Revise of Damage Step

Bull Blader

Hey, guys! Today I will share with you guys regarding the whole flow and what cards that you capable to activate during Damage Step. Bull Blader is a GB support card whereby it can help GB monster to clear the high attack monster. GB always face the problem of hardly to get rid of high attack monster. As a result, Bull Blader is needed. Bull Blader's effect will be resolved After Damage Calculation which is different from Ally of Justice Catastor.

First of all, Damage Step is a step in the Battle Phase whereby Battle Phase will be divided into Start Step > Battle Step > Damage Step > End Step. Start Step is the step where you would prepare to declare for entering Battle Step. Battle Step is the step where you would declare attack and select attack target. Damage Step is the step where you and your monster may or may not destroy by battle or card effect. End Step is the step where you would declare to end your Battle Phase.

In Damage Step, we can further categories it into 6 major sub-steps which is Start of Damage Step > Before Damage Calculation > Damage Calculation > After Damage Calculation > Result of Battle, Resolve of flip/trigger effect > End of Damage Step. Every monster will enter Damage Step once their battle are succeed. If there is chain link occur, the chain link will be arranged according to turn player priority.

Generally, we are forbid from activate any spell speed 2 or below cards EXCEPT spell speed 2 cards that can alter the monster ATK or DEF point and counter trap card in Damage Step. All face-down monster that being attacked will flip face-up unless card effect that caused it not to flip face-up. All face-down flip/trigger effect monster that flip face-up due to attack will activate and resolve right after Damage Calculation. If this monster is destroyed by battle, then it cannot choose itself as the target of its effect.

1) Start of Damage Step (before flipping up the face-down monster)
At this timing, you can activate quick effect/card that can alter the ATK or DEF point of monster and the face-down monster being attacked will not be flip face-up at this point. During this timing, trigger monster effect that apply before flipping the monster face-up will activate and resolve at this timing. All continuous monster effect that apply before flipping the monster face-up will resolve at this timing too. MULTIPLE CHAIN LINK can be occur at this timing.

*Note: All continuous monster effect will not have activation timing and it will automatically apply once the condition is fulfilled, therefore, no chain will be started at this point.

Eg of continuous monster effect that activate during Start of Damage Step is Jain, Lightsworn Paladin, Steamroid, Rampaging Rhynos and etc. Eg of trigger monster effect that activate during Start of Damage Step is Neos-Spacian Grand Mole, Mystic Swordman, Sasuke Samurai and etc will start a chain at this timing due to they will not flip face-up the attacked monster.

2) Before Damage Calculation (after flipping up the face-down monster)
At this timing, the face-down monster that being attacked will be flip and monster effect that activate when it is flip will not activate and resolve now. Eg of continuous effect that will apply Before Damage Calculation is Gaap the Divine Soldier, Level Limit - Area A, Level Limit - Area B and etc. Eg of trigger monster effect that activate Before Damage Calculation is Reflect Bounder, Blast Sphere, Drilldroid and etc.

Once again, you are allow to activate quick effect/card that can alter the ATK or DEF point of monster and MULTIPLE CHAIN LINK can be occur at this timing. Card effect that have the card text of "Without Applying Damage Calculation" having the same meaning with the card text of "Before Damage Calculation" and the Damage Calculation sub-step will be skipped. However, the remainder of sub-step in Damage Step (After Damage Calculation) will proceed as normal.

3) Damage Calculation
At this timing, you can only activate cards that have "During Damage Calculation" in the card text description such as Defense Draw, Kinetic Soldier, Honest, Injection Fairy Lily, Psychic Commander and etc. You are not allow to activate card that can alter ATK or DEF point of the monster except it have "During Damage Calculation" in the card text description. Eg, Shrink, Rush Recklessly and etc.

You can only have A CHAIN LINK in this timing thus if you miss this chance then you are not allow to play any cards that can activate in this timing. Once the chain of card effect that can alter ATK or DEF point of monster finish resolved, then only continuous effect will be applied. Eg, once the effect of The Wicked Avatar, The Wicked Dreadroot and etc have been applied then Damage Calculation will only perform.

Damage Calculation will go through in such sequence: Confirmation of ATK/DEF point > Damage Point Confirmation (apply of piercing or battle destroy effect) > Occurrence of Battle Damage (reduction of Life Point) > Confirmation of Battle Destroy (apply of continuous effect). During Confirmation of Battle Destroy, which monster that battle destroy will be confirmed here. During this timing, Spirit Reaper that targetted by card effect, Giant Kozaky or Thunder Nyan Nyan that flipped up will be destroy by its own effect.

*Note: Some judges clarify that Spirit Reaper self-destruction effect will start a chain is TOTALLY FALSE and self-destruction of Spirit Reaper will NOT START A CHAIN.

4) After Damage Calculation
Trigger effect that activate after receiving battle damage will activate and start a chain link at this timing. Eg, Gorz The Emissary Darkness, Tragoedia, Airknight Parshath and etc. After Reflect Bounder have applied its effect that inflict opponent battle damage Before Damage Calculation, it will activate its self-destruction effect at this timing.


5) Result of Battle, Resolve of flip/trigger effect
All chain of flip/trigger effect that should be activate during Before Damage Calculation will be delayed till this timing then it will activate and resolve it. Eg, Snowman Eater, D.D. Warrior Lady, Divine Knight Ishzark and etc will activate at this timing. The monster effect that activate at this timing is treated as activate on the field thus Destiny Hero- Plasma, Skill Drain, Rainbow Veil and etc can negate the monster effect.

6) End of Damage Step
At this timing, the battle destroyed monster will leaving the field and card effect such as Banisher of the Radiance, Dimensional Fissure, Macro Cosmos and etc will resolve here. Trigger card effect such as recruit monster(SS monster from the deck), Coffin Seller and etc that will be activate during this timing. Card effect that prevent the equipped monster from battle destroy such as Relinquished, Machina Gearframe and etc will also resolve at this timing.

Okay, that's all I wanna share to you guys today! Thanks for your precious time and wish you guys have a nice day. Please stay tuned for my next post. If you guys have any issue regarding the card, please leave your comment here. I will try to reply as soon as possible.

Forecast of September 2012 Ban List

Hey, guys! Left with 1 more month then the September 2012 ban list will be released. Similar with previous years, I will do ban list prediction as well. Current existing META decks such as Inzektor, Hieratic, Chaos Dragon, Wind-Up, Rabbit Laggia and etc might be affected by the latest ban list.

Forbidden:
Brionac, Ice Barrier Dragon
Future Fusion
Mind Control

Limit:
Goyo Guardian
Hieratic Dragon King of Atum
Wind-Up Carrier Zenmaity
Dark Magician of Chaos
Inzektor Hornet
Wind-Up Hunter
Ultimate Offering

Semi-limit:
Blackwing - Kalut the Moon Shadow
Debris Dragon
Gladiator Beast Bestiari
Rescue Rabbit
Scapegoat
Mirror Force

No longer limit:
Marshmallon
Snipe Hunter
Tragoedia
Destiny Draw
Emergency Teleport
Level Limit - Area B
Swords of Revealing Light
Ojama Trio
Magic Cylinder

For the forbidden list, I think that Brionac deserve to have a rest at here due to it can be combo with variety of decks to do unlimited loop. Future Fusion is one of key card that can helps Chaos Dragon to perform OTK easily and Mind Control is so broken due to it is costless and almost guarantee a win for you if you draw it on time.

For the limit list, I think that Hornet, Carrier Zenmaity, Hunter should be included in this slot due to the whole deck combo basically work with these cards. The return of BLS also signify that DMOC may return to the game again. Mind Control is too evil especially in this environment because it can grab any monster costless and push the game back from there. Ultimate Offering is too good to play in Geargia and Gadget and with it, they can instantly OTK or control the game.

We have been a long time for not seeing Blackwing topping in major event and the main weak point is due to the number of Kalut in their deck. With the semi-limit of Kalut, their deck can be much more competitive. I personally wish that Debris Dragon return to semi-limit because synchro theme deck is rarely to play nowadays. Gladiator Beast deck is too slow and hardly to regain advantage thus Bestiari may return to semi-limit.

Semi-limit of Rescue Rabbit for sure won't kill the deck but its play will be a bit slow compare with current build. Scapegoat hardly to play nowadays due to the overwhelming of Xyz version of Gaia and Xyz summon don't even required of it. Most importantly, Spore and Glow-up Bulb is still in the forbidden list. Mirror Force may also return to 2 due to it is hardly to play nowadays due to too many destructive cards in the game.

For those new unlimited card list, most of them are hardly to be seen in the game nowadays and some of them not effective to be play in current environment. Therefore, Konami may unlimit them in the September ban list. If Konami really unlimit Destiny Draw, I pretty sure HERO engine will be splash into almost any deck and variant of Tele-DAD may rise from there. Anyway, hopefully this forecast ban list will become true.

Abyss Rising(ABYR) is going to release by this week and the full card list have been revealed. Among those cards, I strongly recommend you guys to collect Bull Blader, Mogumole, Gagaga Gunman, Forbidden Gorment, Magic Deflector and Memory of a Rival. Gagaga Gunman and Forbidden Garment will be the main attraction in this booster and they are splashable into any deck. By the way, the art of Mogumole is damn cute!

Okay, that's all I wanna share with you guys today and just share your thought with me! Thanks for your time and wish you guys have a nice day! Please stay tuned for my next post.

Heroic Challenger would it be the X-Saber descendant?

Heroic Champion - Excalibur

Hey, guys! Today I will share about my opinion for cards that will be printed in Abyss Rising(ABYR) booster pack. Heroic Challenger and Magical will have their new support cards soon. Based on my observation, Heroic Challenger series is much like the variant of X-Saber and most of them are Earth attribute as well.

Somehow, they are all Warrior type but their effect still not extremely good enough. Most of their monster effect are not too supportive except Double Lance that allow you to Xyz summon easily. Anyway, they can fully fit with the Earth Spirit God - Grand Soil to have Xyz summon or beat down your opponent more easily. One of the bad part of the deck is they lack of level 3 monster to act as support or defense.

With the support of level 3 monster, we can Xyz rank 3 monster easily or combo with M-X-Saber Invoker to SS Warrior-type monster to perform additional Xyz summon. Apart from that, Card Trooper is plenty useful in this deck because it can help to fill up the graveyard and you won't lost your advantage if it is destroy by battle or card effect. The most important part is it is an Earth monster as well. T.G monster also allow you to stall on the field for a while too.

Gogogo Golem also act as the stall monster and it can combo with Gogogo Giant so that you can Xyz summon rank 4 monster easily. This build will have many Earth monster and consists of 9 Warrior-type monster in the main. Instant Fusion can also added so that you can have more option of synchro or Xyz summon. This deck basically is a bit competitive and the only problem with it is just lack of some speed and stability. Anyway, this deck is good for newbie to learn to play combo deck.

I would named this deck as Earth Beat Down deck. The whole deck surround with 14 Earth-attribute monster and without Effect Veiler at all. Thus this deck required a lot of strategy planning and how you gonna play around with your opponent's Effect Veiler. In a nutshell, this deck will improve your skill and you will be practice to think further before you perform any of the combo.

Monster(19):
Bull Blader x1
Card Trooper x2
Earth Spirit God - Grand Soil x1
Gagaga Gardna x1
Gogogo Golem x2
Gogogo Giant x2
Heroic Challenger Double Lance x3
Photon Slasher x2
T.G Striker x1
T.G Rhino x1
T.G Warwolf x2
Tasuke Warrior x1

Spell(14):
Book of Moon x1
Dark Hole x1
Foolish Burial x1
Forbidden Chalice x1
Heavy Storm x1
Instant Fusion x1
Mind Control x1
Monster Reborn x1
MST x3
Pot of Duality x2
RoTA x1

Trap(7):
Compulsory Evacuation Device x2
Solemn Judgment x1
Solemn Warning x2
Torrential Tribute x2

Extra deck:
Blade Armor Ninja x1
Brionac, Ice Barrier Dragon x1
Fairy King Alverd x1
Fusionist x1
Gaia Dragon, the Thunder Charger x1
Heroic Champion - Excalibur x2
Karbonala Warrior x1
M-X-Saber Invoker x1
Maestroke the Symphony Djinn x1
Number 17: Leviathan Dragon x1
Number 39: Utopia x1
Photon Papilloperative x1
Wind-Up Zenmaines x1


Besides this deck, I had play with SD23: Roar of the Sea Emperor which build by my friend. This deck is not bad and it allow you to easily Xyz any rank 2 or 3 monster easily. The whole deck rely on the effect of Deep Sea Diva and an Effect Veiler can spoil the whole deck combo. However, with the release of Mermail in ABYR, I can see that this deck will be competitive during that time. Thus Effect Veiler may no longer as the major threat for this deck.

For those whose haven't understand how the Mermail combo works around, please learn it now because I can see that their deck will be found anywhere at the local once ABYR is officially released. This deck can perform many of the OTK stuffs, however, I won't discuss any of the Mermail combo since many bloggers had shared their ideas. For those whose interested with the Mermail combo, you may check it from here.

Okay, that's all I wanna share to you guys. Thanks for your time and wish you guys have a nice day. Stay tuned for my next post.