There Can Be Only One – #SDAZ-EN038
Each player can only control 1 monster of each Type. If a player controls 2 or more monsters of the same Type, they must send some to the GY so they control no more than 1 monster of that Type.
Date Reviewed: July 21st, 2022
Rating: 3.88
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is awful. 3 is average. 5 is excellent.
Reviews Below:
King of
Lullaby
Hello Pojo Fans,
There Can Be Only One is the Throwback Thursday choice and one that used to be very popular in the Main and Side Deck, as well as a critical piece to an archetype’s success.
Restricting players to only having one Type of monster on the field at a time can be bad enough, TCBOO takes Rivalry of Warlords a step further and restricts each player to just one monster per Type on the field. For Decks like Therion and Subterror and even Invoked, this is key to victory. Therion and Subterror function with multiple types of monsters in their deck while almost all archetypes function with just one Type. Restricting players to one monster per Type on the field hinders opponents while allowing the previously mentioned archetypes to continue to further their advantage. Not only does TCBOO do that, but it will clear out the board upon activation, forcing each player to select only one monster for each Type. Now, that does allow the opponent to choose their best monster, but it will hinder them if they need to have more than one monster to further their plays. Use of the Extra Deck becomes a bit tougher, hand traps become tantalizing fodder to accomplish this at times, or players will simply wait out the TCBOO until they can get an out. You can still summon from the Extra Deck as long as you can keep it to one Type for the summon and that Type isn’t already on the field, but that becomes difficult within archetypes.
Therion will likely use this card much like Subterror did: attempt to main it in a 3-pack and see how it plays in the current state of the game and adjust to how much success it has. I can see this becoming a thorn in players sides again despite the amount of removal that is in the game. The card is only four years old.
Advanced-4/5 Art-4/5
Until Next Time
KingofLullaby
Crunch$G
Since we’re looking at an archetype focused on a ton of different Types, we might at well look at a floodgate that rewards you for playing different Types: There Can Be Only One.
TCBOO is a Continuous Spell that only lets each player control 1 monster of each Type, and any monsters on the field matching Types must be sent to the graveyard until only 1 monster of that Type is on the field. It’s not good against every Deck, but most Decks do use the same Type, so this can really cripple those strategies. You more often than not see the same Types for monsters in an archetype, so the rare exceptions will love this. Therions do work if you are using a more pure variant, so they can benefit from this. It’s a pretty good floodgate that works against most strategies, you just need to find the few strategies that can use this itself.
Advanced Rating: 4/5
Art: 4/5 Skull Servant just wants to enjoy his vacation.
Alex
Searcy
Throwback Thursday gives us a seemingly simple card, and one that’s fairly recent, in the Continuous Trap-There Can Be Only One. Each player is only allowed to control 1 Monster of each Type, and if they control more than that, they must send Monsters to their Grave until they meet the 1 only criteria. Much like…Chicken Game, just to reference something, this is one of those double-edged, fun and dangerous cards, both players can (obviously) take advantage of. This has seen its share of competitive play, and I think it could fit about anywhere, maybe even as a niche/side option for players. It does take a semi-constructed build, but as we’ve seen (again, to cite Chicken Game) it can b one of those cards you use jus to hurt your opponent for a Turn or in a crunch when/if you have no way out in the immediate now. There’s nothing wrong with that (see Mirage of Nightmare or the old Errata-less Imperial Order). This card seems to come and go with time, some use, some won’t. In Therion here, it could be more of a help than not, but I wouldn’t fault anyone (as said) for niche/side use.
Rating: 3.5/5
Art: 3/5 Bland but at least this is appropriate, so I won’t be too hard on it, even if there’s nothing particularly fun about it to me.
Mighty
Vee
As you might know, all current Therion monsters are of different types, which brings us to today’s Throwback Thursday, There Can Be Only One (often abbreviated as TCBOO). One of the more popular and infamous floodgates, TCBOO is a Continuous Trap like most floodgates, and generally can’t be searched outside of odd niche cards. Its effect is fairly simple: while it’s active, each player can only control 1 monster of each Type, and if they happen to control more than one, the player is forced to send monsters to the Graveyard so that they only have 1 monster of each Type. Naturally, this effect is incredibly powerful against decks filled with monsters of the same type, especially Synchro, Xyz, and Link decks since they need to swarm to make their major plays. Even many Fusion and Ritual decks will run into problems since they’ll often need to swarm for their combos as well. You can even use TCBOO offensively, flipping it when multiple monsters of the same Type are on the field to get rid of all but one of them (get it? The card’s name? Haha). While it’s tempting to run it in decks with multiple types (like Therion), it’s most effective with decks that summon a single monster at a time, like Eldlich or Sky Striker. Of course, with the prevalence of the Adventurer engine, floodgates in general have become less oppressive and easier to defeat, and it won’t be useful against every deck out there. Still, as part of the nasty floodgate triumvirate with Gozen Match and Rivalry of the Warlords, it’s definitely a card to watch out for whenever a stun deck enters the meta.
Advanced: 4/5
Art: 4.25/5 Yet another unfortunate event in the life of the Skull Servant family, give them a break for once! (Well, given the Hawaii-esque shirt, I assume this was supposed to be a break.)
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