Waboku’s “New” Ruling

by tbones9119

    The ruling on Waboku in the Tournament Rulings Page was recently changed drastically.  It went from a paragraph in length to about a page worth.  The reason I put “new” in quotation marks, however, is because this is how the card was supposed to have been played all along.

    If you haven’t seen the new ruling, don’t worry about it, and just go by what I say in this essay.  Hopefully this should cover everything.  Please note that the FAQ at yugioh-card.com is NOT the same as the Tournament Rulings Page, and does NOT have a very accurate ruling concerning Waboku.

    The actual text on Waboku reads, ”Any damage inflicted by an opponent’s monster is decreased to 0 during the turn this card is activated.”  There are basically two things in question here.  First, what is defined as “damage?”  And second, does Waboku block damage from all monsters or just from one?

    The answer to the second question is short, so I’m going to cover it first.  The answer is that it blocks damage from all opponent’s monsters.  If you interpret the wording on the card the right way, you can see why this is the case.  If your opponent’s Gemini Elf attacks, then that would cause damage by an opponent’s monster.  Then if their Summoned Skull attacks, that’s also damage from an opponent’s monster.  The actual card text is not very clear, most likely because of a poor translation.  However, Waboku does indeed block all damage done from all opponent’s monsters, not just one.

    So then, what exactly is “damage?”  First of all, the damage referred to on Waboku is battle damage, or damage done by a monster as the result of an attack.  This includes damage done to your monsters and to your life points.  

    For example, if Player A has a Summoned Skull out, and has it attack Player B’s Gemini Elf, Summoned Skull does 2500 battle damage to Gemini Elf, since that’s the ATK power of Summoned Skull, and Gemini Elf does 1900 battle damage to Summoned Skull.  Since the battle damage done to Gemini Elf is greater than its ATK strength, Gemini Elf is destroyed, and the remainder of the damage goes through to the opponent’s life points.  Since the 1900 damage done by Gemini Elf to Summoned Skull is less than Summoned Skull’s ATK, Summoned Skull survives, and Player A takes no life point damage.

    Now, in the above example, if Player B activates Waboku, then the 2500 damage done by Summoned Skull is stopped.  Therefore, Gemini Elf takes no damage, and survives, and Player B’s life points take no damage.  Gemini Elf still does the 1900 battle damage to Summoned Skull, but since it’s still not as high as Summoned Skull’s ATK strength, nothing happens to Summoned Skull or to Player A.  It should be noted, however, that Summoned Skull still did attack.  Therefore, any other effects that would happen as the result of an attack still happen.  For example, Summoned Skull cannot change battle position that turn, because it has attacked.  Also, if a face-down monster is attacked, and the player who controls the face-down monster activates Waboku, the face-down monster will still flip face-up, because it was still attacked.

    The next example I’d like to give is Gemini Elf vs. Gemini Elf.  As in the previous example, both Gemini Elves do 1900 battle damage to each other.  Since the battle damage each received was equal to its ATK, they are both destroyed.  Since no extra damage was done, neither player loses life points.

    Now, if one player activates Waboku in the above scenario, their Gemini Elf does not take the 1900 damage from the other Gemini Elf.  Therefore, since that player’s Gemini Elf takes no damage, it is not destroyed.  The other Gemini Elf, however, still took the 1900 damage, so it is still destroyed.  Since the ATK of the destroyed Gemini was equal to the amount of battle damage done, no damage is done to the controller’s life points.

    If the monster that gets attacked is in defense position, then it works essentially the same way, with a couple of differences.  The defense position monster will do battle damage to the attacking monster equal the its DEF strength.  However, this is “defensive” battle damage, and it cannot destroy the attacking monster.  The attacking monster will do damage to the defending monster equal to its ATK strength.  All of this damage is done to the defending monster, and does not go through to the opponent’s life points if the monster is destroyed.  Monsters in defense position must take battle damage GREATER than their DEF strength in order to be destroyed.  If 2000 damage is done to a 2000-DEF monster in defense position, the monster is not destroyed.

    So, if Player A attacks Player B’s defense-position Giant Soldier of Stone with his Gemini Elf, then the Gemini Elf does 1900 damage to Giant Soldier of Stone, which is not greater than Giant Soldier of Stone’s DEF.  Giant Soldier of Stone does 2000 “defensive” battle damage to Gemini Elf, which is greater than Gemini Elf’s ATK.  Gemini Elf is not destroyed, but the difference of 100 points is done as battle damage to Player A’s life points.  This 100 damage can be stopped if Player A activates Waboku.

    Hopefully this covers battle damage.  Now there are a couple other smaller questions concerning Waboku that I hopefully can answer.

    First is the age-old question of Heavy Storm.  Can I activate my Waboku in a chain to my opponent’s Heavy Storm?  And if yes, what happens?  The answer is yes, you can chain it.  And if you do, then Waboku blocks all damage for the turn, and since it is a normal trap card, it is destroyed immediately after activation, and Heavy Storm then goes through, destroying all other magic and trap cards on the field.  Basically, you can chain Waboku to Heavy Storm, and Waboku will still get its effect for the full turn.

    What else can Waboku be chained to?  It can be chained to virtually any card other than a counter trap (because a counter trap has a greater spell speed).  It CANNOT be chained to a summon, since summons don’t have spell speed, and it CANNOT be chained to a continuous effect, such as Jinzo’s.  If Jinzo is summoned, you cannot respond by activating Waboku.  However, if Waboku has been activated at a previous time during the turn, and Jinzo is later summoned, Waboku’s effect will carry throughout the remainder of the turn.  Also, although you cannot chain to the summon itself, if a monster is summoned using the effect of a card (such as Monster Reborn, Call of the Haunted, Premature Burial, Soul Exchange, etc.), you CAN chain to the activation of the card used to summon the monster.  So, if your opponent activates Montster Reborn and chooses Jinzo, you can chain Waboku to the Monster Reborn, thus getting its effect before Monster Reborn resolves and summons Jinzo.  

    There are a very few obscure exceptions where Waboku cannot be chained to a card for one reason or another.  One example is Blast with Chain.  When Blast with Chain is destroyed the owner of the card chooses one card on the field and destroys it.  If Blast with Chain is destroyed and the player chooses to destroy a face-down Waboku with its effect, the Waboku CANNOT be activated in this case, since the effect of Blast with Chain has started to resolve, and you cannot “butt in” with a card during the resolution of another card.  I’m not going to go into other exceptions, as there are few.  If you are really concerned about one, or want explanation on something, feel free to ask me in an e-mail.

    Second, Waboku does NOT negate the attack itself.  Nor does it reduce the ATK of the monster to 0.  It only reduces the battle damage to 0.  So, any other effects that would happen as the result of an attack (such as flipping a face-down monster that is attacked, payment of life points for Toll, discarding a card from the deck for Gravekeeper’s Servant, etc.) would still take place.  Also, the monster has still attacked, and cannot change position that turn.
    Finally, Waboku stops battle damage only.  It will not prevent effect damage.  So, if Player A uses the effect of Cannon Soldier to tribute a monster and do 500 damage to Player B’s life points, then Player B cannot stop that damage with Waboku.  Waboku will stop damage done from an attack by Cannon Soldier, but not damage done by using Cannon Soldier’s effect.

    I hope this helps make things clearer concerning Waboku.  As I said, this is how it has worked all along, but due to a rather rough translation it was not clear at all as to what exactly the card did.  If you have any questions or comments, feel free to e-mail me at tbones9119@yahoo.com.

Note: Tbones will no longer be able to reply to any messages sent to him. Feel free to send an email here instead.