Last month, duelists were treated to a couple of special packs dedicated to two of Duel Academy’s most renowned duelists: Jaden Yuki and Chazz Princeton. Each pack included brand-new cards that weren’t available anywhere else—new Elemental Hero cards, like Elemental Hero Steam Healer and Bubble Illusion, and some support cards for Chazz, like Magical Mallet and The Grave of Enkindling.
This week, we’ll take a look at one of Chazz’s cards that has the potential for greatness: Inferno Reckless Summon. Conveniently, it’s also one of Chazz’s most confusing cards. We’ll take the card’s text apart and analyze each section’s effects on play.
Inferno Reckless Summon
“You can only activate this card when 1 monster with an ATK of 1500 points or less is Special Summoned to your side of the field while there is a face-up monster on your opponent's side of the field. Special Summon all cards with the same name as the Summoned monster from your hand, Deck, and Graveyard in face-up Attack Position. Your opponent selects 1 monster on their side of the field and Special Summons all cards with that same name from their hand, Deck, and Graveyard.”
Inferno Reckless Summon’s text is pretty long. It can be a lot to take in, so let’s begin by examining its activation restrictions.
“You can only activate this card when 1 monster with an ATK of 1500 points or less is Special Summoned onto your side of the field while there is a face-up monster on your opponent’s side of the field.”
Even the activation timing is fairly lengthy. It informs us that we’re looking for two specific conditions.
- You’ve successfully special summoned a monster onto your side of the field that has 1500 ATK or less.
- Your opponent has at least one face up monster on his or her side of the field.
The requirement that your opponent have a face up monster is a fairly simple condition to satisfy, but special summoning the right monster isn’t quite as easy. This will depend entirely upon how you construct your deck.
After you special summon a proper monster, there can’t be any more effects on the chain that need to be resolved. This means that special summoning a monster during the middle of a chain’s resolution will not give you the proper opportunity you’ll need to activate Inferno Reckless Summon. It is difficult to express this with just a definition, so let’s examine a few scenarios. In order to keep things simple, let’s assume that in each of these scenarios, the opponent has a face-up monster on his or her side of the field.
Scenario 1: Premature Burial
Chazz activates Premature Burial, targeting Chthonian Soldier. His opponent, Syrus, has no response, so Chazz special summons Chthonian Soldier. With no further effects on the chain, the timing is right for Chazz to activate Inferno Reckless Summon.
Scenario 2: Last Will
Chazz is dueling against Jaden, and begins his main phase by activating Last Will. Last Will resolves and establishes its game presence. Chazz enters the battle phase and has his X-Head Cannon attack Jaden’s Elemental Hero Avian. Jaden responds to the attack with Mirror Force, and it destroys Chazz’s X-Head Cannon.
Now that a monster has been sent from Chazz’s side of the field to his graveyard, he has succeeded in satisfying the condition of Last Will. Chazz decides to take advantage and use Last Will’s effect to special summon Chthonian Soldier from his deck. Now the time is right, so without any further ado, Chazz activates Inferno Reckless Summon.
No problems here, right? Straightforward special summons with no complications. Now let’s look at an example where things go wrong.
Scenario 3: Dust Tornado forces action
Alexis activates Dust Tornado, targeting Chazz’s face-down Call of the Haunted. Chazz knows that he’s going to lose Call of the Haunted, so he decides to try and get some use out of it. He activates it and chooses to special summon Tenkabito Shien. When the chain resolves, Tenkabito Shien is special summoned to Chazz’s side of the field. At this point, Chazz would really like to activate his Inferno Reckless Summon so he can get another two copies of Tenkabito Shien into play, but the chain hasn’t finished resolving, so he has to wait. Now Alexis’s Dust Tornado resolves and destroys Call of the Haunted. At this point, the chain has finished resolving, but the timing window for Chazz’s Inferno Reckless Summon has passed, preventing him from activating it.
The Call to Arms
Now that Chazz has succeeded in activating Inferno Reckless Summon, let’s look at what happens when its effect resolves.
“Special Summon all cards with the same name as the Summoned monster from your hand, Deck, and Graveyard in face-up Attack Position.”
Here we return to our special summoned monster, but this time it’s letting us know what monster or monsters we’ll be special summoning. Depending on what the monster is and how you construct your deck, you’ll probably be special summoning one or two monsters from this part of Inferno Reckless Summon’s effect.
Suppose the monster I special summoned was Masked Sorcerer. I have one copy of Masked Sorcerer in my hand and another copy in my deck, so with Inferno Reckless Summon’s effect, I’ll special summon the Masked Sorcerer from my hand, and I’ll look through my deck and special summon the Masked Sorcerer from my deck.
It’s likely that your monsters will be split up in this way, but it won’t matter. You’ll be free to special summon them as long they’re in your hand, your deck, and/or your graveyard.
“Your opponent selects 1 monster on their side of the field and Special Summons all cards with that same name from their hand, Deck, and Graveyard.”
Until this point, you have no way of knowing for certain which monster your opponent will choose to special summon. Obviously, if he or she has only one face up monster, it will be chosen by default, but if your opponent has a few to choose from, things could be different. With this in mind, there are some traits about the opponent’s monster you need to keep in mind.
For one, the monster he or she selects is not bound by ATK limitations. If your opponent happens to select a monster like Mobius the Frost Monarch, he or she will be able to Special Summon any other copies of Mobius the Frost Monarch that he or she has from his or her hand, deck, and/or graveyard.
Not every situation will be this negative. If the monster your opponent selects happens to be limited or semi-limited, it is very likely there won’t be any additional copies to summon. Monster tokens you opponent controls can also be selected, and if a monster token is all your opponent has they won’t be getting any monsters at all. For example, if you’ve given your opponent nothing but Ojama tokens from your Ojama Trio, he or she will be forced to select an Ojama token when Inferno Reckless Summon resolves. You’re not going to find Ojama tokens anywhere in either player’s hand, deck, or graveyard, so your opponent gets nothing.
Inferno Cyber Summon
The monsters you special summon won’t always be the same exact monster you have on the field. In some cases, it’s possible for a different monster to work its way onto the field.
When you special summon the new Proto-Cyber Dragon, you’ll be able to activate Inferno Reckless Summon. Proto-Cyber Dragon mixes things up by spontaneously changing its name to Cyber Dragon as soon as it’s face up on the field. This sudden change in identity allows Inferno Reckless Summon to special summon Cyber Dragon from your deck, because Proto-Cyber Dragon is no longer the name of the monster in question. In this situation, it’s very possible that you could special summon three copies of Cyber Dragon from your hand, deck, and/or graveyard. Doing this certainly makes using Power Bond a breeze.
Until next week, send all comments to Curtis@metagame.com.