“You can’t do that” 

“Why not” 

“It doesn’t work like that” 

I bet these are some of the most commonly spoken words in the entire game of Yu-Gi-Oh.  First, if you have never read the thirty-plus pages of rules in the “Official Rulebook”, read it.  There’s a lot of stuff in there that you need to know.  If for no other reason, you need to know the rulebook so you don’t get embarrassed at a local tournament for having a 35 card deck that contains 5 copies of Mystical Space Typhoon and all three God cards.  Please, everyone read the rulebook that comes with the starter and structure decks.  If you don’t have one, buy a structure deck there’s one in every box.  It is a good reference and even experienced players should refresh their understanding of its contents from time to time. 

Supposing you have read the rulebook and you’re sure you are an expert on the rules of Yu-Gi-Oh.  Let’s have a pop quiz.  No looking up the answers.  You have 2 minutes to answer the following, no peeking at the answers below: 

1)      You declare an attack with your “Rare Metal Dragon” against your opponent’s attack position “Eria The Water Charmer”.  Your opponent activates “Threatening Roar” in response to your attack.  Is “Eria The Water Charmer” destroyed?

2)      Your opponent only has two attack position “Solar Flare Dragon’s” on the field and you have one “Ryu Kokki” on the field and no other cards and it is your turn.  How many Life Points of damage will your opponent take when you attack directly with “Ryu Kokki”?

3)      Your opponent attacks your attack position “Monk Fighter” with “Pyramid Turtle”, destroying their “Pyramid Turtle”.  They use “Pyramid Turtle’s” effect to summon “Vampire Lord” from their deck in attack position.  You activate “Bottomless Trap Hole” against the summoning of “Vampire Lord” to destroy it.  Does “Vampire Lord” go to the graveyard or is “Vampire Lord” removed from play?

4)      It is your opponent’s turn and you have “Theinen The Great Sphinx” in attack position and you have a “Dust Tornado” that you had set in a prior turn.  Your opponent has a facedown “Guardian Sphinx” and they activate “Royal Decree”.  You activate “Dust Tornado” targeting “Royal Decree”.  Will you get to set a spell or trap card using “Dust Tornado’s” effect?

5)      Your opponent equips your “Blowback Dragon” with “Big Bang Shot” and ends their turn.  Your opponent has a defense position “Peten The Dark Clown” on the field and one more “Peten The Dark Clown” in their hand.  You have 1500 Life Points and your opponent has 3000 Life Points.  On your turn you attack “Peten the Dark Clown” with “Blowback Dragon” which is still equipped with “Big Bang Shot”.  Can your opponent summon another “Peten The Dark Clown” from their hand?

Before I review these questions I’ll give you more time if needed to go back and rethink some of the questions.  Don’t cheat; you won’t get anything out of this if you look up the answers.  Besides, Yu-Gi-Oh players really lookdown on cheaters. 

Threatening Roar is not Waboku and they do not work the same way.  We are often lulled into the belief that similar outcomes occur because of similar effects.  Waboku’s effect is: “Make all Battle Damage inflicted by monsters on your opponent's side of the field 0 during this turn”.  If you have already calculated damage and not played Waboku, you are too late.  You can activate Waboku when your monster is attacked in the Battle Step, but not after that.  Waboku needs to be active before the calculation of damage in order for it to effect that calculation of damage.  If you pull out the Yu-Gi-Oh Official Rulebook (I’m going to use version 4.0 since that’s the one I have) and turn to page 32, you can get a better picture of what I’m saying.  Threatening Roar is very different, its effect is, “Your opponent cannot declare an attack during this turn”.  It does not say, “negate your opponent’s attack”.  This means that if your opponent has already attacked, you are too late.  When comparing Waboku’s effect with Threatening Roar’s you’ll note that you need to activate Threatening Roar earlier than Waboku in order to get the effect.  You’ll also note that once the time for activation has passed, then you cannot go back and retroactively activate either trap card, meaning you will take damage.  Finally, you’ll note that the cause of these differences in printed right on the card, meaning Waboku deals with the step when battle damage is calculated and Threatening Roar deals with the step when an attack is declared.

The effect of Solar Flare Dragon says, “This card cannot be attacked if there is another Pyro-Type monster on your side of the field. This card inflicts 500 points of damage to your opponent's Life Points during the End Phase of your turn.”  Since Solar Flare Dragon is a Pyro-Type monster then it would seem that having two of them on the field would mean that your opponent could not attack either of them because their effects protect each other.  This means that a player who only has two Solar Flare Dragon’s on the field cannot be attacked, not even directly.  The reason a lot of folks think you can attack Life Points directly when there are two Solar Flare Dragons protecting each other is that Life Points can be attacked directly when The Legendary Fisherman is on the field as a sole monster.  The effect of The Legendary Fisherman is, “As long as "Umi" is face-up on the field, this card is unaffected by any Spell Cards. Monsters on your opponent's side of the field cannot select this card as an attack target”.  Think back to the Threatening Roar discussion, there is a difference between these effects.  Go back and pick up the Rulebook again, attacking happens after targeting, they are different steps.  In the case of Solar Flare Dragon, the dragons are valid targets so when you initiate the Battle Step attacking directly is not an option, whereas in the case of The Legendary Fisherman the fisherman is not a valid target as it says on the card.  Therefore in the absence of a valid target, when you move on from the Battle Step to the Damage Step, direct damage is inflicted despite The Legendary Fisherman’s presence on the field.  No valid target is the equivalent of no monster in this instance. 

Pyramid Turtle is a fantastic monster, here’s the effect, “When this card is sent to the Graveyard as a result of battle, you can Special Summon 1 Zombie-Type monster with a DEF 2000 or less from the Deck to the field. Then shuffle the Deck”.  Using Pyramid Turtle’s effect Vampire Lord can be special summoned from the deck since its DEF is only 1500.  This is a terrific strategy unless of course your Vampire Lord gets removed from play by Bottomless Trap Hole.  Vampire Lord’s effect of returning to the field from the Graveyard does not work when it’s removed from play.  Ok, I know that some of you are about ready to explode.  Did I mention that the Official Rulebook is a useful thing?  Turn to page 32, “Example of Battle & Damage Steps” and start at the top.  In step 1, Pyramid Turtle and Monk Fighter are selected.  In step 2, we determine that Monk Fighter’s ATK of 1300 is greater than Pyramid Turtle’s ATK of 1200.  In step 3, 100 Life Points of damage get’s deducted from the player who attacked with Pyramid Turtle.  In step 4, nothing happens.  In step 5, Pyramid Turtle’s effect is activated and Vampire Lord is summoned.  Let’s stop here.  The rulebook says that both players can activate Quick-Play Spell or Trap cards in step 1 and certain ones in step 2.  Neither player can activate Quick-Play or Trap cards in steps 3, 4 or 5.  Also you need to take note of the fact that we’ve not yet gone to step 6, Vampire Lord was special summoned in step 5 and neither player can activate Quick-Play Spells or Traps in step 5.  Bottomless Trap Hole cannot be activated in response to any monster summoned by Pyramid Turtle.         

Up until now we’ve been looking at issues that involve the understanding of how the details of the Battle Phase work.  The next item involves a totally different topic.  Royal Decree is a nifty trap card, here’s its effect, “While this card is face-up on the field, negate the effects of all Trap Cards on the field except this card”.  It’s effectively a trap version of Jinzo.  So doesn’t it make sense that you don’t get to activate Dust Tornado and therefore you don’t get to set a spell or trap card?  Open your rulebook to page 19 and review the section that begins with “What is a Chain?”  As you read you’ll note that after Royal Decree is activated the opponent has the opportunity to respond.  If the opponent does not respond then the outcome is determined, Yu-Gi-Oh players also call the determination of the outcome “resolution”.  If the opponent does respond then resolution is delayed because each new response and counter-response has to have a determination of their outcomes, meaning they have to be resolved first and if those outcomes result in the destruction of the card that was originally activated, then that card does not get to resolve.  In the case of activating Dust Tornado in response to the activation of Royal Decree, Dust Tornado resolves before Royal Decree, thereby destroying Royal Decree before Royal Decree’s effect can resolve and be applied.  Interestingly enough, if Royal Decree was activated in response to Dust Tornado, then Dust Tornado would not get to resolve because Royal Decree would resolve first. 

By now I hope you have a new found appreciation for the rulebook and its contents and how little details in the game can determine whether you win or lose.  The last quiz question deals with details too, but in this case the quiz question can’t be answered from the rulebook.  The answer lies in the effect of Big Bang Shot which says, “Increase the ATK of a monster equipped with this card by 400 points. When the equipped monster attacks with an ATK that is higher than the DEF of a Defense Position monster, inflict the difference as Battle Damage to your opponent's Life Points. When this card is removed from the field, remove the equipped monster from play”.  That’s a lot of words but the key ones here are “your opponent’s Life Points”.  Big Bang Shot does trample damage to your opponent when attacking a DEF position monster.  It does not matter whose monster is equipped with Big Bang Shot.  This is because the words “your opponent’s” do not refer to the owner of the monster card, they refer to the owner of the equip spell card.  In the quiz question, Blowback Dragon’s ATK is raised to 2700 and Peten the Dark Clown’s DEF is 1200.  The damage is 1500 and all of it is taken by the controller of Blowback Dragon!  So another Peten cannot be summoned because the game is over. 

I’m not going to summarize the answers; you cannot shortcut the process of learning the rules.  This article is about thinking so if something didn’t make sense reread the question and the analysis along with your rulebook.  If you want to talk about it, get on the Pojo message board and let’s discuss. 

notasperfectasyou

It’s easy to find me on the message boards, e-mail is ok, but I like open discussion better.  If you’re looking for deck ideas, see my Deck Theme’s post on the Pojo Message Boards.  Oh, and yes, I am the same notasperfectasyou that auctions Yu-Gi-Oh cards on EBAY.

napay’s prior articles and why you’d want to read them:

“Counter-Point: Continental Ban Lists - Deep Down Inside Who Wants to be a Conformist?” presents half a debate with Pojo’s Leon on why we shouldn’t follow the Japanese ban list. 

“Vulnerability: a New Perspective on Black Luster Soldier – Envoy of the Beginning” presents a contrarian point of view as we are leading up to the anticipated banning of BLS-EotB along with a different way to think about vulnerability. 

“Not As Perfect As Konami – Will Work For Cards” presents a wish list of things I’d like Konami/UpperDeck to do. 

“Thoughts and Observations about Winning Decks – Part 5” presents a fifth installment of analysis for the purpose of seeing what can be learned from comparing two proven decks focusing on the issue of the changing landscape of Yu-Gi-Oh. 

“Thoughts and Observations about Winning Decks – Part 4” presents a fourth installment of analysis for the purpose of seeing what can be learned from comparing two proven decks focusing on the issue of replacing cards. 

“Thoughts and Observations about Winning Decks – Part C” presents a third installment of analysis for the purpose of seeing what can be learned from comparing two proven decks focusing on cards that strengthen your position. 

“Thoughts and Observations about Winning Decks – Part B” presents a second installment of analysis for the purpose of seeing what can be learned from comparing two proven decks focusing on cards that weaken your opponent. 

“Thoughts and Observations about Winning Decks – Part A” presents a first installment of deck analysis for the purpose of seeing what can be learned from comparing two proven decks.

“Mom and Dad Won’t Let Me Buy Cards On EBAY” presents some thoughts on the good and the bad of buying cards on EBAY and how you might work EBAY for a better experience.

“The Exodia FTK” presents an example of applying calculated mathematical probabilities to Yu-Gi-Oh in demonstration of why a deck 40 cards is a good idea.

“Fake/counterfeit Yu-Gi-Oh cards” presents a summarized version of my own experience buying fake cards and what I learned from it.

“The Star Circle” presents a very visual way to think about the components of your deck and how to think about card flow as a way to improving your deck.

“How Big is your Monster” is about why you need to stop thinking about how to get big ATK monsters in your deck and why you do need to think about how cards work synergistically.

 

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