I Activate The Seal of Orichalcos! – Demise of the Land

October 17, 2012

by Tyler Tabman

Hey guys! I’m back again after a while to talk about the new card everybody has been talking about: The seal of Orichalcos, and tell you some tricks you may not know about from a little card called demise of the land. Believe it or not, there are legitimate reasons for adding The Seal of Orichalcos to your deck aside from wanting to steal souls. Although this appears to be one of those rare moments where Konami bothered to design a balanced card, it can be quite powerful when used correctly. Take a look at the deck below that placed top8 in a regional last weekend. It takes advantage of virtually all of the card’s upsides and ignores all of the downsides.

Monsters: 15
3 Bountiful Artemis
3 Jowgen the Spiritualist
3 Thunder King Rai-Oh
2 D.D. Warrior Lady
1 Honest
1 Neo-Spacian Grand Mole
2 Cardcar D

Spells: 5
1 Book of Moon
2 Pot of Duality
2 Seal of Orichalcos

Traps: 20
1 Solemn Judgment
2 Solemn Warning
3 Dark Bribe
2 Magic Drain
2 Divine Wrath
2 Drastic Drop Off
1 Black Horn of Heaven
2 Mirror Force
2 Bottomless Trap Hole
2 Compulsory Evacuation Device
1 Starlight Road

Some of the interactions are obvious while some are more subtle. 2400-attack Thunder King Rai-Ohs are quite a force to be reckoned with. A 2100-attack Bountiful Artemis is much harder to kill in battle than a 1600-attack one. While the stat boost to Jowgen the Spiritualist is hardly relevant, it is usually easy to protect by taking advantage of the Seal’s line of text which reads, “While you control 2 or more face-up Attack Position monsters, your opponent cannot target monster(s) with the lowest ATK for an attack.” This deck doesn’t special summon at all, so we thankfully get to ignore all of the card’s restrictions involving special summons and extra deck access.

Another nice thing is that this deck protects Seal of Orichalcos better than most. Spell/trap removal is on the rise right now, so it’s not unheard of for a duelist to be able to try to destroy the Seal twice in one turn. Counter traps solve this problem quite nicely. Let them waste a card to go after the Seal the first time, but activate a counter trap when they try the second time. It’s a great way to trick your opponent into using up valuable spell/trap removal that could have been more productive if directed at something else.

The Seal of Orichalcos is one of those cards that present players with the following paradox: How do I construct my deck such that it is greatly benefitted by The Seal of Orichalcos, yet doesn’t completely rely on it? Counter Fairies is one valid answer to this question. Not all routes for victory require a Seal, but it becomes significantly harder to lose the game once you have it in play. The deck below is my own creation, and it has a far different take on Seal abuse than Counter Fairies.

Monsters: 17
3 Malefic Cyber End Dragon
1 Machina Cannon
2 Machina Fortress
3 Machina Gearframe
3 Thunder King Rai-Oh
3 Cyber Dragon
2 Cardcar D

Spells: 11
3 The Seal of Orichalcos
2 Demise of the Land
2 Mystical Space Typhoon
1 Heavy Storm
1 Monster Reborn
1 Dark Hole
1 Limiter Removal

Traps:
2 Solemn Warning
1 Solemn Judgment
2 Skill Drain
2 Bottomless Trap Hole
1 Torrential Tribute
2 Dimensional Prison
2 Starlight Road

Extra deck:
3 Cyber End Dragon
2 Stardust Dragon
2 Chimeratech Fortress Dragon
1 Number 39: Utopia
1 Gear Gigant X
1 Steelswarm Roach
1 Maestroke the Symphony Djinn
1 Photon Papilloperative
1 Tiras the Keeper of Genesis
1 Wind-Up Arsenal Zenmaioh
1 Number 11: Big Eye

Here you can see that the focus is heavily leaned towards aggression. I’ve always been a fan of the Malefic Monsters, so what better card to use with Malefic Cyber End Dragon than a field spell which protects itself? This deck can get stunningly quick kills utilizing the Malefic Cyber End, the Machina engine, Cyber Dragon, and/or Limiter Removal. Often your opponent will even help you along the way by triggering a Starlight Road.

The glue that holds the deck together however is Demise of the Land: Activate this card when your opponent Special Summons a monster. Select 1 Field Spell Card from your Deck and activate it. At first glance, it might seem like a worse Terraforming, but the card’s rulings tell a different story:
- The activated Field Spell Card does not start a Chain.
- Ancient Forest: If you activate "Ancient Forest" with the effect of "Demise of the Land" it will not change Defense Position monsters to face-up Attack Position.

Meaning that, despite the fact that Demise of the Lands says “activate”, the field spell is not considered activated for the purposes of the field spell’s trigger effect, “When you activate this card, change any Defense Position monster(s) to face-up Attack Position.” The Seal of Orichalcos also has a couple of effects that mentioned it being activated:
- When this card is activated: Destroy all Special Summoned monsters you control.
- You can only activate "The Seal of Orichalcos" once per Duel.

Demise of the Land is a huge loophole around both of these major downsides, so in reality it’s a very good card.
To stress that last part, the ruling makes it so Seal can be activated more than once, and your special summoned monsters are not destroyed!
Demise of the Land comes with a downside of it’s own in that you have to wait for your opponent to special summon, but as you may well imagine, that usually doesn’t take too long. You can play the waiting game by protecting yourself with traps and drawing cards with Cardcar D until your opponent triggers your Demise of the Land, then explode the turn after.

Skill Drain is also a key part of the deck, as it allows us to play Malefic Cyber End Dragon even when we don’t have the Seal yet. Dark World and Heroes are on the downturn while Wind-Ups and Geargias are on the rise, so it’s a good choice for the current meta. Thunder King Rai-Oh proves to be a pain for both decks, and three maindeck Cyber Dragon improves the Geargia matchup even further. Chaos Dragons appear to be gaining popularity as well, but the deck has quite a hard time dealing with 4000 attack monsters ever since the restriction of Chaos Sorcerer

Like many of the decks that I try to take to events, the main advantage is that your opponent won’t know what to expect. By the time they figure out the overall strategy of the deck, there’s a good chance they’ll already be dead and their soul is mine!