Normal monsters are, in and of themselves, not complicated. The most popular offer a lot of strength without asking much in return (aside from tributes for the high level ones). Lower level monsters even have their own theme built around using support cards that swarm them onto the field. A Normal deck is generally formed by combining a selection of normal monsters with their best support cards. Whatever form you decide to take, however, this week’s card will help you: Heart of the Underdog.

No Need to Fear . . .

Heart of the Underdog allows us to trade our lack of effect monsters for extra drawing power.

“During your Draw Phase, when you draw a Normal Monster Card(s), you can draw 1 more card by showing it to your opponent.”

When you draw your card for your turn and realize you have drawn a normal monster card, you can activate the effect of your Heart of the Underdog by simply revealing the card to your opponent. It is a simple process, but it has a lot more potential than it may seem.

Notice that the text states “during your draw phase.” It doesn’t refer specifically to your standard draw. Instead it applies the effect to any act of drawing during that time. It doesn’t matter if you use Reload, Jar of Greed, Reckless Greed, or any other similar card with an effect that will allow you to draw card(s) during your draw phase. When you resolve your card’s effect, if one of the cards drawn is a normal monster card, you need only reveal it to your opponent and Heart of the Underdog will allow you to draw again.

It gets even better. One copy of Heart of the Underdog can activate multiple times during the same draw phase if you continue drawing normal monster cards. Say you activate your Heart of the Underdog and draw another normal monster through its effect. If you want, you can reveal your newly drawn normal monster and activate Heart of the Underdog’s effect again. If you are lucky, you could hit a string of normal monsters and draw again and again.

. . . The Underdogs Are Here?

When you have multiple copies of Heart of the Underdog in play, you can trigger them all simply by drawing one normal monster from your deck. This is easy enough to achieve when you draw a normal monster for your standard draw or by using a card effect in your draw phase, but what happens when you resolve the Heart of the Underdog cards you triggered? Each copy resolves separately, and if you want to activate them again, the last card you draw from their effects must be a normal monster card.

Say you have two copies of Heart of the Underdog and you trigger both of them by drawing and then revealing a normal monster card. The effect of each Heart of the Underdog forms a chain, with each card’s effect placed on a separate chain link. Since they are placed on separate chain links, the card drawn for each effect is considered to be drawn separately.

In most situations this won’t matter too much, but it is of great importance if you plan on reactivating your Heart of the Underdog cards. Each card’s timing is the same, allowing for activation only when you draw a normal monster card. Unfortunately, this is not possible if the last card you draw from your Heart of the Underdog cards isn’t a normal monster.

To make sense of this, let’s examine the chain they form:

Heart of the Underdog à Heart of the Underdog #2

When this chain resolves, you will draw for one Underdog and then draw for the other. If the first card you draw is a normal monster, you would like to activate Heart of the Underdog but you cannot because the chain hasn’t finished resolving. You have to wait and see what happens when you draw for the final Underdog. If the final Underdog nets you a normal monster, you can reveal it and activate both of your Heart of the Underdog cards. If the drawn card is anything else, you will be out of luck.

Example: Underdog Trifecta

Penelope has three face-up copies of Heart of the Underdog on her side of the field. She begins her turn and draws Gogiga Gagagigo. She reveals it to her opponent to activate all three copies of Heart of the Underdog. Their effects form a chain with three chain links. Her opponent does not respond.

Heart of the Underdog à Heart of the Underdog #2 à Heart of the Underdog #3

When she resolves their effects, she must draw one card for each effect separately. She draws for Underdog #3 first and gets Terrorking Salmon. It is a normal monster and Heart of the Underdog likes that, but she cannot activate the effect of her Underdogs because the chain is still resolving. She draws her card for Underdog #2, this time Pot of Avarice.

Activating the effects of her Heart of the Underdog cards hinges upon only the final card she draws. Until now, it didn’t matter really what she drew. If the final card she draws is a normal monster card, she can reveal it and be able to activate all three copies of Heart of the Underdog. Nothing else will help.

 

Multiple Cards from One Source

Drawing multiple cards from a single source isn’t the same as the situations we’ve just examined. When you draw multiple cards from a single source (like with Reckless Greed), you only need one of the drawn cards to be a normal monster. It doesn’t matter if it was the first card or the last card you drew. This is because the cards drawn from a single source are drawn simultaneously.

Getting multiple cards through a card like Reload doesn’t mean you are completely free of risk. The effect of the card you activate needs to be the last effect to resolve on the chain, otherwise you can still miss your chance to activate Heart of the Underdog. Given that players don’t normally activate multiple cards in the draw phase, you aren’t likely to run into too much trouble with this.

It also doesn’t matter how many normal monsters you draw from the multiple card drawing effect. For example, drawing two normal monsters with Reckless Greed will still only allow you to activate your Heart of the Underdog once. You don’t get to chain activations of Heart of the Underdog just because you happened to draw multiple normal monster cards from one effect.

I hear that Strike of Neos will bring normal monsters unlike any we have seen before: normal monsters that break into new levels of power. Sounds like good fun for Heart of the Underdog.

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