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Fascinating.
Today’s card is
Summoning
Curse.
This is a Continuous Spell card that punishes
Special Summons fiercely: when a player summons a
monster (or monsters in the case of summoning more
than one at a time), your opponent removes from play
1 card from their hand.
There is an upkeep cost: 500 LP per turn.
That’s not cheap but it isn’t crippling and
it is worded so you can choose not to pay and let
the card self-destruct.
Awesome: even if the card isn’t good, being
forced to keep it in play or being forced to pay can
cripple this kind of card.
Let’s get some rulings out of the way.
The 500 Life Points paid for the card are a
cost.
The effect starts a chain when the monster(s) is
(are) Special Summoned.
This is a mandatory effect and it even occurs
if a monster is Special Summoned during the damage
step! If
you manage to Special Summon a monster at the exact
same time as your opponent (as with
Shallow Grave) then Summoning
Curse only triggers once but both players still
must remove one card from their hand, with the turn
player removing his/her card from play first.
Whoever controls the Special Summoned monster
when the effect resolves is the one to remove a card
from their hand… ooh, I see where that is going.
Note that apparently Tokens should work since
the monster can come from anywhere and they aren’t
specifically excluded, and that the card stacks:
multiple copies means multiple cards removed.
Besides the combo I just alluded to but want to save
for late, the obvious use for this card is your Side
Deck.
When you encounter a
Blackwing,
Gladiator
Beast, Plant, or Zombie deck, this will at least
curb, if not cripple their ability to swarm, since
even the most efficient ones will need their hand
for their best combos.
Good news for
Infernity players is that the removal is of course an effect and not
a cost, so with their hand already empty, they don’t
care.
Cards like Necroface and D.D. Scout Plane
are great targets for your own hand.
Remember to opt out of paying the upkeep cost
if you don’t want
D.D. Scout
Plane to force another discard when it resolves.
Now the best use… I already mentioned: Side Deck!
That is where most players will want to
consider it, if not run it.
For those like me who love those kinda crazy
decks,
Black Garden will let your ever Normal Summon ditch one card per
Summoning Curse. You can
also abuse classics like
Lava Golem;
since it is Special Summoned to the opponent’s side
of the field, they have to pay for it!
Even one of my favorites,
Ojama Trio
gets to party with this card (though all three
tokens only equal one card removed).
Yes indeed, I really like this card.
You can’t just run it with no forethought,
but with some proper planning you can easily keep it
in your Side Deck to aggravate many commonly run
decks, and quite frankly some near universal deck
strategies: how many decks don’t run at least a
couple of Special Summons?
If you are daring, you can unleash a whole
world of hurt centered on this card.
Once your opponent’s hand is gone, they’ll
have to top deck into an answer for the situation.
Ratings
Traditional:
2/5 – I think there is something one could do with
this card here… but you won’t often get the chance.
Advanced: 4/5 – Not quite a must for your Side Deck, but I
think it is a great pick.
Plus it can augment or even be the foundation
of some nice rogue decks.
Perhaps I am being a bit generous because I
love shaking things up.
I am still selling my former collectables on eBay.
I’ve had a lot of hobbies over the years, so at
various times I’ll have comic books, manga, action
figures, and video games on the auction block.
You can take a look at what’s up for bids
here. I usually add new stuff on
Wednesdays and Saturdays. Just a reminder,
Pojo is in no way responsible for any transactions
and was merely kind enough to let me mention the
auctions here. ;)
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