Dueling 101: Missing the Timing

Ok, let the dueling 101 lesson number two begin.

Alot of people I know on DN and here forget about missing the timing. It is a very simple yet powerful tool you can use to your advantage.

Before we start on missing the timing, let's talk about chains.
You all are pretty familiar with chains? yes?

Well the rule states no card effects can be activated during the middle of a resolving chain or resolving effect.

What does this mean?

Well a resolving chain is well a "resolving chain". Basically after neither player want to add to the chain, the chain resolves, starting from the last card in the chain.
i.e. CL1 sangan CL2 dandylion CL3 light pulsar dragon
So during a resolving chain in this case can vary from anything to resolving light pulsar to resolving sangan's effects.

Ok now that's that cleared up lets talk about effects being "activated".

The keyword here is "activated". This means continuous effects like jinzo will not be stop since it always "applies" when jinzo is on the field. Same goes for bountiful artemis.

So which effects do "activate"?

Well optional trigger effects like dimensional alchemist:
When this card is destroyed and sent from your side of the field to your Graveyard, you can select 1 of your removed from play monsters and return it to your hand.

"Activates". and if the condition for the trigger effect is met during the middle of the chain then you can not activate the effect and hence you miss the timing.

for example, I have dimensional alchemist and a banished dark armed dragon. I attack with alchemist and the opponent responds with d prison. I chain forbidden lance to d prison and the opponent chains mirror force to lance. Then neither player adds to the chain.

So the chain resolves backwards. Mirror force will resolve first and destroy alchemist. But since it's in the middle of a resolving chain (lance and prison still need to resolve first). you can not activate the effect of dimensional alchemist, since the rules prevent you from doing so. Hence alchemist misses the timing.

Ok let's try resolving effect example now.
Same situation as the above: I have alchemist and a banished dark armed. But this time I atk in to a facedown ryko. Ryko destroys alchemist first, this triggers alchemist's effect but ryko still has to mill 3 cards, since this is during the middle of a resolving card effect alchemist can not be activated and misses the timing.

Another classical example of missing the timing is trying to warning ritual or fusion monsters (excluding contact fusion). the ritual and fusion mosnters are summoned during the resolution of their respective ritual and fusion spells. And since the rule states you can not use cards during the resolution of another card's effect, you missed the timing to use warning.

Ok so now we know why cards can miss the timing, let's now go look at some cards which cannot miss the timing.

1. Mandatory effects can not miss the timing, this is because well they are mandatory. So they must happen. In this case they will be placed on a new chain and resolve after the current chain/effect has finished resolving.
2. Optional trigger effects that says "If....You can" These effects are optional but konami says they can't miss the timing, so yeah.

Excluding those two types of effects, pretty much all other card effects can miss the timing in some shape or form.

If you can't remember all the stuff from above just remember this simple check.
1. is the effect optional if yes go to step 2 if not then it will miss the timing
2. is the effect if...you can if no go to step 3 if yes it can't miss the timing
3. was the activation of effect the last action to happen (ie nothing else happened after it like summoning a monster/activating a card etc)? if yes then it will not miss the timing if no then it will.

Simple eh?

Now here are some practice questions:

Player A has machina fortress equipped with machina peacekeeper
Player A attacks
Player B uses dark mirror force then uses book of moon to flip fortress facedown.
How do the chain resolve and what misses the timing and why?

Player A has thunder king raioh
Player A atks with rai oh
Player B activates gorz's effect after dmg calculation
How does the effects resolve and what misses the timing and why?

Player A has sangan
Player B has formula synchron and TG hyper librarian
Player A tributes sangan to summon caius
Caius effect activates and targets librarian
Player B chains with formula synchron's effect
Syncing formula with librarian to summon black rose dragon
can black rose dragon's effect be activated and why?
Also how do the effects resolve and why?

ex 2: tkr can only negate inherent summons that do not start a chain, Gorz summons a token that starts a chain, therefore tkr can not negate gorz.

ex 3: after caius targets and BR is made, sangan must resolve causing BR to miss timing
(correct me if i'm wrong but, i thought that caius effect becomes unchain-able because it resolves backward so then formula can't synchro)

lasercut wrote:

Another classical example of missing the timing is trying to warning ritual or fusion monsters (excluding contact fusion). the ritual and fusion mosnters are summoned during the resolution of their respective ritual and fusion spells. And since the rule states you can not use cards during the resolution of another card's effect, you missed the timing to use warning.

But couldn't you use warning on the Fusion or Ritual Spell, since it has an effect that Special Summons a monster?

Reginanos wrote:

lasercut wrote:

Another classical example of missing the timing is trying to warning ritual or fusion monsters (excluding contact fusion). the ritual and fusion mosnters are summoned during the resolution of their respective ritual and fusion spells. And since the rule states you can not use cards during the resolution of another card's effect, you missed the timing to use warning.

But couldn't you use warning on the Fusion or Ritual Spell, since it has an effect that Special Summons a monster?

yes you can but i've seen so many ppl trying to warning the monster