Do you remember those old episodes of Yu-Gi-Oh!, where cards such as Dark Magician and Blue-Eyes White Dragon were the ultimate monsters that ended games as soon as they were summoned? Yugi and Kaiba ran every opponent into the ground with their favorite cards. However, neither held a candle* to Pegasus and his legion of animated havoc. That’s correct, ladies and gentlemen. Pegasus and his Toon monsters tore through everything on the television show.
Of course, the Toon monsters are a bit different in the real trading card game. They aren’t invincible, and they do possess some considerable weaknesses. However, they also have access to one of the most versatile spell cards in the game. Toon Table of Contents plays more of a role outside of Toon decks than in the theme that it was made for! Today’s featured spell card has a variety of uses in and combos with many unique and powerful deck types.
The Basic Breakdown
The effect of Toon Table of Contents is relatively easy to understand. This spell card allows you to search your deck for any card with “Toon” in its name to add to your hand. However, this card is not limited only to Toon monsters. You’re also allowed to search for spell and trap cards that have the word “Toon” in their names. Toon Table of Contents allows you to search your deck for Toon World, Toon Defense, and even another copy of Toon Table of Contents.
However, what’s the point of searching your deck for another copy of a spell that searches your deck for a Toon card? Doesn’t that seem like a waste? This tactic is anything but—it’s a strong method of thinning your deck and speeding up consistency so that you can draw the cards that you’ll want later. When you activate Toon Table of Contents, you don’t need to add a Toon card from your deck to your hand if you have no legal targets in your deck, either. This situation isn’t recommended, but it does happen. You’ll see why this fact is important in a minute.
If you consider the general utility of Toon Table of Contents, you can see that it tries to make up for a lack of Painful Choice in the current Advanced format. If you’re running one or two Toon monsters, then these cards effectively allow you to thin your deck of three cards at no expense to the total number of cards in your hand. This is two fewer cards than would be removed by Painful Choice. Even without another target, you can always save the third copy of Toon Table of Contents in order to maintain your hand advantage.
This card also makes casual Toon decks amazingly entertaining and consistent, so be sure to give a Toon deck a try with a few buddies. There aren’t a lot of better options when you’re looking to have fun with the game.
While Toon Table of Contents is a super rare in Tournament Pack 6, it’s also a common in Dark Beginnings 2 if you cannot afford its rarer version. Look for Dark Beginnings 2 later this month in stores that sell Yu-Gi-Oh! cards.
Combos and Counters
Toon Table of Contents is best used as a deck thinner and as a search effect for Toon Cannon Soldier. In the Traditional format, this is especially important for the Catapult Chaos combo deck, which uses that infamous combo of Catapult Turtle and Magical Scientist to defeat an opponent before they even enter their first turn. This search combo is incredibly useful for a combo-based deck (such as Catapult Chaos) since both monsters can be special summoned with Last Will. Having the ability to thin your deck, speed up your consistency, and to immediately gain a monster that can set off Last Will’s lingering effect is incredibly important to a One-Turn KO deck. Even if you draw into multiple copies of Toon Table of Contents, the Catapult Chaos deck is bound to make use of those spare spell cards for the costs and effects of other spells such as Card Destruction and Spell Replication.
If you’re looking for another One-Turn KO deck where you can abuse Toon Table of Contents, then be sure to give the Advanced-format Cannon Chaos deck a try. This combo deck uses either Cannon Soldier or Toon Cannon Soldier, Spell Economics, and the recurring activations of Dimension Fusion and Dark Magician of Chaos in order to reduce an opponent’s life points to 0 within the first turn. Thanks to the release of Toon Table of Contents, the deck is no longer forced to rely on the normal Cannon Soldier. A single copy of Toon Cannon Soldier can suffice when you’re running three copies of Toon Table of Contents, and this also increases the consistency of Monster Gate and Reasoning when you’re attempting to summon Dark Magician of Chaos.
Toon Table of Contents is also a much more effective spell card to use with , as it can instantly charge up any monster that abuses spell counters, such as Royal Magical Library. Are you interested in gaining a nearly guaranteed +1 advantage? Royal Magical Library can be instantly charged up if you play three copies of Toon Table of Contents, and if you’re running one more Toon card in your deck, you’ll end up with one more card in your hand after triggering your Royal Magical Library’s spell-counter effect. If you’re looking to summon Dark Magician in a hurry, summon Skilled Dark Magician in attack position and then cycle through your three copies of Toon Table of Contents, in order to give your Skilled Dark Magician the power to tribute itself and summon its master. Magical Marionette is even more abusive, as you can destroy multiple monsters thanks to Toon Table of Contents. Even if you’re out of targets for Toon Table of Contents, you can still activate your deck-thinning spell card in order to play a spell counter on a card that can gain them through activated spells. This allows you to effectively use these sorts of monsters even if you’re out of targets.
Toon Table of Contents is a great deck-thinning option for making Beastdown a more effective deck type. Not only does this smooth out future draws for the duelist running this deck, but you’ll also be able to use any spell with “Toon” in its name as fuel for Chiron the Mage. This is a great main deck option that Beastdown has at its disposal when it’s matched up against Stall decks of any kind.
Your best bet to counter Toon Table of Contents is to side in Cursed Seal of the Forbidden Spell. This not only negates the effects of the activated copy of Toon Table of Contents, but it also makes all other copies of Toon Table of Contents in that player’s deck dead draws for the remainder of the duel. Outside of this, you most likely won’t be able to stop the opponent from thinning his or her deck. Your only hope is to stop the monsters that will be benefiting from those multiple activations of Toon Table of Contents.
Final Thoughts
Toon Table of Contents is an effective tech card for thinning a deck, especially without Painful Choice as an available option at the moment. You’d be surprised how effective this spell is when it’s combined with the underrated spell counter monsters of Magician’s Force—specifically, Royal Magical Library and Magical Marionette. These monsters already provide you with potential +1 advantages, and Toon Table of Contents makes achieving this a lot easier.
I’m curious if anyone’s had any success with some of my past featured cards for Bill and Tom’s Binder. If you have effectively used a card featured in my article series, then please send me an email at Mrosenberg@metagame.com with a decklist of the deck that features one of these cards and a brief tournament report of the tournament in which you saw some success. You may see your name and decklist up here one day. Also, if you have any questions concerning any of my articles or a personal deck of yours, then feel free to email me as well. I love hearing from readers.
*Kaiba couldn’t handle Pegasus, even with Blue-Eyes White Dragon. However, Yugi was successful in fending off Pegasus and his horde of horrifying Toon monsters.