Michael is losing patience. Every monster he’s summoned in this duel has been thrown back into his hand because they ran into Kelbek, Wall of Illusion, and Penguin Soldier.
“I need one more Dark monster in the graveyard,” he thinks, “and then I can bring out my Black Luster Soldier!” After setting a trap and summoning Don Zaloog, Michael remembers that he can’t attack thanks to Swords of Revealing Light, so he ends his turn.
As soon as his opponent draws a card, Michael exclaims, “I activate Ring of Destruction and target Don Zaloog.” Silently gloating, Michael is sure he’s going to win next turn.
“Not so fast,” his opponent replies. “I’ll chain to your trap card by activating Compulsory Evacuation Device. I target your Don Zaloog.” As the chain resolves and Ring of Destruction blows up nothing, Michael sadly looks at all the powerful monsters in his hand and realizes that this duel is going to last a lot longer than he expected.
The graveyard is a dangerous place. It’s a dumping ground for big monsters that you can special summon by using cards like Premature Burial, Shallow Grave, and Call of the Haunted. The graveyard also plays an important part in special summoning everyone’s favorite Chaos monster, Black Luster Soldier – Envoy of the Beginning. Sending your opponent’s monsters to the graveyard is a tactic that everyone uses to clear the field and get to your opponent’s life points. The tactic is a necessary evil and there’s no easy way to get around it. However, some cards have “bouncing effects.” These effects remove threats from the field and put them back into your opponent’s hand. Bouncing effects can give you the opening you need while making sure your opponent has nothing in the graveyard to rely on for monster recursion and special summoning.
Here’s a quick breakdown of some of the cards that have this effective and sometimes annoying ability.
Two Continuous Headaches
There are two continuous traps that immediately come to mind when thinking about bouncing effects: Begone, Knave! and Ordeal of a Traveler. While these traps work in different ways, they do the same thing. They bounce monsters back to the hands of their owners. With Ordeal of a Traveler, its best use is in the early game when you have a decent number of cards in hand. If played well, you can develop a healthy field presence into the middle stages of a duel. Obviously, the fewer cards you have in your hand, the less useful this card will be, so be careful about when you use it.
Begone, Knave! is a great back-up card to have when your monsters don’t have high ATK values. Begone, Knave! has terrific synergy with battle searchers like Mystic Tomato and Giant Rat. You get to special summon a monster while your opponent loses one.
Because Ordeal of a Traveler and Begone, Knave! are traps, they can be hurt by Jinzo, so watch out!
CED (Not Chaos Emperor Dragon)
Compulsory Evacuation Device is a card that most duelists underestimate. This trap can be chained to just about anything and can target any monster on the field no matter whom it belongs to. Not only can Compulsory Evacuation Device clear the field in your favor, but it can also save one of your monsters from a grisly end if your opponent tries to blow your monster up with Ring of Destruction. Are you about to lose a monster to Sakuretsu Armor? Are you taking damage from Magic Cylinder? No problem, because Compulsory Evacuation Device will whisk your monster and your life points out of harm’s way!
In addition, this trap is a great way to recycle your flip effect monsters. It can also help you reuse Breaker the Magical Warrior’s special ability. Compulsory Evacuation Device will make your opponents cringe if it’s played to its full potential.
Monsters with Bouncing Effects
Some monsters have bouncing effects built into them. The first monster that comes to mind is Wall of Illusion. With such a high DEF, it lives up to its name. Not only can it stand up to most non-tribute monsters, but it also has a bouncing effect. Even if Wall of Illusion is destroyed, its effect still triggers.
Another monster that comes to mind is Byser Shock. It works well with Book of Moon and bounces all set cards on the field. Even though Byser Shock is a tribute monster, you can get around that problem by special summoning it with Mystic Tomato. Byser Shock’s weak stats make it difficult to play, so be careful.
Guardian Sphinx is similar to Byser Shock because it’s a tribute monster with a bouncing effect. The Sphinx goes a step further and bounces all of your opponent’s monsters no matter what position they’re in. With 2400 DEF and a reusable effect, Guardian Sphinx can be hard to deal with.
Kelbek and Hyper Hammerhead have decent stats and can be special summoned by Giant Rat’s effect. These two cards can keep your opponent’s side of the field wide open and in danger. Another Earth monster with bounce is Hade-Hane. You can either tribute summon it or bring it out with Giant Rat. When you combo Hade-Hane with Book of Moon, you can cause your opponent a lot of trouble!
Water decks have Abyss Soldier, an 1800 ATK monster that can bounce any card on the field. If you have a lot of Water monsters in your hand, bouncing an opponent’s defensive line is easy. Just remember that you can only activate Abyss Soldier’s effect once per turn. While we’re talking about Water monsters, let’s not forget Nightmare Penguin. With 1800 DEF and a bounce effect when it’s flipped up, this bird can be tough to destroy.
Finally, we have to pay tribute to the monster that first made bouncing popular: Penguin Soldier. A lot of us have fond memories opening our Joey starter decks and trying out this card in your own decks. Penguin Soldier’s ability was two cards for the price of one. You could bounce your own Exodia piece or your opponent’s Jinzo. The fact that you could decide which monsters would bounce made this card popular in its day. Will Penguin Soldier make a comeback? We’ll have to wait and see.
That’s it for my quick look at some cards with bounce effects. Thanks for reading and keep checking back at Metagame.com for more insights, ideas, and strategies.