Summary

The Knights of the Zodiac Collectible Card Game is a card game by Bandai, based on the anime series Knights of the Zodiac (also known as Saint Seiya). In the game, you play knights (saints) to fight each other and control fields (or just defeat opposing knights). The game was distributed in starter decks and 9-card booster packs.

The game was slightly asymmetric, with one player on the offense, and one player playing field cards (and defending), and these roles do not change during a single game.

Card Types

• Knight - Cards representing warriors who fight in contests. Each has a level, class, power, offense effect, and defense effect.
• Technique - Cards representing combat abilities that knights use. Each has a power meter, a list of valid using knights, an offense effect, and a defense effect.
• Power of Zodiac - Cards representing random events or occurrences. Each has a cosmo cost, a phase where they can be played, and an effect.
• Field - Cards representing locations where battles occur. Each has a limit (of knight levels) and an effect.

Sets and Decks

The game saw two booster sets released: A New Era Of Heroic Legends, and Mythological Forces. There were also two starter decks, which did not share cards with booster packs. There were also promotional cards, released with toys or DVDs.

The booster sets both included ultra-rare (holographic) cards, even rarer gold stamp cards, and even rarer "super rare" cards. These cards are not alternate versions of existing cards, but rather are separate rarer cards.

Deck Composition and Contents

Starter Decks

There were two named starter decks (Power of the Constellation and Perilous Conquest). Each included 45 unique cards, and two of the cards were foiled.

Starter deck contents were fixed, and the boxes indicated which deck you would get. The cards each have an assigned rarity (according to the rulebook's card list), but the starter deck cards cannot be found in booster packs (and you get exactly one of each card anyway), effectively making them starter-only rarity.

Deck Rarity Analysis

The decks are perfect. Non-blind starter decks, and no overlap with booster packs? More of this please.

Unfortunately, the booster packs are... not so great. And they're bad enough that I'm also going to talk about them here, despite this being a deck analysis.

With six different levels of card rarity -- and with super rares being one in 11 packs, gold stamps being one in 7 packs, and holographics being one in 3 packs -- this game is a nightmare for collectors. (And maybe for serious players too, if those cards are good enough that you want the full playset of two copies of them.) Even more so because the first booster set (A New Era Of Heroic Legends) only has 60 cards in it, with 25 common, 15 uncommon, 10 rare, 5 holo, 3 gold stamp, and 2 super rare cards, which is a terrible distribution given the pack odds for those rarer cards. (The coupon collector's problem tells us you'd need on average 39 packs to get all the gold stamp cards, and if you had perfect luck, that could get you everything else, too. 39 packs to get 60 unique cards, or 78 for a playset.)

The cards also do not indicate rarity anywhere on them, and their ordering in the set list seems extremely arbirary, and the numbering system continues over sets (as with Gundam War) which makes it impossible to really understand sets without consulting the rulebook's card list, so... this is not really a game for collectors.

As card listings (broken down into the decks and sets) seem to be hard to find online, here's a photo of the rulebook card list. Unfortunately, it doesn't include the Mythological Forces set.

Alan's Thoughts On The Game

Oh this game.

This game came out right when I was an undergrad, and super into Saint Seiya; I saw the game at Target, did a double take, and immediately purchased the two starter decks. It actually caused me to check out the "kid-friendly" version (Knights of the Zodiac), and I was kind of amused and horrified that they'd colored the blood green. (I guess all the knights are Vulcans or something?) My FLGS had booster packs too, so I picked up a couple of those. And then I roped friends into playing the game with me.

Yeah, the game is terrible. We didn't make it through the first game. Tried again another couple times, but I have never finished a full game of this. (In fact, the game's terribleness directly led to me creating the Saint Seiya Tournament Card Game, which my friends and I did play a few times, because it actually worked as a game.)

Because it's been so long, I don't remember many specifics, but I do remember being extremely frustrated with draw luck, because almost every technique was only usable by one knight, and each deck had 18 different knights. I'm sure you can understand how that would make the game barely playable (or effectively turns every field contest into just "compare the numbers on these two cards" without any real opportunity to boost them which... is terrible). And this isn't a problem that'll be specific to the starter decks, since the game only allows two copies of every given numbered card in a deck, and most of the knights only have one version (numbered card). (Well, I suppose you could collect the six different Pegaus Seiya cards -- three of which are promo cards, so you're gonna buy multiple copies of a single DVD and toy -- and make a deck with two copies of each card, and then have a bunch of techniques he can use. Yeah, that sounds like the way to build a deck. Yep.)

As a collector, I do appreciate that starter decks did not duplicate cards from the sets, but I also (now, understanding the rarity distribution of cards) really appreciate the fact that I didn't attempt to chase down any particular ultra-rare (holo, gold foil, super rare) cards. (I did, however, purchase several of the toys for the promo cards. I have no idea where the toys are now, but the promo cards are sitting nicely in a binder with the other cards.)

This game made me sad. (And the later Gundam War, also by Bandai, did the same, so I just do not have a great impression of Bandai games.)

Resources

• Card Listing
• Starter Deck Card Lists (AlanvDotOrg Randomjunk)