One factor that has become evident over the course of five months is that monsters are the defining form of earning card advantage in the current Advanced format. Whether it’s the pure aggressive power of Cyber Dragon or the multi-tasking stalling and disruptive abilities of Spirit Reaper, monsters are much more important in this format than they were in the Scapegoat-defined Advanced format from last year. In today’s Advanced format, advantage is earned primarily through getting clean shots into the opponent with cards such as Don Zaloog, while your spell and trap cards make sufficient 1-for-1 trades with any of your opponent’s threats.
For this reason, I’m amazed that I haven’t seen any serious discussion on Compulsory Evacuation Device. Think about that for a moment.
Mike stands around for a minute or two, killing some time while listening to some awesome music composed by Yoko Kanno.
New duelists were probably wondering what angle I’m getting at with that nifty little trap card. Veteran duelists were probably referring to me in amusing and derogatory terms, claiming that Compulsory Evacuation Device causes you to lose card advantage. At least, I am hoping some of you brought up the argument of losing card advantage with this trap card, as it’s an issue that I’d definitely like to address.
The Basic Breakdown
Compulsory Evacuation Device has a mostly harmless effect. It’s a normal trap card with a spell speed of two, and it can be activated at any time the turn after you set it (excluding the damage step or in response to counter traps). Compulsory Evacuation Device allows you to return any single monster on the field to its owner’s hand.
The most common use I’ve seen for Compulsory Evacuation Device is that a player will activate it in order to return the sole monster an opponent has to its owner’s hand. This allows the user of Compulsory Evacuation Device to attack directly for the turn. It always pains me to see this, because Compulsory Evacuation Device is much more than a temporary and unstable form of disruption.
Let me reiterate that Compulsory Evacuation Device is a chainable bounce card that can target any monster. This means that you’re not limited to returning monsters that your opponent controls—you’re free to target your own monsters as well. This is the key to its versatility, as Compulsory Evacuation Device allows you to remove monsters from your field that you don’t want to have in play any more. Perhaps you’ve just flip summoned Magician of Faith to return a crucial spell card to your hand, but maybe that Magician proves to be a liability when your opponent summons a monster and attempts to go for the win by attacking it? You can use Compulsory Evacuation Device to return Magician of Faith to your hand, forcing your opponent to attack a different monster. It’s also important to note that in this example, Magician of Faith has a good chance of reclaiming the card presence that you’ve lost by using Compulsory Evacuation Device.
The returning and recycling of flip effect monsters sounds very similar to a certain quick-play spell card that was limited to one per deck in the current Advanced format. It’s hard to forget how amazing Book of Moon was as a versatile “anything” spell, as it could be anything you wanted it to be. Book of Moon was capable of stopping attacking monsters, countering removal cards such as Lightning Vortex, and recycling your flip effect monsters. Well, guess what? Compulsory Evacuation Device does the exact same thing as Book of Moon! Granted, Compulsory Evacuation Device is a trap card and is a little less versatile. It’s also a little slower, since this trap card requires you to set it face down before you can activate it. Resetting flip effect monsters with this trap card also requires you to re-summon them, so it’s not instantaneous. However, Compulsory Evacuation Device does allow you to remove those monsters from the field as potential attack targets, if you feel they’ll be destroyed too quickly at the present time.
One thing that Compulsory Evacuation Device does better than Book of Moon is protect your monsters by removing them from harm’s way. While Book of Moon can counter the effects of Smashing Ground and Sakuretsu Armor, Compulsory Evacuation Device can also propel your monsters out of the reach of cards like as Dark Hole and Torrential Tribute. This allows you to trade your trap card for the safety of a potentially advantageous monster, such as a D. D. Assailant. In a format where monsters are incredibly important in earning advantage, Compulsory Evacuation Device can really shine. I can’t begin to describe how useful it is to Evacuate my Des Lacooda or Stealth Bird out of my opponent’s reach in a match. Bouncing Mask of Darkness back after its flip effect has been used up is also nice, especially if it’s allowing me to recycle a single copy of Solemn Judgment for the third time!
The key weakness of Compulsory Evacuation Device is that it can royally screw up your game’s tempo. This is definitely not a fast card, and losing a monster summon can set you up for a direct attack from an opponent’s Spirit Reaper. However, for a controlling deck, Compulsory Evacuation Device serves as a powerful Swiss Army knife that can act as a tempo disruptor against your opponent or as an extra counter for your opponent’s tricks. And if there is one thing you can’t have enough of, it would be counters. Well . . . that’s actually not true, but who doesn’t love counter cards? I have an obvious bias for control, and I’m admitting it right here.*
Combos and Strategies
One of the best combos you can pull off with Compulsory Evacuation Device is to use it on a monster you own, but your opponent controls. This could have been caused by a number of reasons, whether your opponent got control of your monster through Creature Swap or whether it’s a monster that naturally lands on your opponent’s field, such as Lava Golem. Returning a monster that you own, but fell under your opponent’s card presence, causes you to lose no card presence whatsoever, since the monster that you returned to your hand was not under your control. However, your opponent is losing a card in this deal. This turns Compulsory Evacuation Device into a devastating combo with Creature Swap, as it will leave you with a free monster and your opponent with absolutely nothing. If this combo is used with Lava Golem instead of Creature Swap, you’ll get a nifty 2-for-1 trade in your favor. If your opponent attempts to destroy your Lava Golem with the aid of a trap card such as Bottomless Trap Hole, you’ll get a solid +2 advantage over your opponent. That is equivalent to the advantage that’s generated by the full effect of Mobius the Frost Monarch!
Compulsory Evacuation Device can make Breaker the Magical Warrior even better. If you’re more concerned with your opponent’s back row, you can use this trap card to return Breaker the Magical Warrior to your hand. This will allow you to normal summon it and give it a spell counter once again. Combined with Apprentice Magician, there are quite a few ways to turn Breaker into a fantastic removal engine.
Final Thoughts
Despite the fact that Compulsory Evacuation Device may initially cause you to lose card presence, its versatility is matched only by the likes of Book of Moon, and that quick-play spell card’s limiting should tell you how useful it was. Any card that can be compared to Book of Moon in some way warrants a second look, and Compulsory Evacuation Device is just that type of card. With the ability to act as both a defensive and offensive tool, this trap card can either win you games, save your monsters, or effectively counter your opponent’s plays. If you are looking for a card that will greatly improve the choices that are available to control decks, then try testing out Compulsory Evacuation Device. It might not be Book of Moon, but you will find that at times, it can be just as good.
If you have any questions or comments regarding this or previous articles of mine, feel free to email me at Mrosenberg at Metagame dot com. I will try my best to get back to all emails.
* If you’re an aggro player who’s absolutely sick of seeing week after week of control cards being featured in my column, feel free to send me an email and let me know what cards you’d like to see in a week of Bill and Tom’s Binder.