June 2007

To Stop an Attack: Negating the Battle Phase
 
The point of Yu-Gi-Oh! is to reduce your opponent's lifepoints to zero. This is commonly done by attacking, with lesser strategies focusing on burning through card effects as well as deckout/a special win condition. But for the sake of this article we will assume that your opponent will be using an attack based strategy. What if you could simply shut down the Battle Phase and stop your opponent from receiving their win condition? I assume you would be interested. These 3 Trap cards do this very well. I have rated them on power, consistency and versatility. Here is the shorthand for the rating system I use
 
Power-It's ability to affect the field by destroying cards or inflicting damage.
 
Consistency-How often this card will get it's effect off.
 
Versatility-How many times you draw this card will it help you win the game
 
 
Mirror Force

Probably everyone's favorite (or least favorite, depending on if you are attacking or not) trap card. The reason being that this card swings a game that you could lose into one where you could make a comeback. Some people classify this card as a suped up Sakuretsu Armor, but I disagree. It is more like a Battle Phase ender with benefits. The effect of course is to destroy all of your opponents ATK position cards when a monster attacks you. This effectively shuts down the Battle Phase as well as leaving the opening to retaliate on a cleared field. There is not much to say about this card except that you should be running it. Even burn decks run it, this card is THAT powerful. Look for it's release in a starter deck soon, as it is very hard to find and used by all players that own it.
 
Power-9 (doesn't destroy defense position monsters, but still amazingly powerful)
Consistency-4 (your opponent will often read Mirror Force as a set and destroy it, plus it depends an attack to activate)
Versatility-4 (it destroys attack position monsters and that is it)
 
 
Threatening Roar
 
This card popped up as an answer to ultra aggressive decks like Stein OTK and Demise OTK. It also is useful as a side card against Samurai and Destiny Heros. The effect is to make an opponent not attack for a Battle Phase, commonly activated during the switch from Main phase to Battle phase. In card advantage this little trap is a minus 1, which stopped it's play for years since advantage drove many of the formats before this one. Once the OTK's came out of the woodworks though, this card rose to stop it. Chainable to destruction, it made Stein players cringe and Demise players outright furious. This is one of the few good cards to come out of the set Flaming Eternity, and I have seen people buy boxes jsut to get their hands on a lot of copies.
 
Power-2 (doesn't affect anything on the field, but disrupts your opponent's strategies and rhythm)
Consistency-9 (It will get it's effect off due to it's chainability, but Jinzo and Royal Decree shut it down big time)
Versatility-5 (it stops the opponent's Battle Phase and not much else)
 
 
Waboku
 
This is probably one of my favorite cards. There was much confusion in my early gaming years about his card. To clarify, it protects your monsters AND your lifepoints from all damage that would be inflicted to them during the turn it is activated, meaning your monsters have an invisible shield around them that stops them from dying in battle. This is of course a potent defensive card, functioning much the same way as Threatening Roar does, except with much more chainability. Unlike Threatening Roar this card can be activated even during the battle phase, allowing slightly more versatility. The reason that Roar gets more play than Waboku is simply due to the fact that it doesn't stop Spirit Reaper and Neo Spacien Grand Mole from claiming their effects, as it does not negate their attack. The place where this card REALLY shines though is on the offensive. Yeah that's right, this card is one of the few offensive trap cards. You can activate it in your turn if your opponent pulls a Shrink off on you or if you want to kamikaze a Monarch, because then you save your own monster. A versatile card that I am probably going to sid deck in Nationals.
 
Power-5 (allows for the saving of monsters during your turn as well as possibly gaining advantage by suiciding monsters)
Consistency-9 (the same as Threatening Roar, Chainable, but negated by oh so many cards)
Versatility-8 (able to be used offensively as well as defensively, but still negated by many cards and situational as to what is on the field)
 
Final Scores
 
Mirror Force-17
Threatening Roar-16
Waboku-23
 
Of course this rating system is not perfect, because I have to say that Mirror Force is a better card than Waboku, just because it's Power rating is the second highest of all trap cards. I DARE someone to win a Jump/Nationals with this card somewhere in their deck.
 
 
The Bottom Line
 
These cards are all very useful in many different decks as well as good side-deck tech. Use them if you have a problem with getting swarmed with attacking monsters, I know I do.