Getting hurt but still fighting on, Sayaka

Blue / Level 2 / Cost 2 / 9500 / 2 Soul / 1 Soul Trigger

«魔法 Magic» / «愛 Love»

[A] When this card is put to Reverse in battle, put the top 1 card of your Deck to Clock, and put this card to Rest.
[S] [Rest 1 of your «魔法 Magic» Characters] This card gains Power +1000 for the turn.

Given how many other Madoka cards that have been revealed so far, and other similar cards there are it only makes sense to look at this card in the context of the other cards on offer.

First it must be noted that this is one of the pseudo-change choices for [Empty stare, Sayaka]. (Note I used the translation Fighting While Injured, Sayaka before, rather than the name given above on the Bushiroad blog. These are the same cards.) Rather than being a change up a level, this is a sideways pseudo-change. In this case you exchange a 2/1, a Climax and 1 extra stock for a 2/2, draw a card and a power boost. In terms of costs going via the pseudo-change it costs 2 stock and no cards overall, whereas just playing this card also costs two stock. The pseudo-change does let you use a Climax without losing a card though, and does dig slightly into your deck. It also offers the flexibility of fetching this card from the Waiting Room, rather than hoping to draw it, or holding it in your hand. The power boost also allows this card to start at an 11000 base. I’m currently still not sure what the Climax does, so I can’t say if it’s worth using outside of this combo, or would only be used to facilitate this.

If the Climax would be in the deck anyway I could see yourself being able to justify using the pseudo-change into this card, however it seems like a lot of effort when you could just play the 2/2 from your hand anyway. Another problem is the fact Madoka decks have access to a lot of support cards, and especially the Red/Blue deck who in addition to Kyubey also have Sayaka and Kyoko to choose from. Playing [Empty stare, Sayaka]  could be overburdening your number of support cards, and weakening your ability to attack otherwise.

The first effect of this card is the same as [Healing prayers, Sayaka], making her very hard to get rid of. Unfortunately as a level 2 card she is a riskier prospect that than card because you’re closer to the end of the game by this point. She does also have 500 attack over the vanilla (unlike the 1000 the other Sayaka had), but by resting other characters you can get up to an 11500 base fairly regularly. Unfortunately it would seem Madoka has a lot of cards which work by resting cards, so you’ll have to be very careful managing all these cards, so you don’t get cut off when you need them.

By comparison to other cards the Red/Blue deck has access to she matches the base of the 2/2 Kyoko, but has the potential to go higher, and beats out the 2/1 Sayaka by 500. In terms of pure power this card has them both beat, but carries a larger cost and is far riskier, but she also helps support the level 3 Sayaka as well. I’d probably personally favour the 2/1 Sayaka myself right now, since she’s safer and cheaper to use, but it might turn out that the power of today’s card outweighs its risks.

Ryunosuke’s teacher, Caster

Blue / Level 0 / Cost  0 / 500 / 1 Soul / No Trigger

«サ-ヴァント Servant» / «本 Book»

[A] When this card is placed from Hand to the Stage, choose 1 of your other «死 Death» Characters and it gains Power + 1000 for the turn.
[A] BOND/[Ryunosuke Uryu] [(1)]

Now I’m not sure if this cards Bond target has been revealed, yet so I can’t really comment on how good it is, but Bond abilities are generally valuable for maintaining Hand size, so it can be useful even if the card isn’t brilliant. It would certainly help if it was though.

His other ability powers up a «死 Death» character, which presumably is useful for some Fate decks, but I don’t know what right now off the top of my head. It does mean that he does something beyond just being a Bond card though, so you can help take out another character as well. It also means that he’s not utterly useful on occasions where you cannot do the Bond.

Sad resolution, Homura

Green / Level 2 / Cost 1 / 7500 / 1 Soul / 1 Soul Trigger

«魔法 Magic» / « 時間 Time»

[A] When this card attacks, if “No Longer Relying on Others” is in the Climax Zone, and you have no other Front Row Characters in Standing position, this card gains Power +7000 for the turn.
[A] Shift Level 2 (At the beginning of your Main Phase, you may choose 1 Green card from your Hand and this card in your Clock and exchange them.)

I previously talked about the idea of Shift cards, so you can read about the benefits etc of them here. So today I can just focus on the main ability of this card. As seems to be common over the past couple of days we’ve got another Climax Synergy card. The Climax card in question is a +1000 + 1 Soul card, so that also has to be factored into the power of this card. This means that when this effect activates Homura will have a base attack of 15500, which is amazing for a level 2. As a comparison [Summer Fesitval Nagato] who can also be played at level 2 only goes up to a 14000 base with her Climax. There is very little outside of decks like Fairy Tail that could successfully defend from an attack from Homura here.

Due to the restriction on her effect it means that unfortunately you can only use the effect once at a time, which is understandable since a Stage full of 15500 base attack level 2s would be a bit too much. You’ll either need to leave Homura to last to attack, or have no other characters on the Front Stage to use her effect, so this can sometimes be quite restrictive on you.

So far it looks like the Green Madoka decks have access to lots of high attack cards, but that’s the point of Green afterall.

Trump card of Einzbern, Kiritsugu

Yellow / Level 0 / Cost 0 / 500 / 1 Soul / No Trigger

«マスター Master» / «武器 Weapon»

[C] Your other Front Row Middle Border character gains Power +1000.
[A] CHANGE [(3) Put this card to the Waiting Room] At the beginning of your Draw Phase, you may pay the cost. If you do so, choose 1 [Ruthless and Heartless Hound, Kiritsugu] from your Waiting Room and put it in the Border this card was in.

Unfortunately without knowing what the card Kiritsugu here changes into does, it’s hard to say too much about him that would be meaningful. Some people predict that for a cost that high it’ll allow a skip to Level 2, but we’ll have to wait and see if the Change is worth it.

His other effect provides a powerful boost, but to only one of your characters, however in the early game you’ll likely not want more than 1 character Front Stage to avoid depleting your resources too early. In that sense he does the job of 2 of the normal +500 cards if you only keep 1 character on the Front Stage. Another interesting thing is the fact you can play him Front Stage as well and they’ll still get the boost. This means that in rather unlikely situations your centre character could get up to +4000. Chances are that under normal play you’ll never see much beyond +2000 though.

This card’s change ability will ultimately decide it’s worth, but if you don’t mind restricting your early game plays it can be quite a powerful support card.

A sudden mishap

Yellow / Event / Level 2 / Cost 2 / No Trigger

Choose 1 of your opponent’s Front Stage Level 2 or below characters and put it to Memory.

In Weiβ Schwarz it’s usually very rare to get rid of characters via methods other than battle. You usually need to meet very specific conditions to use them, or can be restricted to only lower level cards. This card allowing you to pick what you get rid of makes it a very easy card to use by comparison. In addition since it sends the card to Memory the card can’t be Encored, and very few decks can do anything about cards once they reach Memory. Basically something hit by this card won’t be coming back.

Since it can only get Front Stage cards it can’t get rid of those annoying support cards though, and being capped at level 2 means it can’t take out the opponent’s real power houses.

If you can afford it the card can be very useful against Encore based decks like Angel Beats! that can be otherwise hard to clear off the Stage. However in most cases it’s actually better in the long run just to play a character to the Stage that can beat the card in question anyway. It’ll often cost less or the same amount, and you can also cause damage, protect yourself and gain the stock back.

Cursed yellow spear, Lancer

Green / Level 2 / Cost 1 / 8000 / 1 Soul / 1 Soul Trigger

«サ-ヴァント Servant» / «武器 Weapon»

[A] [Put 1 [Mortal Yellow Rose] from your Hand to the Waiting Room] When this card attacks, you may pay the cost. If you do so, search for up to 1 «武器 Weapon» character from your Deck, show it to your opponent and add it to your Hand. After that, shuffle that Deck, and for that turn, this card gains Power +3000 and your opponent cannot use [[A] ENCORE]. ([[A] ENCORE [(3)]] from the rules cannot be used as well)

Lancer here appears to be another one of the type of Climax synergy cards, where rather than activating his ability when you have a Climax card in play, you have to discard the Climax card to activate it. This means you give up the potentially powerful effect of the Climax card for this ability. The worth of this will depend on what the Climax card in question does. In some cases you might not want the Climax effect, for example if it boosts Soul a lot you might want to avoid that to have more control over the damage you cause, and make it more likely you won’t get cancelled. Other times you’ll have a tough choice deciding between a power boost to all your characters or just 1.

This card’s actual effect should hopefully make up for giving up a Climax card though. Firstly it fetches a «武器 Weapon» character, which I believe Fate has quite a few to choose from. This means you break even on discarding the Climax, and can exchange it for a card you need next turn. The power boost places him at a base 11000, hopefully meaning that he can take down most threats once supported. After this since you turn off your opponent’s Encore for the turn, whatever he defeats (which is likely near anything) won’t be coming back any time soon. In addition all your other characters benefit from the disabling of Encore, meaning that if you use this effect at the correct time you can clear your opponent’s whole Front Stage in one turn, leaving them to pick up the piece next turn. This can be especially useful against decks like Angel Beats!

Shouting, Kyoko

Red / Level 2 / Cost 2 / 8000 / 2 Soul / 1 Soul Trigger

«魔法 Magic» / «お菓子 Sweets»

[C] If you have any other character whose card name includes [Sayaka], this card gains Power +1500.

If you’re playing a deck based around Kyoko and Sayaka this card will basically be treated as a 2/2 9500 vanilla with 2 Soul. Chances are you’ll always have a Sayaka card on your Stage, whether on the Front or supporting in the Back, so it’s unlikely you’ll ever have a time when this effect isn’t active. This card sits in between the attack powers for a 2/2 with 2 soul (9000) and the 2/2 with 1 Soul (10000). This card is undeniably better than the 9000 vanilla since it comes with 500 extra attack, and you could argue the 1 extra soul is a bonus over the 10000.

Unfortunately no one really uses these vanillas anyway in the first place, since it’s usually better to find a 2/1 or something with a useful effect. It probably won’t make much of an impact, unless the deck has no better options, or you really want to stick to this pairing.

Zabaniya, Assassin

Blue / Level 2 / Cost 2 / 6500 / 2 Soul / 1 Soul Trigger

«サ-ヴァント Servant» / «仮面 Mask»

[C] You can put as many cards as you wish with the same card name as this card in your deck.
[C] All of your other 「Zabaniya, Assassin」 gain Power +1500 and [[A] ENCORE [Put 1 character from your Hand to the Waiting Room]].

Zabaniya, Assassin is the 5th card released so far that you can play an unlimited number of. However unlike the other cards there are multiple different cards in the set with the same name, but different effects. So far two have been revealed, but we can probably expect to see more in the future. The other version revealed so far was a level 1 which gives Power +500 to all other Zabaniya, Assassin.

This deck is an interesting concept in theory, however I’m personally not too impressed by it. Since they only power up the other copies of Zabaniya, Assassin on your Stage it requires large numbers, or multiple copies of the same card to be effective. For example today’s one could power up and grant encore to the level 1 card, however by this point it’ll be outmatched by the opponent’s level 2 cards anyway. In exchange this card would become a 7000, which is poor for a 2/2 for attacking, and far too costly to leave in a support role.

They only really start to become deadly with multiple copies, which is the point afterall. But it’s incredibly costly at 2 stock per card. Since you can have as many copies as you want though there should be no major problem getting them to your hand. At 2 copies you get 8000s with Encore, 3 goes to 9500, 4 to 11000 and finally 5 to 12500. If you get 5 onto the Stage you deserve to get a wall like that.

If you built a deck around the Assassins I’m sure you could construct a fun deck, but they have no place outside of that deck. I wouldn’t expect you to be able to swarm the field with all of these in a single game consistently, but it would make for an interesting Stage to be staring down.

Time Traveller to the Past, Homura

Green / Level 2 / Cost 1 / 7500 / 1 Soul / 1 Soul Trigger

«魔法 Magic» / « 時間 Time»

[A] When this card is put from your Hand to the Stage, if your Deck has 5 or less cards, return all the cards from your Waiting Room to the Deck. If you do so, shuffle that Deck, choose 1 of your [End of Fate, Madoka] and put up to the top 2 cards of your Deck under that character as Markers, and all of your characters gain Power +2000 for that turn.

End of Fate, Madoka

Green / Level 2 / Cost 2 / 8500 / 2 Soul / 1 Soul Trigger

«魔法 Magic»

[C] For every 1 Marker under this card, this card gains Power +1500.
[A] When you Refresh the Deck, you may put the top 1 card of your Deck under this card as a Marker.

Since Homura and Madoka are designed to work together I’m going to cover them both at the same time.

Normally Homura doesn’t do anything, but when you’re close to a deck Refresh she can refill the deck for free. This avoids you taking 1 Refresh Damage, as well as giving your characters a massive attack boost. If the Madoka card is around she gains 2 Markers, making her become an 11500, which is enough to overpower even level 3s. This isn’t even counting the extra +2000 everyone gets. At 13500 before you even consider support cards there’s very little that can stand up to Madoka outside of massive Counter cards. During the following turns even at 11500 she’s still a massive threat.

Without Homura around it’s unlikely Madoka would gain more than 1 Marker, making her a 10000. This makes her no better than a level 3 vanilla, and to be honest you probably won’t be refreshing until you hit level 3 anyway.

Homura could be useful without Madoka, because she provides a free deck refill, and gives you a massive power boost for the turn. Madoka on the other hand isn’t really any good on her own. Together the cards work together really well, as they are of course meant to. So I could see a Green deck utilising both of these cards being quite interesting, although I’m not sure how consistently you could have them both whilst having a 5 card or smaller deck.

Steel Blue Gale, Saber

Yellow / Level 1 / Cost 0 / 5000 / 1 Soul / No Trigger

«サ-ヴァント Servant» / «武器 Weapon»

[A] [(1)] When this card attacks, if [Hammer of the Wind Sovereign] is in the Climax Border, you may pay the cost. If you do so, choose 1 of your characters. It gains Power +5000 for that turn.

Saber has a Climax synergy which provides a massive power boost to one of your characters. At +5000 even Level 1 cards could gain enough power to challenge Level 3 cards. In early to mid game this pretty much means you’ll guarantee defeating a character, since even counters won’t usually help over the +5000. Late game it can either force a counter, or push through against any character your opponent controls.

Empty stare, Sayaka

Blue / Level 2 / Cost 1 / 5000 / 1 Soul / 1 Soul Trigger

«魔法 Magic» / «愛 Love»

[C] During your opponent’s turn, all of your other characters gain Power +1000.
[A] [(1)Put this card to the Waiting Room] When [I'm Really a Fool] is put in the Climax Zone, you may pay the cost. If you do so, choose 1 ["Mermaid Witch"] or [Fighting While Injured, Sayaka] from your Waiting Room, put it in the Border this card was in, draw 1 card, and that character gains Power +1500 until the end of the opponent’s next turn.

The power of this new Sayaka card is entirely dependent on how good the cards it can switch into are. Under normal circumstances it can be a support card giving +1000 to each other character. This makes it better than the ordinary +500 supports like Kyubey and can match level supports during level 2, and the Kyoko/Sayaka Assist supports revealed previously. With all the different cards revealed so far capable of powering your characters up you’ll be spoilt for choice, and will have to pick the ones most suitable to your deck.

The 2nd ability is a Climax synergy effect, which allows you to perform what is essentially a Change, however there are two possible characters to choose from instead of the normal one. Not being an actual Change ability means you can’t combine it with Kyubey though. Unfortunately neither have been revealed so far, so we don’t know if either are worth it yet. Undoubtedly one will be better than the other, but if you can gain quick access to two powerful cards all the better. Of course in the worst case scenario neither will be worth switching too.

In addition to the quasi-Change you also draw a card and boost the switched card by +1500 until the end of the opponent’s turn. Drawing the card covers the cost of the Climax card (assuming it’s not a Draw 1 Climax), and the boost will allow the switched character to act as a powerful attacker and wall until your next turn. Until we know exactly how big they are though, we won’t know how important this +1500 is.

Volumen Hydragram, Kayneth

Green / Level 1 / Cost 0 / 5000 / 1 Soul / No Trigger

«マスター Master» / «錬金術 Alchemy»

[A] [(1)] When this card is Front Attacked, you may pay the cost. If you do so, this card gains Power +1500 for that turn.

This card is interesting from the point of view that it’s essentially a card with an in-built counter. Personally I’m not too impressed by Kayneth, but I’ve seen people interested in him. The most obvious way to look at this card is by comparing him to the 1/1 and 1/0 vanillas.

Compared to the 1/0 this lacks 500 power under normal circumstances, meaning it will lose to vanillas unless you use his effect. It also means he’ll only trade off with all the other 1/0 5000 attack effect characters out there. After he uses his effect though he can take out either of these types of cards, but it comes at the cost of 1 stock.

Compared to a 1/1 he will lack 500 attack after using his ability, however you can play him whilst you have no stock and use the stock from him attacking to make him a 6500 next turn. If you have no stock you simply can’t play a 1/1 by comparison.

In my eyes as a cost 0 he lacks compared to the 1/0 vanilla, and as a cost 1 (using his effect once) he lacks compared to a 1/1. However he is more versatile than either of these cards. Sometimes you won’t need the boost and can save a stock, whilst other times it’ll help you beat 1/0 cards.

Legendary Six Samurai – Shi En and Naturia Beast vs Inzektor Hornet

Most people reading this will probably already have had it hammered home to them how this situation works, thanks to the malicious rumours that were being spread about the Mexican YCS. However some people may have missed this, or might not have had things explained to them fully yet.

So there is no confusion as we go on, I’ll state right away that Legendary Six Samuria Shi En and Naturia Beast cannot negate Inzektor Hornet.

However the reason this is the case might not be immediately obvious to everyone. At first you might look at the situation and wonder why it’s even a question? Inzektor Hornet is an Effect Monster, so why would you be able to use a card that stops a Spell card against him anyway? If you recall previously when I talked about where effects activate and resolve, you’ll note that not only do these events happen in the same location, but effects are also counted as being of the same kind as the card in question at the time. Inzektor Hornet is an Equip Spell card at the moment when you can use his effect, which means that his effect will also be treated as that of an Equip Spell card. So now you might be asking yourself, why can’t Shi En negate Hornet?

The answer lies in what these cards can negate. The cards in question negate the activation of Spell cards (Traps too for Shi En), not the activation of their effects, and this is an important distinction. When you are using Inzektor Hornet you are activating the effect of an Equip Spell card, rather than activating an Equip Spell card itself. As such both Shi En and Beast have no power over Hornet. It is the same reasoning as to why you cannot use Solemn Warning against Infernity Launcher when you go to special summon 2 Infernity monsters.

Trap Dustshoot

How Trap Dustshoot functions should seem simple enough from just reading the card, but the notion of what ‘reveal’ actually means has caused plenty of problems, started once again by a rumour spread in a similar fashion to that above. When it says to reveal your hand you must reveal your hand. This might seem obvious but certain players will use underhanded tactics to try and cheat. As part of the effect of Trap Dustshoot the opponent must reveal their hand, and keep it revealed until the controller of Dustshoot has resolved the effect. This means that even if there are Spell or Trap cards in the opponent’s hand they must also be revealed. It’s not enough to simply show that they are green/purple and therefore not monsters. It’s also not enough to just flash them quickly without giving the user of Dustshoot a chance to confirm what they are. The effect of Dustshoot must be followed and its user should be provided with the appropriate information to make their decision. Of course this doesn’t mean the user of Dustshoot can take liberties with how long they take to choose a card. They shouldn’t take so long as to disrupt the normal flow of play.

Declaring Card Names (Mind Crush/Prohibition/Psi-Blocker etc)

This is another situation which causes similar problems, except in this case it’s a matter of the players trying to cheat by being too literal on the interpretation of the card, rather than being too lax. I’ve heard stories of players refusing to discard for Mind Crush because the opponent got 1 number in the serial code of their Karakuri wrong, or because (and I’m not sure how true this is) their copy of the card in question was written in a different language to the name declared. When you use cards such as these where you are meant to declare a card, you do not have to get the name absolutely correct. Just ensure there is no ambiguity in your intent and that both players understand what you mean. Yu-Gi-Oh! has plenty of long names, which can either be difficult to remember properly, or in some cases even difficult to say properly, because of the use of Japanese terms unfamiliar to a Western audience. Players are not therefore expected to be 100% accurate when it comes to these things.

To illustrate things better we can look at some examples:

1. If player A declares Black Luster Soldier this is ambiguous. Chances are they mean the effect monster, and not the ritual monster, but this is not clear, especially since Black Luster Soldier is the actual full name of the ritual. As such without clarification on this matter, player A is going to be rather disappointed to find out their opponent likely has no Ritual monster in their hand. To avoid this player A needs to specify in some way it is the effect monster. This can be done by including the full name, stating it to be the the Envoy Black Luster Soldier, explicitly saying they mean the effect one, saying something like “The Black Luster Soldier that can attack twice”. As long as it’s clear what they mean it’ll be fine. This applies to all cards where the name, or part of the name is shared with other cards. Saying Demise probably means the King of Armageddon, but you could also be talking about Demise of the Land.

2. Player B is playing Karakuri and player A wants to slow him down with something like Prohibition. Unfortunately they can’t remember the full name of Karakuri Komachi mdl 224 “Ninishi”. There are several ways to go about solving this issue. Maybe they can only remember her model number (224), or the type of Karakuri she is (Komachi), or her actual name (Ninishi). All of these would be fine provided they are not shared by another Karakuri monster. If they cannot even remember the card’s name there are other options open to them. If player A can remember what the card looks like, they can use that to explain which card they want to Prohibit. In this case something like “The female Karakuri in the Kimono surrounded by cherry blossoms” should suffice, since there should be no confusion as to the intent of player A. If they cannot even remember what the card looks like they can resort to details such as stats and effect. “The Karakuri that allows you an extra normal summon” should be a pretty clear statement from which Player B can identify which card is meant.

Just remember that in all cases it should be clear to both players what the intended card is. There’s no point arguing a few turns down the line that you thought they meant a different card. As long as it is clear in some way, either via the full name, a description of what the card looks like, what it does, or a combination of these, it is okay.

Verifying legal copies of cards

A logical follow up to discussing activating cards like Mind Crush, is to discuss what happens when resolving cards like these. Since it’s the most common example in play nowadays I will focus on Mind Crush for the remainder of this section, but everything here applies equally to cards like Chain Disappearance and Nobleman of Crossout. When player A discards or doesn’t discard cards from their hand for Mind Crush, player B is allowed to confirm whether they are being truthful about this matter. However this does not mean player B has the immediate right to check player A’s hand. If the legal number of copies of a card can be identified then player A has no obligation to reveal the rest of their hand.

Say for example Rescue Rabbit is declared and player A discards two copies. Since Rescue Rabbit is currently at three that means they could still have another copy in their hand. However player A also currently has one copy of Rescue Rabbit banished, this means that all three legal copies of the card can be accounted for, and there is no need to verify whether they are holding any extra copies in their hand. If for example a Restricted card like Sangan is named and discarded, there is no reason to verify any further, because the one legal copy is already accounted for. In cases where the number of copies cannot be verified by looking in areas that are public knowledge I believe (although someone please correct me if I’m wrong) there are ways to perform the verification without having to reveal your entire hand/deck. If for example you have the third copy of a card face down on the field you could reveal that as verification, or with a card like Reborn Tengu you could reveal a third copy in your hand when the second one leaves the field. One thing I believe you cannot do  is reveal a specific card from your deck to perform this verification, since your deck is not something you have free access to, unlike your Hand and Field. If anything here is inaccurate please let me know, I’d rather not unwillingly spread false information.

As a final note, it is never the job of a judge to perform this verification. It is something the players should do. Judges are not responsible for performing these kinds of checks.

Blackwing – Gale the Whirlwind

Gale is usually a very simple card to deal with, but can cause problems when applied to cards which either continuously modify their stats, for example Tragoedia, or have an effect applied to them that does the same, such as United We Stand.

Normally you just halve a monster’s attack and defense and leave it at that. However it’s not immediately obvious what happens after this when applied in the situations described above. Tragoedia’s attack and defense is 600 times the number of cards in your hand, so for example if you have 5, he will have 3000 attack and defense. Gale would then halve this to 1500. On the following turn you would draw a 6th card and might be unsure about what attack/defense Tragoedia now has. You might think he has 3600 now, when in actual fact he is ‘frozen’ at 1500 due to Gale. Similarly if you control a Koa’ki Meiru Bergzak equipped with United We Stand he would normally sit at 2800 attack. Halved by Gale this goes to 1400, and from then on it is ‘frozen’ at 1400 regardless of how many monsters you control.

In situations such as these once Gale halves the stats of the monster it will stay like that until a new outside force modifies it again.

Ignoring Summoning Conditions

One of the issues that I feel wasn’t adequately addressed by the new Problem Solving Card Text (PSCT) was the matter of ‘Ignoring Summoning Conditions’ which you can find on cards like Dark Flattop and Level Modulation. I can understand why they might not have included the full details of what this means on the cards, since it could have made the text too bloated, however if you don’t know what this term actually means you can become confused about how these cards work. Unlike what you might think ‘Ignoring Summoning Conditions’ does not mean you can summon the card and ignore everything written on the card with regards to its summoning conditions. The card in question must have been summoned successfully in the first place, before you can revive it. This drastically reduces the power of cards such as these. This means you cannot dump cards like SKY FIRE with Foolish Burial then immediately revive it, since you never summoned it correctly in the first place. You might argue why ‘Ignoring Summoning Conditions’ doesn’t actually allow you to ignore all of them, but you just have to accept that’s how the game works.

Dark World

PSCT has also caused problems in another area, and that’s for the Dark World monsters. Once you know how to read the PSCT it should be easy enough to understand, but it can be very confusing at first, especially if you’re a new player and this is your first encounter with the cards. To illustrate this matter I’m going to be looking at the text of Goldd, and emphasising certain areas of his text.

If this card is discarded to the Graveyard by a card effect: If it was discarded from your hand to your Graveyard by an opponent’s card effect, you can target up to 2 cards your opponent controls; Special Summon this card from the Graveyard, then destroy those cards (if any).

When you first read the card it is very easy to just read the entire card as a running effect and assume that everything about it is linked to being discarded by your opponent. This makes you conclude that nothing happens when you discard him by your own card effect. This is not the case.

When looking at Dark World cards such as this, you should first read the initial bolded statement. If this was due to your own effect you then skip to the next bolded statement and apply that, safely ignoring the rest of the text. If this was due to your opponent’s card effect you do read the italicised sections of the card and applying those effects. As long as you can identify and separate these sections on the card you should have much less trouble working out how the Dark World monsters function.

The End Phase

The End Phase is usually a very simple part of the game, because you normally don’t do anything at all. Either that or you just have an effect that activates in the End Phase or wears off in the End Phase. The problem lies when you have multiple effects like this all trying to happen at once, controlled by different players. If you control all the effects you’re free to choose the order in which to resolve them, but if they are effects controlled by both players Priority becomes important for resolving things.

In the End Phase the turn player has priority to resolve mandatory effects or pass it to the opponent who can do the same. Then it is passed back to turn player who at this point MUST resolve mandatory effects. It is then passed over to the opponent to do the same.

So if we assume the turn player controls a Spirit monster, but the opponent used Effect Veiler on it, what happens at the End Phase? First the turn player can either try to return their Spirit to their hand, and fail due to being negated by Veiler, or pass priority to the opponent. The opponent can then either ‘turn off’ Veiler’s effect or pass priority back to the turn player. At this point if the turn player has not already done so he MUST try to return his Spirit to his hand. Assuming Veiler is still active at this point the effect will once again fail. The opponent MUST then turn off the effect of their Effect Veiler.

So what does this all actually mean? It means that the player who used Effect Veiler has complete control over what happens to the Spirit monster. They control whether it will return to its owners hand or not, based on their decision when priority is passed to them for the first time. If they turn off Veiler then, the opponent can get their Spirit back (assuming they didn’t already try and fail to do so). If they don’t the Spirit has no choice but to be stuck on the field.

Trigger effects upon summon (aka ‘stealing’ priority)

The final section today will be taking advantage of a little used facet of the game to prevent monsters with Ignition effects using their effects before you can respond to them with cards like Bottomless Trap Hole. When a Trigger is met upon the summon of a monster this effect will activate (should its controller choose to do so), this means Ignition effects of monsters cannot be used, because they can never be chained to another card. The most well known example I covered a while back with King Tiger Wanghu, but he’s only useful against little cards like Rescue Rabbit. What about massive cards like Dark Armed Dragon or Judgment Dragon or cards with more than 1400 attack? Cards which can trigger when cards such as these are summoned are few and far between, and even fewer of them see competitive play. An additional problem with some of these cards, like Stumbling, is the fact that the opponent knows the card is there, so can play around it and there’s no surprise factor. Really the only cards which can make use of this and not be immediately obvious are Dragon Ice and T.G. Warwolf.

Dragon Ice meets his Trigger when the opponent special summons any monster, whereas Warwolf only works for level 4 or lower, but can be used on your own special summons as well. As such Dragon Ice is far more useful, however Warwolf is much more widely used and there exist decks based around using the T.G. monsters. But what does this all mean you may ask?

It means that when your opponent summons a potential game ender like Judgment Dragon you can activate the effect of Dragon Ice to special summon it from your hand and your opponent cannot then chain Judgment Dragon’s effect since you can never chain Ignition effects. You on the other hand could chain a card like Bottomless Trap Hole and banish Judgment Dragon before it could ever use its effect. Your opponent will be quite surprised if you do this to save your field from destruction.

Warwolf is far less useful, since Wanghu serves the job better in most cases for level 4 and below, however I suppose it can be useful stopping something like Dark Grepher from dumping too many cards in Infernities?

I hope some of this has been useful to my readers, and if anyone has any comments please let me know. This can be comments on where they think I’ve gone wrong, where they think I need to add details, or maybe you’ve got your own situations you’d like to see expanded upon that you think the wider community would benefit from.

Madoka brings us another Shift card, whilst Fate/Zero gives us another low cost attacker at level 1.

Senior magical girl, Mami

Yellow / Level 0 / Cost  0 / 500 / 1 Soul / No Trigger

«魔法 Magic» / « お茶 Tea»

[A] [(2)] When this is placed from your Hand to the Stage, you may pay the cost. If you do so, search your Deck for up to 1 «魔法 Magic» Character, reveal it to your opponent and add it to your hand. Shuffle your Deck.
[A] Shift Level 0 (At the beginning of your Main Phase, you may choose 1 Yellow card from your Hand and this card in your Clock and exchange them.)

Like Homura from last week, Mami here is a Level 0 Shift card, but comes with a much more versatile effect. She is basically a character version of the [Law of Infinite Loop] event card. Mami costs an extra stock compared to the event card, but can regain this by attacking that turn. If you play Mami to the Front Stage she will likely be lost next turn, resulting in no net gain, just like the event card. If you keep her Back Stage you’ll gain a card, but will have a useless card sitting where a support card could go. However there might be times where you need to send Mami to the Waiting Room anyway to be able to play the character you just added to your hand.

Being a Level 0 Shift card makes Mami more versatile than the event card because you don’t need to worry about colour restrictions, and it’s easier to add the card to your hand. When you’re in a tight bind the event card will serve you better, because you’ll have 1 extra stock on that turn, which can be the difference between playing certain cards or not. I feel both cards could be useful to a Madoka deck and would be interested to see if anyone chooses to play both.

I’m currently wondering if we’ll see a Level 0 Shift for every girl, or at least every colour, and will be curious to see who has the best effect.

Follower of the church, Kirei

Blue / Level 1 / Cost 0 / 4500 / 1 Soul / No Trigger

«虚無 Void» / «マスター Master»
[C] For each of your other Characters with either «マスター Master» and/or «神 God», this card gains Power +500.

Kirei, like yesterday’s card, is a free level 1 card, which offers advantages over a plain vanilla in some circumstances. If you assume you have 2 support character of the required attributes he will be a 5500 base, just like a 1/0 vanilla. 1 additional character makes him 6000, enough to match cards like [Disagreeing Asuka], whilst 2 makes him 6500, which matches cards like [Mitakihara Junior High second grade, Sayaka] when supported. In most situations he probably won’t be seeing 6500 though, because if you place too much to your Stage at once you risk losing lots of cards on your opponent’s turn. As such I imagine he will usually be sitting around a 5500-6000 base.

Since he relies on the presence of other cards on the Stage for his ability, he is less consistent than vanillas and cards like [Disagreeing Asuka], who can stand better on their own. However he comes with the potential to overpower them. The combined Fate series have access to large numbers of cards by this point, and I’m not really too familiar with the series, so I’m not sure how he matches up to other 1/0 cards apart from yesterday’s. Taken in isolation from other Fate cards I feel his benefits would outweigh the risks, and make him a more useful inclusion than a vanilla in the deck.

Today is Valentine’s Day and as such Bushiroad gave us a little treat on the blog with two extra Valentine’s themed cards in addition to the new cards for today, namely a PR card from Railgun featuring Mikoto, and the Happy Valentine’s Climax card from Haruhi. The new cards for the day also sort of follow this theme, with Madoka holding a heart shaped box of chocolates. However I’m not really sure if the Irisviel card has any significance to this since I don’t know Fate/Zero.

“Secret” Madoka

Green / Level 2 / Cost 1 / 7500 / 1 Soul / 1 Soul Trigger

«魔法 Magic»

[C] This card gains Power +1000 if you have 3 or more other «魔法 Magic» Characters.
[A] When this card attacks, if [Don't Tell Anyone Else in the Class!] is in the Climax Zone, choose up to 1 of your other Characters and send it to Memory. At the beginning of your next Draw Phase, put that Character in any Slot of your choice on the Stage.
[A] When this card attacks, if [Don't Tell Anyone Else in the Class!] is in the Climax Zone, this card gains Power +2000 until the end of your Opponent’s next turn.

The first new card for the day is another Madoka card, which is once again Green. I’m still not sure why she was allocated Green since her colour scheme fits closer to Red, but it’s probably due to how they wanted to theme her effects. This card has a whole bunch of long effects today, so much that it covers up a significant portion of the card image.  The first effect is a standalone effect, whilst the latter two are both linked to the Climax card [Don't Tell Anyone Else in the Class!].

Her initial effect, in keeping with many other cards in the set, grants her a power boost when you control enough «魔法 Magic» characters. In most scenarios you will be able to manage this, making her a base 2/1 8500 instead of 7500, which I believe brings her up to the standard for 2/1 vanilla cards, except of course she also has 2 more effects.

Both her 2nd and 3rd effect rely on [Don't Tell Anyone Else in the Class!] and provide quite different uses. The first of these is similar to [Asahina Mikuru] from Haruhi, in that it sends a Character to Memory, before returning them next turn. Unlike Mikuru it doesn’t provide them with a power boost, but it is free. As with Mikuru the main use of this card is to allow for a cheaper Encore, or for protecting a weaker or important character. Characters which have been reversed (either deliberately through a suicide attack, or unintentionally due to an unforeseen counter card) will be saved from the Waiting Room and come back ready to go again next turn. Weaker/important characters on the other hand can be protected from attacks or effects by keeping them off Stage for a turn and out of reach of your opponent.

The final effect adds +2000 to Madoka making her a 10500 base, but it’s likely she could be even higher. For example 11500 with two Kyubey or 12500 with two Kyoko/Sayaka cards. Depending on attack boost, if any, granted by the Climax this could go even higher. The fact the boost sticks around for a turn means she’ll also provide a powerful wall on your opponent’s turn.

Combined with her Climax card Madoka can be a powerful threat to even Level 3 cards, but it may turn out there are more consistent Level 2 cards to choose from in the set, which don’t force your choice of Climax cards in the deck.

Priceless jewel, Irisviel

Yellow / Level 1 / Cost 0 / 4500 / 1 Soul / No Trigger

«ホムンクルス Homunculus» / «錬金術 Alchemy»

[C] If you have another Character with [セイバー Saber] in the name, this gains Power +1000 and [[A] ENCORE [Discard a Character card from hand to the Waiting Room]].

Irisviel is a very simple card, which should be easy to use in Fate decks. If you have [セイバー Saber] on Stage, which I imagine is fairly often she turns into a 1/0 5500 Encore, making her slightly better than a 1/0 vanilla. If you can consistently keep [セイバー Saber] cards on the Stage she can prove useful at Level 1, due to her higher durability. Beyond this there’s not really much else to say.

Multi-sectioned spear, Kyoko

Red / Level 1 / Cost 1 / 2000 / 1 Soul / 1 Soul Trigger

«魔法 Magic» / «お菓子 Sweets»

[C] ASSIST All of your characters in front of this card gain Power +X. X is equal to the number of your characters with [ASSIST] x 500.
[A] [(2)] When this is placed from your Hand to the Stage, you may pay the cost. If you do so, return up to 1 «魔法 Magic» Character from your Waiting Room to your hand.

This card is very similar to Full of Smiles, Sayaka from last week. Both cards share an Assist ability, only really differing in their attack stat and their secondary ability. (Ignoring the largely unimportant attribute difference.) Kyoko here has 500 less attack than Sayaka, which makes her slightly more vulnerable. It’s unlikely either card will be used for attacking, but there are cards such as [Dressed Up Mikuru] which can reduce a card’s attack by 2000, which will get rid of Kyoko, but not Sayaka. However these cards are not commonly seen, so this is not really something to worry about.

Sayaka’s 2nd ability gives her more staying power than Kyoko, however given that it’s unlikely Sayaka will be sent to the Waiting Room in the first place this ability will rarely be used. Kyoko on the other hand has an effect that can be useful at any stage of the game, provided you have the stock. At the quite hefty cost of 3 stock (1 for Kyoko and 2 for the ability) you can retrieve any «魔法 Magic» character from your Waiting Room. As you’ll be aware this will basically mean any character in the deck can be brought back. Chances are the best use of this card will be late game to get back important cards such as Level 3s, but at other times it can save you by digging out a card you need there and then.

Given the high cost of Kyoko’s 2nd ability you won’t be using it very often, but it does grant the card more versatility than Sayaka.

Legendary King of Conquerors, Rider

Green / Level 3 / Cost 2 / 10000 / 2 Soul / 1 Soul Trigger

«サ-ヴァント Servant» / «王族 Royalty»

[C] If you have 3 or more other «マスタ- Master» and/or «サ-ヴァント Servant» Characters, this card gains Power +1000.
[A] When this card is placed from your Hand to the Stage or via CHANGE to the Stage, you may put the top card of your Clock to the Waiting Room.

Rider here is a very simple level 3 card. His general stats are as expected for a standard level 3 (3/2 10000 2 Soul+ Soul Trigger) and he has a healing ability when played from the hand or via CHANGE. Having  a Change card could potentially make this card more useful, but from what I’ve heard pulling off the change isn’t exactly the easiest thing in the world to do. Although I could be wrong / misinformed about this.

His first ability is a very simple attack boost when you have enough of the required characters on stage. I believe these attributes are fairly common to the Fate series cards, so you should have no trouble at all activating this ability, especially when you’ll likely already have 2 cards Back Stage to start with. It might not look like much but a +1000 boost can help this card get over all of the cards which sit at 10000 normally, such as those with a Climax synergy. Combined with level support he can hit 14000, which can be quite hard to overcome for some decks.

There’s nothing fancy to Rider, but he should be able to consistently overpower in battle other cards with much stronger effects.