Spectacle Nova

**Spectacle Nova** (不死鳥編) is the 5th Duel Masters block and along with Beginner's Block and Dragon Saga, are the only blocks with 5 expansions. (Although Dragon Saga actually had an expansion split into 2.) It is often known as "Year 5". It is also considered the lowest period of Duel Masters.

## World view

The block takes place in an apocalyptic era ten thousand years ago after the Evolution Cross Gears rampaged in Generate Gear. The gears had created a dimensional rift in the universe which swallowed all old lifeforms save for Humans, Guardians, Liquid People, Death Puppets and Wild Veggies. Then the survivors had left the old world and entered an eastern continent. In there, 5 pairs of new races flourished;

* Great Mecha King/Machine Hero: Massive robots who have a good deal of technology. Represented Water and contained Light.
* Arc Seraphim/Saint Head: Holy Angels who were the descendants of Angel Commands. Represented Light and contained Nature.
* Dreammates/Vehicle Bee: Anthromorphic animals (In short; furries) brought forward by the technology of Fire. Descendants of Beast Folk. Represented Nature and contained Fire.
* Tyranno Drakes/Brave Spirits: Dragon-like creatures who sometimes take a human-like form. Descendants of Dragonoids. Represented Fire and contained Darkness.
* Grand Devils/Deep Marines: Sinister life forms who were descendants of Demon Commands. Took over other life forms and took their form. However, they were actually heroes of the story of Spectacle Nova. Represented Darkness and contained Water.

However, along with them were creatures known as Phoenixes which were basically lifeforms living inside the tree of the Universe. These beings entered earth and attacked it and the 5 great races battled each other to determine who is strong enough to take them on.

Eventually, Dragons were in all civilizations and the civilizations and Dragons teamed up against the phoenixes, but then the worst of them, Supernova Black Hole Thanatos appeared and drove them into despair. Then a miracle, a phoenix who sided with the civilizations known as Supernova Bigbang Anastathis appeared and it and Thanatos killed each other, restoring the earth to peace again.

After then, Gods appeared and tried to fix the world.

## Metagame

Unfortunately, Spectacle Nova was known as the worst age of Duel Masters as it contained even fewer players than in Generate Gear or Eternal Arms. In fact just imagine Puzzle and Dragons now and you knew the picture. The most primary reason is for most of the time, the continuation of Bombazar, Dragon of Destiny, Bolmeteus Sapphire Dragon, appeared and ravaged the metagame along with Inferno Gate and Dandy Eggplant and would tilt the metagame one sided to its favor.

While race decks using the 5 great races were preferred, due to the overly imbalanced metagame none of them ever appeared in the face of the metagame save for Grand Devil decks winning minor tournaments. The new cards were also extremely low in card power and were usually unheard of by newer players today, causing the card pool to grow stagnant.

Apparently as they had all been destroyed, there were also none or a few of the fan favorite races such as Angel Commands, Demon Commands and Dragons, being replaced with the new 5 races. This attempt to start over has not improved the game and instead made people more reluctant to buy new sets. There's a same problem in Episode 3 later on.

However DM-22 had an extremely powerful card pool compared to the rest of the block and had lots of meta cards that would be meta until the epsiode series such as Spell Del Fin, Light Divine Dragon, Necrodragon Guljeneraid and Infinity Dragon as well as perfect fun deck subjects such as Ultimate Galaxy Universe, Supernova Apollonus Dragerion and Supernova Betelguese Final Cannon (Of course, the set is released in Christmas).

Unfortunately in DM-23 things had entered the abyss again as the set was pure crap. The set had virtually nothing other than Quasi-Vanilla creatures in the regular slots and the rare slots were completely among one of the worst in duel masters history. The only powerful card in that set was Supernova Bigbang Anastathis which is only used in fun decks and Supernova Black Hole Thanatos is basically a bad joke.

Overall Spectacle Nova was among one of the most unsuccessful projects of Duel Masters and it is basically summing up as an End Contest. It won't be surprising at that time if people thought that Duel Masters is about to end.

## Expansions

### DM-19

(DM wiki link)

The first set of Spectacle Nova which had no Dragons and still had a few old races. Extremely powerful Galaxy Vortex Phoenixes and meteorburn abilities were introduced and the highly unpopular Dynamo strategy was there as well.

### DM-20

(DM wiki link)

More race support in the name of fort energy and Launcher Energy was introduced. Card power is low and the flagship card Supernova Lyra Bolstorm is among one of the weakest Phoenixes in the game.

### DM-21

(DM wiki link)

Sympathy starts to appear in spells and Grand Devil support is abundant. The set is famous for Tyranno Link nova and Supernova Neptune Shutrom which were known as fan favorites for their overkill effects.

### DM-22

(DM wiki link)

The typical grand-scale Christmas set which introduced a few metagame favorite dragons such as Spell Del Fin, Guljeneraid and Infinity Dragon. Also introduced 3 overkill phoenixes who would impact the fandom for sure.

### DM-23

{DM wiki link)

Unfortunately, this set is the greatest downhill of this block; it contained nothing other than mediocre cards and quasi-vanillas and even the high rarity slots were pure crud.

## Set order

* Prequel:Generate Gear
* Sequel:Violence Heaven