DPKB Part 4: Five-hundred and ninety nine US Life Points

Aside from the famous Blue-Eyes White Dragons, Kaiba has used a number of other monsters. Some of them are also Dragons, but most of them are quite miscellaneous. Even so, being used by Kaiba has turned them into memorable monsters, which this Duelist Pack brings back once again to please the fans (and provide some needed reprints).

The first monsters are the XYZ trio. They are pretty simple, actually, so we'll review them in a future article about Union Monsters. With that said, let's move into one of the oldest Monsters used by Kaiba: Enraged Battle Ox

As long as this card remains face-up on your side of the field, when Beast, Beast-Warrior  and Winged Beast-Type monsters on your side of the field attack with an ATK that is higher than the DEF of your opponent's Defense Position monster, inflict the difference as Battle Damage to your opponent's Life Points.

Of course, Enraged Battle Ox is actually filling in for the regular Battle Ox who is a Normal Monster. Probably because otherwise we wouldn't review him here. Enraged Battle Ox allows you to trample with animal-based monsters, and trampling is a Continuous Effect. The effect is generated by the Ox, so the opponent needs to negate Ox if they want to prevent Battle Damage from being inflicted. Of course, since Ox is a Beast-Warrior, it also affects itself.

Next, we have Different Dimension Dragon:

This card cannot be destroyed by the effect of a Spell or Trap Card that does not target it. This card is not destroyed  as a result of battle against a monster with an ATK of 1900 or less.

This monster is simply...weird. Both effects are Continuous. We have seen some examples of targeting and non-targeting effects for the first effect. The second effect prevents its destruction in battle if the other monster has 1900 ATK while comparing the ATK/DEF of both monsters. Of course, Damage Calculation is applied normally.

Moving on, we have Kaiser Glider:

This card is not destroyed as a result of battle when this card battles with a monster with the same ATK. When this card is destroyed and sent to the Graveyard, return 1 monster on the field to its owner's hand.

Glider has two effects. The first one is a Continuous Effect that prevents destruction in battle, similar to Different Dimension Dragon. The second one is a mandatory Trigger Effect that targets one monster. The cool thing about this Trigger Effect is that activates regardless of where Glider is destroyed, so it will activate even if Crush Card Virus destroyed it, or if it is destroyed while equipped to Relinquished. Glider has always been an odd Card, that has always been considered as a possible answer to any 2400 ATK monster, be it Jinzo or a Monarch. Unfortunately, it never saw too much play, not even by Kaiba himself.

We now have another Card rarely used by Kaiba, Vampire Lord. Seems the Duel with Noah Kaiba was just too relevant:

Each time this card inflicts Battle Damage to your opponent, declare 1 card type (Monster, Spell, or Trap). Your opponent selects 1 card of that type from his/her Deck and sends it to the Graveyard. Also, when this card is destroyed and sent to the Graveyard  by your opponent's card effect, it is Special Summoned to the field during your next Standby Phase.

Vampire Lord has two mandatory Trigger Effects. The first one is activated at the "After Damage Calculation" Sub-Step of the Damage Step. It doesn't target anything. If you declare a Card type that the opponent no longer has in his/her Deck, you get to verify. The second effect, worth of a vampire, is activated during the Standby Phase, not when Vampire Lord is destroyed. Similar to Glider, this effect will activate if Vampire Lord is destroyed outside of the Field, however, it will not activate when Vampire Lord is being treated as an Equip Spell Card. It is important that you can tell whose effect is destroying Vampire Lord. Note that once Vampire Lord is destroyed, it must remain in the Graveyard until your next Standby Phase, otherwise, it won't be Special Summoned. It sure used to be a pest back in the day, then Sacred Phoenix of Nephthys eventually replaced it.

The next Card comes from the Yu-Gi-Oh! movie, Pyramid of Light. It is no other than Peten the Dark Clown:

When this card is sent to your Graveyard, you can remove this card from the Graveyard  to Special Summon 1 "Peten the Dark Clown" from your hand or Deck.

Peten should be no news to anybody. Even if you had never seen the Card, it is heavily infamous for being the ultimate example of effects that miss the timing. Of course, Peten has an Optional Trigger Effect. It's trigger is extremely simple, but Peten just loves being unable to activate its effect. Its effect is ruined pretty much by every example that we listed in the "missing the timing" article. Despite this, Peten did have its moment of glory a few years ago, when it was used as cheap tributes for Monarchs.

Also from the same movie, we have Familiar Knight:

When this card is destroyed and sent to the Graveyard  as a result of battle, each player can Special Summon 1 Level 4 monster  from their hand.

Yet another Optional Trigger Effect. Not very complicated, really. In order to activate the effect, you must have an eligible monster to Summon. If you activate the effect, you are forced to Summon, but the opponent isn't. It's not a very popular Card, as many others have the same effect with less cons and some additional pros.

The last Card for today is Ancient Lamp:

When this face-down Defense Position card is attacked by your opponent's monster, you can make 1 opponent's monster (except the attacking monster) be attacked instead. While this card is face-up on the field, you can Special Summon 1 "La Jinn the Mystical Genie of the Lamp" from your hand.

As usual, we just can't leave without addressing a weird Card. Ancient Lamp's first effect is an Optional Trigger Effect that activates at the "Before Damage Calculation" Sub-Step of the Damage Step. At this time, the face-down Ancient Lamp has now been flipped face-up already, so this effect can be negated by Skill Drain or Forbidden Chalice (it does not activate while Lamp is face-down). This effect merely "moves the attack" to a different monster. It doesn't move the monsters anywhere, and it doesn't select attack targets. This is quite important, as most of its individual rulings address various effects that mention the opponent. For example, the trampling effect of Enraged Battle Ox that we mentioned at the beginning of this article inflicts damage to the opponent, so even if Ancient Lamp forces the opponent's monsters to battle each other, the person controlling Ancient Lamp will take the damage. Similar to Vampire Lord, this takes a little reading of each particular effect.

The second effect is an Ignition Effect with no cost or limitation. You can simply Summon La Jinns (one by one) as many times as you like during your Main Phase. La Jinn is a very popular monster because, even if it fails to meet the standards of a "good" monster today, it used to be one of the best beatsticks one could ask for. Having 3 La Jinns in your Deck separated your Deck from the mediocre ones.

Stay tuned for the last bunch of Cards from Duelist Pack Kaiba in part 5. If you have any questions, feel free to drop me an e-mail at ness00[at]gmail[dot]com.