Pojo's Yu-Gi-Oh! Site - Strategies, tips, decks and news for Yugioh

Pojo's Yu-Gi-Oh! news, tips, strategies and more!

Pojo Home Page

Message Board

Contact Staff

Card Game
Card of the Day
TCG Fan Tips
Top 10 Lists
Banned/Restricted List
Yu-Gi-Oh News
Tourney Reports
Duelist Interviews

Featured Writers
Baneful's Column
Anteaus on YGO
General Zorpa
Dark Paladin's Dimension
Retired Writers

Anime
Episode Guide
Character Bios
GX Character Bios

Video Games
Millennium Duels (2014)
Nighmare Troubadour (2005)
Destiny Board Traveler (2004)
Power of Chaos (2004)
Worldwide Edition (2003)
Dungeon Dice Monsters (2003)
Falsebound Kingdom (2003)
Eternal Duelist Soul (2002)
Forbidden Memories (2002)
Dark Duel Stories (2002)

Other
About Yu-Gi-Oh
Yu-Gi-Oh! Timeline
Pojo's YuGiOh Books
Apprentice Stuff
Life Point Calculators
DDM Starter Spoiler
DDM Dragonflame Spoiler
The DungeonMaster
Millennium Board Game

Magic
DBZ
Pokemon
Yu Yu Hakusho
NeoPets
HeroClix
Harry Potter
Anime
Vs. System
Megaman

This Space
For Rent

Pojo's Yu-Gi-Oh Card of the Day

Curse of Darkness
Rare

Each time a Spell Card is activated, the controller of that Spell Card takes 1000 points of damage.

Type - Continuous Trap
Card Number - IOC-106

Card Ratings
Traditional: 2.75
Advanced: 1.95

Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale 1 being the worst.
3 ... average. 5 is the highest rating.
Date Reviewed - 02.08.05

Coin Flip	Ah, I love Curse of Darkness. There's something enchanting about the premise. In a way, this card is more dangerous than Imperial Order. The deck that uses this will generally want their opponent to think twice about playing the magic card they drew. I've been in the position before where I've had to choose between a Geki and a Pot because they had Curse of Darkness on the field. Read my autobiography, "Why the hell do you even care?" for more. Anyway, I wish I had the shot at reviewing this card back in IOC. I had to review Chain Burst first, which was alright but not exactly on par with this. First off, this card is dangerous. It can really change a game. In burn decks in GENERAL, this changes games. It sucks to lose 2000 LP in one turn (Ojama Trio and Just Desserts plus your normal summon), and then face the wrath of a Lava Golem and Stealth Bird for 4000 damage in three turns (which happens more than you think it should) and then have one of these sprung on you. There are less specific situations, but basically, you can be paying ~20% of your life points for every magic card you use by your second turn. When you have to do that just to spring out of a cycle where you're ALREADY losing mass life every turn, you know you are going to need to sidedeck. Unfortunately, a lot of the more powerful Magic cards are making their way out of people's decks through bans and stuff. Before, you could be doing 1-3 Magic cards per turn before both players entered topdecks, and now I see 2 if it's a rare situation every turn. The game has become less Magic-oriented. That said, this thing has lost some power. People still run Pot, Change, Snatch, MST, Heavy, and Smashing Ground because they can, but they're also more likely to have dropped up to 4 Magics to be running some more monsters and traps, namely Dust Tornado. But on the other hand, without Duster and 2 MSTs, this will do more damage or affect the opponent aversely even more. The thing is, burn likes cards like this that don't DIRECTLY impair the opponent such as Gravity Bind or Level Limit - Area B. Burn decks like Ojama Trio. Burn decks like Curse of Darkness. They don't directly impair you, but they create a limitation as to what you can do, and in the case of Curse of Darkness, put your foot on Burn's accelerator. I personally wouldn't run a burn deck without one, but I'm highly biased towards the card. Burn deck: 4.2/5 Traditional 4.2/5 Advanced.
ExMinion OfDarkness	Curse of Darkness A burn card that usually ends up being just short of maindecked in Burn. Curse of Darkness is a great card in concept -- 1,000 damage whenever a Spell is activated is quite a drawback. Mid-game, this can cause an opponent to hold back upon playing Spells until they can get rid of Curse some other way. Late-game, it could be an Advanced Format version of Imperial Order. However, this card has inherent weaknesses that keep it out of any Burn I'd make. Traditional: Harpie's Feather Duster, Heavy Storm, MST, and the Dust Tornadoes, along with Breaker, mean this card won't be on the field very long. Advanced: Heavy Storm, MST, the MULTIPLE mained Dust Tornadoes, the possible Raigeki Breaks, along with Breaker and possible mained Mobiuses mean this card will be on the field for an even short amount of time. Since more of the removal is in Monster or Trap form, it's possible that all 3 of your Curse of Darknesses will leave without inflicting a single point of damage. Don't get me wrong -- it's a good card -- just not good enough. If they end up restricting Mobius, banning Breaker, and restricting Dust Tornado (which will never happen), then play this card. But until then, there are better options. 1.75/5 both formats
Tranorix	Curse of Darkness Fun fact: Curse of Darkness was the first card I ever reviewed for Pojo’s Card of the Day. Fun fact: The review was never posted because I submitted it too late, so Insect Princess is technically the first you all get to see. Fun fact: I’m lazy, so parts of this review will just be copied and pasted from that one. First of all, it must be made clear that you can’t chain this to MST or Heavy Storm to make your opponent take 1000 damage; it must already be active on the field. The reason is that it charges 1000 LP on ACTIVATION; if you activate it in a chain to something, said card will already have been activated and Curse of Darkness will be too late to stop it. That said, it’s a very nice card, better than its cousin, Chain Burst. Almost all decks have an abundance of Spells, and forcing your opponent to pay 1000 to activate each one is bound to hurt him quite a bit if he can’t get rid of your Curse. Using this late-game will really discourage your opponent, since he’ll have to be very careful with what he plays; this card could very well win you the game by preventing your opponent from playing any Spells at all. Run it in decks that are more Trap-heavy than Spell-heavy, as it’s a little…counterproductive to use this in a deck with lots of Spells, unless you’re a masochist. Traditional – CCCC: 2/5 Traditional – Burn: 3.5/5 Advanced – CCWC: 2.5/5 Advanced – Burn: 4/5 OVERALL RATING: 3/5
Snapper	Curse of Darkness Today’s card is Curse of Darkness, a Trap that is a pain to anyone that uses a lot of Spell Cards. Curse of Darkness has a simple effect; whenever someone activates a Spell Card they lose 1000 Life Points. Because nearly ½ of most Decks are Spell Cards, Curse of Darkness could easily ruin somebody’s plans, forcing your opponent to find alternative means of dealing with threats or accomplishing other tasks. Of course nobody’s stopping them from activating a Spell Card, but 1000 Life Points begins to add up quickly after a few Spells are activated. You must remember though that Curse of Darkness is a two-sided sword; if you use Curse of Darkness you’ll want to be sure that you aren’t using too many Spells or else you could have the same problem as your opponent. Advanced: 2.5/5. There are lots of widely used non-Spell versions of S/T destruction, giving the opponent easy ways to rid themselves of this menace. Traditional: 3/5. There is still plenty of S.T destruction but most is in Spell form, causing the opponent to lose 1000 Life Points either way. Overall: 2.75/5. Art: 2.5/5. I’m not really sure what’s supposed to be going on in this scene…
f00b	Curse of Darkness Aight, so it’s burn week for CoTD. Next to your basic cookie cutter type deck, this is the archetype I have tested most heavily against. Through these numerous testing sessions I have pretty much found out what does and doesn’t work in a good burn deck, as well as how to stop the cards that do work well for them. The only problem is, most burn decks I have played against don’t have access to this card in either the main or sidedeck. However, I do remember a particular set of matches in which this card was used, so perhaps this will provide some insight as to why. The card is pretty simple, use a spell card, pay the price (12.5% of your original LP). Does this card negate spells? No. Is it a preventative measure? Definitely. First, if you run Curse of Darkness, you can play around it to your advantage by activating your normal spells before setting this, and certainly by playing the continuous stall cards like Level Limit and Messenger of Peace. Basically, you will only have to “pay” to activate your quick-play spells i.e. scapegoat. Once your opponent knows you run this card, they will be wary in playing out their hands. As much as 50% of your average “cookie cutter” deck contains spell cards. This means that such appealing gestures as paying 1000 LP to activate Pot will most likely draw into more spells. Frustrating, eh? But the problem here is, since a “normal” deck is quite likely to lose game 1 to burn anyway (and for sure, there is a lack of maindecked support to deal with cards like these as you’ll lose if you don’t draw the Jinzo, Storm, MST, or Breaker early), they will then have the opportunity to sideboard in all the “other” forms of m/t removal, among which should be cards like Dust Tornado (a Trap that can take care of CoDarkness) and the two monster answers – Mobius the Frost Monarch and Swarm of Locusts. Add this to the ever-present Jinzo and possibly Royal Decrees and it doesn’t seem like Curse of Darkness will really be stopping much anyway. So, if you look at it in a normal scenario, when you chain it to your opponent’s first spell card, they will take 1000 LP from the “shock value” of the card, and then just wait for an answer (and since burn isn’t an explosive deck, this won’t hurt them). This basically turns this card into a Poison of the Old Man + 200 LP damage, or a Tremendous Fire without the 500 LP damage to yourself. These are both INCREDIBLY weak cards to run in burn, and would lead me to believe Curse of Darkness can be categorized similarly. Since the way to beat burn anyway is by “weathering the storm” and drawing out your answers, you aren’t likely to be in dire need to take 1000 LP for cards that don’t do too much for you. But on the other hand, if you have a hand full of juicy spells like Painful Choice, Pot of Greed, and Nobleman of Crossout (virtual must-plays), or if you simply get “locked in” by CoD while your opponent burns you to death and you don’t draw an answer, CoD may end up doing some damage. Overall, I think Curse of Darkness is simply too bland of a card to use and isn’t worth tossing into the burn deck, even though the thought of multiple CoDs is very tantalizing, it isn’t best to ‘overextend’ like this, and you’ll lose to Heavy Storm if you don’t have a Solemn Judgment down. Of course, sometimes I can see this card just winning games, because monsters aren’t too special without the spells to back them, and especially in burn decks running cards that get better over time like Wave Motion Cannon, Stealth Bird, and Lava Golem, this will force your opponents to dwindle low on LP just to try and get something accomplished in the game. But, like I said, once it reaches Games 2 and 3, they should have plenty of sideboard cards coming in, and certainly enough to make this card simply insignificant. Don’t think I’m saying just because S/T removal will be sided in that I’m saying it nullifies this card (this would mean every spell or trap is ‘useless’ if non-chainable) – what I’m really saying is that in its own right and at the time you activate it, Curse of Darkness isn’t such a hot card and I would much rather have a potent, more consistent burn spell in my arsenal if I was the burn player. ~Ratings~ Traditional – 0.8/5 Stick to Imperial Order as your defense from HFD and Heavy Storm, especially since the “burn archetype” isn’t so hot here. Advanced – 1.6/5 You might catch a poor player “off guard” and win the second game because all they have are spells and no way of using them (or risk losing the game by LP loss), but in this case you should be winning anyway because they didn’t have enough sideboard to even make it a fair game. Burninate the countryside.
sHecKii	I'll make this review very short but to the point: THIS CARD IS THE NUTS IF YOU GET IT IN YOUR OPENING HAND! The trick with this card is DRAWING it in your opening hand... =\ I think a correct burner build (which to tell you the truth i haven't been able to do yet), probably includes 2-3 Curse of Darkness. 1000 life points is a HUGE amount of life points if you think about it...A good example of this theory is when you use Magical Scientist. you pay 1000 for a monster, and then normally a monster of 1400+ hits into magical scientist which means you took 2100-3000-ish damage by using Magical Scientist...Even if you use a protection card for magical scientist, sometimes you use his effect again which means it's a 2000 life point (1/4th of your life points) swing. shrugs do not count this card out... Also, this is one of the best cards to board in against FTK scientist decks since they do not play any trap cards and never pass around 10-11 monsters...that's over 71% of the cards in the deck. Even if the first Spell they activate is Giant Trunade/Heavy Storm...7000 life points = they can use scientist+turtle for 6600 damage if they have it on the field...it's a total of under 7500 if they launch catapult turtle and magical scientist...most likely they will have to Pot of Greed into it or something of that nature, which means you won the match... NOTE one of the many traps to stop first turn kill IF YOU HAVE THE ABILITY TO GO FIRST!!!!!! ^RAR^ Others include Hallowed Life Barrier, Divine Wrath, Pikeru's Cirlce of Enchantment, Chain Disappearance, even Compulsory Evacuation Device, and Barrel Behind the Door...there's probably more but i'm trying to get the point of the ftK match-up is a coinflip dxP But focusing on the burner deck's aspect, imagine if your opponent has to Painful Choice, Premature Burial, Pot of Greed, Confiscation/The Forceful Sentry, Heavy Storm, Mystical Space Typhoon into an answer against burner...even if you do 1000-2000 damage only, it's still more than what you expect from Stealth Bird and/or Secret Barrel sometimes...Really should look into this card Ratings Constructed: 4/5 Limited: 2/5