Dinosaurs have long been a part of the Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG, but, for the most part, they haven’t made a strong showing. With so few Dinosaur effect monsters to choose from, it is difficult for them to stand on their own. Their time of conquest has been long in coming.

Power of the Duelist takes Dinosaurs to a new level, but part of planning for the future is knowing where we’ve been. This week we will examine our existing run of Dinosaurs and clear up any confusion that may surround how they work.

Labyrinth of Nightmare included our first Dinosaur with an effect: Gilasaurus.

“You can treat the Normal Summon of this card as a Special Summon. If you select Special Summon, your opponent can Special Summon 1 monster from their Graveyard.”

Gilasaurus allowed you to summon multiple monsters in the same turn and, if you hadn’t already performed a normal summon, to tribute them for a high-level monster. This useful ability came with a hefty tradeoff. Whenever you special summoned your Gilasaurus by using its effect, your opponent was allowed to special summon one monster from his or her graveyard.

The resulting effect is optional. If your opponent does not want to special summon a monster, or simply cannot do so, you are still allowed to special summon your Gilasaurus. This distinction allows the Gilasaurus player to take advantage of the opponent’s vulnerable position. For example, if your opponent’s monster zones are full, you can still special summon your Gilasaurus. Your opponent is not required to special summon a monster, so you don’t care if he or she can’t carry out the effect. This isn’t like The Shallow Grave, where the effect is mandatory for both players. If your opponent can’t special summon a monster he or she is simply out of luck.

Is your opponent’s graveyard empty? Did you block off his or her free monster zones with Ground Collapse or Ojama tokens? In either case, go ahead and special summon that Gilasaurus. Your opponent will just have to hope for better luck next time. Even Necrovalley won’t stop you from special summoning your Gilasaurus. With graveyard interaction limited, your opponent simply won’t be allowed to special summon his or her monster.

Dark Crisis gave us a Dinosaur of considerable strength, but using it required planning.

Guardian Grarl says, “This card can only be Normal Summoned, Flip Summoned, or Special Summoned when there is a "Gravity Axe - Grarl" on your side of the field. If this is the only card in your hand, you can Special Summon it.”

Guardian Grarl may be limited by its dependence upon the equip spell card Gravity Axe - Grarl, but it does have a trick to get around this. You are allowed to set Grarl even when you do not have his Axe anywhere in sight. This gets it onto the field, but what do you do with it then? Flip summoning Grarl is not possible until you have its Axe on your side of the field, but flipping Grarl face up isn’t always a flip summon. Cards like Desert Sunlight and Book of Taiyou will help you to flip your Grarl face up without falling under the category of “flip summon.” When Grarl is face up, you are free to do with it as you wish.

Desert Sunlight doesn’t do much to protect Grarl, though, so you may want to rely on a card like Waboku. When attacked, Grarl will be flipped face up and Waboku will protect it from being destroyed in battle. This will allow you to get it into attack position during your next turn and take advantage of its strength.

If you decide to play with Gravity Axe - Grarl, you can take advantage of Grarl’s effect when you have expended every card in your hand. If Grarl is the only card in your hand, you can special summon it without any need for tribute. Doing so will require Grarl’s Axe, however, which tends to restrict Grarl from being tribute summoned.

In order to tribute summon Grarl, you need to have two monsters in play. One will need to be equipped with the Axe, and the other will be offered as the tribute. You cannot tribute the monster equipped with the Axe, because doing so would cause the Axe to leave the field. However, you can always equip your Axe onto one of your opponent’s monsters if doing so will help you to bring Grarl into play. This trick can get Grarl into play when you only have one monster.

After Grarl is brought into play, he’s just a big monster. His effect is only useful while he is in your hand. After coming into play he only wants to fight . . . but at 2500 ATK he is more than capable of doing so.

We can thank Invasion of Chaos for giving Dinosaurs their first real break. Prior to that set, Dinosaurs were largely comprised of normal monsters with stats that didn’t stand up especially well in the game environment. New additions like Hyper Hammerhead changed all that.

The card reads, “When this monster battles an opponent's monster, if the opponent's monster is not destroyed as a result of the battle, the opponent's monster is returned to its owner's hand at the end of the Damage Step.”

It doesn’t matter if Hyper Hammerhead is on the offense or the defense when it battles with your opponent’s monster. It can retaliate even in the face of destruction. That’s right, Hyper Hammerhead’s effect will activate even if it is destroyed in the battle!

So what determines if Hyper Hammerhead has battled? Battle involves damage calculation, so in order for it to “battle” it must be involved in damage calculation. If you use cards like Sakuretsu Armor or Magic Cylinder to protect your Hyper Hammerhead, they will prevent the attack from moving to the damage step, and thus no damage calculation will occur.

Assuming damage calculation occurs, Hyper Hammerhead’s effect will activate at the time a monster destroyed in battle is sent to the graveyard at the end of the damage step. According to the card’s effect, if the monster it battled with was destroyed, that monster will not return to its owner’s hand. This means that you cannot rely on Hyper Hammerhead to return your opponent’s Sangan or Mystic Tomato to his or her hand if either monster is destroyed in battle.

Then there’s Spirit Reaper. It will not be destroyed by Hyper Hammerhead’s effect because the effect doesn’t target. You can still rely on Hyper Hammerhead to bounce your opponent’s Spirit Reaper back to their hand, but not to destroy it. This effectively cuts their defenses and makes it more difficult for them to place that Reaper back onto the field. But what good will it do if the Hammerhead will just return it to their hand again next turn?

Invasion of Chaos also gave us two strong Dinosaur monsters, Dark Driceratops and Black Tyranno. Dark Driceratops has the piercing effect duelists used to combat the growing popularity of Spirit Reaper, but Black Tyranno has an even more fearsome bite:

 “If the only cards on your opponent's side of the field are Defense Position Monster Cards, this card can attack your opponent's Life Points directly.”

That puts your opponent in an awkward position. He or she needs a set spell or trap card to keep your Black Tyranno from attacking directly. If he or she doesn’t have any, it forces some tough decisions about the placement of his or her monsters. Leaving a monster in attack position will keep your Black Tyranno from attacking directly, but it also leaves your opponent vulnerable in a way that your high ATK monster can take advantage of.

For Black Tyranno, Giant Trunade is certainly a big help. Getting rid of all of your opponent’s pesky spell and trap cards will allow it to attack directly with more consistency. A few quick jabs like that will end the duel in a hurry.

Element Saurus in Rise of Destiny gave the Dinosaurs an ally which could function well with Earth-based monsters. Element Saurus simply gains ATK from Fire monsters, while Earth gives it the ability to negate the effects of monsters it destroys in battle. This utility is great on a 1500 ATK monster, because many threats fall into an ATK range that Element Saurus can easily overcome.

The controller of the card needs to have an Earth monster on the field when the monster that Saurus destroys in battle tries to activate its effect. Normally this isn’t a problem, but if the monster is something like Giant Rat or Nimble Momonga, there can be trouble. The effects of those two cards that special summon monster(s) will activate when they are sent to the graveyard. If they were the only Earth monsters on the field, you will not have them around to satisfy your Element Saurus when the time arrives. Then its ability to negate the destroyed monster’s effect will disappear, and Giant Rat or Nimble Momonga will resolve successfully. Luckily for you, that’s fairly unlikely so long as you keep an eye out for it.

As we close today, I would like to briefly mention the spell card Ultra Evolution Pill, found in Invasion of Chaos and Dark Revelation 2. This card allows you to tribute one Reptile monster on your side of the field in order to special summon one Dinosaur from your hand.

Dinosaurs aren’t the only monster type getting a serious boost in Power of the Duelist. Reptiles are sharing the spotlight with a truly alien team. Ultra Evolution Pill is going to fit in well with the monsters from Power of the Duelist. Be sure to check out a Sneak Preview this weekend to see what both teams can offer!

Until then, send all comments and questions to Curtis@Metagame.com.