Card of the Week

Well, I said I was going to do it, so here's the first installment of the Card of the Week series. I will try to do these on Sunday evenings/ Early Monday mornings, just to keep consistent. Having thought about it all week, I think today's card of the week should be one that not only stood out to me recently, but one that has been picking up in popularity (and price) despite 2 printings in 3 rarities. Today, I'm going to take a close look at our friend, Effect Veiler.

This is a fairly fickle fairy. By sending the card from your hand to your graveyard (NOT discarding, meaning that it isn't the most usable card in the world under the conditions of Macro Cosmos), you can negate the effect of one monster your opponent controls, but only during your opponent's turn. Already a pretty useful card, huh? Well, we aren't into the half of it.

Not only is Veiler usable because of his nifty effect, it is also a) a spellcaster (so those of you who are fans of this type already want a few) b) a Light type monster (making it Chaos Sorcerer fodder once you've discarded it) and c) a tuner. Being only 1 Star, it will either have to work with multiple other monsters (not too hard when you Synch out for higher level monsters, like Mist Wurm), Tune with a high level monster (Machina Fortress anyone?) or go into a smaller synchro (like Armory Arm). Huh. Seems to me that it can do just about anything a tuner ever should have to do, and on top of all that, it has an amazing effect to shut down your opponent's big plays.

When building a deck, the next piece to consider after the possible applications of a card in your deck theme is the rulings attached to that card. Many people seem to be under the impression that everything that Konami says is a 'ruling.' It isn't. Policy is not a 'ruling.' Game rules and mechanics are not 'rulings.' A 'ruling' is an incoherent little blurb clarifying the application of a card when text may be vague or just plain contradictory. Effect Veiler has it's share of these little nuisances. I'll go over them now.

1) Effect Veiler cannot negate effects that activate or resolve in the graveyard. The card that Effect Veiler is trying to negate must remain on the field during the duration of the chain. For example, Effect Veiler cannot stop the likes of XX-Saber Darksoul, but can stop the effect of say, Dark Armed Dragon. Now, it is much more beneficial to activate Effect Veiler in response to the activation of that card's Ignition effect, as it often will come with a cost, like in the above scenario, Dark Armed will still have to remove a Dark monster from the Graveyard, but will be negated.

2) If, for whatever reason, you control the monster you were trying to negate at the time of Effect Veiler's resolution, the monster's effect will NOT be negated. No example here. I am brain farting at the moment, and can't come up with one.

3) If a monster is no longer on the field or is flipped face down after resolution, the effect will no longer be negated. Pretty self explanatory. The negated monster has to remain face up on the field to be negated by Effect Veiler.

4) This ruling seems to contradict the previous one, though if you study it a bit deeper, it doesn't. If Effect Veiler is sent to the graveyard to negate Exiled Force, and Exiled Force is later sent to the Graveyard to destroy a monster, the effect is still negated. Exiled Force neither activates nor resolves in the graveyard, but sends itself as a cost to essentially simultaneously destroy a monster on the field. This leaves the window open for Effect Veiler. Extrapolating from this ruling, it would also seem that a few other Ignition effects would be affected by Effect Veiler, such as Lonefire Blossom when it tributes itself.

All in all, Effect Veiler is an amazing card, and although a bit hard to come by, would be well worth the extra 'oomph' it may require in a trade to get them. Pulling them is always nice too. XD