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Pojo's Yu-Gi-Oh! Card of the Day
Daily Since 2002!

Balance of Judgment
- #CORE-EN078

If your opponent controls more cards than the combined number of cards in your hand and that you control: Draw cards equal to their surplus. You can only activate 1 "Balance of Judgment" per turn.

Card Ratings
Advanced: 2.16 

Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale
1 is Horrible. 3 is Average. 5 is the highest rating.


Date Reviewed:
August 24, 2015

Back to the main COTD Page

 

Baneful

Smart opponents don't overextend on field advantage and most decks generally don't want to burn through their resources.  But this card, nonetheless, is a way for a player with only 1 or 2 cards left to easily +1, +2 or +3.  You could hypothetically +5 if the disparity is enough, but I wouldn't count on that.  I could see Chain Burn decks and decks like it using it.  This card will only fit in certain decks, but I wouldn't under-estimate it.
 
3/5


Dark

Paladin

Balance of Judgement (yes I purposely left the first "e" as that's also grammatically acceptable) another Balance card.  This one is quite different, as it isn't a Counter, nor does it negate or destroy anything.  The stipulation for this is really weird.  Your opponent has to control more cards on the Field total, than you do on the Field AND in your Hand.  You're then able to Draw the difference in the amount of those cards.  So let's look here...This might be a good late game card, assuming you're losing, but that doesn't make this card that good.  I don't get why the Hand is included for you, but not the opponent.  You wouldn't want to purposely fall behind and just wait for this to be able to be used for +6 or mass advantage whatever.  I assume the Hand was over compensation so this card couldn't easily be broken into mass advantage for the player.  I also, circling back, don't exactly get the Solemn name as it doesn't fit with the others, but that's a moot point I suppose.

Rating: 2.25/5 
Art:  4/5

T-REX

Balance of Judgment 

Potentially this card has the ability to be more effective than Sixth Sense especially against Decks that commit lots of cards to the field, but on the other hand in a Deck that doesn’t use its resources terribly quickly or hopes to retain them, this card may well be next to useless. 

What I find the weird thing about this card is that the term “Surplus” is used when determining how many cards that you Draw from this card, which although it describes how you determine the effect surprisingly well, just seems a strange word! 

So what is this going to be bad in?

Well, essentially ANY Deck that can add cards/ refill their hand quickly/ Sets or Summons many cards to the field… And this is for the most part ANY Meta Tier Deck, already meaning that this card for all of its potential is already quite likely to be rather ineffective here. 

So is there anything that its going to actually be good in?

Yes quite simply, any Deck that uses heavy amounts of resources to obtain a relatively small amount of return effectively and requires full replenishment of those resources for as little effort as possible can and will be able to benefit from it to the full extent. 

What Decks are actually going to play it, or could at least consider it as an option?

The first, and clearly the most obvious choice here is going to be in Chain Burn where it can truly be nuts, I’ve already heard of people Drawing 6-7-8 cards off this, and of course winning because of this! Six Samurai’s and Synchron Decks both quite often burn through their entire hand turn 1 in order to set themselves up, and if they lose their created field they may be unable to otherwise recover, this allows them to even up the playing field and at least have another shot at getting back into the game, and for lower Tier Decks, this is a GOOD thing.  It could also at least potentially be useful in Clown Blade, which can burn through its hand quite quickly to try and obtain field set up as well as Infernoids and Igknights, but this would of course require some testing and may at best prove to be no more than just another Side Deck option, in which case it may never even actually see play at all in these instances… The Side Deck as we all know really is just that tight!

Now for some of the things that you need to know, or can use to increase this cards effectiveness…

Balance of Judgment ALWAYS counts either itself and any of your other cards that are on the field at resolution, so regardless of whether or not this is the first card in a chain or the last, unless you have a card that remains on the field or in your hand at the resolution of this card it will effect how many cards you Draw, this will mean that you will almost always have at least the 1 card, Balance of Judgment on the field which will mean that in order to Draw any cards at all, your opponent MUST have at least 2 cards on the field upon the resolution of this card as well as assuming that you have no other cards in your hand or on the field in order for you to Draw 1 card.

Additional ways to “Pump up” how many cards that you Draw with this effect can be obtained by giving your opponent Ojama Tokens or by chaining something such as Fairy Wind in order to clear all other face-up Spell and Trap cards cards except for itself (Fairy Wind) from the field thus maximising the amount of cards that you can and will be able to Draw from its effect.

Both of the above examples are, and will be ways in which a Deck like Chain Burn can and will be able to obtain the maximum potential out of this card while at the same time feasibly being able to Draw 10 cards in a Chain, Stall AND inflict Burn damage, making it almost a given that the Burn Deck would be able to win.

Additionally, as in general Hand Traps go to the Graveyard for their cost, if they are used at any time during the Chain they’ll be able to reduce your hand size while also gaining their effect(s). 

Rating: 2 AND 5. This card I am actually giving 2 ratings, the 2 is for what this card is for the most part likely to be, a rather poor and inferior card choice that does little to nothing towards furthering the aims of the Deck. BUT if used in a Deck that can maximise the potential of this card, it can very easily border on close to INSANE level and could very easily be considered to be far more broken than Sixth Sense… I’m certain that not everyone will agree with me here, but if you are able to Draw 8 cards from a single card, I beg to differ!

It will be truly very interesting indeed to see how this card ultimately effects the Meta for those Decks that can truly benefit from it, and it is certain to see play, but probably what is most important overall, the Deck that do and will benefit from it are at least at this stage, lower Tier.


Kingof
Lullaby

Hello Pojo Fans,
 
Balance of Judgment has the ability to be a big play card, or just a quick draw to get another resource. If you are running cards that require a good amount of resources then this can help recoup your loses. It also works if your opponents strategy revolves around swarming and controlling several cards on the field at once. 
 
Having less card than your opponent isn't always the best strategy, and when it is, the lack of cards usually is part of the strategy like in Infernity decks. The requirement can pose a problem because it also includes your hand as well as on the field versus just your opponents field. Being a trap makes it slow, forcing you to wait until your next turn to benefit from it.
 
The negatives outweigh the positives, despite the possibility of it netting you a significant plus. Topdecking this while you have a way to stop your opponent can set up this significant plus, but how reliable is this?
 
Advanced-2.5/5
Art-2/5
 
Until Next Time
KingofLullaby

Miguel

New week, new cards. Balance of Judgment is Trap card that works under a certain set of circumstances. Kind of like if the planets are aligned, you can summon the lord of the underworld. But I digress. Balance of Power can only work if your opponent controls more cards on their field than you control on your field and in your hand combine. Draw cards equal to the difference. It also has the Once per turn rule. I can see the point of this card, but I to use it requires your opponent to seriously commit to their field. I can see this maybe late in the game and you are out-gunned, field wise, you may net an extra 3-4 maybe 5 cards which might be able to turn it around, but maybe not all the time. You draw this early, it'll just be sitting there, for a while.
 
2/5

Warlockblitz

I am not sure about this Trap Card. This is a draw option where if the opponent's field is bigger than your combined field and hand, draw the difference of cards. So if they have plussed on their turn, you can set this and draw cards the next turn. If this were a spell, we might have something. This is a terrible opening card because the hands would be fairly equal. The old Infernity cards might be able to activate this because there hand is 0 and their field is about 3-4 cards. But then they would draw a bunch of cards and not gain their effects. Token decks might have something here because they don't count as cards on the field. Maybe you can use this if you have some monster that requires all hand cards. Rituals, Montage Dragon. I am trying to find a good use for this, but I can't recommend this.

Score: 1/5 I don't think even Exodia would use this draw option.
Art: 2/5 I like this guy to be on Counter Traps and that's it.

-WarlockBlitz


Pleb the
Turtle

Another card in the whole “judgement” series of cards, but this time –unlike its countertrap counterparts- it is a lot worse. It lets you draw cards equal to the number of cards your opponent controls minus the number of cards on your field and hand. The only deck I can see this card being run in is a maybe one of is chainburn, if you have issues with an empty hand, but most well-built chainburn decks don’t have that issue. Honestly, Balance of Judgement has an ok art and crappy effect.

2/5


DarkWorld
Servant
YouTube

Whats up everyone? Its CJ here coming at ya with another CoD. 

Balance Of Judgment is a very interesting trap card. Its a card at first glance looks like you could gain alot from but when you really look at it its really hard to abuse it. First is counts all the cards in your hand and on yout field. But it doesnt count your opponents cards in hand. 

So to really get any amount of pulses with this card you are going to have to way behind in cards and if you get that low your opponent is already going to have there field set up and youre probably going to lose. The whole part of the game is trying to stay ahead in cards and make sure you can make plays. 

Its decent but to really get anything off of it without like a one or two cards is you need to be really behind. Good card, balance with drawing, but not great. 

Rating 2.5/5 


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