Poisoned Goods [Written]

[drowsyCoffee]

This card is yet another instance of a series of cards i've been brewing, the "Lets see how far yugioh players are willing to go" series. Essentially, its a bunch of cards that try to do very powerful effects, in exchange for having some major downsides, to see just how valuable these effects are to most players. In this case, this card effect is related to handlooping and being able to gather information on an opponent's hand

 

Poisoned Goods

Normal Spell

Your opponent Draws 2 cards, then look at their Hand and banish 1 card on it, face down

 

This time, again, this is a rather simple card. Your opponent gets to go +1, and you get info from their hand and the opportunity to get rid of any problematic card that they might have on it. The purpose in general of this card is to test just how valuable hand info is, by weighting it against an overall -2 in advantage (You lose a card and your opponent gains one)

The main application of this card is in general allowing skillful players to be able to come on top of their opponents even though they're in a massive card disadvantage. For example, by looking at an opponents hand and getting rid of 1 card on it, a skillful Combo player might be able to think of a specific line that dodges the opponent's specific interactions. Not only they would need to be knowledgeable enough to have built a deck that has multiple lines and to be able to devise specific ways to play around certain handtraps, they would need to have enough experience on the deck to be able to identify which handtrap/going second power card their current hand cant really play around. The existence of Crossout adds even one more layer of complexity, as you need to identify on top of that what your current chokepoint is and which of their remaining interactions you need to negate. Yet, at the same time, this card has plenty of downsides and awkard scenarios to balance out that same power. Yes, you get info and the ability to get rid of an opponent's card, but if they had a Dark Ruler No More in their hand and draw a second one off of this card, it wont matter that much

Still, within combo, this card clearly favors decks like Prankids who can archieve most of their combo with very little resources. If all your deck is full of 1 card full combo starters, then its probably more relevant to ensure that that specific line goes live rather than having a card advantage

 

For control decks, this card is a bit rougher. Given that going first with them, you would have an overall -3 in card advantage (4 cards in hand/field, vs an opponent with 6 in hand +1 from their Draw Phase), you would need some big advantage generation cards to turn the game around, like Dogmatika Punishment, or some rather heavy floodgates to make advantage irrelevant. Still, being able to look at your opponent's hand, identify their chokepoints, and then being able to get rid of problematic starters/extenders/going second power cards is quite powerful. Sadly, for Control decks, who care more about what happens on their opponent's first turn rather than handtraps during their first turn, this card is just a worse Appointer of the Red Lotus, as it pretty much archieves the same thing but while giving your opponent a +1. Its also worse than Appointer due to the fact that, since you activate it on your turn, you dont get to see the card they have drawn for turn

 

Finally, before finishing the post, here are some specific rulings of the card

 

First, by how its worded, for the handloop effect to resolve, your opponent must first draw the 2 cards. That means this card not only can be Ashed to negate it, but also, that you cant do stuff such as playing it under floodgates that would prevent players from drawing to turn it into a somewhat makeshift Forceful Sentry. At the same time, though, the first effect can be resolved even if the handloop effect is somehow negated, so if your opponent finds for some ungodly reason a way to negate only the handloop, they get to go +2. Just some food for thought

 

All in all, im actually not sure if this card is actually playable. Eh, close enough. Hope ya like it

[Loleo]

I see this is what you were referring to. I would either have them only draw 1 or you draw one after the interaction as -2 is harsh for the benefit.

[Dokutah]

while dont think this is balance much but at least its acceptable level of balancing tilt? idk.

the thing about the hand ripping while completely of set in advantage by the draw 2 (draw 2 - hand rip 1= +1 advantage) is that you get to check opponent hand as per rule of such card without any randomizer cost. and as result you also get information of their hand which is a very powerful advantage

[drowsyCoffee]

I totally agree. Being 4 in hand vs 7 in hand isnt as big a deal if you can specifically rip off, idk, the Droll they had in hand that would have shut you down completly anyways, or by identifying the lines they would need to go through in their hand and build a board designed to counter those same lines on a combo deck with a variety of different interactions to set up. It could potentially end as a pretty strong card, yet at the same time i think it takes quite a lot of effort and skill from a player  to make use of that interaction to compensate for being 3 cards behind in advantage. Even if it ended up as quite strong card, i think it ends up in an area were it is interesting and interactive enough to not be toxic for the metagame. But i could be wrong, so take that with a grain of salt

[Loleo]

11 hours ago, Dokutah Jolly said:

while dont think this is balance much but at least its acceptable level of balancing tilt? idk.

the thing about the hand ripping while completely of set in advantage by the draw 2 (draw 2 - hand rip 1= +1 advantage) is that you get to check opponent hand as per rule of such card without any randomizer cost. and as result you also get information of their hand which is a very powerful advantage

As I said earlier this is -2 as you have to use a card in your hand and your opponent net gains 1. -2 for some info and worsening their position slightly just doesn't seem good enough.

[Pommelo]

While I believe the effect is right on track, I wish it had a more... drastic method to keep that returned card out of your opponent's reach, because nowadays it's all about frantic Deck search, placing a card on the bottom of the Deck is nothing to be worried about in most scenarios, imo. Being that the case, this is a suggestion I came up with:

Quote

Make your opponent draw 2 cards, then look at their hand and banish 1 card from it, face down. During the 5th Standby Phase after this effect was activated: Place that banished card on the bottom of your opponent's Deck.

So it'd be opponent's, yours, opponent's, yours, opponent's Standby Phase and returns, that way you got two and half turns the card is out of commission. 

[drowsyCoffee]

Fair enough i guess. I kinda didnt want to give it an effect that got the card straight out of the deck in consideration for decks like Salamangreat or Striker that have one of if not the best card in their deck locked at one, as it felt to me like the card could create sacky autowin scenarios if it could do things like, lock an Engage out for a while. Still, i guess those arent really played often enough to be a consideration, huh

 

I think the only reason why i'd maybe would argue against that idea is that the main use i can see for the card is for a combo deck to get rid of problematic handtraps (Like Droll) and going second power cards (Like Dark Ruler No More) and then use the perfect hand information to play through whatever handtraps are left on their opponent's hand, which to be honest is a use that doesnt really care about where the card goes (After all, with the exception of, idk, Disparity? Those cards cant really be searched, or at leasnt, not by a lot of decks. Plus, y'know, even if your opponent gets to search their handtrap, what's the point of doing so after you built your board?). At the same time, that argument could be used against itself, the main doesnt really care about where the looped card goes, so why not give a -3 card a bit more power?

 

In any case, i think i'll follow your suggestion. I just ignored the Standby bit to not bloat the effect because, lets be honest, the fact that it comes back during turn 6 isnt that big a deal, at that point, the game is probably already over, specially in the Engage-esque scenario

[Loleo]

I still think the -2 of the situation isn't worth it.

[Pommelo]

3 hours ago, ITSUKOSOADO said:

I still think the -2 of the situation isn't worth it.

Knowing me, I'd probably wouldn't be too inclined to use the card honestly, I never even wanted to use Upstart Goblin when it was the vogue and everyone had it at 3 (what times), and that was measly +1000 LP. I'm saying this primarily based on personal taste, but I don't think this card would be bad, specially if our friend Drowsy decides to adjust it a tiny bit.As he has stated very elaborately, intel  of opponent's + removing a vital disruptive/combo potential-card in the hand is pretty stronk, the current problem would probably lie in the randomness of the stuff that the opponent can draw and how easily they could recover the bottom-ed card. 

[Loleo]

8 minutes ago, Rayfield Lumina said:

Knowing me, I'd probably wouldn't be too inclined to use the card honestly, I never even wanted to use Upstart Goblin when it was the vogue and everyone had it at 3 (what times), and that was measly +1000 LP. I'm saying this primarily based on personal taste, but I don't think this card would be bad, specially if our friend Drowsy decides to adjust it a tiny bit.As he has stated very elaborately, intel  of opponent's + removing a vital disruptive/combo potential-card in the hand is pretty stronk, the current problem would probably lie in the randomness of the stuff that the opponent can draw and how easily they could recover the bottom-ed card. 

Since it seems people would still use it anyway, I relent.

[drowsyCoffee]

While yes, there is a somewhat inherent RNG in the combo situation with your opponent maybe managing to draw, idk,  a Droplet for turn and just f*ck your entire board, i feel like those kinds of situations are more of an inherent weakness with combo than of the card itself. No matter how many big bosses you spam out, you're always risking your opponent drawing a Sphere Mode or something like that, and while this card lets you have information and plan ahead, its still suceptible to that specific scenario. Its not like it would be very healthy for the game if it could completely nullify going second power cards either, combo can be quite disgusting without them running around