Spell 'activation' questions and FET-EN039 Spell Absorption

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CraniumX

New Member
I know the card isn't out yet, but it will be in about a week's time with all the prerelease tournaments happening across the country. After examing the card a lot, there are some very sick, perfectly legal things possible to do with it, that I'm sure others have even figured out, but I do have some serious questions about its card text, if this indeed is the official English card text, it makes me question some things, and possible brokenness of it. Comments are greatly appreciated by any and all people, judges or not.

Spell Absorption
Spell - Continuous
"Each time a Spell Card is activated, increase the life points of this card's controller by 500 points."

Alright, now, here's the thing that bothers me. "Activated." It's continuous, so, when a new spell card is played, that's obviously activated, so then, wouldn't Spell Absorption itself "activate" by gaining the 500 life from the other card's activation? If so, then wouldn't itself activating cause it to keep gaining 500 life? That, I'm doubtful of, but what might worry me is having two down on the field at once. If they do "activate", then wouldn't they activate each other into an infinite chain of life point gain, simply by having two out? The one triggers the other, which triggers the other, and it bounces back and forth? My logic might be skewed here, but as I said, it's the whole "activation" word that bugs me.

I'm also going by a question that was cleared here for me before while designing my friend's "Exodia the Underdog" deck for fun, by the combination of "Heart of the Underdog", and "Solemn Wishes", both being continuous, and everytime a new normal monster is drawn with HotU, it "activates" and thus Solemn Wishes "activates", giving 500 life for each normal monster drawn. By this logic even, you could replace Solemn Wishes with Spell Absorption and for each normal monster drawn, HotU "activates" and thus triggers Spell Absorption into "activating" and gaining the 500 LP. This /really/ gets me to start wondering about other cards, like "Skilled Dark Magician" or "Royal Magical Library" as well, as they say "activates" on it. In effect, that would mean that if every time you played a Spell card, or everytime a continuous Spell, such as HotU or Spell Absorption was "activated" by their conditions being met, they would get a counter?

I know this is a lot of questions, but ones I feel need brought up, because if what I'm thinking is indeed correct, this card could be amazingly broken without anyone really looking at it closely. The combos are practically limitless in many cases. The one that easily stands out to me is especially first turn, Gearfried + Spell Absorption + Butterfly Dagger - Elma = Infinite Life Points. That's just using logic on the already known combo with Royal Magical Library. Three cards, all playable on the first turn easily, leading to basically the only chance of you losing is to Exodia, Decking Out, Final Countdown, Last Turn, Destiny Board, or drawing with Self-Destruct Button. Am I forgetting any others? Figure out a way to dump a Fire Princess into the graveyard and Premature Burial it, and you've got a first turn kill possibility even. Completely situational, of course, but still.

Perhaps my mind has just been running rampant since seeing this card, but good grief, if everything I said happens to be true, a card most people would probably just laugh at instead becomes a possible powerhouse. I've already got a couple deck designs thought out based around the card, so please, by all means, feel free to prove me wrong. I would almost hate to be right in a case like this, it's downright scary.
 
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For your first issue, continuous spell and trap cards cannot gain their effects until they've fully resolved. For this reason, Spell Absorption won't give you LP for activating itself. Similarly, if you chained a couple spell cards to Spell Absorption, you wouldn't gain LP for those cards, since Spell Absorption hasn't resolved yet.

The "activation" term refers to the time you flip the spell card face up or activate it from your hand. For Heart of the Underdog, its effect is activating every time you are drawing a normal monster. For this reason, you will not get a continuous boost from them, or a spell counter for Royal Magical Library and the like.

One thing to note in your third paragraph is that Destiny Board cannot be abused by Spell Absporption. Final Destiny has you place the destiny pieces into the spell/trap zone, which is not activating them. Specific terminology used within Yu-Gi-Oh is a critical piece to get some of the mechanics down, as I'm learning on a daily basis.

Hope this helps!
 
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"Activation" has different definitions. In this context the only "activation" they are referring to is when the card is initially played and resolved. For continuous spells, the spell card is activated/resolved once. Then the effect activates under certain conditions but the spell card itself is not being activated (otherwise you could use "Magic Jammer" to kill it again which as we all know you can only do that the initial time the card is played).

Your Gearfried/Spell Absorbtion/Butterfly Dagger - Elma combo is different because you are playing the BD-E card over and over and over again... it's not an effect that keeps coming back, you are starting a new chain each time you play it and as such, starting a new activation, and yes, if you add Fire Princess you can kill someone that way (which essentially is similar to using "Morale Boost" instead, but as you can see that combo is not commonly played because you need 4 cards, 1 of which is restricted, and the other does not have a way to search for it and is immune to being reborn by "Premature Burial"). So it's not quite as good as you are envisioning it to be.
 
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Well, my main question was just the way it was worded with "activation". I'm still not sure I like the wording, but at least it's not as abusable as I figured it could be.

As far as the Gearfried combo goes, it's still very situational to kill with adding Fire Princess, but just getting the near infinite life is very possible to do. I never even said it was good, just yet another OTK out there now. As far as grabbing Gearfried, you could have 3 in your deck, 2 Reinforcement of the Army, and 3 Warrior Returning Alive even to bring him back from the grave to your hand. Elma can be grabbed with Iron Blacksmith Kotetsu. Fire Princess is of course searchable by UFO Turtle or even Sangan or Witch if they get unbanned, and Last Will could bring it out too. Ultimate Offering could help you play both creatures from your hand in the same turn. The only card you would absolutely have to draw no other way is Spell Absorption itself. Painful Choice can of course dump the creatures. There's all sorts of possible combos, as far as that goes.

It's just another possible OTK out there, but of course like all the others, they're situational. You could build a whole deck design around it though if you wanted, which I might even do just for laughs anyway. Just playing Gearfried, Elma, and Spell Absorption alone is pretty much the ultimate stall. If you drew those and Final Countdown on your opening draw even, I'm sure your opponent would cry out that you're an incredibly cheesy SOB, but they'd either concede right there, or pray for a miracle.

With the new Gearfried coming out in Flaming Eternity even, I would almost see no reason at all that any deck revolving around him wouldn't throw in Elma and 3 Spell Absorptions, which are good cards in their own right.

I'm just glad that the activations in this case have different meanings, and the ones I assumed they had. I'm guessing though that in this case, Heart of the Underdog and Spell Absorption would not combo for extra LP like Solemn Wishes would?
 
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omgg the gearfield combo would be killer. just say u're gonna loop it a google times! 1 followed by 100 zeros. and all u have to do is wait until they deck out. bwhahahahahah. and its not stalling.. bwhahaha ;) damn card is gonna be majorly broken!!!!
 
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Our the person plays the loop until time expires and you have 8000 lp and he has ????? and the tie breaker is the guy with most life points.

yata yata in reverse.
 
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BURN said:
Our the person plays the loop until time expires and you have 8000 lp and he has ????? and the tie breaker is the guy with most life points.

yata yata in reverse.
Click to expand...
You can't play the loop over and over until time expires. That is considered stalling. You show your loop once, then tell your opponent how many times you are planning to execute that loop.
 
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Activation in itself can have two meanings. The first activation, as stated previously is when you flip a face-down card face-up for the first time, such as "Imperial Order".

If there are no spells face-up on the field, Imperial Order has not "activated" its effect to negate them, so IO is only "active" at this point.

Since you can still play Spells, lets say your opponent "activated" Change of Heart. Imperial Order's effect now activates and negates the Spell.

This is why you cannot activate (flip face-up) cards like Ultimate Offering, and use its effect in the same chain. Ultimate Offering must resolve first before you "activate" or "pay" to Normal Summon a monster to the field.

Imperial Orders effect is immediate (unless negated and destroyed), then a payment must be made during your Standby Phase.
 
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BURN said:
Our the person plays the loop until time expires and you have 8000 lp and he has ????? and the tie breaker is the guy with most life points.

yata yata in reverse.
Click to expand...
You cannot just play a combo that has no purpose. You first demonstrate the combo, showing your opponent what it is you intend to do. If it does not have a positive effect on the game, like doing life point damage or gain, or drawing a Monster Card, then its stalling.

You can draw your whole deck using Gearfried/Dagger combo because its demonstrating a positive effect.
 
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Spell Absorption + Gearfried + Elma = LP gain

300 X 500 = 150,000 + 8000 (you started off with) = 158,000.

Try to knock somebody down when they have 158,000 in 45 min time limit.
 
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emmm....Elma-gearfried-Marionette, Elma-Gearfried-fire princess, exodia, last turn. Final, self-destruct button, be "decked"...you name them :D
There are other ways to defeat...or you can just add a Bad Reaction to Sinochi :D
 
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Can you imagine the luck in this draw???

It's my turn (1st turn) I draw:
'Gearfried', 'Hammer Shot', 'BD-Elma', 'Ultimate Offering', 'Spell Absorbtion', and 'Pot of Greed'.
I play Spell Absorbtion.
I play 'Pot of Greed', increase my life points by 500, and draw 'Fire Princess' and 'Makurya'..:D
I summon 'Makurya'.
I activate 'Hammer Shot', destroying 'Makurya' and increasing my life points by 500..whoop!
I can activate 'Ultimate Offering' now from my hand, which I do!
I pay 1000 life points to summon 'Gearfried' and 'Fire Princess'.
I equip 'BD-Elma' to 'Gearfried' to start the 'loop' and that's it...your dead!


That's a lot of luck and work!

Would there be an easier way?
 
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Alright, now, here's the thing that bothers me. "Activated." It's continuous, so, when a new spell card is played, that's obviously activated, so then, wouldn't Spell Absorption itself "activate" by gaining the 500 life from the other card's activation? If so, then wouldn't itself activating cause it to keep gaining 500 life? That, I'm doubtful of, but what might worry me is having two down on the field at once. If they do "activate", then wouldn't they activate each other into an infinite chain of life point gain, simply by having two out? The one triggers the other, which triggers the other, and it bounces back and forth? My logic might be skewed here, but as I said, it's the whole "activation" word that bugs me.
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2 basic forms of "Activation" when dealing with Spell/Trap Cards

- Card Activation: Playing the card face-up on the field (generally). Either by playing it from Hand, or flipping face-up when Set face-down.

- Effect Activation: This sometimes occurs simultaniously with Card Activation (ie. Monster Reborn) and sometimes afterwards (Ultimate Offering). Effects are sometimes manually activated (ie. Skull Lair), and sometimes Triggered (ie. Last Will).

However, both forms create Chain Links.

Continuous Effects such as Imperial Order's Magic/Spell negation effect never "activate" but rather, are simply "turned on" or "active" as soon as the card itself resolves into play.

In the case of Spell Absorption, it is specifically refering to Card Activation, or when a Spell Card is first played face-up on the field.

My guess is that it is identical to Soul Absorption and is Triggered. It would add itself to the Chain Block after the current chain resolves.

Example:

~ Spell Absorption is face-up and active

[TP Chain Link 1] Swords of Revealing Light
[TP Chain Link 2] Mystical Space Typhoon (target -> any other card but SA)
[TP Chain Link 3] Scapegoat

All three effects resolve

~Response Chain

[Chain Link 1] Spell Absorption (1500 LP to the Turn Player)
 
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That's pretty darn good if you actually managed that.

I myself have succeeded in playing Gearfried/Dagger/Royal Magic Library/Woodland Sprite/Sword of Deep-Seated "once".

I'll never try it again.
 
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Not as awesome as it could be:
Player A: "I lost, so I will begin this duel, ok?"
Player B: "Ok"
Player A: "My turn...Draw Phase"
Player B: "Wait...I win! Look! I have Exodia! ^_^"

I've never seen this though...:D
 
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your first hand Pain Full Choice, Gearfried, Spell Absorption, Premature Bearal, Elma.


Play Pain Full Choice: Pick all three Fire Princes and two other cards.

Place Gearfried on the field, Place Spell Absorption, Play Premature, bring Fire Princes to the field and then start playing Elma on Gearfried.
 
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