Students, students! I was hoping that the attendees at the prestigious U.S. National Championship would be more brushed up on some of the rules used in our most cherished game. But never let it be said I was a poor teacher. Here’s a list of rules some players got wrong in the competition today. How many of these did you know?
Did you know that . . .
You CAN activate Torrential Tribute in the battle phase in response to something like Call of the Haunted or Return from the Different Dimension. You just can’t activate it in the damage step in response to Mystic Tomato.
You CANNOT attack with Chaos Sorcerer, and then, after a replay, decide not to continue the attack and instead use the effect of Chaos Sorcerer. The Sorcerer did declare an attack this turn. So it cannot use his effect, even if its attack didn’t go through.
You CAN use the effect of Chaos Sorcerer, flip it face-down with Book of Moon or Tsukuyomi, flip summon it (assuming it wasn’t summoned this turn), and then attack with him, or use his effect again.
You CANNOT activate a normal spell card if all your spell and trap card zones are full. (I mean really. Even Slifer Slackers know this one.)
You CANNOT Special Summon Cyber Dragon with its built-in effect if you control a monster, INCLUDING Treeborn Frog. I couldn’t believe how many times I saw Treeborn Frog get special summoned in the standby phase, followed by a special summon of Cyber Dragon. Do duelists just think of Treeborn Frog as some kind of permanent fixture on the field that isn’t really a monster?
You CANNOT use Premature Burial on a fusion monster that you summoned with Metamorphosis or whatever. Polymerization? Fusion Gate? Fine. But just about everything else means no bringing it back from the graveyard.
I saw Royal Decree on the field. The turn player activated Heavy Storm and the opponent tried to chain Call of the Haunted. Sorry, but Royal Decree is still active and you CANNOT special summon a monster for Call of the Haunted, because Heavy Storm hasn’t destroyed Royal Decree yet.
Another fun chain: Heavy Storm was activated. The opponent chained Scapegoat and then tried to chain Torrential Tribute. You CANNOT do this. Heavy Storm isn’t a summon, it’s a normal spell card. And those Sheep haven’t been summoned yet . . .
I saw Cyber-Stein get used to special summon Cyber End Dragon. Then the player noticed his own Gravity Bind face-up on the field. Sorry, but you CANNOT attack in that case.
One of the skills we teach here at Duel Academy is drawing, and it always pleases me to see a student who’s learned something. However, five demerits go to the player who just needed to draw Chaos Sorcerer to win and did, only to immediately remove it from play with its own effect by mistake. Oopsie!
I saw a heated exchange between two players and a judge about play etiquette and waiting for a response from your opponent. One player, in an effort to demonstrate his opponent’s questionable action, drew three cards off the top his deck . . . and looked at them. The beleaguered judge’s decision was suddenly made much easier.