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Pojo's Yu-Gi-Oh Card of the Day
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Hallowed
Life Barrier
Super Rare
Discard 1 card from your hand. During this turn, any
damage you take from your opponent becomes 0.
Type
- Normal Trap
Card Number
- SOD-EN060
Ratings
are based on a 1 to 5 scale
1 being
the worst. 3 ... average. 5 is the highest rating
Date Reviewed - 10.11.04 |
|
Tranorix |
Hallowed Life Barrier
Yes, we're finally reviewing Soul of the Duelist
cards! Our first one is Hallowed Life Barrier, a
nice little Trap that's causing a lot of unnecessary
controversy.
Hallowed Life Barrier has a chainable effect, which
is good; it requires a discard from your hand to
activate. So waiting to chain it to your opponent's
M/T removal might ease the hurt of the discard (of
course, Night Assailant/Sinister Serpent would also
help there). The effect, contrary to what seems to
be possible belief, DOES NOT protect your monsters.
Hallowed Life Barrier protects your Life Points and
your Life Points only, but unlike Waboku, it will
also protect you from effect damage. What does that
mean? If your opponent uses Magic Cylinder, you can
activate HLB and you won’t take any damage. If your
opponent blows up Chaos Emperor Dragon, you can
activate HLB and you won't take any damage. It's
quite a useful card, but the fact that it won't
protect your monsters does decrease its playability
a little.
In Advanced Format, where Burners are a bit more
prevalent, HLB gains a lot of use, since the effect
will help you more often. But in Traditional Format,
it's an awesome counter to Chaos Emperor Dragon, so
it has playability there too. At the very least, you
should consider side-decking Hallowed Life Barrier.
You never know when you'll face that Burner...
Traditional – CCCC: 3/5
Traditional – anti-CCCC: 3.5/5
Advanced – anti-Burn: 4/5 |
|
Coin Flip |
Hallowed Life Barrier... My first Ultimate Rare, and
one of the better cards this set. A lot of people
played this card immediately upon release, but
before you go opening up a slot in your deck, you
should think about Waboku over this...
Stats/Cost: It is a Spell Speed 2 trap. No
activation requirement, so that earns it brownie
points... Can't activate it on your turn, but it's
free to chain in case they use an MST on it... The
cost of discarding a card from your hand is pretty
heavy. Personally, I wouldn't run this in
traditional since Waboku does the same thing (well,
I'll get to that) but with no cost. Post-ban, the
focus is on field control, but I'll get to that,
too...
Usability/Effect: Well, some people are going to
think that this is a souped up Waboku. I would like
to correct them. This is a souped up Kuribo on
steroids with a freaky picture. The current English
ruling is that HLB does NOT protect your monsters
from battle damage, only you. I believe the ruling
is otherwise for the Japanese printing of the card,
but you never know. So, post-ban, this wins you no
field advantage and lose hand advantage, and
pre-ban, this loses you hand advantage. Not too
usable.
Combos: Like Waboku, Kuribo, and so many others,
this stands completely alone.
Score: 3/5 Traditional, 3.5/5 Championship. Add on a
half a point or a point if the ruling for this thing
ever gets changed, and it does protect your
monsters. |
|
ExMinion OfDarkness |
Hallowed Life Barrier
Welcome to (the slightly late) Soul of the Duelist
week! What will follow are reviews of cards that
will either be heavily overplayed or heavily
underrated, as nothing in the set is totally broken.
Hallowed Life Barrier is being revered as the "Super
Waboku". Is it really? Let's take a closer look.
In order to use this card, you have to discard a
card from your hand. Bad in Traditional, where hand
size is low, but good in Advanced Format, where
multiple cards in hand isn't a rare sight.
It blocks all damage to you for one turn. The pro
over Waboku is that it saves you from Effect damage
as well, such as Chaos Emperor Dragon's explosion,
Ring of Destruction, or any other Burn card. The con
is that it does not save your monsters like Waboku
does. One of the more attractive uses of Waboku is
that you could save a monster you wanted to Tribute
next turn (and Tributing is bigger in Advanced
format, so this is more important there.) Hallowed
Life Barrier can't do this.
This card is chainable. It's important in both
formats -- it surprises an opponent who thought he'd
win the game with Chaos Emperor Dragon or Ring in
Traditional, and Advanced format leaves the person
who waited five turns on Wave Motion cannon to do
absolutely nothing.
My conclusions:
Traditional -- It affects two commonly played cards,
CED and Ring. Harpie's, MST, Heavy Storm, and now
Dust Tornados are all still out there to get this,
so just play Waboku instead and keep yourself even
on card advantage. 2/5
Advanced -- Burn is more of a problem here. It has
more uses, and the hand discard can actually help
some decks instead of hampering its use. At least
side-deck two if you have the room. 3.75/5 |
|
Snapper |
Hallowed Life Barrier
Welcome to the long awaited SOD week! (After last
week’s, er- ‘wonderful’ card choices, I’ve decided
to pretend that this is my first week reviewing
cards here at Pojo, and that last week never
happened.) My name is Snapper. For those of you who
don’t recognize my name, I’m not surprised! Now, on
to the review!
Effect: Hallowed Life Barrier has a lot of
potential. By simply discarding a card from your
hand, you receive 0 damage from your opponent for
the remainder of the turn. This means you don’t get
any damage from burn cards, damage from attacks, or
anything your opponent can do to damage your Life
Points. Your opponent can use Ceasefire and you lose
0 Life Points. They can use Chaos Emperor Dragon,
and you lose 0 Life Points. They can even attack you
directly with Yata-Garau; you lose 0 Life points and
you get to draw during your next turn. And at what
cost? A single card from your hand will suffice to
protect yourself for one whole turn. Please note
that Hallowed Life Barrier says all damage from your
OPPONENT, meaning you still lose Life Points is you
activate cards like Ring of Destruction. Now, many
people seem to think that Hallowed Life Barrier
works in the same way as Waboku, which would allow
it to save your monsters from attack. This is not
true. Hallowed Life Barrier WILL NOT prevent the
destruction of your monsters in any way, shape, or
form. A monster with a higher ATK than the ATK or
DEF of your monster will still defeat it in battle,
causing your monster to go the Graveyard. With all
that said, it’s obvious Hallowed Life Barrier can be
a Life saver. Effect – Very Good.
Combos: Hallowed Life Barrier can really only be
‘comboed’ with cards you would want to discard.
Cards that fit this classification include Sinister
Serpent, Night Assailant, or a card you’ll want to
remove from the Graveyard to Special Summon a
monster like Dark Necrofear or Chaos Emperor Dragon.
Usability: Hallowed Life Barrier works well in all
decks. It’s as simple as that.
Hallowed Life Barrier is a great card with an
endless amount of uses. The only real question is
does it/should it replace Waboku. The answer is no.
While Hallowed Life Barrier is a good card, it will
never be able to replace Waboku. The wisest decision
would be to put one or two Hallowed Life Barriers in
your Side Deck, giving you the chance to use it if
need be.
Advanced Format: 4.5/5. Burn decks will be a common
sight in Advanced Format, making Hallowed Life
Barrier a VERY helpful card.
Traditional Format: 4.5/5. Hallowed Life Barrier
will save you from the single most devastating card
in the game; C.E.D. That is reason enough to use
Hallowed Life Barrier.
Art: 4/5. I imagine that this is what Waboku would
look like if you zoomed out a little… |
|
Tony |
Finally we get to review the new cards from this set!
Regionals in Southern California is in 2 weeks and I
hope most of my reviews will help people.
Otherwise....well it's educational anyways! dxP
First card up this week is Hallowed Life Barrier.
This is exactly like another Magic the Gathering
card that just came out, Ethereal Haze. Soo this is
probably good against Chaos Emperor Dragon, Ring of
Destruction, how about the first turn kill magical
scientist deck? Actually, this card is probably good
against Burner decks too...*Shrugs*
Now I'm infamous for either bashing Waboku or end up
playing 1-2 in some of my decks. Personally, I hate
Waboku...it does NOT do anything. "It prevents
damage!" "You can chain to MST!" "It's good against
Fiber Jar!" NO! It does NOT do anything! haha...I'd
get into it more but I'm not ready to type 2
paragraphs worth of Waboku information today ^^
Soo about this card Hallowed Life Barrier...
Is it better than Waboku? I mean it's ALL damage.
There IS a reason why this card is a Super Rare
right? *shrugs* Remember Raigeki Break? That's not
the best card in the world and it destroys any card
on the field. This to me is another waboku. Better
waboku? I don't think so. I believe that those
people who likes to play 2-3 Wabokus could sideboard
this card against Burner, Chaos, and Magical
Scientist decks.
eh, one of those holos that might never see play...
Ratings:
Constructed: 3/5
Draft: 0/10 (( Never EVER draft this card..hahaha )) |
|
JAELOVE |
Monday: Hallowed Life Barrier
Rated For: Any Deck
And
hallowed be thy name…. Hallowed Life Barrier. It’s a
new week (with last week’s lot behind us…..
shudder), and we have a special treat in store
today. We’ll be reviewing cards from the new set,
Soul of Duelist!
The
first card is one of the more recognizable ones from
the set, Hallowed Life Barrier. Yep, looks like
those Waboku emissaries are pulling double duty,
protecting from battle and now protecting from all
damage.
Will its discard cost prevent it from
ever seeing play? Stay tuned, for another episode
of… A BAD System Review.
Advantage F/H:
I’m not a fan of Hallowed Life
Barrier, because it costs a card to play. Sure, this
is fine if you’re running some stud such as Sinister
Serpent or Night Assailant, but in most cases that
card will be important in some way, shape, or form.
Two cards to save anywhere from 1500 to 4000 damage
doesn’t seem very prudent to me.
2.5/10.
Best Draw for the Situation:
This card functions, in many a
sense, like its related-artwork cousin Waboku. It
won’t change the tide of the duel; at best, it
“saves” you for a turn. Even if you top-deck this
card while being dominated, it still won’t save you
for more than a turn. I feel it belongs in the
side-deck, saved for burners.
2.5/10.
Attributes/Effect:
I must admit, it’s effect is rather
unique and can benefit you in many ways. It’s the
only card of its kind, and can definitely save you
versus the right type of deck. Unfortunately, the
cost is a tad bit high.
5/10.
Dependability:
You’ll almost always be able to use
it, as long as you’re willing to dump a card from
hand. So in the most technical sense, it does depend
upon having another dumpable card in hand, otherwise
you’re hurting yourself by using it.
6/10.
The Bottom Line:
Strictly side-deck fodder, if even
that.
A BAD Score:
16/40= 40/100.
Cards it functions well with:
Night Assailant, Sinister
Serpent. |
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