DPKB Part 2: Behind Blue-Eyes...

The mighty albino dragons may be the strongest Normal Monsters in the game, but let's face it: They won't get very far by being a two-tribute, 3000 ATK beatstick. That's why a number of support Cards where used to support these elusive beasts. Not all of them were used by Kaiba, but I'm sure he would have no problem affording them if he wanted them.

Let's start with a true classic, Lord of D.:

While this card remains face-up on the field, all Dragon-Type monsters  cannot be targeted  by Spell Cards, Trap Cards, or Effect Monster's effects.

This is one of the first Effect Monsters ever released. It only has one short but powerful Continuous Effect. Most of it rulings are dedicated to list a few Cards that it can and cannot negate. We already have an article about targeting effects, so we don't need that. An important note about this effect is that this effect only prevents targeting effects from targeting Dragons, but once they have already been chosen as targets, Lord of D. can't do anything about them. In other words, Lord must be face-up in order to prevent the targeting, and it won't touch already existing effects.

EDIT: Invalid: The other important note is that Lord of D.'s effect prevents Dragons from being targeted ANYWHERE. Ages ago, when it was first released, it was common to believe that it only protected face-up Dragons. Many years later, with the release of Aurkus, Lightsworn Druid, we found out that Lord, who works exactly the same as Aurkus, protects not only face-up Dragons, but also, Dragons in the Graveyard and Removed from Play Zone. Well, actually it works everywhere, but other locations can't be targeted Q_Q

One cannot discuss Lord of D. without discussing its magical instrument, The Flute of Summoning Dragon:

Activate  only while "Lord of D." is face-up on the field. Special Summon up to 2 Dragon-Type monsters  from your hand.

This Normal Spell Card seems simple enough, which usually means that there's some dirty secret about it. The first thing we notice is that Lord of D. can be on any side of the Field, and it can even be treated as an Equip Spell Card (Plasma/Relinquished/etc.). You are also forced to Special Summon at least 1 Dragon. Of course, you can't target Cards in the Hand, so you don't need to declare how many or which monsters you will Summon (and Lord of D. won't prevent its own Flute, of course).

The problem with Flute is that, like some Cards, its text is somewhat incomplete. Lord of D. must actually remain on the Field until Flute starts resolving. So, not only it must be face-up to activate Flute, but also, to resolve it properly. This is similar to what happened to Zombie Master.

Moving on, we have Kaiser Sea Horse:

This card can be treated as 2 Tributes  for the Tribute Summon of a LIGHT monster.

Obviously, it's function is to Tribute Summon Blue-Eyes White Dragon with only 1 tribute. This effect is pretty weird, but one could think of it as a Continuous Effect. You choose whether to apply it or not at the time Sea Horse is going to be tributed. This is one of the few effects that work while the monster is face-down. This effect can be negated by Cards like Skill Drain, too.

Next, we have a Ritual Monster dedicated to the theme. Paladin of White Dragon:

This monster can only be Ritual Summoned with the Ritual Spell Card "White Dragon Ritual." You must also Tribute monsters  whose total Levels  equal 4 or more from the field  or your hand. When this monster attacks a face-down  Defense Position monster, destroy  the face-down  monster with this card's effect without flipping it face-up  or damage calculation. You can Tribute  this card to Special Summon 1 "Blue-Eyes White Dragon" from your hand or your Deck. ("Blue-Eyes White Dragon" cannot attack during that turn.)

Its Summoning Condition and its Ritual Spell Card are very average, so let's focus on its two effects:

When this monster attacks a face-down  Defense Position monster, destroy  the face-down  monster with this card's effect without flipping it face-up  or damage calculation.

This first effect is a Mandatory Trigger Effect. It activates at the Start of the Damage Step. This effect is very similar to that of Mystic Swordsman LV2, or to a lesser extent, Neo-Spacian Grand Mole. As its text suggests, FLIP Effects won't activate, and neither would effects like the D.D. Warriors or Legendary Jujitsu Master. The attacked monster must be face-down at the Start of the Damage Step, so if the opponent flips it face-up with Desert Sunlight or similar, Paladin won't activate.

You can Tribute  this card to Special Summon 1 "Blue-Eyes White Dragon" from your hand or your Deck. ("Blue-Eyes White Dragon" cannot attack during that turn.)

This is an Ignition Effect. Tributing Paladin is a cost, and this effect doesn't target (so you don't have to choose a location to Summon Blue-Eyes upon activation). During this turn, no monster named "Blue-Eyes White Dragon" can declare an attack, not even other Blue-Eyes, or even a Phantom of Chaos that gained their name. A common question is whether you can "reverse engineer" restrictions like this, and the answer is no. This means that you can't declare attacks with a Blue-Eyes White Dragon, then activate this effect. If you wish to Summon the legendary dragon, you cannot declare an attack with any of them, not before, nor after this effect's activation.

Now, a brief note about Dragon Master Knight:

"Black Luster Soldier" + "Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon"
This monster cannot be Special Summoned except by Fusion Summon. This card gains 500 ATK for each Dragon-Type monster on your side of the field except this card.

One of the strongest monsters in this game, yet, its abilities are quite lacking. The first sentence tells us it is a Nomi Monster. The second one is a Continuous Effect that doesn't count Dragon Master Knight. Very lame indeed, but at least it does something more than Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon Q_Q

Our last Card is the newest support Card for the Blue-Eyes theme, The White Stone of Legend:

When this card is sent to the Graveyard, add 1 "Blue-Eyes White Dragon" from your Deck  to your hand.

A very practical Tuner Monster that searches for Blue-Eyes White Dragon. Its only effect is a Mandatory Trigger Effect. Certianly, it doesn't target. The best thing about this effect is that, unlike others with the same trigger, this one cannot miss the timing, so White Stone will activate if you discard it as a cost, if you tribute it as a cost, if it is destroyed in the middle of a chain, etc. Being mandatory also means that you will activate White Stone's effect no matter what, even if an effect prevents it (like Thunder King Rai-Oh), or if you have no more Blue-Eyes in your Deck.

And with this, we end part 2 of this pack's review. Stay tuned for part 3! If you have any questions, feel free to drop me an e-mail at ness00[at]gmail[dot]com.

DPKB Part 1: How To Train Your Blue-Eyes

AKA, "screw 3D movies, I have YGO holograms".

Duelist Pack: Kaiba is finally out, for us nostalgic guys, and for those looking for some cool reprints. Whether you like Kaiba or not, one can't deny he is probably one of the most memorable characters in the YGO anime history. Almost every Card used by Kaiba can be reminded, even if one sets aside the mighty albino dragons. Even something as strange as Gyakutenno Megami takes up a slot in the Anniversary Pack, because Kaiba uses it to stop a gun. How cool is that?

This character's main emblem would obviously be his playset of Blue-Eyes White Dragons. While they are powerful and majestic, it doesn't make much sense to discuss rulings about a Normal Monster and a Fusion Monster without any effects. Instead, in this part we'll be looking at the new-age version of the colorless beasts. I'm talking about Malefic Blue-Eyes White Dragon, of course:

This card cannot be Normal Summoned or Set. This card can only be Special Summoned by removing from play 1 "Blue-Eyes White Dragon" from your Deck. There can only be 1 face-up "Malefic" monster on the field. Other monsters you control cannot attack. If there is no face-up Field Spell Card on the field, destroy this card.

Straight from the last Yu-Gi-Oh! movie which premiered in Japan some time ago, we have the first "Malefic" monster, strangely added to this pack. Essentially, it's an easy-to-Summon Blue-Eyes without many other benefits, but it will help explaining some mechanics attached to other monsters like Earthbound Immortals. Let's take a look:

This card cannot be Normal Summoned or Set. This card can only be Special Summoned by removing from play 1 "Blue-Eyes White Dragon" from your Deck.

This is the Summoning Condition for this version of Blue-Eyes. From this, we gather that it is a Special-Summon only monster. You can Special Summon it from the Graveyard or RFG Zone if it was properly Summoned. Of course, being an Inherent Special Summon, this Summon can be negated by Solemn Judgment/Rai-Oh, and it does not use the chain.

There can only be 1 face-up "Malefic" monster on the field.

The dreaded "highlander clause": There can only be one. This clause's classification is debatable, so reffering to it by its nickname isn't such a bad idea. You can think of it as a Continuous Effect which is applied all the time, no matter the location of the Card. Just don't call it a Continuous Effect ;)

The "highlander clause" causes some funny results in the Game State. Its first consequence is that you cannot manually Summon this monster if you would break this clause, so you cannot even target it with Call of the Haunted if you already control one Malefic BEWD. You can still place it face-down on the Field with Cards like The Shallow Grave. A second consequence would be that if a new Malefic Blue-Eyes appears on the Field while you already controlled one, the newest one to appear is destroyed by Game Mechanics. If you Summon them at the same time (Return from the Different Dimension, for example), you get to choose. If you control 2 of these monsters, one face-up and one face-down, and the face-down one is flipped by a Card Effect, it is destroyed by Game Mechanics after its resolution. If the face-down one is attacked, it will be destroyed during the "After Damage Calculation" Sub-Step if it survived battle.

The final consequence is the interaction of the "highlander clause" against Effect Negation. Most Cards that negate continuously applied effects can only do so against face-up Cards, like Skill Drain or Destiny Hero - Plasma. Effect negation does negate the effect of a face-up Malefic Blue-Eyes, but it will not negate the effects of other copies of it in your Hand, Graveyard, etc. This means that you STILL cannot manually Special Summon the other copies. You can, however,  "end up" controlling more than 1, such as if you Special Summon two copies at the same time (again, Return from the Different Dimension), or if the extra copy is face-down and something flips it face-up, be it an attack or an effect.

Other monsters you control cannot attack.

A very blunt Continuous Effect. Even so, there are some ways around it. This effect can certainly be negated with Cards like Skill Drain or Fiendish Chain, so that your other monsters can attack. This effect also relies on Blue-Eyes being face-up, so if it is flipped face-down (for example, by your opponent's Book of Moon) or Removed from the Field, your other monsters can declare attacks as usual. A final loophole is that, once you declare an attack with a different monster, Blue-Eyes can no longer stop it, so if you attack, and your opponent uses Ceasefire, flipping your Blue-Eyes face-up, the attack still proceeds as usual.

If there is no face-up Field Spell Card on the field, destroy this card.

And finally, a self-destruction effect. This is also a Continuous Effect. Simply put, Cards like Light and Darkness Dragon or Gladiator Beast War Chariot can't do anything against Malefic Blue-Eyes. Similar to the previous one, this Continuous Effect can be negated by Skill Drain, so that your monster doesn't self-destruct. There's also an important ruling regarding new Field Spell Cards being activated: If you control a Field Card, and activate a new one, it is considered that there is a time frame in which no Field Spell Card is active (because you must first destroy the old one), so the Blue-Eyes is destroyed. However, if you control a Field Spell Card, and the opponent activates a new one, this time frame never exists, as there is always one face-up Field Card (first yours, then both, then the opponent's only), so Blue-Eyes won't be destroyed.

That wraps it up for the first part. Stay tuned for part 2 where we will talk about some of the Blue-Eyes support in the pack. If you have any questions, feel free to drop me an e-mail at ness00[at]gmail[dot]com.