“The Capsule opens a pathway into a pocket universe. It’s simple to use and it can store anything you desire. But be forewarned: without your key, the item that you store will be lost forever.”

The ability to retrieve any card you desire from your deck is quite powerful, and shouldn’t be underestimated. However, this effect often comes with an element of risk. Players that practice and master the use of these cards will gain greater control, both over their deck and over the duel. With this in mind, today we present Different Dimension Capsule.

The text of Different Dimension Capsule reads:

Select 1 card from your Deck and remove it from play face-down. During your 2nd Standby Phase after activation, destroy this card and add the removed card to your hand.

When you resolve Different Dimension Capsule’s effect, search your deck and find any card you want. Then, set that card out of play face-down so your opponent can’t see what you’ve chosen. Don’t tell your opponent which card you’ve selected with Different Dimension Capsule’s effect! Only you are allowed to know what the card is. After you’ve set your card aside, shuffle your deck and proceed with your turn.

Different Dimension Capsule now waits for your second standby phase “after activation” (in this case, after the activation of the first part of its effect) to arrive. Your next turn will contain the first standby phase after activation, and the turn after that will have your second standby phase after activation. Once you’ve reached the second standby phase after activation, you’ll resolve the second part of Different Dimension Capsule’s effect, destroying the Capsule and retrieving the face-down card that you had set aside out of play.

The Capsule’s effect seems pretty simple, but it won’t be when things go wrong.

Different Dimension Capsule needs to remain on your side of the field until it can destroy itself with its own effect. If any other card effect is responsible for destroying Different Dimension Capsule, you won’t be able to use its second effect and you’ll never get your face-down card back.

Even cards like Giant Trunade and Abyss Soldier can be a problem. Removing Different Dimension Capsule from the field before it can properly destroy itself will probably become your opponent’s main objective. Knowing this, you’ll need to be careful with it.

Each Different Dimension Capsule that you use selects its own card and places that card out of play in the face-down state. When one of the Capsules destroys itself to retrieve the removed card, it can only retrieve the card that it was responsible for removing from play.

For example, let’s say that you use Different Dimension Capsule #1 (DDC #1) and select Smashing Ground to remove from play. Then, you follow up with Different Dimension Capsule #2 (DDC #2) and select Lightning Vortex, removing it from play as well. During your opponent’s next turn, she uses Mystical Space Typhoon to destroy DDC #1, but as the duel continues, she cannot stop DDC #2. Your second standby phase after activation arrives, and you activate DDC #2’s effect.

DDC #2 had removed Lightning Vortex from play, so Lightning Vortex is the only card that it will retrieve. DDC #2 cannot be used to retrieve Smashing Ground, because DDC #1 was responsible for removing that card.

When you lose your Capsule and the selected card finds itself stranded out of play, it’s possible to use another card’s effect to retrieve what has been lost—and that card isPrimal Seed.

Suppose you’ve been playing a tough duel, which is only made tougher when your Different Dimension Capsule is destroyed before retrieving the card that was removed from play. But you draw into Black Luster Soldier – Envoy of the Beginning, giving you a chance to come back.

While you have your Black Luster Soldier face-up on the field, you can use the spell card Primal Seed to return two of your removed-from-play cards back to your hand. Because Primal Seed applies no limitations to your potential choices, you are free to select the face-down card that was removed with Different Dimension Capsule.

While a card like Primal Seed may work with Different Dimension Capsule, other cards with similar effects are off-limits. The face-down status of the removed-from-play card is the deciding factor that controls what will and won’t work. Since the card that Different Dimension Capsule removed from play is face-down, your other card effects can’t see what type of card it is.

Some cards like Dimension Fusion and Return from the Different Dimension allow you to special summon monsters that are removed from play. But what if one of your monsters is removed from play face-down with Different Dimension Capsule? Well, that unfortunate monster will remain removed from play. Dimension Fusion and Return from the Different Dimension can’t recognize that it’s a monster, and thus you can’t special summon it with the effects of those cards.

Miracle Dig from Dark Beginnings 2 normally allows you to return removed-from-play monsters back to your deck, but it encounters the same inability to bring back your removed face-down card. While D.D.M. – Different Dimension Master from Cybernetic Revolution normally has access to any of your removed-from-play monsters, it faces the same drawback.

Let’s wrap things up with a few short questions.

“What happens if I remove D. D. Scout Plane with Different Dimension Capsule?”

Because D. D. Scout Plane is removed from play in the face-down state, its effect doesn’t activate. It will remain face-down and removed from play.

“What happens if I use Primal Seed to get back the face-down card before Different Dimension Capsule does?”

If you get your removed face-down card back into your hand before Different Dimension Capsule finishes its job, when the second standby phase arrives, Different Dimension Capsule will still destroy itself and try to retrieve the lost card—but it won’t find it, and the effect will fail.

This remains true even if you manage to remove the card from play again after retrieving it with a card like Banisher of the Light. Once the removed face-down card returns to play, it is severed from Different Dimension Capsule’s effect.

“What happens if I skip my second standby phase with a card like Solomon’s Lawbook?”

 Different Dimension Capsule will remain in play without effect. It will not get another chance to retrieve the face-down card.

“If Different Dimension Capsule is destroyed before I get my card back, does my opponent get to see the card?”

Your opponent does not get to see the card, because the card remains removed from play in the face-down state.

Send all comments to Curtis@metagame.com