A Infernity Field Spell that banishes your entire hand face-down [AGM?]

[Eshai]

Ever since Infernity Archfiend, Launcher, and Barrier were limited, one of the most prominent and iconic decks from the 5ds era has been missing from the meta. All of their most prominent cards were rendered useless. So I thought, why not screw them over more by making a field spell that by playing it is the equivalent of losing? 

 

Jokes aside Infernitys work by NOT having a hand. There have been cards similar to this, like a Continuous Trap Phantom Hand, which kept your hand banished face-down until your next standby phase. However, it really did nothing with the idea, nor did it even give the courtesy of being searchable.

 

My assumption is that they're going to need more than a Field Spell, but if we're using the same ban list as Konami then we're going to have to give them a way to be much more consistent with their cards.

 

This is the card:

 

 

Eternity, Infinity, and Infernity

Field - Spell

When this card is activated: Banish your entire hand face-down. Up to twice per turn, while you have no cards in your hand: You can banish the top card of your Deck face-down to flip 1 of your banished face-down cards face-up. If it’s a “Infernity” monster, you can Special Summon it. If it’s a “Infernity” Spell/Trap card, you can place it in your Spell & Trap Zone face-down. At the end of your turn, you can choose 1 “Infernity” card from your Deck and place it on top of your Deck.

 

 

Couple things you may have noticed.

• I'm pretty sure that you have to flip face-down cards face-up before they can be verified as particular cards. There isn't any OCG I know of to verify these wordings are all correct, so if you have a better way of putting those parts that would be nice.

• Second, I gave it an archetype version of Lavalval Chain's 2nd effect, which Infernitys relied on to top-deck Infernity Archfiend.

• Third, is that this is the first card to ever flip face-down banished cards face-up. Have fun with that I guess.

• Fourth, is that Necroface and Spell/Trap destruction REALLY screws you over. 1 is obviously much more common than the other, so don’t be stupid. However, if they activate it in chain to the Field Spell, you don’t banish your hand, so if they’re stupid you should be fine. I have considered a protection effect, but tbh that would be too broken.

 

This may be a bit more experimental than Advanced, but I think I did everything right. Might also make some more "Infernity" cards with the face-down banished interactions, since I found this interesting. Hope you comment, since that's the only way I know whether or not I'm doing things right.

 

Have a good day.

[TheTrueSaiyan]

Very high risk, unless you already used up your hand since this card does not require a hand to be activated by your current wording, this is something that could be changed to require you to banish at least one card instead if want to balance the card a bit. But then again I don't think Infernities play too much 

Here's one nice combo I thought of:

1. Activate left arm offering
2. Chain set rotation (or Metaverse I guess)
3. Set this card to your side and probably something that floats for you to your opponent's
4. Search something like Infinity launcher and activate it, or Pot of Desires since you must have a banished card to activate this card's effect.
5. Activate this card and go off again

You mentioned in your comments " this is the first card to ever flip face-down banished cards face-up" I assume you meant to say "flip 1 of your face-down [banished] cards". Also, I prefer the wording "Reveal 1 of you face-down banished cards" to "flip 1 of your face-down [banished] cards"  since your wording sounds like it triggers Flip monsters effects (that would actually be pretty cool but they don't have any Flip monsters) but like you said there likely isn't any official wording for this.

 

The top deck effect is nice, nothing broken just rewards you for keeping the card on the field (and we all know we're searching Archfiend for that effect).

 

There is also the possibility of making the banishing of the top card of your deck part of the cost if you want to make this card more balanced but overall I don't think it's game breaking right now. I feel it's a weird mix of a starter card, extender, and recovery card ( like Zoodiac Barrage) which could mean it's a bit more broken than it seems.

[Eshai]

I thinking of making 2 Infernity monsters that can banish cards from your Deck or GY face-down for some interesting interactions, and probably a Trap.

 

I don't really think the card is broken right now, but technically speaking it's banish the top of your deck effect could be compared to Heart of the Underdog, since you can essentially get more draws if you run more Infernity cards. Since there aren't many "Infernity" cards that are great, I think this is fine.

 

I've been thinking of making trigger effect for the Infernitys that are similar to flips but can activate from the banished, but I don't think that flip monsters work that way. If they do, that's probably why we've never seen flipping face-down cards. 

 

Left Arm Offering is interesting since it banishes face-up rather than face-down. I'll have to think about that. Pot of Desires has been kinda the floodgate card for all of this face-down banished shenanigans, so that card would probably see play in this Deck.

 

The top deck effect was literally just for Archfiend, but I might make another version of the card since the effect gimmick is awesome.

[Black D'Sceptyr]

Alright, I've time on my schedule b'fore I drop Mystery Ghost Dragon, let's really get into addressing this wondrous card.

 

My thoughts on it go straight into three categories.

 

1) This card is an amazing piece of tech no matter when you play it. Smallest of commentary, really, especially when TheTrueSaiyan above me went into far more useful detail on this subject, but I still feel it needs saying simply to promote doing this more and more in general. In general, what it is I speak of is the banishment of the hand, followed by the utilization of it when it is banished face-down. Phantom Hand also worked to put out the strategy you've put in here, but did it in a way this card has not; badly. It being on a Trap was bad enough, it doing so until the precise moment when you'd need an empty hand-your Standby Phase-made it wholly untenable.

 

I.E.I. does it wholesale to begin with, then allows you to use it at set instances later, guaranteeing that not only is it good at any instance, not only is it letting you play at pace rather than a turn behind like Phantom Hand, but that you can actually make use of it with another I.E.I. should this one die off. And thanks to its magnificent utility, it'll also draw the opponent's main destruction FIRST. Normally, this would not be a point I'd extol, but most of what it does can be done on the first turn, and it draws attention away from other Spells/Traps you may put down (coughInfernitySolemnJudgmentBarriercough).  It screams "answer me now, or regret it infinitesimally later." So yeah, like the fella above us both said, this is the Zoodiac Barrage of Infernities. I still happen to think it still deserves nice things even if others abuse the privilege of having these monsters (a point I'll offer a better way to contain later.)

 

Onto numero dos.

 

2) This card could actually do more and not be too terribly broken. Do not get it twisted-I'm effectively in the gift-horse part of this review. This card is already brilliant as is, freeing out your hand, allowing you to top Deck literally every Infernity Archfiend Infernity card you'd ever need, and takes out the luck-based element of topdecking, in a rather intuitive way I'll forever kick myself for not trying out sooner. (seriously, I can predict a Level 5 Six Samurai Warrior Fusion Monster with an alternate Summoning condition almost a full calendar year before Rihan, but not something to make use of Pot of Desire'd cards? Humbling day for the BlaDeS of Change Workshop, indeed.)  But at its heart-beyond 1 banished card at at time, this card's based on luck-that you'll get the right Infernity card to work wonders for you.

 

Don't get me wrong, still more utility than anything I can imagine, especially since it makes POT OF DESIRES USABLE TECH IN A DECK WITH THREE IN-ARCHETYPE LIMITED CARDS ALONE-sorry, lost the train of thought a little, I'm so amazed by this card. Nevertheless, its still mainly luck based, since you're taking the first face-downs you can hit and hope its something that'll make use of the field you have at the moment. You get two shots, mind, but if they hit blanks-and you'd be surprised what counts as a blank in an Infernity deck without proper previous prep-you're gonna be left with table scraps in the face of a likely more reliably powerful Deck. So my suggestion for how to possibly make I.E.I. more useful without loosing a wild bull on it (get it, cuz bulls break things) would be to make the banishment usage thing a once per turn endeavor, and instead...

 

...put in an additional HOPT effect to either activate or Set "ZERO-MAX" or an Infernity Normal Trap from the Deck.

 

The groans are well deserved, m8-most of the Normal Traps for Infernities aren't exactly...optimal, but Break and Force have some amazing power behind them if used during your turn. Most of their issue is speed. And this way gives it to 'em, even if it'll likely be used on a Grave-driven Infernity Archfiend to bring out the One (Counter) Trap to Rule Them All. This'll make a lot of otherwise slow archetypal cards useful again-and that's the name of the game, establishing better utility for the 2nd most prominent reason generic milling got chained to a bed and set aflame, (looks over at Lightsworns, which broke milling and TDI far harder than Infernities, and got away with it with only a Semi-Limited slap on the wrist, with piteously impotent anger) If this effect needs limitation for what it allows, maybe keeping you to only Summoning DARK monsters the turn it's activated would go a ways for I.E.I. Let the Infernity lovers run Dark End and Ancient Pixie if they wanna run hog-wild with Infernity Why-No-OPT-On-Summon-Searches-Was-A-Mistake 101, and leave the other generic stuff to exist as an eternal rejoinder to the fanciful idea that Konami learned a thing from making the Ice Barrier Synchros generic.

 

Gift Horse lecture's over now, don't worry-now to point 3 before this post gets longer than the forum page its on.

 

trois) A card like this may yet need a blanket limitation to not break Infernities all over again. But BDS, one may say, did you not spend the last few hours suggesting MOAR EFFECTS for this card? Yes, but within the parameters of a limitation that, frankly I think more of the Infernity cards could have used. Not even talking about Infernity Archfiend now-CARD OF DEMISE should show until the heat death of the universe that an empty hand is paltry punishment if you know you're gonna refill and use it again later. It's the epitome of rewarding bad play-and doesn't even have the luxury of requiring a Special Summon to do what it does. Seriously, I'll take 2 Archfiends, but Call of Duty:Infinite Warfare needs to be at-1 YESTERDAY. And letting Infernities go off twice a turn, top Deck, and prepare strategy ALL IN ONE CARD, while amazing and questionably fine for Infernities, may need to be limited to only DARK or Infernity cards to keep other tech from helping to put this into 8:9 ratios in Worlds.

 

Anyway's I'll end it here-ate up enough of everyone's time and I've got a set of my own to drop today. More cards like this, my dude, it really got me thinking today and I ALWAYS appreciate that on a personal level. BDS, signing off

[Eshai]

I don't think I've ever had that many compliments given to me at once

 

There were many problems with Phantom Hand, but there were good intentions. Wanted the card to speed up the Deck enough to work but at the same time invoke obvious risks. These are the kind of Field Spells I love making. The inspiration around this card was from me organizing my collection of a couple thousand old cards I keep in a large plastic bin. I was fascinated by the card when I was younger and I still was, so here we are now. I had a good friend at locals that always loved playing Infernities (especially me playing Noble Knights, with which I had to brute force my way through his Traps). I remember him being really bummed about how screwed he got by the ban list. He had Mermails, but he was at his best when he set his entire hand of Traps and said "your turn" laughing while almost falling out of his chair.

 

1. I realized that more mid design. I knew having this card destroyed was a real pain unless you were planning on top decking Heart of the Underdog style and had no hand to begin with. The fact that Field Spells are so searchable fixes this quite a bit since it's really only the key to the door rather than the key and the door like with Phantom Hand.

 

2. ZERO-MAX and activating "Infernity" Spells/Traps from your Deck is interesting, but I would rather Z-M just be included in the top decking and setting effects if you don't mind. I could add that you can rather activate or set the Spell/Traps you get from the banished. I was already considering it before, but I thought the card was a bit too good. 

 

3. Yeah, safe to say Card of Demise is a hard card to design dodge away from when the entire Deck revolves around not having a hand. Hence the end of turn Deck stacking and banishing the top cards of your Deck face-down. I did what I could, but I can't stop you from drawing it in your opening hand. 

 

I'm planning on adding another Infernity monster that uses the face-down banished. Probably a Level 3 or 4 that can be used along the lines of Archfiend, maybe even having the same effect triggers. Tbh most of their monster lineup lacks any idea of what makes the Deck cool, which is kinda sad since the genius that invented Infernity Archfiend probably had to sit down and tolerate the manager's stupid brother-in-law that made Infernity Dwarf.

 

I like cards that make players think. I'll say some of the people up at Konami are figuring these things out too, considering Cyberdark's new monsters are exactly what the Deck needed to be playable (That Field Spell was a bit weird though.) You're awesome, so I'll do my best to keep it up.

[Black D'Sceptyr]

Oh thanks mate

 

Also, I'm not ragging on Konami too hard, I hope. Much like Roman Reigns, I don't get-and won't have the visceral investment to acquire-the sensless did-they-run-over-your-favorite-pet-with-granny's-hearse-or-something white-hot heat they get from several sectors. To talk about Yu-Gi-Oh tho in this specific instance of overly usable cards it's spawned, in taking a quote from The Neurotic's Notebook, Konami has a habit of "biting its tongue, careful or not, upon the already-bitten spot."

 

Now to your suggestions-they seem kosher. Including just ZERO-MAX as you suggested would be okay, you can go for it.

 

My commentary about Card of Demise was basically, despite it being wonderful for Infernities, how it's not immediately usable like everyone fears since the main searcher of Infernities still runs on a Special Summon trigger and C.O.D. nulls that the turn its used. So you're fine on that front, I'd think.

 

Have this card's banish scrounging effect go once a turn, but during either player's turn, was my Option C that I didn't originally have the time to present in the super-review. That could help it extend some nice plays. Eh, your call.

 

And finally on the new Infernity front, I'd simply point out not to worry if it's based on an anime-exclusive card that much-you put in enough wiggle room for the utility to be obvious and you'll be swimming in positive feedback. That being said, my vote's on the monster being a Level 3, maybe something based on the Queen. Mix it up a little.

 

Good luck, mate.