prodigalchild_88@hotmail.com *Special FX* - By Kenshin In a nutshell, "Special FX" is my perspective on the unique effects that play a distinct role in creating charming, often enthralling gameplay. There are quite a few abilities to be used - some alike, some dissimilar. The rhyme and reason of these different effects, and how they can be used in your dueling strategy, will be discussed in this editorial. Let's begin with some of my favorites: a) Monster Destruction b) Power Alteration c) Tapping d) Untapping e) Tutoring f) Bouncing g) Blocker Monster Destruction Perhaps the best ability, monster destruction is utilized commonly by Darkness, Fire, and even Nature cards. Examples of Monster Demolishers are: Terror Pit {Spell} Civilization: Dark Casting Cost: 6 Shield Trigger- Destroy one of your opponent's creatures. Death Smoke {Spell} Civilization: Dark Casting Cost: 4 Destroy one of your opponent's untapped creatures. Tornado Flame {Spell} Civilization: Fire Casting Cost: 5 Shield Trigger- Destroy 1 of your opponent's creatures that has power 4000 or less. Rothus, the Traveler {Creature} Civilization: Fire Casting Cost: 4 Power: 4000 When you put this creature into the battle zone, destroy 1 of your creatures. Then your opponent chooses 1 of his creatures and destroys it. Crimson Hammer {Spell} Civilization: Fire Casting Cost: 2 Destroy 1 of your opponent's creatures that has power 2000 or less. Natural Snare {Spell} Civilization: Nature Casting Cost: 6 Shield Trigger- Choose 1 of your opponent's creatures in the battle zone and put it into his mana zone. Storm Shell {Creature} Civilization: Nature Casting Cost: 7 Power: 2000 When you put this creature into the battle zone, your opponent chooses 1 of his creatures in the battle zone and puts it into his mana zone. Those are just a few of the well-known destruction cards. How can cards like this work into your strategy? Well, I wouldn't say base an entire deck on destruction alone. Your main goal is to get rid of your opponent's shields (obviously excluding "deck destruction" decks, which deck your opponent). The point of monster destruction is for control of the field, or what I like to call field dominance. If you have significantly more monsters than your opponent/stronger monsters, the easier it will be to destroy their monsters and shields. When using Terror Pit with your dark monsters, think of it this way: In one of the last battles of the War of 1812, Confederate soldiers marched against Union soldiers. The Union weakened the Confederates greatly by unleashing cannon fire into their lines. If you have creatures on the field and use monster destruction, you will weaken the enemy lines, making it easier for your soldiers (your creatures) to penetrate their defenses (your opponent's leftover creatures/shields). Field dominance WINS DUELS. If you control the field, you control a VERY large part of the duel. Monster destruction can also be used defensively, getting rid of your opponent's fattie so you can keep your valuable shields unscathed. Death Smoke does a good job of this, costing 2 less mana than Terror Pit making it cheap and easy to kill a newly summoned monster. Death Smoke is also great against decks that use Toel or monsters like Urth to keep their monsters *untapped*, practically making Death Smoke an extra Terror Pit (and 2 mana cheaper)! Terror Pit works well because of its versatility (being able to kill a creature no matter the position) and the "icing-on-the-cake" shield trigger effect. Natural Snare is like Terror Pit's Big Brother, being able to sned any of your opponent's creatures to the mana zone. You ARE giving them more mana. You're helping them a lot right? Nah, not really. By the time you use Snare on turn 6 or 7, they will have so much mana that extra one won't make too much of a difference. And if it's activated as a shield trigger, even better! It's like Terror Pit, only difference is: there's no way of getting the creature back (as of now, with only the cards in the base set)! Crimson Hammer, with its 2 mana casting cost, can be used on turn 2 to get rid of a La Ura Giga (low level blocker) or to keep a trashy Braidclaw from taking a bite out of your shields. If you use Fire/Nature, you might want to consider implementing Rothus, the Traveler's effect on a creature such as Mighty Shouter (Effect - When this creature would be destroyed, put it in your mana zone instead). This way, you gain precious mana (mana acceleration could really help out you rush attackers/let you cast multiple spells in one turn, etc.) as well as forcing your opponent to get rid of one of his creatures. Power Alteration One of the abilities I favor most, power alteration is adjusting the power of a creature on the field. I'm not sure if future sets allow you to change that of your opponent's creatures, but for now there are at least cards that can alter YOUR creatures' stats. The Fire and Nature civilizations have NUMEROUS cards that use this ability. Examples of Power Adjusters are: Bolshack Dragon {Creature} Civilization: Fire Casting Cost: 6 Power: 6000+ While attacking, this creature gets +1000 power for each fire card in your graveyard. Double Breaker (This creature breaks 2 shields.) Brawler Zyler {Creature} Civilization: Fire Casting Cost: 2 Power: 1000+ Power attacker +2000 (While attacking, this creature gets +2000 power.) Aura Blast {Spell} Civilization: Nature Casting Cost: 4 Each of your creatures in the battle zone gets "power attacker +2000" until the end of the turn. (While attacking, a creature that has "power attacker +2000" gets +2000 power.) Deathblade Beetle {Creature} Civilization: Nature Casting Cost: 5 Power: 3000+ Power attacker +4000 (While attacking, this creature gets +4000 power.) Double Breaker (This creature breaks 2 shields.) There's not too much involved in power attacking. It's simple, yet at the same time effective in many situations. For instance, compare Bolshack Dragon to Roaring Great Horn. He has a 2000 power lead over Bolshack in terms of base power (8000:6000). But when Great Horn is tapped, and you have 3+ fire monsters in the graveyard, Bolshack's power can be raised to 3+ 9000+, beating out the tapped Horn's 8000 base power. Brawler Zyler's low mana cost and effect make it a great muscle rusher. Although a turn (one mana) slower than Braidclaw, once on the field it can use its attack boost to get past any one mana/2000 power blockers with its total 3000 power while attacking. If they block, they lose their monster, clearing the way for your Braidclaw(s) to beat them up some more. Obviously the weakness of many power attackers is that their base power is relatively low, which can make it easier for them to be destroyed by other creatures, if not monster destruction cards based on power (Crimson Hammer, Tornado Flame..). If you are using these monsters, just know that they may be easy pickin's when they are tapped and susceptible to weaker creatures because of the low base power. Tapping and Untapping Tapping/untapping is the ability that the Light Civilization is probably best recognized for, aside from its superb selection of blockers. There's a plethora of cards in the Light selection of cards that can affect the position of other cards. Virtual Tripwire (BS-044) (Casting Cost-3/Spell) is a water card that has the ability to tap one of your opponent's monsters, so water has a dash of this effect. Examples of Tappers/Untappers are: Frei, Vizier of Air {Creature} Civilization: Light Casting Cost: 4 Power: 3000 At the end of each of your turns, you may untap this creature. Holy Awe {Spell} Civilization: Light Casting Cost: 6 Shield Trigger- Tap all your opponent's creatures in the battle zone. Miele, Vizier of Lightning {Creature} Civilization: Light Casting Cost: 3 Power: 1000 When you put this creature into the battle zone, you may choose 1 of your opponent's creatures in the battle zone and tap it. Toel, Vizier of Hope {Creature} Civilization: Light Casting Cost: 5 Power: 2000 At the end of each of your turns, you may untap all your creatures in the battle zone. Tapping your opponent's creatures can create multiple options. If there is a pesky attacker that you want to get rid of, you can play a card like Miele, Vizier of Lightning to tap it, and then attack it with one of your creatures. You could also decide to tap your opponent's blocker(s) with a card like Holy Awe, then attack your opponent's vulnerable shields. Also, if Holy Awe is activated immediately after being broken (if it's a shield) it can tap your other opponent's creatures (providing they have more than one) which will stop them from attacking as well as tap any blockers they have which will leave them prone to your attack next turn if you have any monsters out. Of course this is ruled out if they have a Toel, Vizier of Hope or monsters that can untap themselves at the end of their turn. Untapping has its uses as well. Remember those power attackers I talked about before with inadequate base strengths? Toel can untap all of them at the end of your turn so your power attackers won't be tapped and won't be killed by your opponent's fattie. Beware; you'll still have to be cautious of Gatling Skyterrors and Chaos Strikes, or cards that can tap your creatures. Frei, Vizier of Air and Urth, Purifying Elemental can untap themselves so you won't need Toel for those. Again, watch out for cards that can tap them or cards that can attack untapped creatures. If you're competing against a Darkness deck, be prepared to lose your untapped creatures to a Death Smoke. Toel can also be used with weak unblockables to keep them alive for another turn. They will still be sitting ducks to Crimson Hammers and Tornado Flames (as well as Death Smokes, etc.) so watch out for removal. Touching on Toel again, it could also be used with blockers that can attack shields. They can attack a shield, then be untapped to block for you on your opponent's turn. Using Toel for any of these plays is anything but foolproof, but it can work and may be worth considering if it would help out your deck (especially in the case of the weak blockers). Untapping can be situational at times, but when used effectively can go a long way towards gaining the victory in a duel. Tutoring [Searching!] Searching for a specific card is a very nice tactic in a duel. Not only can you tutor for the card you need best in a given situation/one that you want to use a little later but you can also look through your deck (and keep note of the cards you have on hand and in-grave) to make a mental note of what shields you have. This will only work if you have a solid memory of what's in your deck. There are some tutor cards in multiple civilizations, and not all are spells. Examples of Tutors are: Dimension Gate {Spell} Civilization: Nature Casting Cost: 3 Shield Trigger- Search your deck. You may take a creature from your deck, show that creature to your opponent, and put it into your hand. Then shuffle your deck. Rayla, Truth Enforcer {Creature} Civilization: Light Casting Cost: 6 Power: 3000 When you put this creature into the battle zone, search your deck. You may take a spell from your deck, show that spell to your opponent, and put it into your hand. Then shuffle your deck. Crystal Memory {Spell} Civilization: Water Casting Cost: 4 Shield Trigger- Search your deck. You may take a card from your deck and put it into your hand. Then shuffle your deck. These cards aren't complex, but they can be vital ploys contributing to your victory. Crystal Memory is a great upgrade over Rayla and Dimension Gate, letting you search for ANY card in your deck, while making you pay only one more mana than Dimension Gate. Dimension Gate is very cheap (3 mana) and lets you search for any creature. The fact that Dimension Gate and Memory have shield triggers only makes them better! Rayla is okay; With that weak attack you'd obvioulsy be using it just for the effect, and only if you have Light civilization cards in your deck -- if your deck is part nature or water, it would be better to use the Memory or Gate unless you like to search for Spells more than creatures. Either way Memory's the best of the three. One very small drawback (if it can even be considered that) that is brought up from time to time is "If I search for a card my opponent will know what's coming!" That is true that your opponent will know what may come, but that doesn't mean he/she will be prepared for it. Knowing what's coming most likely isn't going to win a duel; it is a combination of many more important things such as making good plays and building a good deck for starters. Bouncing -In other words, sending monsters back to their owner's hands. This is a GREAT form of controll/stall, and has helped make the Water Civilization infamous. Examples of "Bouncers" are: Spiral Gate {Spell} Civilization: Water Casting Cost: 2 Shield Trigger- Choose 1 creature in the battle zone and return is to its owner's hand. Teleportation {Spell} Civilization: Water Casting Cost: 5 Choose up to 2 creatures in the battle zone and return them to their owners' hands. Saucer-Head Shark {Creature} Civilization: Water Casting Cost: 5 Power: 3000 When you put this creature into the battle zone, return each creature in the battle zone that has power 2000 or less to its owner's hand. Aqua Sniper {Creature} Civilization: Water Casting Cost: 8 Power: 5000 When you put this creature into the battle zone, choose up to 2 creatures in the battle zone and return them to their owners' hands. Bouncing has always been one of my favorite special abilities, ever since I first used Spiral Gate. Although I have parted with my Water deck, I'm always pleased to compete against a water deck because duels against control-bred decks are captivating (much more fun than playing a stall deck to say the least). Sending monsters back to your opponent's hand can stall him and buy you time to get your game set up. You can send cards that have "When you put this creature into the battle zone" effects back to your hand to be reused. So you could play Rayla to tutor for a spell, send it back to hand, then replay the combo next turn. If you have a Water/Darkness deck, you could bounce your opponent's creature back to hand, then play a Ghost Touch (or other hand disruption card) to discard the card you just sent back. Bouncing is very helpful to stall decks, as well as control decks. As I said before, field dominance wins duels, and bouncing can help you achieve it. Blocker For those of you who are new to the game, "blockers" are monsters that can intercept an enemy creature's attack and do battle with it as long as the blocker is untapped. Blockers are some of the most disputable cards in this game. Some people think they are completely useless while others believe they are essential. The Darkness and Water civilizations have blockers, but the Light civilization is the HOME of the blockers. Examples of Blockers are: La Ura Giga, Sky Guardian {Creature} Civilization: Light Casting Cost: 1 Power: 2000 Blocker- This creature can't attack players. Gran Gure, Space Guardian {Creature} Civilization: Light Casting Cost: 6 Power: 9000 Blocker- This creature can't attack players. Dia Nork, Moonlight Guardian {Creature} Civilization: Light Casting Cost: 4 Power: 5000 Blocker- This creature can't attack players. Marine Flower {Creature} Civilization: Water Casting Cost: 1 Power: 2000 Blocker- This creature can't attack. Blockers are primarily for defense, but some of them can attack other creatures; a few can even attack shields. La Ura Giga and Marine Flowers are rush blockers if you will, to counter the Braidclaws and other rushers your opponent might throw at you. These little hairballs buy time until turn 3 or 4 when you can lay out some bigger creatures. Dia Nork is an okay mid-game blocker, though not always used in light decks. Gran Gure, Space Guardian which is arguably the "greatest" blocker in the base set, is a turn 6 Defensive equivalent of Explosive Fighter Ucarn with the 9000 power. It can attack creatures, so you could use it to bash a tapped BSD and so on. It will take at least a Ucarn to take them both down, and at least a Hanusa/9500+ monster to get past it without killing itself. As I said, blockers can attack and then be untapped to defend you on your opponent's turn [Using Toel]. Blockers can work well with brute force attackers; those blockers that are allowed to attack can get rid of weak tapped monsters to clear the way for all-out attackers. It might even be argued that the blocker ability is the most essential ability to use in *almost* any deck. These abilities all have their different uses and downfalls. You as an individual will ultimately decide which one(s) you will utilize in your playstyle and deck projects. Take note that these are only SOME of the abundance of abilities in the Duel Masters TCG. I plan on continuing with the article and reviewing other abilities, but I won't promise anything. Anyway, thanks for reading and good luck with your dueling endeavors! - Kenshin~ _________________________________________________________________