Blackdeath6031

For those who don't know me very much, I'm an avid(though casual) player of a TCG game called Weiss Schwarz. It's a game producd by Bushiroad which incorporates many various series into the game (eg, F/SN, F/HA, F/z, Persona (3, 4, 4 the animation), Melty Blood, etc), allowing you to play decks based on your favourites.
The two sad things about it though, is that the game itself is 100% in Japanese, forcing you to either know Japanese, or refer to online, maybe printed translations; and that it is built to be specifically two-player. The only official English series released so far is a Disgaea one, which from experience isn't too bad, but nothing much can be done about increasing the number of players without screwing up some game mechanics.

Nonetheless, what draws most people to the game is either the art (being arguably higher quality than Yu-Gi-Oh or MTG, since they're usually done by the original creators of the series with a few being from other artists), or the concept of being able to construct a deck comprised of your favourite characters, or traits (yes, people have made a Maid deck before). What draws me to it, instead, is how the card effects tend to be in some way faithful to their source.
For example, if you happen to cancel damage dealt to you in a character clash involving "All Evils of the World" Avenger, you can (for a price), deal the exact same amount of damage as what you cancelled back to your opponent. Not that Verg Avesta allows Avenger to nullify damage dealt to him, but you know what I mean. xD

The Fate/zero cards which have been released so far have been slightly disappointing in terms of art. Having only the Trial/Theme deck released so far and an 'extra pack' or small booster pack on the way, most of the cards we have seen are pretty weak vanillas, and quite a number have their art taken from Oath Sign. Why'd the anime have to take this ridiculously long break? D:
On the good side, they should be releasing both a booster pack and an extra pack for it, so more cards to go around, it seems.


So anyway, Comptiq Ace's March 2012 issue apparently has two Weiss Schwarz promo cards - one for PMMM which is Mami; and the other being a Fate/zero Saber. My Madoka-fu being rather weak, I can't really comment much on Mami besides the fact that she's a staple 'backrow-support' character, though her power is twice as high as what you'd normally expect for a card like this.

Saber, likewise, is also a fairly staple character. An early-game frontrow defender which becomes stronger than its base during your opponent's turn. The art seems, from my memory, to be once again from the opening, however the flavour text reminds me of the Banquet of Kings.

Sadly, the promos this time around isn't very good, but might well be a must-have if you're really into those characters. Who can say?

Actually, there is another promo coming out, which has gotten my interest more so than these two, but in order to get it you must compete in a certain tournament which has been named, at least here in Australia, as the 'Fate/zero Holy Grail Title Cup'. For a Fate/zero tournament, they aren't restricting the competitors to only Fate decks, which may be a good thing, but I digress.

The card which is being distributed is named 'Illya and Irisviel', which has, as far as I'm concerned, art good enough to show off to other otakus who aren't into Type-Moon simply because it is the purest description of what 'moe' is. The effect itself is also pretty good, letting its controller take 1 damage to double its strength for one attack.