We’ve waited 4 years for this.
Hi all. I’m here to tell everyone about a possibly important detail about the upcoming “LV” monsters in Blazing Vortex, and how they interact with one of their key classic support cards, Level Up!, differently in the OCG than they might in the TCG.
We have this card, which sends a face-up “LV” monster you control to the Graveyard as cost, and its effect Special Summons any monster from your hand or Deck whose name is listed in its text, ignoring its Summoning conditions. For example, you could send Horus the Black Flame Dragon LV6 to cheat out Horus the Black Flame Dragon LV8.
The new LV monsters in Blazing Vortex are the first LV monsters to include the restriction that you can only activate the particular effects of [that monster’s name] once per turn. Before Series 10 (Code of the Duelist) in the OCG, this restriction was written in Japanese similarly to how it is in the TCG. For example, Ash Blossom & Joyous Spring said:
「灰流うらら」の効果は１ターンに１度しか使用できない。
Which translated to what we use. “You can only use this effect of “Ash Blossom & Joyous Spring” once per turn.”
But after Series 10, the OCG started to use a more standardized form of this sentence and omitted the actual card’s name.
このカード名の効果は１ターンに１度しか使用できない。
This translates more or less to, “You can only use the effect of a card with this card’s name once per turn.”, which you may see often when we post translations for new card reveals. This means that cards like Armed Dragon LV10 – White don’t actually list any monster’s name in their OCG text, but they will in English if they continue the current formatting. For Level Up!, that means you could send an Armed Dragon LV10 – White to the Graveyard and Special Summon another copy from your hand or Deck. You shouldn’t actually be able to do that.
As another example, Armed Dragon Thunder LV5 has an effect that treats its name as Armed Dragon LV5 while on the field or Graveyard, but also has a [card name] once-per-turn restriction, so there will be 2 monsters listed in its text in English: Armed Dragon LV5 and Armed Dragon Thunder LV5.
This may seem as a good thing for TCG players, since it gives you more options should you choose to use that card, but it could also confuse players playing digital versions of the game that are programmed with OCG rulings. (If these cards make it on to Duel Links, for example.)
This is a problem no one could have foreseen… Except us, and anyone else who noticed four years ago that the OCG made that switch, which they probably announced. It’s not for me to decide how relevant Level Up! might actually be in an Armed Dragon Thunder strategy, but this is also the same company that ensured you couldn’t play Violet Crystal in your Crystal Beast Deck, all for the sake of preserving OCG functionality.
(They still haven’t fixed Volcanic Eruption.)
