battle but before being destroyed, which will pretty much only happen in exactly this circumstance. This is something of a rare interaction since most cards with similar effects must be sent to the Graveyard instead of merely being destroyed.)

We’re only in the beginning of the tournament, and we’re already seeing a ton of Baobaboon. Will it make it to the top cut? Only time will tell!