One of the most important factors in constructing successful decks in the Yu-Gi-Oh! Trading Card Game is to know where certain cards belong. This means that you should look at each card and know whether it falls into one of the following three general categories: Is it a good Aggro* card, a good Control card, or a good Combo card? Including a card with a theme that doesn’t match the deck you’re trying to construct will usually lead to disaster. For example, Cybernetic Magician is a tribute monster with strong stats and an interesting effect. However, is it an Aggro card or a Control card?
The answer to this could be seen in different ways, depending on what’s currently legal in the Advanced format. In the previous Advanced format, Cybernetic Magician was a Control card, and it would remain a Control card since its ability is far too taxing on an Aggro deck’s resources. In a Goat Control deck in the previous Advanced format, Cybernetic Magician could have been an effective win condition. After you absorb your opponent’s last monster with Thousand-Eyes Restrict and wipe his or her back row clean, you could tribute that fusion monster to drop Cybernetic Magician onto the field. After using its ignition effect a couple of times, you’d probably have two or three relatively scary Sheep tokens to complement this 2400 ATK beast. Of course, the result from this is that your monsters bash your opponent’s face in. However, Cybernetic Magician was released too late in the format to be of any considerable use, and with the loss of Sinister Serpent and Night Assailant, its ability became taxing. Even then, Goat Control’s primary bomb in the previous format was Black Luster Soldier – Envoy of the Beginning, as its effect required less finesse than Cybernetic Magician, a monster that required timing and planning to run effectively.
Speaking of Black Luster Soldier – Envoy Of the Beginning, a card like this actually fits into more than one category. It has an effect that can either tax your opponent’s resources while you slowly gain an advantage over them (the game plan of a Control-based deck), or its effect can beat your opponent’s face to a pulp in one turn (the game plan of an Aggro-based deck). Cards that work in more than one general deck type tend to be too powerful for their own good, especially when they can be used effectively in multiple types of decks. Magical Scientist is another strong example of this, as it was an effective monster in all three of the aforementioned general deck types!
There are also some cards that can be played in more than one general deck type, but has a design that makes it much more effective in a specific deck type. These cards are considered exceptionally powerful, but they’re occasionally overlooked, due to more popular cards, such as Cyber Dragon.** Solemn Judgment fits into this category perfectly. It’s a trap card that is pure denial. Negation is the most powerful effect in any trading card game, because it actually denies the effects of cards your opponents want to play. Unlike more restrictive counter-traps, such as Magic Jammer and Seven Tools of the Bandit, Solemn Judgment has the ability to negate and destroy anything. A card like this is incredibly useful, but why isn’t it seeing more play? That’s a good question.
The Basic Breakdown
Solemn Judgment, as described earlier, is a counter-trap. This type of trap card is unique in that it’s the only card type to possess a spell speed of three, meaning that the only cards that can chain to it are other counter-traps. This means you can’t chain something like Royal Decree to Solemn Judgment, because Royal Decree has a spell speed of two.
The effect of Solemn Judgment is what makes it such a powerhouse. You can only activate it in response to an opponent’s monster summon, spell activation, or trap activation. Upon resolution, Solemn Judgment will negate the activation or summon of the card to which you activated Solemn Judgment in response, and that card will be destroyed. This effect is amazing, as monsters that Solemn Judgment negates and destroys are not considered to have been properly summoned. This means that negating Sangan will prevent the opponent from receiving Sangan’s effect, Mobius the Frost Monarch will not get its effect and the monster tributed to summon it will not come back, and a monster (such as Chaos Sorcerer) cannot be special summoned from the graveyard through cards like Premature Burial, because it was not considered to be properly summoned in the first place.
As you can see, Solemn Judgment does a lot. It’s proof that denial effects are very strong, but at what cost would you be willing to use them? The cost to activate Solemn Judgment is half of your life points, which can be either very steep or very inexpensive. It all depends on how late into a duel you activate this trap card. In the first few turns, an activated Solemn Judgment will usually cost you around 4000 life points. However, when you are over ten turns into a duel, the cost usually drops to around 250 to 1000 life points.
Solemn Judgment has a simple, elegant, and powerful effect. However, which of the three general deck types is the best fit for it?
Combos and Strategies
Despite the possible fluctuations in the price of Solemn Judgment’s activation, it’s apparent that a life point cost is going to be far less of a burden in a Control-based deck. Hence, Solemn Judgment is best suited for Control as a primary deck type, where denying your opponent valuable resources and plays is far more important than your actual life total. An Aggro-based deck is going to be far more concerned over a possible life point swing, as its goal is to maintain an aggressive stance over the opponent. This requires an Aggro duelist to threaten the opponent with a larger life total and with beefier monsters. If your life total is too low, then your opponent might be more willing to make risky plays through the destruction of your threatening monsters, and will probably press for a fast victory.
However, just because it’s a risk to run Solemn Judgment in an Aggro deck doesn’t mean you aren’t allowed to do it. Solemn Judgment is still a simple and effective inclusion in many types of decks and for many play styles. Some duelists prefer to overextend their boards in order to prematurely force an opponent’s best cards into play. This can be shown through the special summoning of Cyber Dragon and the summoning of D. D. Assailant. This play is probably an overextension on the Aggro duelist’s part, as it will cause him or her to lose significant threats if the opponent has a method of destroying both monsters.
However, with Solemn Judgment, a duelist is free to take this sort of risk. Solemn Judgment gives risky plays some extra protection. It forces the opponent into making an obvious play, which is to activate a threat, such as Dark Hole. If you trick your opponent into thinking you’ve committed too many resources to your field, you can disarm your opponent of one of his or her only good plays. This will give the Aggro duelist a chance to press for a victory before the opponent has a chance to draw into another threat.
The problem with this sort of playing style is that if your opponent has multiple threats that can deal with your multiple monsters, you’re likely to lose a considerable amount of resources and will be forced onto the defensive. If an Aggro duelist is forced into a situation where he or she is no longer in control of the duel, it will probably lead to his or her downfall. This makes Solemn Judgment a viable, yet risky option in Aggro-based decks. This counter-trap’s use is probably best suited for a Control-based deck, where resource management and tempo control are far more important than a speedy victory.
On the note of combos with Solemn Judgment, it’s worth mentioning that was a key inclusion in the Tsukuyomi-based deck. Resource denial was incredibly important in this deck, especially since stopping key threats such as Black Luster Soldier – Envoy of the Beginning was crucial in obtaining victory. Solemn Judgment was another method of locking down any plays the opponent could make, as this trap card, when combined with Tsukuyomi and Mask of Darkness, provided a limitless supply of negation abilities. This kept the opponent from stopping one or two attacks each turn, and it also denied the opponent of anything that he or she could actually play. The opponent could have drawn Creature Swap or Nobleman of Crossout, but it didn’t really matter, since Solemn Judgment would just negate any threats.
Outside of the Tsuku-Lock Combo/Control deck, there aren’t many Combo-based decks that will actually want to use Solemn Judgment, with the exception of a Last Turn deck. Usually, most Combo-based decks have methods of removing threats that your opponent can activate from the field during your turn. Therefore, Giant Trunade is a much more effective card for Combo decks, as it provides stability for the turn in which those decks go off.
Final Thoughts
I love negation effects. I guess that’s just something to expect from being a gamer who prefers Control decks in every trading card game. Denying your opponent key plays is something that I find to be more fun than just beating your opponent into the ground. I prefer to beat my opponents into the ground with finesse, and Solemn Judgment is precisely that form of finesse that I love in Yu-Gi-Oh! This card is the Lava-Lacooda Control deck’s best tool in providing safety from Heavy Storm and Mobius the Frost Monarch, and you can bet that Solemn Judgment will always see some sort of play in the current Advanced format.
Next week is the start of the Shadow of Infinity sneak previews, so Bill and Tom’s Binder will be on at least a two-week hiatus. However, if you have any questions or comments regarding the Bill and Tom’s Binder column, feel free to email me at Mrosenberg at Metagame dot Com. Oh, and no, I can’t tell you what I’ll be featuring for my sneak peeks. You guys can wait at least a week for some spoilers, right?
*Aggro is an abbreviation of the term “Aggressive.” This refers to a deck that’s based on winning through attacking with monsters that have a large ATK value.
**In my opinion, Cyber Dragon is still effectively an Aggro-only card. Cyber Dragon can be used in a Control deck, but its primary function is to be an Aggro deck’s tool to destroy little monsters. It’s a power card.