Each time a Spell Card is activated, the controller
of that Spell Card takes 1000 points of damage.
Type - Continuous Trap
Card Number - IOC-106
Card Ratings
Traditional: 2.75
Advanced:
1.95
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale 1 being the worst.
3 ... average. 5 is the highest rating.
Date Reviewed - 02.08.05
Coin Flip
Ah,
I love Curse of Darkness. There's something
enchanting about the premise. In a way, this card is
more dangerous than Imperial Order.
The deck that uses this will generally want their
opponent to think twice about playing the magic card
they drew. I've been in the position before where
I've had to choose between a Geki and a Pot because
they had Curse of Darkness on the field. Read my
autobiography, "Why the hell do you even care?" for
more.
Anyway, I wish I had the shot at reviewing this card
back in IOC. I had to review Chain Burst first,
which was alright but not exactly on par with this.
First off, this card is dangerous. It can really
change a game. In burn decks in GENERAL, this
changes games. It sucks to lose 2000 LP in one turn
(Ojama Trio and Just Desserts plus your normal
summon), and then face the wrath of a Lava Golem and
Stealth Bird for 4000 damage in three turns (which
happens more than you think it should) and then have
one of these sprung on you. There are less specific
situations, but basically, you can be paying ~20% of
your life points for every magic card you use by
your second turn. When you have to do that just to
spring out of a cycle where you're ALREADY losing
mass life every turn, you know you are going to need
to sidedeck.
Unfortunately, a lot of the more powerful Magic
cards are making their way out of people's decks
through bans and stuff. Before, you could be doing
1-3 Magic cards per turn before both players entered
topdecks, and now I see 2 if it's a rare situation
every turn. The game has become less Magic-oriented.
That said, this thing has lost some power. People
still run Pot, Change, Snatch, MST, Heavy, and
Smashing Ground because they can, but they're also
more likely to have dropped up to 4 Magics to be
running some more monsters and traps, namely Dust
Tornado.
But on the other hand, without Duster and 2 MSTs,
this will do more damage or affect the opponent
aversely even more.
The thing is, burn likes cards like this that don't
DIRECTLY impair the opponent such as Gravity Bind or
Level Limit - Area B. Burn decks like Ojama Trio.
Burn decks like Curse of Darkness. They don't
directly impair you, but they create a limitation as
to what you can do, and in the case of Curse of
Darkness, put your foot on Burn's accelerator.
I personally wouldn't run a burn deck without one,
but I'm highly biased towards the card.
Burn deck:
4.2/5 Traditional
4.2/5 Advanced.
ExMinion OfDarkness
Curse of Darkness
A burn card that usually ends up being just
short of maindecked in Burn.
Curse of Darkness is a great card in concept --
1,000 damage whenever a Spell is activated is
quite a drawback. Mid-game, this can cause an
opponent to hold back upon playing Spells until
they can get rid of Curse some other way.
Late-game, it could be an Advanced Format
version of Imperial Order.
However, this card has inherent weaknesses that
keep it out of any Burn I'd make.
Traditional: Harpie's Feather Duster, Heavy
Storm, MST, and the Dust Tornadoes, along with
Breaker, mean this card won't be on the field
very long.
Advanced: Heavy Storm, MST, the MULTIPLE mained
Dust Tornadoes, the possible Raigeki Breaks,
along with Breaker and possible mained Mobiuses
mean this card will be on the field for an even
short amount of time. Since more of the removal
is in Monster or Trap form, it's possible that
all 3 of your Curse of Darknesses will leave
without inflicting a single point of damage.
Don't get me wrong -- it's a good card -- just
not good enough. If they end up restricting
Mobius, banning Breaker, and restricting Dust
Tornado (which will never happen), then play
this card. But until then, there are better
options.
1.75/5 both formats
Tranorix
Curse of Darkness
Fun fact: Curse of Darkness was the first card I
ever reviewed for Pojo’s Card of the Day. Fun fact:
The review was never posted because I submitted it
too late, so Insect Princess is technically the
first you all get to see.
Fun fact: I’m lazy, so parts of this review will
just be copied and pasted from that one.
First of all, it must be made clear that you can’t
chain this to MST or Heavy Storm to make your
opponent take 1000 damage; it must already be active
on the field. The reason is that it charges 1000 LP
on ACTIVATION; if you activate it in a chain to
something, said card will already have been
activated and Curse of Darkness will be too late to
stop it.
That said, it’s a very nice card, better than its
cousin, Chain Burst. Almost all decks have an
abundance of Spells, and forcing your opponent to
pay 1000 to activate each one is bound to hurt him
quite a bit if he can’t get rid of your Curse. Using
this late-game will really discourage your opponent,
since he’ll have to be very careful with what he
plays; this card could very well win you the game by
preventing your opponent from playing any Spells at
all.
Run it in decks that are more Trap-heavy than
Spell-heavy, as it’s a little…counterproductive to
use this in a deck with lots of Spells, unless
you’re a masochist.
Traditional – CCCC: 2/5
Traditional – Burn: 3.5/5
Advanced – CCWC: 2.5/5
Advanced – Burn: 4/5
OVERALL RATING: 3/5
Snapper
Curse of Darkness
Today’s card is Curse of Darkness, a Trap that is a
pain to anyone that uses a lot of Spell Cards.
Curse of Darkness has a simple effect; whenever
someone activates a Spell Card they lose 1000 Life
Points. Because nearly ˝ of most Decks are Spell
Cards, Curse of Darkness could easily ruin
somebody’s plans, forcing your opponent to find
alternative means of dealing with threats or
accomplishing other tasks. Of course nobody’s
stopping them from activating a Spell Card, but 1000
Life Points begins to add up quickly after a few
Spells are activated. You must remember though that
Curse of Darkness is a two-sided sword; if you use
Curse of Darkness you’ll want to be sure that you
aren’t using too many Spells or else you could have
the same problem as your opponent.
Advanced: 2.5/5. There are lots of widely used
non-Spell versions of S/T destruction, giving the
opponent easy ways to rid themselves of this menace.
Traditional: 3/5. There is still plenty of S.T
destruction but most is in Spell form, causing the
opponent to lose 1000 Life Points either way.
Overall: 2.75/5.
Art: 2.5/5. I’m not really sure what’s supposed to
be going on in this scene…
f00b
Curse of Darkness
Aight, so it’s burn week for CoTD. Next to your
basic cookie cutter type deck, this is the archetype
I have tested most heavily against. Through these
numerous testing sessions I have pretty much found
out what does and doesn’t work in a good burn deck,
as well as how to stop the cards that do work well
for them.
The only problem is, most burn decks I have played
against don’t have access to this card in either the
main or sidedeck. However, I do remember a
particular set of matches in which this card was
used, so perhaps this will provide some insight as
to why.
The card is pretty simple, use a spell card, pay the
price (12.5% of your original LP). Does this card
negate spells? No. Is it a preventative measure?
Definitely.
First, if you run Curse of Darkness, you can play
around it to your advantage by activating your
normal spells before setting this, and certainly by
playing the continuous stall cards like Level Limit
and Messenger of Peace. Basically, you will only
have to “pay” to activate your quick-play spells
i.e. scapegoat.
Once your opponent knows you run this card, they
will be wary in playing out their hands. As much as
50% of your average “cookie cutter” deck contains
spell cards. This means that such appealing gestures
as paying 1000 LP to activate Pot will most likely
draw into more spells. Frustrating, eh? But the
problem here is, since a “normal” deck is quite
likely to lose game 1 to burn anyway (and for sure,
there is a lack of maindecked support to deal with
cards like these as you’ll lose if you don’t draw
the Jinzo, Storm, MST, or Breaker early), they will
then have the opportunity to sideboard in all the
“other” forms of m/t removal, among which should be
cards like Dust Tornado (a Trap that can take care
of CoDarkness) and the two monster answers – Mobius
the Frost Monarch and Swarm of Locusts. Add this to
the ever-present Jinzo and possibly Royal Decrees
and it doesn’t seem like Curse of Darkness will
really be stopping much anyway. So, if you look at
it in a normal scenario, when you chain it to your
opponent’s first spell card, they will take 1000 LP
from the “shock value” of the card, and then just
wait for an answer (and since burn isn’t an
explosive deck, this won’t hurt them).
This basically turns this card into a Poison of the
Old Man + 200 LP damage, or a Tremendous Fire
without the 500 LP damage to yourself. These are
both INCREDIBLY weak cards to run in burn, and would
lead me to believe Curse of Darkness can be
categorized similarly.
Since the way to beat burn anyway is by “weathering
the storm” and drawing out your answers, you aren’t
likely to be in dire need to take 1000 LP for cards
that don’t do too much for you. But on the other
hand, if you have a hand full of juicy spells like
Painful Choice, Pot of Greed, and Nobleman of
Crossout (virtual must-plays), or if you simply get
“locked in” by CoD while your opponent burns you to
death and you don’t draw an answer, CoD may end up
doing some damage.
Overall, I think Curse of Darkness is simply too
bland of a card to use and isn’t worth tossing into
the burn deck, even though the thought of multiple
CoDs is very tantalizing, it isn’t best to
‘overextend’ like this, and you’ll lose to Heavy
Storm if you don’t have a Solemn Judgment down.
Of course, sometimes I can see this card just
winning games, because monsters aren’t too special
without the spells to back them, and especially in
burn decks running cards that get better over time
like Wave Motion Cannon, Stealth Bird, and Lava
Golem, this will force your opponents to dwindle low
on LP just to try and get something accomplished in
the game.
But, like I said, once it reaches Games 2 and 3,
they should have plenty of sideboard cards coming
in, and certainly enough to make this card simply
insignificant.
Don’t think I’m saying just because S/T removal will
be sided in that I’m saying it nullifies this card
(this would mean every spell or trap is ‘useless’ if
non-chainable) – what I’m really saying is that in
its own right and at the time you activate it, Curse
of Darkness isn’t such a hot card and I would much
rather have a potent, more consistent burn spell in
my arsenal if I was the burn player.
~Ratings~
Traditional – 0.8/5 Stick to Imperial Order as your
defense from HFD and Heavy Storm, especially since
the “burn archetype” isn’t so hot here.
Advanced – 1.6/5 You might catch a poor player “off
guard” and win the second game because all they have
are spells and no way of using them (or risk losing
the game by LP loss), but in this case you should be
winning anyway because they didn’t have enough
sideboard to even make it a fair game. Burninate the
countryside.
sHecKii
I'll make this review very short but to the point:
THIS CARD IS THE NUTS IF YOU GET IT IN YOUR OPENING
HAND!
The trick with this card is DRAWING it in your
opening hand... =\
I think a correct burner build (which to tell you
the truth i haven't been able to do yet), probably
includes 2-3 Curse of Darkness. 1000 life points is
a HUGE amount of life points if you think about
it...A good example of this theory is when you use
Magical Scientist. you pay 1000 for a monster, and
then normally a monster of 1400+ hits into magical
scientist which means you took 2100-3000-ish damage
by using Magical Scientist...Even if you use a
protection card for magical scientist, sometimes you
use his effect again which means it's a 2000 life
point (1/4th of your life points) swing. *shrugs* do
not count this card out...
Also, this is one of the best cards to board in
against FTK scientist decks since they do not play
any trap cards and never pass around 10-11
monsters...that's over 71% of the cards in the deck.
Even if the first Spell they activate is Giant
Trunade/Heavy Storm...7000 life points = they can
use scientist+turtle for 6600 damage if they have it
on the field...it's a total of under 7500 if they
launch catapult turtle and magical scientist...most
likely they will have to Pot of Greed into it or
something of that nature, which means you won the
match...
*NOTE* one of the many traps to stop first turn kill
IF YOU HAVE THE ABILITY TO GO FIRST!!!!!! ^RAR^
Others include Hallowed Life Barrier, Divine Wrath,
Pikeru's Cirlce of Enchantment, Chain Disappearance,
even Compulsory Evacuation Device, and Barrel Behind
the Door...there's probably more but i'm trying to
get the point of the ftK match-up is a coinflip dxP
But focusing on the burner deck's aspect, imagine if
your opponent has to Painful Choice, Premature
Burial, Pot of Greed, Confiscation/The Forceful
Sentry, Heavy Storm, Mystical Space Typhoon into an
answer against burner...even if you do 1000-2000
damage only, it's still more than what you expect
from Stealth Bird and/or Secret Barrel
sometimes...Really should look into this card
