Last week we examined the basic functions of Ancient Lamp. This week we will handle what happens when faced with the unexpected. Monsters with effects that interact with monster combat or damage calculation have to be kept in perspective when afflicted by the curse of the Ancient Lamp. Attacking your own monster with Don Zaloog isn’t something you normally plan for. How do we handle it? As a wielder of Ancient Lamp, or someone planning to work around it, you will want to stick around.
We Battle!
As soon as Ancient Lamp was released, duelists had two frequent questions:
- What happens if my opponent attacks with Don Zaloog?
- What happens if my opponent attacks with Mystic Swordsman LV2?
Don Zaloog and other monsters with similar effects don’t redirect their anger towards their own controller. Their effects are intended to activate when they inflict damage to your opponent’s life points, which does not occur when you are forced to attack your own monster.
Consider what this can mean for other well-known monsters. If you redirect your opponent’s Kycoo the Ghost Destroyer to his or her own Sangan, it will inflict 800 points of battle damage to his or her own life points . . . and thus, Kycoo’s effect will not activate. Sangan, on the other hand, will activate because it only needs to be sent from the field to the graveyard and isn’t very picky about how that’s accomplished.
With Mystic Swordsman LV2 and Sasuke Samurai, their effects activate when they battle a face-down monster (which is destroyed by their respective effects before it ever has a chance to flip face up). Flipping face up is necessary for the activation of Ancient Lamp’s effect, so when you take that action away you prevent the effect from activating.
Monsters with effects that activate when they are destroyed in battle or when they destroy another monster in battle can also activate as a result of Ancient Lamp’s effect. Some effects will not function when this occurs because they are intended only to activate when you destroy your opponent’s monster in battle.
Monsters like Mystic Tomato and Giant Rat don’t care if they are destroyed as a result of Ancient Lamp’s attack redirection. For them, simply being destroyed in battle is enough. Situations like this end badly for Ancient Lamp because the threat it removes from the field is simply replaced by another.
What if your opponent is playing with Hyena or Nimble Momonga? If they sail on to the Beasty beyond, they can potentially replace themselves with two monsters. A monster like Destiny Hero - Double Dude can pull off a similar trick, although he is far less picky about how he is destroyed. Either way, you’re looking at a most unfortunate bolstering of your opponent’s forces.
Redirected Damage?
Monsters with piercing damage have a unique talent for circumventing the damage redirected by Ancient Lamp. This talent relies upon the use of their effect, so it is only helpful when dealing with monsters in defense position. Due to the effect of the piercing damage monster, the controller of the Ancient Lamp will still take the damage, even if the opponent’s monster is the one being destroyed.
Example: Driceratops Smashes
Talia has an attack position Dark Driceratops and a defense position Miracle Jurassic Egg on her side of the field. Her opponent Alan has a face-down defense position Ancient Lamp placed as her only obstacle. Talia enters her battle phase and has her Dark Driceratops attack Alan’s face-down monster, revealing the Ancient Lamp. Alan chooses to activate its effect, redirecting the attack of Dark Driceratops towards Talia’s Miracle Jurassic Egg. Talia compares the stats of her monsters. Dark Driceratop’s 2400 ATK is greater than Miracle Jurassic Egg’s 2000 DEF, so there will be 400 points from the Driceratop’s piercing damage ability. This effect specifically inflicts the damage to her opponent, so Miracle Jurassic Egg is destroyed and Alan takes the 400 points of damage.
Even though Alan suffered the damage from the piecing, things would have been worse had he not used his Ancient Lamp. Talia would still have her Miracle Jurassic Egg and Alan would have lost 1000 life points instead of just 400. Even though you know piercing monsters can find a way to harm your life points, keeping your Ancient Lamp in play can save you from much worse.
What if Talia’s defense position monster had been a Spirit Reaper?
Protection or no Protection
Spirit Reaper has an interesting interaction with Ancient Lamp, but only if the Reaper is face up at the time Ancient Lamp selects it as a target. We know that Spirit Reaper does not like to be targeted. It dislikes this so much that it will destroy itself whenever this situation occurs. This could cause some complications in the damage step. However, a solution has been established to handle it.
If a face-up Spirit Reaper is targeted by Ancient Lamp’s effect, it will not be destroyed by its own effect until after damage calculation. Even though it can survive the battle, its existence is still short-lived. Normally this situation is useful because it gets rid of Spirit Reaper and protects your Ancient Lamp from battle.
Piercing damage monsters, like Dark Driceratops from our previous example, can potentially deal out quite a bit of damage when they engage a defense position Spirit Reaper. If the Reaper is face down when it is selected, you will be out quite a few life points and the Reaper won’t be leaving the field.
Warrior decks that use Command Knight may appear to have a reliable way to protect themselves from the Ancient Lamp, but that is certainly not so. Command Knight’s effect prevents it from being attacked while you have other monsters by its side. The situation here is different. We are not attempting to attack Command Knight. We are instead targeting it with Ancient Lamp’s effect. Command Knight’s effect says that we cannot select it as an attack target, but it doesn’t do anything to stop our card’s effect. So we can use Ancient Lamp to force our opponent’s monster to attack his or her own Command Knight. It’s an odd situation and certainly not one Command Knight was prepared to handle.
The Cyberdark Impact sneak preview event is only a short time away. What promotional card awaits its participants? What sort of talents will it have? You’ll have to attend to find out!
Until next time, send all comments and questions to Curtis@Metagame.com