“Blood for blood. An eye for an eye. It is a way as ancient as man himself. And at its heart lay the shadow game.”

Forced Requisition shares Appropriate’s talent for confusing players and judges. It, too, has a very specific—and fairly difficult—activation requirement that must be met if you ever hope to use it. Once activated, however, it discourages your opponent from forcing you to discard cards from your hand.

With Appropriate, we hoped to edge out an advantage by using our opponent’s card-drawing effects against him or her. Forced Requisition prefers to share the pain of discarding with your opponent so that neither player gains cards, even if the discard wasn’t the opponent’s fault.

The initial activation is of great importance, and that is where we begin.

Forced Requisition was reprinted in the Dark Beginnings series with the following text:

“You can activate this card when you discard from your hand. After that, each time you discard from your hand, your opponent must also discard the same number of cards from his/her hand.”

Like Appropriate, Forced Requisition is intended to begin a new chain after the previous chain ends with you discarding a card (or cards) from your hand. Once activated, it establishes a similar “waiting state” and doesn’t do anything until you discard a card(s) from your hand.

What card effects can we utilize to get Forced Requisition started? Remember how Graceful Charity kept us from activating our Appropriate? It may have disliked Appropriate, but it works quite well with Forced Requisition.

When you resolve the effect of Graceful Charity, you draw three cards and then discard any two cards from your hand. After you have finished the discard, there are no further actions to perform and the card’s effect is complete. Since discarding cards was your final action, the right condition for activating Forced Requisition is set up. After resolving Graceful Charity you will begin a new chain by activating (flipping face up) your Forced Requisition.

The Cheerful Coffin can also allow us to set up the right conditions for Forced Requisition, but it doesn’t do much else. You are voluntarily discarding monsters into your graveyard by using this card’s effect and you don’t get anything in return without some other effect to support this action. You will need the right team of monsters to make this plan a sound decision.

The monsters of Dark World are in a rare position to take advantage of The Cheerful Coffin and Forced Requisition with relative ease. They have also received cards that can make its activation quite simple and their powerful discard effects combine well with Forced Requisition while it is active.

Dark World Lightning and Dark Deal make activation a cinch. Both cards essentially result in you discarding from your hand as the last action, although Dark Deal does this in a manner that is a bit more indirect. Dark Deal overwrites the effect of your opponent’s normal spell card so that your opponent’s own card effect becomes responsible for you discarding from your hand. The end result is still exactly what you need, despite the roundabout manner in which it is accomplished.

Fortunately the effects of discarded Dark World monsters do not interfere with the activation or execution of Forced Requisition. The effects of the discarded Dark World monster(s) will begin a new chain, but Forced Requisition can still be activated if the timing restriction has been met. This is a bit too tricky to express in words alone, so I will use an example:

Suppose the legendary player eliminator from Duelist Kingdom, Panik, makes a surprise return to the Duelist Academy. He challenges our heroes with a brand new bag of dirty tricks: the Dark World monsters. His challenger Jaden—never one to back down—takes on the duel without really knowing what Panik has planned.

Panik sets two cards in his spell and trap card zone but no monsters. Jaden can tell he is up to something, so he summons Elemental Hero Wildheart and decides to activate his Pot of Greed, hoping to draw into Cyclone Boomerang. That’s when Panik surprises him by paying 1000 life points to activate Dark Deal. After Panik explains what it does, Jaden questions why he would use such a card.

“Perhaps I am feeling generous,” Panik says smugly.

Dark Deal erases the effect of Jaden’s Pot of Greed and replaces it with the discard effect. It causes Panik to discard Sillva, Warlord of Dark World to his graveyard. Jaden says, “Tough break. That was a pretty strong monster.”

“He’s even stronger then you think!” Panik replies. “By discarding my Sillva to the graveyard, you’ve activated its special effect! It will return to my side of the field and you will have to select two cards in your hand and return them to the bottom of your deck!”

“What!? No way!” Jaden says, stunned by the sudden turn of events.

“But that’s not all. Since I have discarded a card from my hand as the final act of the previous chain, I can now activate my Forced Requisition! From now on, whenever I discard a card from my hand, you will have to discard a card from your hand!”

Jaden braces for the worst. “This is seriously bad news. I’d better figure a way out of this quick, or it’s game over, Jaden.”

The previous chain ended with Panik discarding Sillva to his graveyard. This set up the proper condition necessary for him to activate his Forced Requisition, but his discarded Sillva also wanted to activate. Sillva was the first effect to activate and begin the chain. Panik then added to the chain by activating his set Forced Requisition. The resulting chain gave Panik access to an active Forced Requisition and brought his Sillva into play.

Even if you discard multiple Dark World monsters through an effect (by way of Graceful Charity, for example), you can still add Forced Requisition onto the chain after your Dark World monsters have begun the new chain. After Forced Requisition is active, the results of discarding Dark World monsters become even more devastating.

Some cards can have serious and sometimes unexpected consequences if they are played while Forced Requisition is active.

When you activate Card Destruction under normal circumstances, is your opponent really going to suffer from it? Unless his or her hand was the best hand ever, or one piece shy of the Exodia set, he or she will accept his or her losses and move on. With an active Forced Requisition, however, the situation changes drastically. If you or your opponent activates Card Destruction while you have an active Forced Requisition, your opponent will be forced to discard cards from his or her hand equal to the number of cards you were forced to discard from the effect. If he or she does not have enough cards to meet this number, he or she will simply lose every card in hand.

You don’t make your opponent discard until after you finish resolving the effect that caused you to discard. So after you and your opponent discard your hand and then draw the appropriate number of cards, your opponent is forced to discard from his or her hand. Morphing Jar will also function in this manner while Forced Requisition is active, helping you to diminish your opponent’s hand by a number of cards equal to whatever you had to discard when Morphing Jar resolved.

Panik would be proud.

Until next time, send all comments and questions to Curtis@metagame.com