Sneak Previews are around the corner—lovers of Sealed Pack and new cards, rejoice! Metagame.com is ready to deliver once again with card previews. Today, I have a trap card to show you, and it suits a style of play that I rather like. Let’s take a look at Damage Condenser!

First, what does it do? It’s a normal trap card, and it’s got an effect with a lot of possibilities. You can only activate it by discarding a card from your hand when you take battle damage to your life points. You may then special summon, in attack position, a monster from your deck which has an ATK equal to or less than the amount of damage you took.

Can you see how useful this card can be? It allows you to discard specific cards into your graveyard, it gives you a way to search out a monster—even some that were previously unsearchable in the format—and you can also special summon a card to the field. All three of those are good, but wow, roll them up into one card and there’s all kinds of fun to be had here. I came up with a few things I’d like to do with it, and I’m going to subject you to them.

First, remember that the card can only be activated when you take battle damage to your life points. That means in the damage step, not in the battle step, so activating Damage Condenser isn’t going to trigger a replay. Remember to activate it at the correct time, and don’t let your opponent try and replay the attack. Some players don’t fully understand the steps in the battle phase, and will try and replay automatically when there’s any change in monsters on the side of the opponent’s field after attacking.

Now, let’s look at the cost. You have to discard a card from your hand in order to activate the card. You can see this as a drawback, or you can see it as a way to get cards into the graveyard if you need them there for a particular effect. Need monsters in there to use Pot of Avarice? How about some Dark monsters for Strike Ninja or Chaos, or food for Bazoo the Soul Eater? If you’re running a Cookie Jar deck, this is an option for putting Morphing Jar and Cyber Jar into the graveyard to bring them back with Spear Cretin or Shallow Grave. And if you’re an Exodia player, like my friend and fellow judge Ken Jackson, you’re always looking for another card to try and revive your favorite deck! Damage Condenser can get Exodia pieces into play or stick them in the graveyard to complete Backup Soldier’s trifecta. You can even use it to load Manticore of Darkness into the graveyard, if you’re playing the Manticore variant!

Next, Damage Condenser will let you search out a monster, but you’re bound by some summoning restrictions. You can only search out a monster with an ATK value that’s equal to or less than the amount of damage you took. However, some of the most useful monsters in the game are little pipsqueaks like Spirit Reaper, which is always a powerful pick. It’s present in most decks, has an ATK of only 300, and can quickly even out the discard that Damage Condenser is costing you. Injection Fairy Lily only has a 400 ATK, and while you can search for it with other cards, it’s not a bad choice for this effect, because it comes out in the battle phase and can be a huge wall. Mystic Swordsman LV2 has 900 ATK, and Sasuke Samurai is quite teeny at 500 ATK. Most self-replacing monsters are a bit on the lightweight side—Giant Rat and so forth are all around 1400, and Sangan has only 1000 ATK. So does Nimble Momonga, and it’s a good choice to bring out in response to an attack. If you do, you’ll get 1000 life points back, more monsters on the field, and the chance to vex your opponent! If you take a bit more damage (1500-1700), you could get out one of your D. D. crew. That way if there’s a bigger monster in the lineup ready to take a swing at you, you’ll be able to remove it from play.

And finally, you get to special summon the monster you searched out. Remember you have to special summon whatever you pull in attack position, so that needs to influence your choices, because it can either help or hurt you. If your opponent is still in his or her battle phase and has more monsters to attack with, think carefully. It’s a good opportunity to choose something that will hurt your opponents if they continue to attack, like a D. D. monster, a self-replacer or search monster, or an annoying graveyard effect monster. Nimble Momonga has 1000 ATK, and it’s a good choice to bring out if your opponent has more monsters lined up waiting to take their turn. They’ll either have to stop attacking or give you 1000 life points back, with more monsters on the field.

If your opponent hasn’t got anything else to attack with and you’ve been holding onto a tribute monster because you didn’t want to give up (or couldn’t give up) anything in your monster zone, Damage Condenser can get something to help get that tribute monster out of your hand and onto the field. If you can fetch a monster to use for that purpose, it’ll be easier to get out Mobius the Frost Monarch or something like that once it’s your turn.

There are obviously some times to use this card that are better than others. One of the best times to use it is during your own battle phase by making a suicidal attack with one of your own monsters. You’ll have more control over the amount of damage you take, and you can use the special summon effect to search out a monster that will help you. Remember, you’re still in your battle phase, so you can continue to attack with whatever you bring out. Maybe you need something that will destroy a defense position monster, or maybe you need something that can strip a card from your opponent’s hand. If you can bring back the card you discarded, as well, you can drop something big into the graveyard, activate Call of the Haunted in your battle phase and attack with that, as well as with whatever you pulled with Damage Counter’s effect. You can do a whopping amount of damage and totally turn the game in your favor. I love plays like this!*

Let’s say your opponent has a set monster and a D. D. Survivor. It’s your turn, and you’ve got nothing but Giant Rat and a set Call of the Haunted. During your battle phase, Suicide Giant Rat into D. D. Survivor and then activate Damage Condenser, discarding Jinzo from your hand. You’ve got 400 life points worth of special summoning, and you spend it on Injection Fairy Lily. (Good choice!) With Giant Rat’s effect, you choose and special summon Mystic Swordsman LV2. So far, so good. Remember, you’re still in your battle phase. Now activate Call of the Haunted and bring Jinzo back. How do you like that? Use Mystic Swordsman LV2 to get rid of that pesky face-down monster, then blow D. D. Survivor off the field and inflict some serious damage with Injection Fairy Lily and Jinzo. You’ve now got some enviable field presence going on. This is what I like to do. I like big, fancy moves, preferably ones that end games, because I start getting impatient when a game goes on longer than about . . . say, ten minutes or so. This kind of thing provides a lot of entertainment for the spectators and looks exciting in match writeups.

You can tell that I’ll be playing around with this card. It tempts me to think of interesting and exciting combos to make intricate and devastating plays. It’s on my list of cards I hope I get at the Sneak Preview, and I’m interested to see what the rest of you make of it. The amount of diversity in decks these days is great to see, so who knows? The card does a lot of different things, and I think there are plenty of players and deckbuilders out there who can find ways to exploit them all. Let’s see what you can do!