The seals have been broken, and the Sacred Beasts have been set free. In the Yu-Gi-Oh! GX anime, this spells disaster for the world, but for us it means a wealth of potentially fun decks. Each of the three Sacred Beasts has its own way of being summoned, and effects that support you in different ways. If you’re judging events, it’s good to be familiar with how these cards work so you’ll have all the answers when the players come calling.

We begin our mechanics examination of the Sacred Beasts with Hamon, Lord of Striking Thunder.

Hamon, Lord of Striking Thunder

“This card cannot be Normal Summoned or Set. This card cannot be Special Summoned except by sending 3 face-up Continuous Spell Cards from your side of the field to the Graveyard. When this card destroys your opponent's monster as a result of battle and sends it to the Graveyard, inflict 1000 points of damage to your opponent's Life Points. While this card is in face-up Defense Position on your side of the field, your opponent cannot select another monster as an attack target.”

Sending three face-up continuous spell cards from your side of the field to the graveyard is similar to the act of tributing monsters to summon a high-level monster. It isn’t an activated effect and nothing can be chained to it. When you special summon Hamon, you send the three face-up continuous spell cards to the graveyard and then immediately place Hamon onto the field. At this point, players will be able to respond to the summon.

This means it isn’t possible for your opponent to use Mystical Space Typhoon to destroy one of your continuous spell cards when you declare the summon of Hamon, just like it isn’t possible to chain Waboku when a player declares that he or she will tribute summon Jinzo. It also means that the three continuous spell cards that are used to summon Hamon will not be reimbursed if things go wrong. If your opponent uses a card like Solemn Judgment to negate the summon, you’ll lose Hamon and your three continuous spell cards.

Each of Hamon’s effects follows two different strategies, and each effect faces its own specific issues. Hamon’s first effect relies upon destroying a monster on your opponent’s side of the field and then sending it to the graveyard so you can inflict 1000 points of damage to your opponent’s life points. Hamon must remain on the field during this process, or it will not be around when the timing for its effect occurs near the end of the damage step.

The potential for trouble begins when monsters like Old Vindictive Magician and  get into the battle. When a monster like Old Vindictive Magician is flipped by an attack, its effect activates and resolves after damage calculation, but before it is actually sent to the graveyard. This gives Old Vindictive Magician ample time to destroy Hamon so that it will not be on the field when the event that would trigger its effect occurs.

D. D. Assailant’s effect activates during this same time period, removing Hamon and itself from play. D. D. Assailant won’t touch the graveyard, and Hamon won’t exactly be flying high itself, which means that Hamon’s effect won’t be able to activate. The same thing occurs if Hamon runs into D. D. Warrior or D. D. Warrior Lady.

Some monsters have effects that activate when they are sent to the graveyard by battle, like Nimble Momonga and Mystic Tomato. If Hamon is responsible for sending one of these monsters to the graveyard, the sent monster’s effect will form a chain with Hamon’s effect, with the turn player’s effect normally placed onto the chain first.

At this point, Hamon has done its job and placed its effect onto the chain, so it no longer cares if it remains on the field. Let’s suppose that Hamon attacks, destroys Newdoria in battle, and sends it to the graveyard. Hamon’s effect would be placed first onto the chain, followed by the effect of Newdoria. Newdoria’s effect could be used simply to remove Hamon as a threat, but it will do nothing to prevent the 1000 points of damage from being inflicted, because Hamon was on the field to trigger its effect and now it no longer needs to remain there.

A Wall of Thunder?

Hamon’s second effect is continuous, and manipulates your opponent’s ability to select attack targets. While Hamon is in face-up defense position on your side of the field, your opponent will be unable to select any of your other monsters as an attack target. This means that, in most cases, your defense-position Hamon will be the only target for the opponent to attack.

This effect is similar to the way that Lord of D. manipulates your opponent’s ability to target Dragon-type monsters you control. It isn’t intended to negate card effects, nor does it have any ability to do so. Hamon’s effect acts solely to prevent your opponent from selecting another monster you control as his or her attack target.

You may be tempted to use a card like Desert Sunlight to force Hamon into face-up defense position, hoping this will force your opponent’s monster to redirect its attack. This is just not possible, because at this point you are responding to an attack that’s already been declared. Hamon’s effect needs to be put in place before your opponent declares the attack. Getting Hamon into defense position afterwards won’t have any impact, because there’s no way to manipulate the opponent’s selection after he or she has made it.

Putting Hamon in defense position doesn’t automatically limit all of your opponent’s options. Monsters that can attack directly, like Inaba White Rabbit and Raging Flame Sprite, won’t care about Hamon’s effect, because their attack target is the opposing player and not a monster. In fact, any monster that receives the ability to attack directly can skip over Hamon entirely. This includes the classic Toon monsters like Toon Summoned Skull and Elemental Hero monsters that are empowered by HERO Flash!!, a card my fellow Metagame.com writer Jerome wrote about in an article a few weeks back.

Be sure to be here next week when we’ll look into Uria, Lord of Searing Flames and Raviel, Lord of Phantasms. Until then, send all comments to Curtis@metagame.com.