Two weeks ago I introduced (or re-familiarized) you with the Pro Storm, a move that involved tricking your opponents into committing extra cards to the spell and trap zone in order to destroy them with Heavy Storm. The easiest way to do this was to set it the Storm face down and wait until your opponent set more than one spell or trap card. Assuming you didn’t also foolishly commit to the spell and trap zone, flipping your Storm would cost your opponent multiple cards to your one Heavy Storm.

As always, duelists adapted to the change in playstyle to both limit the effectiveness of the Pro Storm and to punish players who made it obvious. Dust Tornado and Breaker the Magical Warrior were more freely used as card-for-card trade-offs, hoping to hit Heavy Storm and punish the opponent by committing to a back row that couldn’t be destroyed. Heavy Storm is a key card in a lot of game-winning scenarios, so catching a player on the Pro Storm and destroying the Storm while face down gives you a tremendous advantage over your opponent when trying to make game.

Over time, players have become increasingly sneaky at getting Pro Storms off. These days, you could simply scare someone into over-committing. Playing two copies of Allure of Darkness and dropping two big monsters to the removed-from-play pile, then setting Heavy Storm might scare the opponent into setting extra spells or traps: he or she would have to consider the possibility that you had set Return from the Different Dimension and would look to use it as early as your next turn. Fear of Dust Tornado can also be grounds to set two spell or trap cards. With Dust, your opponent could destroy your only means of protection and set a special summoning trap card next turn.

So players began to scare opponents into setting multiple cards to their back rows. Playing strong like you’re about to make an aggressive move can often intimidate weaker players into setting extra defense. The move can get the stronger players too, as they will also set extra defense cards thinking they’ve made a good read and will need the chainability of multiple defensive cards to stop a push.

Because of this, many players started to make an attempt at mind games. Giving obvious signals in order to trick the opponent into making bad reads is an excellent way to make a Pro Storm happen. Something as simple as saying "during your end phase . . ." and pretending to flip your Heavy Storm during your opponent’s main phase can trick him or her into cutting you off and setting another spell or trap card. The most devastating part about doing this is that your opponent often only draws two strong defensive cards, and if he or she loses both to the Pro Storm, he or she is not only down on cards but has lost powerful options as well.

This doesn’t always work, of course. Many players will see through an obvious bluff such as that, so if you want to pull off the big plays, you’ll have to be more creative. One player who can always make spectacular plays is Jerry Wang. Every time I feature Wang, I make sure to watch from his perspective, as the plays you can see him set up are simply dazzling. Let me take you back to May 7, 2006. The quarterfinal match between Jerry Wang and Carlos Santiago was underway and I was watching game 2 from Jerry’s perspective.