"My turn to go first!"
The corners of Yuan Youxin's mouth curled upward.
He had already won this duel!
[It's over! Why did this newbie-stomping freak get first turn again?! I thought we'd get to see him crushed by a rookie.]
The viewers in the livestream chat began to feel pessimistic as well.
An underdog defeating a stronger opponent was the kind of story people loved to see.
Besides, Yuan Youxin clearly possessed professional-level strength, yet stubbornly remained in amateur tournaments to scoop up prize money. Because of that, most viewers naturally sided with Shen Sui while watching the stream.
Of course, some of Yuan Youxin's more extreme fans did not see it that way. The moment they saw Yuan Youxin going first, they were already popping champagne.
[Hahaha! Ape God goes first? Isn't that a guaranteed win? Just bet on Ape God without thinking.]
Someone had once calculated Yuan Youxin's win rate and found that it reached an astonishing 65.2% whenever he went first. In a Soul Card Duel, which involved at least some luck, a 65.2% win rate was already terrifyingly high.
This had to do with Yuan Youxin's deck composition.
Once this aggressively combo-oriented deck seized the first turn, it could establish a board on the very first turn that the opponent simply had no way to break.
And unlike Xu Tianzhi's weakened deck from the Duel Exam, Yuan Youxin's deck had negates. Some of his Followers even had protection. Shen Sui could not clear the field with a single Arson card.
"Are you ready to welcome your defeat, kid?!"
Yuan Youxin smiled confidently.
"Since I have no Followers on my field, I activate the effect of the Follower Card Green Mountain Disciple Yi in my hand! I Special Summon him from my hand."
[Here it comes! Ape God's most classic Disciple combo.]
[Skip ahead, skip ahead! I want to see that kid's despairing face.]
Yet before the light of the Special Summon could even appear, Shen Sui's voice rang out.
"At this moment." Shen Sui slowly spoke up.
Yuan Youxin froze. This was his first turn—why did his opponent have a timing window?
"When the opponent activates an effect involving a Special Summon or a search, I discard Saintess of Sin from my hand to the graveyard and activate her effect." Shen Sui drew Anna from his hand. "Negate that effect and send that card to the graveyard."
A crisp sound announced the shattering of Green Mountain Disciple Yi.
"A Hand Trap? I didn't expect you to have such a precious Life Card in your hand." Yuan Youxin was somewhat surprised. Hand Traps were as rare in Soul Card Duels as Event Cards and Environment Cards.
"Just lucky."
Shen Sui lied.
Anna's original effect had not included a Hand Trap effect. Shen Sui simply felt that his current deck lacked the necessary Hand Traps, and since he did not have many Followers while Anna had a high star rating and could accommodate stronger effects, he wrote a Hand Trap effect onto her.
If he truly had to rely on randomly drawing cards, who knew when he would draw a Hand Trap?
"But it's useless~! No one can stop my combo on my first turn!" Yuan Youxin snorted. "Then let me show you what a real board is!"
"I pay 10 Soul Points! I activate the Spell Card Green Seal Summoning Order from my hand! I pay 3,000 Life Points! Reveal cards from the top of my deck one by one, and Special Summon every revealed Green Seal Follower Card! Continue until there are no empty Follower slots on my field!"
As Green Seal Summoning Order activated, a soft chant rose from Yuan Youxin's deck, followed by immortal light pouring down over the field.
Yuan Youxin's deck was revealed card by card. Whenever a Follower Card was revealed, that Follower was immediately summoned onto the field.
"At this moment." The instant Yuan Youxin's first Follower was successfully Special Summoned, Shen Sui spoke again. "I activate the effect of Saintess of Sin in the graveyard. While she is in the graveyard, when the opponent successfully Special Summons a Follower, this effect must activate. I draw one card from my deck, then take 500 points of source-less damage."
"????" Yuan Youxin blanked out.
Could effects be inserted even while another effect was resolving?
However, Green Seal Summoning Order could no longer be stopped. One disciple after another from the Green Seal Sect was Special Summoned onto the field, until all five of Yuan Youxin's Follower slots were occupied.
And Shen Sui drew five cards from his deck as a result.
At the same time, his Life Points fell to 3,500 because of Anna's effect. There was no helping it—without the restriction of taking damage, he simply could not have crammed both Hand Trap effects onto one card.
"Powerful cards often come with risks." Shen Sui spoke with some regret, then grinned. "But at this moment, I activate the effect of Saintess of Sin in the graveyard. While she is in the graveyard, when the opponent successfully activates a Spell Card effect, this effect must activate. I reveal one card in my hand and reduce that card's star rating to 0."
Yuan Youxin's eyelid twitched. You're fucking doing this again?
[Fuck! Fake card!]
[Holy shit, this card has to go on the Forbidden Card list, right? It's disgusting!]
[It's only a first-time-killer, isn't it? Worst case, I just don't combo.]
[The guy above has never played cards before, right? Another armchair player?]
The chat erupted into discussion over Shen Sui's card.
Shen Sui himself also felt that this card was pretty absurd. When he wrote its effects onto it, he had not expected Anna's capacity to be so good that she could actually hold every effect he thought of.
So the question was, would this card be banned?
First, the Soul Card Association was not that idle. It did not spend all day banning cards used by unranked and low-ranked Soul Card Masters. Its main focus was maintaining the competitive balance of Category A and Category B Tournaments.
Second, due to the previous abuse of the Forbidden Card system, the state had strictly ordered the Soul Card Association to reform its card-banning procedures. Now, for the same Soul Card Master, the Forbidden Card procedure had a six-month cooldown. That meant that for six months after undergoing one Forbidden Card review, no matter how many people reported your cards, those reports would not be accepted into the Forbidden Card process. (A single Forbidden Card review did not mean reviewing only one card. If your deck was highly controversial, the Soul Card Association would review all potentially banned cards together.)
Unfortunately, it treated the symptoms rather than the cause. The domestic environment was still the same.
Third... hehehe, that involved a small loophole in the Soul Card Association's Forbidden Card rules.
Because of the way Life Cards were obtained, Soul Card Masters acquired far fewer Follower Cards from the Soul Card World than Spell Cards. In that case, if you banned the already scarce Follower Cards in someone's hand, were you still going to let them duel? They could not possibly win using nothing but Spells, could they?
Therefore, the Soul Card Association's Forbidden Card rules stipulated that Follower Cards belonging to non-professional players could not enter the Forbidden Card process. If a professional player's number of Follower Cards did not exceed one-third of their total deck, their Follower Cards likewise could not enter the Forbidden Card process.
Incidentally, to prevent professional players from evading Forbidden Card review by adjusting their decks, the number of Follower Cards here was based on the deck they used when winning professional matches.
What if they lost every professional match? If they lost them all, how could their deck possibly contain Forbidden Cards?
Shen Sui had specifically studied the Forbidden Card rules in order to exploit banned cards and bleed the Soul Card Association dry.
Back then, he had even sighed in regret when he saw the rule regarding the Forbidden Card cooldown period.
He dared to use Anna because he was not afraid of Anna being banned.
"Come on, let me see what a real combo looks like." Shen Sui looked at Yuan Youxin and smiled.
A provocation!
This guy was provoking him!
Yuan Youxin's eyelid twitched wildly.
Dear readers! Please help me out this Tuesday! Give me a little more follow-up reading!
Before you continue