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Carrotizer on YuGiOh
Mask of Darkness: An Unstoppable Fiend OR Naughty Artifact?
December 20, 2006

            For those who got the joke in the title (think of Mask), good job; it was a bad pun (No pun intended). Okay, I’ll stop it now XD.

Mask of Darkness has been banned ever since people realized a lockdown similar to Yata-Garasu. Time Seal (currently banned) (or Drop Off) + Tsukuyomi (Currently banned) + Mask of Darkness when opponent cannot destroy any of these parts led to infinite dismissal of the Draw Phase.

Ultimate Offering, which isn’t that good by itself to be banned, is also limited to 1 because of Gadgets (or so I heard. If I’m wrong, please correct me) and possibly Black Ptera + Mass Driver/Cannon Soldier + Ultimate Offering + (or without, if you have enough LP) Mysterious Puppeteer.

Then, there is a question. If Time Seal and Tsukuyomi are banned, which are pretty good cards even without assist of other cards, then how come Mask of Darkness is still on the limited list?

Mask of Darkness has a Flip Effect: Select 1 Trap card in your graveyard and add it to your hand. Being Dark is okay, but doesn’t really necessarily help anything but Chaos in Traditional Format and Strike Ninja in Advanced, and Fiend helps Necrofear definitely. While Necrofear decks can certainly benefit from inclusion of this 900 ATK Fiend, is that the reason this is limited?

I don’t think so, no. Magician of Faith is restricted because you can do so many more tricks. When used with conjunction of Swords of Revealing Light, mere 3-turn-stall suddenly becomes ha-I-am-invincible-for-another-3-turns. Pot of Avarice + MoF + Apprentice Magician becomes a pretty good loop, a bit similar to Spear Cretin but more powerful.

Attack Position MoF can use Book of Moon to protect LP without losing anything, save that your opponent now knows you have Book of Moon. Still, Magician of Faith can reuse deadly and powerful cards such as Graceful Charity and Card Destruction, and even Last Will. (Last Will + Flip MoF + Last Will + summon Jinzo/Mobius to clear out field + bring out Stein/whatever to end game)

I’m not saying that Mask of Darkness isn’t powerful. Grabbing Mirror Force/Ring of Destruction/Torrential Tribute, and even Call of the Haunted is like having two limited cards. Heck, when your opponent thinks you, pardon me, suck when you use Mirror Force on just 1 Cyber Dragon, just shrug and grab that Mirror Force back. See if that’s funny.

Counter-Fairy decks utilize Counter Traps as means of negating every move that opponent can possibly perform. Mask of Darkness can help it negate one more move, which can decide win or lose.

Then how come Magician of Faith shows up in every single deck (99% won’t be too false) in Regionals and Shonen Jump Championships and Mask of Darkness haven’t showed up in Top 8 for a long time? (I haven’t seen on with it, but since I didn’t see every Regional Top 8 decks…)

Nature of Spell and Trap cards are very diverse and different. While all Spell cards can be activated during your turn right away, or even your opponent’s turn in case of Quick-Play, Trap cards have specific activation requirements. Even Ring of Destruction/Ceasefire/Call of the Haunted requires a legal target, which can sometimes be dead cards in your hand (though Ring of Destruction comes handy every time).

Trap cards also have vulnerability for 1 turn, in which while they are set. End Phase Dust Tornadoes can wreck Ring of Destruction and Call of the Haunted, ready to be chained during your opponent’s turn. Effects such as Makyura the Destructor (banned!) are powerful because now, you have Spell Speed 2 cards straight from your hand. Jetroid is an extremely watered down version, but nevertheless not so useless.

This 1 turn isn’t so slow, but the fact that your opponent knows what’s coming makes the probability of success lower. They won’t summon 2nd or 3rd monster if they know you have Torrential Tribute face-down. They will wait until MST/Heavy Storm or just drop Sangan.

Is Mask of Darkness strong? Definitely. Is it strong enough? Yes. With average decks running about 8+ Traps (when Jinzo was a staple, that was a LOT of Traps), no more than 20-25% (seeing that decks run 42ish cards), Mask of Darkness becomes more “situational,” although it makes a nice combination with hated Magic Cylinder. I hope someone takes one of my all-time favorite cards to National or possibly World Champ!

By Paul Yeem – Carrotizer @ paulyeem@gmail.com