Hey duelists! We are only one week away from the most anticipated Yu-Gi-Oh tournament of all time--the 100th YCS in Long Beach, California. I’ll be arriving on Wednesday, thanks to ARG, which makes this sort of a vacation for me. If anyone else will be there on Wednesday or Thursday please feel free to leave comments below. As for the tournament itself, I’m going to be very blunt with you all; there will be a lot of Dino-Rabbit decks in attendance. Some of you reading this will be running the deck yourselves. We all know that the mirror match isn’t exactly the best thing in the world and that is probably true for all the big name decks at the moment. However, I wish to talk about a card that I think is highly underrated right now and should probably be played in triplicate in Dino-Rabbit decks. That card is none other than Forbidden Lance. It is an extremely powerful card since it helps to tackle just about every problem that a Dino-Rabbit player could face. It has many implications and tricks to it that can push your deck further just by having 1 extra copy than your opponent in the mirror match. In this article I’ll go over the reasons why I think Forbidden Lance is so nuts.
First and foremost is the fact that NOTHING beats Forbidden Lance except another Forbidden Lance (or Solemn Judgment). This means that in order to effectively combat the card you will need as many copies in your deck as your opponent or you can just be luckier, but that’s never an option for me. Do you know how crippling it is to have a Jurrac Guaiba run into a Thunder King Rai-oh with hopes of beating it through Forbidden Lance and then the opponent has Forbidden Lance, too? It is nearly game ending. They get to keep their Thunder King while you lose Guaiba and Lance, AND your normal summon for the turn. You will probably proceed to take a lot of damage in the next turn if the opponent decides to push with another monster on top of the Thunder King, or whatever he already has on the field. It’s not pretty and it WILL happen if you aren’t careful.
Everyone knows that the biggest problem for Dino-Rabbit decks is monsters with high attack power. Forbidden Lance helps to mitigate this problem. Ever since I’ve been using the deck with 3 copies of it I honestly cannot say that high attack power has ever won the opponent any games, unless of course they’re using something like dragons where every single monster is huge for no reason. But on a serious note, it destroys the opponent for putting all of their cards into 1 huge beater in hopes that you can’t get over it. Even a Sabersaurus and Lance can beat just about every threatening monster. Couple a Lance with your Evolzar and you can beat anything from Number 17: Leviathan Dragon to Number 30: Acid Golem.
The rise in the playability of Fiendish Chain is a major factor in why Forbidden Lance is THAT card right now. It seems that every deck is maining 2 to 3 copies of the Chain in order to combat the crazy effects of the Evolzars, Tour Guide from the Underworld, Wind-up Rat/Zenmaighty/Magician, the Inzektors, and many other threats. How often have you summoned Tour Guide into 2 or more backrows and you just knew for a fact that her effect wasn’t going to resolve because of either Solemn Warning or Fiendish Chain? It’s also a known fact that players could have both Solemn Warning and Fiendish Chain set but will opt to use the Fiendish Chain on your Tour Guide because her base attack is so weak. This is definitely the right play but it makes Forbidden Lance that much more powerful. When they try to chain the Tour Guide you can chain Forbidden Lance to force her effect through and then proceed to make a play. Granted, that Solemn Warning is still there so whichever Xyz you attempt to summon will probably get negated but it’s a 2 for 2 that helps to simplify the game. If a Dino-Rabbit deck enters into a simplified gamestate it is much easier to win since there are fewer options between both players but the Evolzars have negation abilities.
Forbidden Lance protects the Evolzars from random removal. People will often waste cards like Dark Hole on 1 Evolzar in an effort to push through a play. I’m not saying it’s bad to Dark Hole a Laggia when it still has materials, if you think you can push through this turn, but don’t be mad when someone flips lance and he remains on the field with both materials still intact. Lance hurts those decks that are teching copies of Dimensional Prison, Smashing Ground, or Mirror Force since they expect those cards to be deciding factors in those particular matchups (especially game 1). Having a full playset of Forbidden Lance(s) in your deck will prolong the lock that you have on the duel and further guarantee your win. Keep in mind what the attack stat of your monsters will be when you use Forbidden Lance on them since it drops by 800. I always remember things like the fact that Laggia will have 1600 attack so the only Inzektor that could beat him in battle is Centipede (and Hopper if they play it). The only Wind-up that could kill a Laggia in battle after it has been “Lanced” is Wind-up Hunter, assuming it’s a conventional build. If the opponent somehow summons a monster that could beat your weakened Evolzar you would just negate the summon altogether. However, in those games where you have more than 1 or 2 backrows and you Lance your own monster, it becomes incredibly hard for the opponent to beat the Evolzar in battle since you could have another Lance or any other legitimate defense.
In games 2 and 3, many players tend to throw in some combination of hateful monsters like Snowman Eater, Spirit Reaper, and Arcana Force the Fool. In the case of Spirit Reaper, you have very few outs. Forbidden Lance helps to kill of the stall tactics of the pesky zombie so that you can continue to dish out tons of damage and win the game. There is actually a correct way to play Forbidden Lance on a Spirit Reaper and I would go as far as to say it’s an advanced technique. I noticed it after watching someone misplay at YCS Atlanta when he controlled a Sabersaurus, a Dolkka with 2 materials, and a Laggia with no materials. His opponent had a face-up defense position Spirit Reaper and only 1 backrow with 2200 lifepoints. The Dino-Rabbit player topdecked Forbidden Lance for his turn and immediately slammed it on the table to kill the Reaper but the opponent chained Book of Moon to turn Reaper into face-down defense position. The correct play would’ve been to have Sabersaurus attack into Spirit Reaper and then activate Forbidden Lance on the Spirit Reaper in the damage step to prevent the possibility of Book of Moon being a showstopper. That way, Dolkka or Laggia could come through and attacked directly for game. The scary thing is that this one little misplay cost the Dino-Rabbit player the game. His opponent had that Reaper forever and he amassed so many cards over time that he was able to mount a comeback with Black Luster Soldier- Envoy of the Beginning and Monster Reborn turns later. Good stuff, right? This is how the best players win games.
The last thing to note about Forbidden Lance is its ability to destroy anti-meta decks. Tech Genus decks tend to use 3 copies of Horn of the Phantom Beast which is extremely vulnerable to Forbidden Lance. Both the cards can be activated during the damage step. This means you can wait until their T.G. Warwolf runs into your Sabersaurus all willy-nilly and once they activate Horn of the Phantom Beast you can just chain Forbidden Lance on THEIR monster. This will cause the Horn to have no effect and their monster will LOSE 800 attack instead of gaining it. Destruction.
There are more reasons why Forbidden Lance is absurd in Yu-Gi-Oh right now but some of them you will have to figure out as you play with the card. I advise players who don’t own a playset of this card to pick them up just in case. It’s one of those cards that’s good to have because you never know when it might become the next big thing. It has high utility and great synergy with many decks. Try it out and see for yourself.
Remember, Play Hard or Go Home!
-Frazier Smith
-YCS Atlanta Champion
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