There are some cards in the Yu-Gi-Oh! Trading Card Game that almost every duelist will recognize. For example, nearly all duelists know what Pot of Greed does, and many competitors have probably seen their fair share of Scapegoats. One card, however, has seen serious play since the release of this game on American shores. Even Yugi has been running this spell card for the longest time!
Card Destruction has a huge amount of history surrounding it. This spell card has been seeing play since the release of Metal Raiders, where it was another method of digging through your deck in order to find all kinds of spell cards. Fiend duelists loved Card Destruction when Dark Necrofear made its appearance in Labyrinth of Nightmare, and some duelists were happy to run Card Destruction if it meant they had a chance of sending Yata-Garasu to the graveyard. During the first Advanced format, Card Destruction saw play in the powerful Strike Ninja deck. Even in the previous Advanced format, duelists considered the use of this spell card in order to nullify the effects of Magician of Faith. Now, with the release of Elemental Energy and the debut of many new cards that love to be discarded, Card Destruction is on its way toward seeing play once again.
The Basic Breakdown
Card Destruction has seen play since its release back in the day*, when Yu-Gi-Oh! veterans were only playing with Legend of Blue Eyes White Dragon and the two original starter decks. This spell card’s ability is simple enough to understand. Both you and your opponent are forced to discard your hands, and then you draw cards equal to the number of cards you discarded. While this ultimately leaves you one card behind your opponent (as you lose Card Destruction while your opponent merely has his or her hand recycled), this spell card can have one of the most devastating effects in the game.
There are many situations in which Card Destruction will be especially beneficial to you. For example, recursive monsters such as Magician of Faith and Mask of Darkness can return devastating spells and traps to their owner’s hands. A duelist who has access to Card Destruction can attack any face-down monster that an opponent controls in order to trigger these abilities. If your opponent returns anything threatening from the graveyard to his or her hand, you can deny him or her any potential advantage by activating Card Destruction during main phase two.
However, Card Destruction can be far more than simply a counter to cards like Magician of Faith. This spell card can also be used to trigger the effects of your own monsters, as there are some powerful cards that trigger when they’re discarded from your hand to the graveyard. Night Assailant can be used with Card Destruction in order to return a flip effect monster from your graveyard to your hand. This is especially useful in making sure you don’t lose card advantage when you activate Card Destruction, as you would be losing that spell card from your hand while your opponent loses nothing. Thunder Dragon also works well in with Card Destruction. After discarding a Thunder Dragon to fetch two more from your deck, your Card Destruction will allow you to see an additional card. This is always nice, as it thins your deck more and can add more valuable options to your hand at a faster pace.
Combos and Strategies
Card Destruction is the powerhouse of the deck-out strategy, whether you’re focusing on slow deck destruction through cards like Needle Worm or one-turn-kill deck destruction strategies by using Cyber Jar and Book of Taiyou. Card Destruction is easily one of the most powerful finishing blows for deck-out duelists to run, as it combos especially well with Serial Spell. Card Destruction and Serial Spell can usually cause the opponent to blast through around ten to twelve cards without any initial card draw or support!
If you add cards to your opponent’s hand through effects such as that of , then the Card Destruction and Serial Spell combo can blast through twenty cards of your opponent’s deck, and possibly more. Remember that if your opponent is forced to draw a card, and there are no more cards in his or her deck, then he or she will lose the duel. Card Destruction’s effect of drawing cards allows you to finish off your opponent with this spell card—whereas a card such as Cyber Jar cannot directly win you the game, because duelists are “picking up” cards with its effect.
Of course, what makes Card Destruction especially advantageous right now is the Dark World theme that’s making its debut in Elemental Energy. If you discard a copy of Broww, Huntsman of Dark World with Card Destruction, then you can draw a card from your deck after the effect of Card Destruction resolves, which keeps you from losing any card advantage. If you have multiple copies of Broww, Huntsman of Dark World, then you’ll actually gain card advantage from Card Destruction! Big beaters from the Dark World, such as Sillva, Warlord of Dark World and Goldd, Wu-Lord of Dark World, will also give you card advantage, because they’ll be special summoned to your field!
What if your opponent plays Card Destruction while you have Dark World monsters in your hand? Well, you’ll probably win the duel. The secondary effects of monsters such as Sillva, Warlord of Dark World and Goldd, Wu-Lord of Dark World will utterly devastate your opponent’s field and hand. If they’re specifically hit by the effect of Sillva, Warlord of Dark World’s effect, there’s a strong chance that they will never recover. Losing two cards from your hand is one thing, but losing two cards and not having them go to the graveyard is far worse. Broww, Huntsman of Dark World is also pretty devastating, as the assumed loss of one card from the opponent’s Card Destruction will lead to the opponent being three cards behind after you draw two new cards from your Huntsman’s effect.
Card Destruction has a place in my heart because of the synergy it shared with the Strike Ninja deck, which was one of my personal favorite themes. There’s nothing better than a spell card that adds a horde of Dark attribute monsters to your graveyard, especially when one or two of them may be D. D. Scout Planes.
Oh, and I’m sure Curtis Schultz also loves Card Destruction. Ojamagic does wonders for deck thinning—or, if you discarded that new spell card earlier, you can actually make use of the Ojama monsters by discarding them for even more cards.
Final Thoughts
Card Destruction remains one of the most threatening and powerful spell cards in the game. It doesn’t matter if you’re at a local tournament or a Shonen Jump Championship, as there is always a chance that you will face a duelist who’s running this card in his or her main deck. This spell card is powerful against specific decks, and some duelists find that it fits very well for their play strategies. Thanks to the release of the Dark World monsters, you can also expect Card Destruction to see a lot more play, as those new fiends from Elemental Energy can be wicked.
Next week, I’ll be departing from my standard articles in order to take a more in-depth look at the Dark World fiends. If duelists were looking for a new and powerful competitive deck theme, then this is it!
If you have any questions or comments regarding my column or cards featured here, feel free to email me at Mrosenberg at Metagame dot Com.
*Seeing as how most of the music that I enjoy is at least twenty years old, I almost feel qualified to use that saying. Led Zepplin and Simple Minds obviously go well together, right?