monoman01
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 |  Subject: Pendulum Summon - The Complete Beginners Guide  Sun Mar 30, 2014 3:03 pm | |
| Ok, so at first I thought Pendulum Summons were hard to grasp, but now that I have the hang of them, I thought I would write an article giving an extremely simplified version of how they work, and also some advice if you are facing them, or if you want to try running them, as well as a general opinion - the TCG does not know if or when we will get them and so it is nothing to worry about...just yet! __________ The Main Pendulum MonstersI have narrowed this down to 3 main cards which practically you will see all pendulum based decks run at the moment, although with further releases I expect that Odd-eyes may see some kind of restriction as his effect is pretty nutty - Sangan at 3?! He is also a level 7 monster which means access to things like Draccosack and Big Eye. - Magician of Astromancy:
 Pendulum Effect : If a Pendulum Monster you control battles, your opponent cannot activate any Spell Cards until the end of the Damage Step. If you don't have a "Magician" card or an "Odd-Eyes" card in your other Pendulum Zone, this card's Pendulum Scale becomes 4. Monster Effect : Once per turn, when exactly 1 Pendulum Monster you control is returned to your hand by your opponent's card effect: You can Special Summon a monster with the same name as the returned monster from your hand.
- Odd Eyes Pendulum Dragon:
 Pendulum Effect : You can only use each Pendulum Effect of "Odd-Eyes Pendulum Dragon" once per turn. You take no battle damage from battles involving a Pendulum Monster you control. During your End Phase: You can destroy this card, and if you do, add 1 Pendulum Monster with 1500 or less ATK from your Deck to your hand.
Monster Effect : Any battle damage your opponent takes from battles involving this card and an opponent's monster is doubled.
- Magician of Chronomancy:
 Pendulum Effect : Activate only if you control no monsters. If a Pendulum Monster you control battles, your opponent cannot activate any Trap Cards until the end of the Damage Step. If you don't have a "Magician" card or an "Odd-Eyes" card in your other Pendulum Zone, this card's Pendulum Scale becomes 4.
Monster Effect : Once per turn, cards in your Pendulum Zone cannot be destroyed by your opponent's card effects.
__________ - Pendulum Summon...more in depth:
 Now that some of the main monsters have been explained, it is now the time to Pendulum monsters more in depth. For starters - pendulum monsters are duel monsters. This means that like any other monster they can be normal summoned or tribute summoned to the field and carry the level indicated on the card. Being duel monsters they also count as spell cards when placed in the Pendulum Zone. Think of the Pendulum Zone as like having 2 more field spells. This of course means they can be targetted by things like Mystical Space Typhoon, but I will get into that during my later evaluation. As shown above, the card carries a separate effect when in the pendulum zone and when face up as a monster - so far so good. The pendulum levels or "scale" are indicated to the left and right of the pendulum effect - think of this as the level the card holds when it is in the Pendulum Zone. For all of the current Pendulum cards these have the same levels in both zones so it is not confusing...yet- they carry 1 level when a monster, and 1 when in a pendulum zone. The important thing to remember about Pendulum Cards are when they are Monsters on the field and destroyed - they are placed face up in the Extra Deck...they do not go the grave BUT this does not work if they are an XYZ material - they will go to the grave.
__________ - Example of How to Pendulum Summon:
In essence pendulum summoning is a type of special summon which enables you to take the difference in pendulum levels of 2 face up pendulum zone monsters and special summon as many cards as possible with a level in between those 2 (these monsters special summoned are from your hand and face up in the extra deck)
Say you had 1 face up Chronomancy in the red pendulum zone and 1 face Up Astromancy in the blue pendulum zone - the Chronomancy would have a pendulum level 8 and the Astromancy would have a pendulum level 1 - you are now able to make a pendulum summon.
This would mean that you are able to summon as many cards between the levels of 2-7 from face up in your extra deck and from your hand to your side of the field.For example if you had 1 Odd-Eyes face up in your extra deck and 2 Yellow Gadgets in hand, you can summon all 3 of these.
__________ - Is pendulum Summoning a Good Thing?:
So that was a brief explanation of the effects and how to pendulum summon, I will now discuss whether we all think that this is good or bad for Yu-Gi-Oh.
In essence, Pendulum summons I think overall, although we may say ruin the game, adds some general skill to the game. It will punish those players who simply think they can Pendulum summon all the time and overextend to win and will reward those players who think before they act.
Pendulum Summons in essence make yu-gi-oh a more OTK orientated meta game - you want to pendulum summon then make a massive push for game with the attack you have on board, before your card advantage deteriorates. This means that some cards have the ability to punish your opponent for overextending and there are some cards which I can see becoming popular.
The main problem with Pendulum Summons is of course the hand advantage. It first requires 2 monsters out of the 5 in OCG you start with to be placed face up, and then to summon uses almost all the rest of your resources.
- Cards which have potential against Pendulum orientated decks:
Anti-Spell Fragrance
Being classed as spell cards it means that they will first have to be set before they can be activated, which may slow down your opponent.
Battle Fader
Fader is one of those insanely good cards that can punish any OTKing deck or any deck which overextends...when your opponent tries to make a push and you block them with battle fader and then dark hole them next turn, or tribute it off for something like Caius!
Evilswarm Ophion
Especially for Odd-Eyes, the Pendulum cards are still monsters and still have levels, you therefore not only restrict them to summoning lower that level 5 monsters, but also stop them from getting their boss monsters on the field.
Gorz
At 2 in the OCG my reasoning is much the same as it was for Fader, except you get 2 monsters for the price of 1
Solemn Warning
Negate and destroy the pendulums, this will punish a players hand advantage and stop the summon in its tracks!
Torrential Tribute
At 3 in the OCG this is what I would consider by far to be the best card, especially as many decks like Evilswarms can run 3 of this card whilst protecting their own monsters with Pandemic. A severe punishment for Pendulum nubs!
__________ - Should we be worried?!:
My answer from the looks of it will be slightly. It depends how they evolve them and how soon it comes to the OCG, as shown there are a lot of downsides to pendulum summoning but I cannot deny it can become very sacky and at times extremely nutty but...we should not complain and this is why:
We complained at Stardust Dragon when Synchros came out...we now look back although he is a good monster there are a lot of cards as an out to him.
We complained at the mightyness of Zenmaines when XYZs came out...we now look back and if our opponent brings him out we laugh and think...ok maybe he has stalled 1 turn.
We are now complaining at Pendulum Summons saying it has ruined yugioh, but I just think it is a cool change which we were expecting, 3 months ago I was discussing with my friend how they were going to evolve it after XYZ...here is your answer!
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