September 2008

 

Kalani's Unofficial Guide to the Summon Negation/Response Chains (Part I)

"Summon Negation" is one of the most poorly understood mechanics in the game. While it has been around since the time of Metal Raiders, to this day players are still uncertain when to activate "Summon Negation" cards, what happens to a monster's effect(s) when its summon is negated, and how this interacts with cards which respond to a summon such as the ever popular "Bottomless Trap Hole".
 
Given the complexity of information, and the fact that the information is burried deep within the official FAQs across multiple rulings - I felt it was appropriate to create an unofficial FAQ explaining this poorly understood but crucial game mechanic.
 
Unfortunately, space limitations have forced me to break this article into three separate parts. For those who have already read Parts II and III of this guide, I appologise about the lateness of Part I as it appears the original post was lost in transit.
 
I hope that you find this information helpful to your game.

The Unofficial Guide to the Summon Negation / Response Chains.
Despite being a relatively simple aspect of the game, the "Summon Response Chain" causes great confusion amongst many players. Unfortunately, despite being such a simple concept, it can be notoriously difficult to explain.


As a result, I appologise in advance about the length of this explaination, and in an effort to not overwhelm, I have broken it up into several separate points.

Given how difficult it is to explain the "Summon Response Chain" without using an example, for the purpose of this explaination, I will refer back to the following chain, which is a perfectly legal (if not complex, and somewhat unrealistic) example of the kinds of things you can see happen during a single "Summon Response Chain".

• Player A Summons "Blowback Dragon"
• Player A activates the effect of "Blowback Dragon" on priority.
• Player B chains "Bottomless Trap Hole"
• Player A chains "Interdimensional Matter Transporter" targeting "Blowback Dragon"
• Player B chains "Enemy Controller", Tributing "Sangan" as its cost and targets "Blowback Dragon"
• Player A chains "Book of Moon" Targeting "Blowback Dragon"
• Player B chains "Torrential Tribute"
• Player A does not respond
• Player B chains "Call of the Haunted" targeting "Sangan".

The Summon Negation & Summon Response Chains Explained
Player A Summons "Blowback Dragon".
This part is Self Explainatory, and is the Trigger which starts both of the chains below beginning with -


The Summon Negation Chain: 
The moment Player A summons "Blowback Dragon" the "Timing Window" to activate a card(s) which will negate the Summon of a Monster opens.


This is infact a seaprate chain independant of the Summon Response chain that, "technically" occurs before a monster is summoned, but after its intention to be summoned has been announced (and the card placed face-up on the field).

Since this chain happens before the monster is considered "summoned", anything which occurs in this chain has no impact on whether you can activate a card(s) effect during the "Summon Response Chain" which occurs after it.

While this chain has never been given any "official" or "unofficial" name, I will call it the "Summon Negation Chain" for the purposes of this explaination only.

While this was not shown in the above example, the "Summon Negation Chain" did resolve with the following two steps:

• Player A does not activate "Solemn Judgement" or similar card.
• Player B does not activate "Solemn Judgement" or similar card.

As neither player iniated this chain by activating a card with a "Summon Negation" effect, the game state progresses beyond this point, and the Timing Window to activate "Summon Negation" cards closes. IOWs, The "Summon Negation Chain" resolves without effect.

If the following had occured instead, the "Summon Response Chain" would still continue uninterrupted. This is due to the fact that this chain resolves before the monster is considered to have been "successfully summoned".

• Player A does not activate "Solemn Judgement" or a similar card.
• Player B activates "Forced Back".
• Player A activates "Seven Tools of the bandit".
• Player B does not respond
• Player A does not respond

This is due to the fact that "Seven Tools of the Bandit" will negate the effect of "Forced Back", and as a result, the monster will be summoned to the field, as indicated below.