We conclude the month with a final pair of scenarios. This week’s edition focuses on elements of combat.

Ojamas! To The Rescue!

Our first scenario involves Chazz trying to use the Ojama Trio to get himself out of a jam.

Scenario: Getting in the Way . . . for Greater Justice?

Chazz has a Gyaku-Gire Panda in attack position. His opponent, Graciella, has no monsters on her side of the field, but she does have one card set in her spell and trap card zone.

Chazz declares a direct attack with Gyaku-Gire Panda. Graciella responds by activating her set card, Sakuretsu Armor. Chazz doesn’t want his Panda to be destroyed, so he tries to think of a solution. He decides to call upon the Ojama Trio, chaining it to Graciella’s Sakuretsu Armor.

What do we know about the Ojama Trio? We know that it will special summon three “Ojama Tokens” onto Graciella’s side of the field. Under ordinary circumstances, this would be a detriment to Chazz’s attacks, but this time Chazz is trying to do something intentionally odd. He knows that having new attack targets pop up on his opponent’s side of the field causes a replay, and it is his hope that the Ojama Tokens will force this replay to occur.

To a point, Chazz is right. This situation does indeed lead to a replay. However, it isn’t going to work out quite the way he intended. Chazz has forgotten one very important rule of replays: if a replay occurs during a chain, the chain finishes resolving before the replay is applied. So while a replay does occur as a result of Ojama Trio, the chain has to finish resolving Sakuretsu Armor before the replay can be applied. This means that Sakuretsu Armor will destroy the Gyaku-Gire Panda. The chain is now completely resolved, but the replay no longer matters because the Panda is gone. Chazz’s gambit has failed.

Justice Is Their Birthright?

I received the following question from Jeff S.:

“Another popular one I have seen lately is a Birthright and Justi-Break combo. The turn player attacks a wide-open field and the opponent activates Birthright and chains Justi-Break, or activates Justi-Break and chains Birthright, or activates Birthright and lets it fully resolve and then activates Justi-Break. What is really supposed to happen? Can the turn player activate a Dust Tornado or Mystical Space Typhoon and destroy the combo?”

Jeff’s question touches on a few issues: Justi-Break has a specific activation requirement that must be met before it can be activated. The player in question hopes to meet this restriction by using Birthright. Going further, the turn player wants to use Dust Tornado or Mystical Space Typhoon to destroy a card (presumably Birthright) in an attempt to stop this combination from working. Solving this dilemma means examining the mechanics at work here.

We will begin with Justi-Break, which is intended to destroy every monster on the field except for face-up normal monsters. Given that normal monsters are typically only found in decks that have good reason for using them, Justi-Break can often wipe the field of just about every monster in sight. However, our Tactical Evolution sneak peak articles have shown us that we are about to see an influx of “normal monsters” unlike anything we’ve seen before. Thanks to the new Gemini monsters, Justi-Break just got some serious backup.

Justi-Break needs only one condition to be met: your opponent must declare an attack against one of your face-up normal monsters. This is where Birthright steps in. Birthright is essentially a Call of the Haunted for normal monsters, getting them out of your graveyard and into attack position. While doing this may get a normal monster into your opponent’s path, it doesn’t guarantee that he or she will attack it.

The chain Jeff suggests isn’t possible, because in his situation, the activation requirement of Justi-Break is not met. It relies upon your opponent actually deciding to attack your normal monster. If you have no monsters on your side of the field, it won’t be possible to combine Justi-Break and Birthright into one chain, because the conditions for Justi-Break won’t be properly met. Justi-Break cannot be activated until your opponent actually decides to attack one of your normal monsters. If he or she is attacking you directly, you don’t have any normal monsters, and as a result, Justi-Break can only sit and wait patiently. If you decide to activate Birthright in response to the direct attack, you still won’t be able to chain Justi-Break because your normal monster hasn’t even touched the field yet.

When your field is wide open, you need to give this strategy two separate chains. The first will use Birthright to get the normal monster onto your side of the field. If your opponent decides to attack the normal monster, you will at last be able to use Justi-Break and deliver a helping of justice. What happens if you already have a normal monster, and your opponent decides to attack it? In such a case, you don’t even need Birthright because you already have a normal monster, and since the normal monster is being attacked, you can activate Justi-Break.

This brings us to Dust Tornado and Mystical Space Typhoon. They have two targets here: Justi-Break and Birthright. Depending on what occurs in this situation, one of the targets will be utterly pointless and the other would be severely annoying. Let’s split them up.

Birthright is a continuous trap card, and continuous traps have certain quirks that can affect their ability to apply their effects. Specifically, they need to actually remain on the field in order to use their effects. Dust Tornado and Mystical Space Typhoon have a little something to say about that, but their effectiveness depends heavily on when they are actually activated. If Birthright is activated and Dust Tornado is chained, Dust Tornado will resolve first and destroy Birthright before it gets a chance to special summon a monster. If Dust Tornado is activated first and Birthright is chained, Birthright will apply its effect before being destroyed.

Not that it helps all that much. The normal monster Birthright special summoned won’t exactly stick around when Birthright is destroyed. This isn’t like chaining Call of the Haunted to pull out Jinzo. Your opponent is likely to respond to Birthright when you activate it, or else not respond at all. Let’s suppose our opponent doesn’t respond, because we decided to special summon Archfiend Marmot of Nefariousness. He or she saw it and said, “What is that supposed to be? Archfiend Marmot of Nefariousness? Meh, whatever. I’ll just attack it anyway.” He or she decides to attack it with a big, heartless Cyber Dragon.

At this point, we activate Justi-Break. Now that little Marmot isn’t quite so “meh, whatever.” Our opponent still has Dust Tornado and can chain it if he or she wants to. However, at this point it won’t save his or her Cyber Dragon. Destroying Justi-Break won’t accomplish anything because its effect will still resolve and smash the Cyber Dragon. Destroying Birthright wipes out the little acorn-throwing Marmot, but will do nothing to halt Justi-Break.

You might be thinking, “But destroying Birthright causes a replay since the Marmot is destroyed, right?” Sure, it would cause a replay, but what did we just learn from our old friend Chazz and his failed attempt to save his Gyaku-Gire Panda? We learned that the chain still finishes resolving before the replay is applied. The Cyber Dragon will be destroyed and the replay won’t even matter.

We do have a third possibility to consider: what if our opponent decides to halt his or her attack and use Dust Tornado to wipe out Birthright after we special summon our monster? In most cases this situation will not occur, because our opponent will either chain Dust Tornado to the Birthright or not use Dust Tornado at all. Actually waiting for the replay to occur and then choosing not to immediately attack with the same monster would cause him or her to lose that monster’s attack for the turn, and most players wouldn’t want to do this without good reason.

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