Problem-Solving Card Text, Part 3: Conditions, Activations, and EffectsJune 1st, 2011
(If you haven’t read the first two articles in this series, be sure and read the Introduction and New Terminology articles! Then come back here for part 3.)
Put on your thinking caps! I’m about to explain the most important part of the new Problem-Solving Card Text.
As far as rules go, the most important info on a card are its Timing, Targeting, and Conditions. These are also the things that cause the most questions. For example:
- Timing – If we make a chain, do I do things when I activate my card or when the card resolves?
- Targeting – Does this card target something? If it has more than 1 target, what happens if one target goes away?
- Conditions – What if something changes between the moment I play the card and the moment it finishes up and goes to the Graveyard?
The problem-solving card text fixes all of these problems, completely and forever. The trick was how to do it but still have the cards read the same way if you’re not interested in these kinds of details.
Starting in July, any card that hits on any of these key areas will have its text rewritten to answer all of your questions.
Here’s how it works…
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Monster Text
I’m going to explain this all using colors, since our brains understand things better with colors. During this article:
- Anything that explains CONDITIONS to activate a card, or limits WHEN or HOW OFTEN you can activate a card, will be written in green and called ‘green text’. Green text limits when you can do things.
- Anything that happens WHEN YOU ACTIVATE a card will be written in red and called ‘red text’. This includes things like costs and targeting.
- Anything that happens when you resolve a card will be written in blue and called ‘blue text’. This is what happens when the card effect actually happens.
Remember that your actual cards will still be printed in black! The colors are just training wheels to help us explain.
On your cards, instead of using colors, punctuation will let you tell what kind of text everything is.
Conditions (green text) are now always followed by a colon (:).
Activation text (red) is separated from the card effects (blue) by a semicolon (;).
The basic structure is CONDITIONS : ACTIVATION ; RESOLUTION.
Let’s take the new Sangan as a simple example:
When this card is sent from the field to the Graveyard: Add 1 monster with 1500 or less ATK from your Deck to your hand.
Everything in green (before the colon) describes WHEN and under what conditions the effect happens. Everything in blue (after the colon) describes what happens when the effect resolves.
If there’s a semicolon, then everything after the conditions is divided between what happens when you activate the card (red text, before the semicolon) and what happens when the card resolves (blue text, after the semicolon):
When this card is destroyed by battle and sent to the Graveyard: You can target 2 Level 2 monsters in your Graveyard; Special Summon them, but their effects are negated.
When you activate a card or effect:
- Make sure the green part (before the colon) is being followed.
- Do the part in red (before the semicolon) if there is any.
- After that, other cards and effects can be chained in response. If there’s a chain, you don’t do your card’s effects (blue, after the colon / semicolon) until the chain resolves, in backwards order, like this:
Let’s take an example of a 3-card Chain.
Player #1 Summons Trident Warrior and chooses to activate its effect. This starts a chain:
When this card is Normal Summoned: You can Special Summon 1 Level 3 monster from your hand.
Player #2 chains Raigeki Break, targeting Player #1’s monster:
Discard 1 card to target 1 card on the field; destroy it.
But the card Player #2 targeted was a Gemini monster, so Player #1 responds with Gemini Spark:
Tribute 1 face-up Level 4 Gemini monster you control to target 1 card on the field; destroy it and draw 1 card.
Using the colons and semicolons, you can build the chain like this:
- Player #1’s Trident Warrior: (it has no red text, but it still goes on the chain structure even though nothing happens yet)
- Player #2’s Raigeki Break: Discard 1 card to target 1 card on the field; (at this point, Player #2 discards 1 card, and targets Player #1’s monster)
- Player #1’s Gemini Spark: Tribute 1 face-up Level 4 Gemini monster you control to target 1 card on the field; (at this point, Player #1 Tributes his monster and targets one of Player #2’s cards)
- Player #1’s Gemini Spark resolves: destroy it and draw 1 card. (Player #1 does these things)
- Player #2’s Raigeki Break resolves: destroy it. (The monster isn’t on the field anymore so nothing happens)
- Player #1’s Trident Warrior resolves: Special Summon 1 Level 3 monster from your hand. (Player #1 does this)
Red goes on top, Blue on the bottom. In other words: everything before the semicolons happens first (all piled together in order), then everything after the semicolons (again, all piled up in order).
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BIG TIP: If there’s a colon or semicolon in the text, that always means an effect that starts a chain. If there is no colon or semicolon, the effect does NOT start a chain and cannot be chained to.
Sangan starts a chain. You will know this because it uses a colon:
When this card is sent from the field to the Graveyard: Add 1 monster with 1500 or less ATK from your Deck to your hand.
Cyber Dragon does NOT start a chain. You will know this because it does not use a colon:
If your opponent controls a monster and you control no monsters, you can Special Summon this card (from your hand).
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Spell and Trap Text
Spells and Traps always start a chain at some point, because activating the Spell/Trap starts a chain all by itself.
Some Spells & Traps won’t have a colon or a semicolon. But they still start a chain when you activate the Spell or Trap. (Summoning a monster doesn’t start a chain, so that’s why they’re different).
Creature Swap, for example, has no colon or semicolon. In fact, its text is exactly the same as before because everything on Creature Swap happens when the effect resolves:
Each player chooses 1 monster they control and switches control of those monsters with each other. Those monsters cannot change their battle positions for the rest of this turn.
Many Trap Cards have Conditions, so they will have a colon in the text. This doesn’t make them play any differently from a Spell/Trap without a colon, though. The new Seven Tools of the Bandit looks like this, for example:
When a Trap Card is activated: Pay 1000 Life Points; negate the activation and destroy it.
The colon is there to show that this card has specific conditions to activate it. The semicolon is there to separate what you do when you activate this card, vs. what you do when the card resolves.
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Now that we’ve covered the basics on how the cards are written, stay tuned for Chapter 4 to find out some more benefits and details about how to read your new cards!
Problem-Solving Card Text, Part 4: The Clues on Your CardsJune 1st, 2011
(Important! This article goes with today’s other article on Conditions, Activation, and Effects. If you haven’t read it yet, do that now and then come back to this one. You’ll also want to read the first two articles, about the New Card Text and New Words & Phrases.)
We’ve covered how new text will be written using a colon and semicolon to clearly separate activation conditions from activation timing from effects.
Now I’m going to show you some advantages of the new text.
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Looking for Clues
The new text reads a lot like the old text. But if you know what to look for, there are valuable clues to help you figure stuff out. Here are some clues to look for:
- Costs are always paid at activation. If the card tells you to pay, discard, Tribute, or destroy in the activation text (before the semicolon), it’s a cost.
- Any activation conditions (written before the colon) only have to be met when you activate the card. If something changes before the card resolves, and the conditions aren’t met anymore, it doesn’t matter. (Any conditions that STILL have to be true when the effect resolves will be listed separately.)
- A colon or semicolon on a monster, or on a Continuous Spell/Trap, means a chain starts. (Remember that activating a Spell or Trap Card starts a chain, too.)
- For any card that targets, if the effect text (after the semicolon) still refers to a ‘target’, you have to double-check that any targeting requirements are still met.
- Otherwise, if the card refers to the target using any other word (like ‘it’) in the effect text, the targeting requirements only had to be met when the target was originally targeted.
- For any card that targets, if the effect text refers to ‘both’ (or a similar term) in the effect text, you have to be able to apply the effect to ALL of the targets. If even one of the targets is no longer eligible, then the whole effect disappears.
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Using Your Clues
It’s time to play detective! Let’s see what clues we can deduce from the new card text on some cards. The important parts will be underlined. (In many cases, what’s most important are the colon and the semicolon!)
New Zombie Master:
Once per turn: You can send 1 Monster Card from your hand to the Graveyard, then target 1 Level 4 or lower Zombie-Type monster in either player’s Graveyard; Special Summon that target. This card must remain face-up on the field to activate and to resolve this effect.
- Clues:
- You send a card to the Graveyard first, ‘then’ pick a target after that.
- You Special Summon ‘that target’, so if it isn’t a Level 4 or lower Zombie-Type monster in the Graveyard anymore, it is not Summoned. (Zombie World got blown up by MST = no Summon!)
- The last sentence points out that Zombie Master has to still be face-up on the field when the effect resolves, or else the effect disappears.
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New Magical Dimension:
If you control a face-up Spellcaster-Type monster: Target 1 monster; Tribute it, then Special Summon 1 Spellcaster-Type monster from your hand, then you can destroy 1 monster on the field.
- Clues:
- The Spellcaster requirement is before the colon. So you only need a Spellcaster-Type monster when you activate this card, not when it resolves.
- The semicolon tells us the only thing you do at activation is target a monster.
- You Tribute the monster at resolution, ‘then’ do the other effects. If the monster wasn’t around for you to Tribute at resolution, then you don’t get any effects.
- You Tribute, then Summon, then destroy (if you want), in order. The last thing that happens is that you destroy. If you don’t destroy, then the last thing that happens is that you Summon.
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New Blade Knight:
While you have 1 or fewer cards in your hand, this card gains 400 ATK. If this is the only monster you control, negate the effects of Flip Effect Monsters it destroys by battle.
- Clues:
- No colon, no semicolon = no chain.
- Both of these effects are Continuous, so Blade Knight never starts a Chain. Which means, among other things, that you cannot use something like Divine Wrath on him.
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New Kinetic Soldier:
During damage calculation, if this card battles a Warrior-Type monster: This card gains 2000 ATK and DEF during damage calculation only.
- Clues:
- Aha! I see a colon. This effect starts a chain. (Divine Wrath incoming!)
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New Trap Hole:
When your opponent Normal Summons or Flip Summons 1 monster with 1000 or more ATK: Target that monster; destroy that target.
- Clues:
- This card destroys ‘that target’. So if the target’s ATK is no longer 1000 or more, the effect disappears.
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Compare that to Adreus, Keeper of Armageddon (from Generation Force):
Once per turn: You can detach 1 Xyz Material from this card to target 1 face-up card your opponent controls; destroy it.
- Clues:
- This card destroys ‘it’. So even if the target was flipped face-down, or shifted to your side of the field, it’s still destroyed. (If it’s not on the field at all when the effect resolves, it’s not destroyed, of course.)
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New Fusion Gate:
While this card is on the field: Either player can Fusion Summon a Fusion Monster without using “Polymerization”, but the Fusion Material Monsters are banished instead of being sent to the Graveyard.
- Clues:
- There’s a colon there, so we know this effect starts a chain. Continuous Spells/Traps with ignition-like effects will have a colon or semicolon to let you know this.
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New Black Garden:
When a monster(s) is Normal or Special Summoned, except by the effect of “Black Garden”: Halve its ATK, and you Special Summon 1 “Rose Token” (Plant-Type/DARK/Level 2/ATK 800/DEF 800) to its controller’s opponent’s side of the field, in Attack Position. You can target 1 monster in your Graveyard with ATK equal to the total ATK of all face-up Plant Type monsters on the field; destroy this card and all face-up Plant-Type monsters, then Special Summon that target.
- Clues:
- First effect has a colon, so we know it starts a chain.
- Second effect has a semicolon, so we know it also starts a chain.
- The ATK halving and the Rose Token Summon happen at the same time.
- The second effect targets.
- The last effect refers to ‘that target’ after the semicolon, so the conditions before the semicolon have to still be true at resolution. (Specifically, it must be in your Graveyard and still have exactly the same ATK as all face-up Plants on the field.)
- “Destroy this card” is after the semicolon, so you destroy “Black Garden” when the last effect resolves, not when it’s activated.
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New Bountiful Artemis:
Each time a Counter Trap Card resolves, immediately draw 1 card (during the Chain).
- Clues:
- No colon, no semicolon = no chain.
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It shouldn’t take long for you to get used to the new text, and be able to figure out all these clues on your own. As we reprint more and more older cards with the new text, the first thing you’ll want to do whenever you have a question is to just read the card.
Check back in a few days and we’ll talk about changes to monsters’ Summoning text! |
楼主: 闇紅の魔導師
|小黑屋|手机版|Archiver|Nw壬天堂世界
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发表于 2011-6-2 18:15:23
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楼主
其实我觉得就算内文印成彩色也没什么不好，外面裁判口胡甚至勾结内部玩家的事情太经常发生了
