With plans to use the Nobles of Dark World, players began to look for cards that would discard their Dark World monsters as part of their effects. If a card has a dual nature that allows it to serve another function in addition to the discard, it’s even better. Thus the use of Mind Crush, whose primary goal is to discard a card (or cards) from your opponent’s hand. However if you make the wrong choice, it will cause you to discard a card from your hand at random. Under ordinary circumstances this would cause serious problems, but for the Nobles of Dark World, it’s hardly an issue at all.

“Declare 1 card name. If your opponent has a declared card(s) in his/her hand, discard all of the declared card(s) to the Graveyard. Otherwise, you randomly discard 1 card from your hand.”

How do we know that this discard is not a cost? You can quickly tell by watching when the discard occurs. Do you discard to activate this card, or do you discard as a result of its effects? When you read the text, it says that you only discard if you can’t force your opponent to discard. This occurs after the card is activated, so it cannot be a cost. Any Noble of Dark World you discard due to Mind Crush, like Broww, Huntsman of Dark World, will have its effect activated.

With a hand full of Nobles, it’s always nice to discard some to the graveyard and gain those effects in the process. We can rely on Dragged Down into the Grave to give us a hand. “You and your opponent look at each other's hands, select 1 card from each other's hands and discard them to the Graveyard, and each draw 1 card.”

Few players have any difficulty recognizing that this discard is not a cost. They know that a Noble of Dark World could easily be discarded by this card’s effect, and that doing so will satisfy the monster’s effect. The real question is how much of the monster’s effect he or she will receive. To determine this, we need to keep the effect in perspective. Who is truly responsible for discarding the Noble of Dark World? Is it the turn player who activated Dragged Down into the Grave, or is it his or her opponent? While the opponent made the decision to discard the Noble of Dark World, the controller of the responsible card effect is all-important. In this case, the turn player controls the responsible card effect, so his or her discarded Noble of Dark World will only receive its first effect, not both. For example, if the turn player plays Dragged Down into the Grave and the opponent chooses Sillva, Warlord of Dark World from the turn player’s hand, only Sillva’s special summon effect will activate. However, if the turn player chooses a Sillva in his or her opponent’s hand, the opponent’s Sillva would receive both of its effects, because the turn player controls the responsible card effect.

This same behavior appears again with Morphing Jar. If I flip summon it, I control its effect. This means that any Noble of Dark World that I discard through its effect will only receive the first effect. However, if my opponent discards a Noble of Dark World, he or she will receive both effects, because I am the controller of the Morphing Jar effect that made him or her discard his or her Noble of Dark World.

What if my opponent takes control of my face-down Morphing Jar by using Creature Swap and has it face down on his or her side of the field? If I attack it and cause it to flip, what will happen? To determine what happens, we need to determine who controls the Morphing Jar’s effect. Although I’m the owner of the Morphing Jar, its effect did not activate while I was in control of it. My opponent was in control when its effect activated, so he or she is considered the controller of its effect. This will greatly please my Nobles of Dark World!

During a duel, a card may be taken from your hand and placed directly into your graveyard. This can happen for many reasons, and it doesn’t always mean that you are discarding! A discard is one specific term—referring to the act of taking a card from your hand and placing it into the graveyard—but other methods can lead to the same result.

Let’s start with a clear use of discarding by examining The Cheerful Coffin. When the card resolves, you can discard up to three monster cards from your hand to the Graveyard. Naturally the Nobles of Dark World respond quite well to this. The Cheerful Coffin specifically uses the term “discard,” and that’s the word that Nobles of Dark World like to hear.

On the other hand, we have The Creator, which also takes a card from your hand and places it into the graveyard. This happens even when the effect is resolved, so we know it isn’t a cost. However, when we examine the text, one key term is not present. The word “discard” cannot be found anywhere. Instead the text says to “send 1 card from your hand to the Graveyard.” This action is similar to the act of discarding, but since it doesn’t use the term “discard,” it will not satisfy the requirements of any Noble of Dark World card you use for its effect.

We see this expression (or a variation of it) used on other cards as well, like Armed Dragon LV5 and its higher-level forms, Spell Shield Type-8, Avatar of the Pot, and

Night Assailant. For each card, the use of this text has its own meaning, but the impact usually becomes an issue only for the card being used for each “send” card’s respective effects, not for the “send” card itself. 

Ritual summons can also take monster cards in your hand and place them into the Graveyard, but is this is a “discard”? If you look at the terms written in the text of any Ritual spell card, you will not see the word “discard” anywhere. You see the term “tribute” used instead. Any monster offered from your hand for the Ritual summon is a “tribute.” This means that any Dark World monster you “tribute” from your hand will not satisfy its own effect.

I hope you’ve found our analysis of costs and the Nobles of Dark World helpful. The skills you earned here will help you to better understand new cards you come across. In fact, we’ve got a new set of cards coming out pretty soon that you can use to test what you have learned!

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