Ascending Horn and Declaration of God

Over on the Japanese Expert Rules Page, Puppiy (the maintainer of the page) has a lot of interesting blurbs on things. Sometimes he has comments on games that he played, and some are slight announcements on the way certain cards have changed due to a recent printing, or a changed ruling. I read over them from time to time, and a recent matter changes the way two certain cards are played.

The release of Duelist Legacy 4 changed some wordings on cards -- one of them being Ascending Horn (e. Horn of Heaven), and also relates to Declaration of God (e. Solemn Judgement).

The rulings of the card with the new wording (and this includes Declaration of God) is that you can now ONLY negate Special Summons that are brought out via their own, inherent effects.

What does this mean? Cards that use their own inherent effects to Special Summons them include the Gate Guardian, Dark Necrophia (e. Necrofear), the Necrophia cousins from Labyrinth of Nightmare, and even Giga Cyber (e. Megacyber). THESE are the cards that Horn/Declaration can negate.

So, that leaves some of you thinking about Raise Dead, Killer Tomato, etc. The sad fact is that you CANNOT negate Special Summons THAT USE AN EXTERNAL EFFECT TO SPECIAL SUMMON THEM. So, if ANOTHER card effect Special Summons a Monster, you CANNOT use Horn/Declaration on it. This is because the Special Summons themselves take place during the RESOLUTION of the effect, so there's no gap for you to actually Chain the effect. When your opponent plays Ten-Thousand Reflections (e. Elegant Egotist), you throw the correct card in the Chain WITH the card in question. The Horn can't be placed in a Chain with the Reflections, because the activation timing is illegal (you can only activate it in a Summon).

Yeah, it's a screwy ruling, but it's not too surprising. Believe it or not, that's your choice; but I've already done my part. Don't be surprised if you see it springing up some time soon in the English game...

Playing Cards During an Opponent's Turn

This has been a debate in recent weeks among some of the better message boards on the 'net, and within a few e-mails that I have traded over.

I'm sorry, but the following has to be put in BIG, BOLD print so that people can read it. Please forgive me.

I'll put it again in small text to reinforce that statement: You can't just activate a card during your opponent's turn whenever you feel like it.

This means that the Reinforcements that you have sitting in your Magic/Trap Zone CAN'T be activated during your opponent's turn... WITHOUT YOUR OPPONENT DOING SOMETHING FIRST.

Kelvin Koh over at Duel Monsters Central had a mini-article about the topic of priorities in the game, spawned by a notice in Valuable Book 5.

If it's during your opponent's turn, you must ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS wait for your opponent to do a) play a card or effect, or b) end a phase, before you can activate a card during his or her turn. Like I stated above, you can't just up and activate a Reinforcements during your opponent's turn whenever you feel like it. However, if your opponent ENDS a phase and is about to go into the next, you can activate a card. Again, as an example, if your opponent goes from his or her Main Phase 1 into the Battle Phase, you can activate something at that time before he or she gets to move into the next phase.

Magic Counters

I don't really get this one. A LOT of people have been confused with this element since it was released in the Champion of Black Magicians expansion.

A Magic Counter is simply a little tokens or item that you place on a card to keep track of a value. Any of you that have played Pokemon can just use the little glass beads that you used as Damage Counters.

Certain cards in Champion of Dark Magicians use Magic Counters; others don't.

Fake Cards

Well, this particular subject is two-fold.

First of all, a few people have asked me exactly how to spot a fake card and a real card. Well, from experience, you have to simply know a lot of cards and judge the quality of the card to tell if it's "fake" (in this sense, it should be called "counterfeit" instead) or the real McCoy.

Often you can see if a card is real or not by the little Eye of Anubis in the lower-right of the card. If it's a hologram, chances are that it is real. If it's missing the hologram, and it's in English, then it's probably fake. However, this does NOT include the [Summoned Skull] promo card that was sent to retailers and a few contest winners which does NOT have the Eye of Anubis on it.

As for Japanese cards, the basics are the same. However, just because it doesn't have the Eye doesn't mean that it's fake. Earlier cards from the Volume Series (and those promos/special cards during that era) do NOT have the Eye on it. You can tell if a card is old like this when looking at the card -- if the text box for the card is REALLY small, then it's probably an older card.

The other matter in this topic is actually FAKE cards themselves -- those cards that were never released, and are created by fans. Often, these are from Japanese sites, and many are sold in auctions on Yahoo! Japan, under the title of "orika," which is a squashed version of "original card."

To tell you the truth, many of these original cards aren't really so much "original." Often, they are existing cards with different pictures. If you know much about the Japanese auctions sites, the most prolific cards that are auctioned are the Black Magician Girl card, which has a picture of her in a variety of, um, "compromising" positions. Some are inherently original, perhaps based on an animated series.

The infamous "chinese" Exodia floating around eBay. It is 100% fake. The only "whole" Exodia card to be released is Exodia Necros. And this card isn't it.	An original Mirage Knight, before the actual card was released in the real card game.	Lina Inverse, from the Slayers animated series.	An original card, Black Magician's Valkyrie.
A Black Magician Girl with an alternate picture.	Yeah, you can guess what's behind that black bar.	Black Magician Girl with an altered pictured. Some of this pose include a wedding dress, Chinese dress, and even dressed up like a goat.	How about a Blue Eyes Ultimate Toon Dragon?

"Hey! What Do You Mean I CAN'T Be Revived?!" -Black Paladin

Well, there's a little bit of a problem with some of the Special Summoned Monsters in my translation lists. A little while ago, I changed some of the wordings to "Can only be Special Summoned, and only by..." (Example: Magnet Valkyrion).

I thought this solved the problem, but it turns out it clashed with the wording on cards that Konami later released.

Because of the wording on some later cards, a number of Special Summoned Monsters cannot be revived from the Cemetery...EVEN WHEN MAKING IT INTO PLAY NATURALLY and later going to the Cemetery.

Currently, the only Monsters that cannot be revived are:

• Five God Dragon
• Master of Dragon Knight
• Black Paladin
• Exodia Necros
• Berserk Dead Dragon
• Mirage Knight
• The XYZ Series Fusions

Five God Dragon, Master of Dragon Knight and Black Paladin all state that they can only be Fusion Summoned. Reviving them is just considered a Special Summon, so they are illegible for that effect.

For Exodia Necros, Berserk Dead Dragon and Mirage Knight, apparently it's the way the text is written in Japanese that makes it illegible for being revived.

As for the XYZ series, they are Fusion Monsters but do not use the Fusion card (you CAN'T use the Fusion card to fuse them, even if you wanted to). Thus, they enter play "illegally" (even via their own effects), and can't be revived.