As you may have noticed from Mike’s preview of Bountiful Artemis or Jason’s preview of Voltanis the Adjucator, there are many cards in Enemy of Justice designed to reward players for countering their opponent’s cards. Today’s preview card is an excellent way to trigger those fun effects that let you do stuff “each time a counter trap card is activated” in response to one of the most common moves in the entire game: a normal summon. Take a look!
Forced Back
Counter Trap
Negate the Normal Summon or the Flip Summon of a monster. Return that monster to its owner's hand.
Forced Back works like Goblin Out of the Frying Pan and Malfunction from Shadow of Infinity, but since those cards haven’t seen much play recently, why should this one be any different? I’ll give you a hint—it has nothing to do with the lack of a 500 life point payment. In reality, Forced Back is much better than those other two cards, because of what it negates, rather than how it negates it. The thing is, monsters are the bread and butter of the Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG. While you can play or set as many spell or trap cards as you have (or have room for) each turn, a player can only normal summon one monster per turn. That’s why things tend to get ugly really fast when your opening hand is all monsters, because while you play one monster per turn, your opponent plays his or her monster per turn and a heaping helping of spell- and trap-based destruction. (Monsters like Treeborn Frog and Cyber Dragon are popular because they effectively let you break the one summon per turn rule.)
Take a look back at some of the Day 2 feature matches from the past few Shonen Jump Championships and see if you can spot the turning points in each game. You’ll notice that many of them involve the successful tribute summon of a Monarch, the flip summon of Magician of Faith, or possibly a Magical Merchant. Now imagine those same matches, only the opponent of the summoning player now has a copy of Forced Back in his spell and trap zone to negate the normal or flip summon, and bounce that card back to his opponent’s hand. Now who’s going to win the game? I’d bet real money that unless the match was a complete blowout on one side or the other, the player who used the Forced Back would end up winning—maybe even on the very next turn after negating that summon, especially if it was a Monarch. Why?
Well, the player who’s tribute summoning a monster has to give up one of his or her monsters to do so. If you negate it, it’s as if he or she just tossed the monster in the graveyard for no good reason. Sure, the tribute monster bounces back to his or her hand, which can be troublesome if he or she tributed Treeborn Frog for it (or if it was Cyber Dragon), but for the most part, he or she will be stuck with whatever monster setup he or she had before, minus the tributed monster. Given that most duelists try to keep only one or two monsters on the field until they see their opponent play Mirror Force and Torrential Tribute, your monsters are probably looking to take a bite directly out of your opponent’s life points next turn.
How much of a bite? However much you can muster, minus however much your opponent can block with a trap. If you can clear the opponent’s traps out as well, you may be able to swarm the field and win the game... which wouldn’t be possible if you didn’t play Forced Back. The chances of this greatly increase if you have something like Bountiful Artemis on the field to help replace the card you spent.
What happens when you negate the flip summon of Magician of Faith or Magical Merchant, or even Old Vindictive Magician? It won’t cost an opponent his or her normal summon per se, but it will force that opponent to switch up the game plan and it will set him or her back a turn in board development. The first thing it does is stop the opponent from claiming the effect of whatever monster was flipped. That means that he or she can’t get back the spell for Magician of Faith for at least one more turn, he or she doesn’t get to dig through the deck for at least one more turn, and you can stay pretty safe from direct attacks this turn.
If your opponent wants to follow up on whatever his or her original plans were, he or she will have to re-set the monster you bounced back to his or her hand. If this happens, then Forced Back has basically claimed the opponent’s normal summon for the turn anyway. If not, then your opponent has to switch gears entirely, which could potentially create an opening for you to exploit. Regardless, he or she will definitely be cursing you and your meddling Forced Back for the rest of the match, and if he or she feels particularly vengeful, he or she might complain about you on an Internet message board. And who doesn’t love that?
The best part about all of this, though, is that it all comes with a price tag of “free.” Horn of Heaven can negate any normal, flip, or special summon and destroy the monster, but you have to give up a monster to use it. Solemn Judgment can do it as well, but you have to play half your life points. Forced Back trades in some of the special features of those other two in return for not having any activation cost whatsoever. Is the trade of versatility for costless-ness worth it? I think so—especially if you’re also drawing a free card or wiping your opponent’s field barer than bare as a reward.
In Constructed play, this card may see a side-deck spot against the popular Monarch-based decks and decks that rely on flip effect monsters, such as PACMAN. It’ll definitely see main deck play in any deck based on what I call the “Counter-Fairy” cards from Enemy of Justice. In Sealed Pack events, such as the Sneak Preview event nearest you, if you manage to negate the summoning of one of the opponent’s high-level monsters with this card, you’ll more than likely win the game. Dropping fatties hard and fast is the way to win in Sealed Pack, so any card that stops your opponent from doing so sounds like a first pick to me. Forced Back is a straight rare, so you’ve got a decent chance of pulling one from the five packs you’ll get at the event.
Most of all, Forced Back is proof that a card’s complexity and usefulness can’t always be judged by the amount of text in its box. Sometimes the simplest effects in the game can be the most powerful and thought-provoking. Just ask Jinzo.
Make sure you get out to the Sneak Preview nearest you, and until next time, play hard, play fair, and most importantly, have fun!
Jerome McHale