ShadowBlade's Anime/Manga Card of the Day! 8/22/2009 - Damage-Off Zone

Welcome to ShadowBlade's Anime/Manga Card of the Day! This is the series of threads where I ramble on about anime-only cards while shoving caffeine down my throat.

Then, I'll give it a personal rating - using several factors that I welcome everybody to discuss - out of 10, and ask the question: Do you think the game would benefit from the anime-only card being real? Feel free to discuss!

So, let's crack open an RC and get on with ShadowBlade's Anime/Manga Cards of the Day! I reserve the right to not randomly post a card on each day for whatever reason.


Today's card is...


Damage-Off Zone
Continuous Spell Card
All Battle Damage inflicted to both player's Life Points is halved. Pay half of your Life Points, and send this card to the Graveyard to make all Battle Damage 0 this turn.
http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Damage-Off_Zone

Art: It's kind of blurry on the wiki page. However, I like the colors and I enjoy how the warrior monsters blend in with it. The fountain is also a nice touch.

Appearance: Uh oh, this is a Judai card! Not only that, but it appears in my least favorite duel of the entire GX series; Turn 85 when Judai duels a crazed scientist who is obsessed with controlling The Winged Dragon of Ra. No, it's not Rig Veda.

I would not be surprised if most of you did not remember this card at all. However, I consider it to be a "hidden gem" and I shall soon explain why.

Mechanic: Funny enough, this might be one of my favorite cards that Judai ever uses. At first it seems like an odd card and maybe a poor attempt just to save Judai some Life Points. But, actually, I quite like the mechanic of this card. It counters swarm and OTK at the same time, while being able to chain its second effect to produce a temporary Hallowed Life Barrier ability. Of course, it comes with half of your Life Points. But, still useful against those big OTK beasts. I approve of this card's concept, mainly because it affects both players.

Effect Analysis: However, just because I like the mechanic, does that mean it has a good and fair effect? Well, paying half your Life Points to reduce Battle Damage to 0 for the turn is a pretty nice effect. However, it is fairly tame compared to Waboku, the recent Zero Gardna, and even Hallowed Life Barrier. Knocking all Battle Damage in half for both players is a pretty unique presention, in my estimation. This card offers something that we don't really see in any other card out there.

On the other hand, we have our good friend joining us today as a special guest - the Stall deck! I interviewed the Stall deck earlier and asked it how it felt about this card. Stall and one of its good friends, Burn, very much advocate this card and love the lower amount of Battle Damage. That Malicious Edge pounding on your Marshmallon certainly doesn't do as much now! When we use Damage-Off Zone with decks that are built around preventing damage or hiding behind attack barriers, it becomes another wall for offensive decks to get through. We know that Judgement Dragon and our other metagame ace monsters can blow it away with ease. However, what about the player who enjoys strategy and fun? (Yes, that was a label.)

We can see that Damage-Off Zone could benefit some annoying decks. In the same instance, its fair cost for its secondary effect and overall effect put this card in a unique situation. It would make a duel longer. Therefore, the effect analysis of this card depends greatly upon what type of game any individual player prefers - from the short, 3-4 turn duel metagames to the longer and perhaps more drawn-out anime-style and strategic games. Personally, I prefer the latter. But, that's heavy bias so I won't really factor it into the score. It's not a bad or unfair card, so I'll compromise and give it a 15 here.


Real Game Add-on: What would happen if we instated Damage-Off Zone into the game? First of all, I envision this card as a rather common sidedeck card. It just seems like it would fit as both an anti-meta and anti-OTK card. Frankly, I would have outright demanded this card if we were still subjected to nonsense like Cyber-Stein. But, times have changed. The card overall is still fine. It has potential as well. I did previously mention the effect of those annoying Burn and Stall decks. However, with the present-day metagame I would not really expect the addition of this card to do much, perhaps even if it was unlimited entirely (although for several reasons I would actually like to see this at 1, since we do still have Waboku, Zero Gardna, and all the other similar cards). The addition of this card wouldn't seem to unfairly bump the potential of any decks. However, it does provide nice alternatives for damage blocking in a unique fashion.

Well, that's all I have to say. Now I will give Damage-Off Zone my personal score.

Art: 4/4
Appearance: 1/1
Mechanic: 5/5
Effect Analysis: 15/20
Real Game Add-on: 8/10

Final rating: 8.25/10

What do you think of Damage-Off Zone? Would it be good for the real life game? Let your opinions be heard!

A very nice card indeed. Yes, burn and stall would like it, but when you have cards like scrap iron, swords, etc, its not insurmountable. People who hide behind Marshmallon and Spirit Reaper would most likely use Spirit Barrier rather than this card anyway. A good find, keep it up.