Chapter 236. A Historical Commentary on the Forbidden Card "Ultimate Offering"! An Infinite Normal-Summon "Fake Card" with No Once-Per-Turn!
[Elder Entity Norden], [Graceful Charity], [Morphing Jar], and so on.
All of them prove that, in the higher-world environment, many cards' power levels have become overtuned.
While the old-guard duelists across the worlds were still wondering what other strange Forbidden Cards existed in the higher worlds, the next short video started playing!
And unsurprisingly, it was another historical breakdown of a Forbidden Card!
The title read: "A Historical Commentary on the Forbidden Card 'Ultimate Offering'! Truly Understand the Power of 'Offering'!"
Seeing that title, quite a few old-guard duelists couldn't help but jolt upright!
Especially in the Duel Monsters world.
At the sight of that title, Yugi Muto, Seto Kaiba, Joey Wheeler, and the others instantly had one Trap Card in mind!
What a coincidence!
They all knew this card!
It's a Continuous Trap that lets you pay Life Points to gain the possibility of Normal Summoning a monster!
Wait, what?
This card is also Forbidden?!
Another one already?!
"Good grief! This card is Forbidden in the higher worlds too?"
"Over here, I don't think anyone even runs it, right?"
"I remember you have to pay 500 Life Points?"
"Should be, yeah?"
Off to the side, Weevil Underwood, shocked, pushed up his glasses.
He remembered this card.
But he'd never considered running it—mainly because his Insect monsters mostly have flip/set effects.
So he didn't need Ultimate Offering.
And Rex Raptor's group wouldn't run it either.
Mainly because, with 4000 LP rules, running this card made you prone to getting blown out.
After all, to them, LP is precious.
Yugi Muto, meanwhile, frowned.
He was racking his brain, trying to find Ultimate Offering's strengths!
In the short video.
Picking up right after the monster card "Elder Entity," the commentary on Ultimate Offering had begun!
Yu-Gi-Oh Forbidden/Limited Card Commentator: "Good evening, duelists!"
Yu-Gi-Oh Forbidden/Limited Card Commentator: "Today's feature is another very old Forbidden Card!"
Yu-Gi-Oh Forbidden/Limited Card Commentator: "I believe a lot of people have nearly forgotten this card even exists!"
"This card is the Continuous Trap [Ultimate Offering]!"
"Its effect: During your Main Phase or your opponent's Battle Phase: you can pay 500 Life Points; immediately after this effect resolves, Normal Summon/Set 1 monster."
"Okay, just looking at the effect, what points can we identify?"
"Point 1: This card is roughly equivalent to granting an extra Normal Summon right—and the key is that it has no once-per-turn!"
"The terrifying outcome from that is—"
"—essentially infinite Normal Summons!"
"As long as your opponent doesn't interrupt and your Life Points hold out—"
"—you can Normal Summon monsters like crazy!"
"Point 2: Activation windows are your own Main Phase and the opponent's Battle Phase."
"Yes, only those two phases!"
"You can't use it in the opponent's Main Phase, and you can't use it in your own Battle Phase!"
"Alright, that's the deep-dive on the text!"
"Next, let's look at what happened between this card's release and its eventual Forbidden status!"
"This card released in July 1999!"
"And back in that ancient era, [Ultimate Offering]'s effect text was not the same as it is now."
"Back then, the text read: pay 500 LP to Normal Summon 1 monster in addition to your Normal Summon/Set that turn!"
"Compared to the current wording—"
"—it's not hard to see that the old text created lots of ambiguity!"
"Now, with Ultimate Offering, if you Normal Summon a monster that requires Tributes, you still have to Tribute."
"Back then, the ambiguity gave people the impression you could Normal Summon any monster."
"For example, could I just pay 500 LP to Normal Summon Summoned Skull straight to the field?"
"Because that's literally how the text was written, right?"
"With the current text, that ambiguity's gone."
"Obviously, paying 500 doesn't spare Summoned Skull from needing 1 Tribute."
"Alright—because of that ambiguity!"
"An OCG-illegal 'high-Level Offering' build appeared!"
"Kind of like the rules-making-stuff-up we did as kids."
"Activate [Ultimate Offering], pay 500 LP, and I'll just Normal Summon Blue-Eyes White Dragon directly!"
"The idea was to abuse that method to win via high-Level monsters."
"If you didn't draw high-Levels, you'd rely on defensive Traps and Spells to stall."
"That was the first deck concept sparked by the initial text of Ultimate Offering."
Hearing that Ultimate Offering could even cause that kind of ambiguity, quite a few duelists wore very strange expressions!
Who on earth came up with the genius idea of using Offering to endlessly slam down high-Level monsters?
Isn't that just ignoring the rules?
In the Duel Monsters world.
Especially Seto Kaiba!
Seeing duelists in the higher worlds casually pull out three Blue-Eyes White Dragons off this card, he just froze on the spot!
Wait—what?
That's obviously not how Ultimate Offering's supposed to work!
That high-Level Offering build was pure nonsense!
No—hang on!
Kaiba suddenly thought back to when their world's dueling rules first began.
And fell into deep thought.
"Uh… I didn't expect Ultimate Offering, right out of the gate—"
"—to cause so many headaches."
"As expected."
"The early dueling environment really was different."
Joey Wheeler, beside him, sighed in sudden realization.
He'd lived through that early environment too.
Back when the rules weren't yet refined—
Their high-Level monsters could be Normal Summoned without Tributes.
Looked at that way—
The 'high-Level Offering' idea might have been feasible at the very start in their DM era?
"I see."
"Times change, huh?"
Solomon Muto squinted at the Ultimate Offering in the video.
As someone of the older generation, he'd witnessed changes in the Duel Monsters world's rules.
So he had some feelings about this card.
Yu-Gi-Oh Forbidden/Limited Card Commentator: "Then, in December 1999, Konami further clarified [Ultimate Offering]'s effect."
Yu-Gi-Oh Forbidden/Limited Card Commentator: "With Offering, you cannot just pay 500 to Normal Summon a high-Level monster."
Yu-Gi-Oh Forbidden/Limited Card Commentator: "Required Tributes are still required!"
"Although this restriction reduced Offering's impact quite a bit—"
"—it remained a core Trap in many 'high-ATK vanilla' decks!"
"It's simple: you run Summoned Skull as your high-ATK attacker!"
"With Ultimate Offering, getting Summoned Skull out becomes easy!"
"At worst, you just need the extra Tribute."
"Also, Ultimate Offering has no once-per-turn!"
"Used properly, it basically functioned as an early form of 'pseudo-Special Summoning!'"
"For example, if my hand has 4 monsters plus 1 Ultimate Offering—"
"—as long as I activate Offering, then during your Battle Phase I can slam out all 4 monsters at once!"
"Tell me that's not scary!"
"Of course, compared to the Trap hierarchy of that era—Offering still ranked much lower!"
"What were the Traps of the day?"
"Things like [Mirror Force], [Ring of Destruction], [Magic Cylinder], [Magic Jammer], [Anti-Spell Fragrance], and so on!"
"Compared to Offering, those Traps often did more."
"You can Normal Summon a bunch with Offering, sure! But if they're all in Attack Position—"
"—a single Mirror Force wipes the lot."
"Even Ring of Destruction and Magic Cylinder were more popular than Offering back then!"
"Until 2004, when a certain system appeared."
"The Gadget series."
"Those three Gadget cards need no introduction!"
"[Green Gadget]: when Normal or Special Summoned, adds Red Gadget."
"[Red Gadget]: when Normal or Special Summoned, adds Yellow Gadget."
"[Yellow Gadget]: when Normal or Special Summoned, adds Green Gadget."
"Pair Offering with Gadgets, and you get terrifying resource chaining across the three!"
"In that era's meta—"
"—it was a dimensionality-reduction beatdown!"
"And it was the Gadget series that made duelists of the time realize something crucial—"
"Resource search."
"Against Gadgets, every time they Normal Summon one Gadget, they ensure they're holding the next Gadget in hand!"
"Their characteristics were very clear!"
"Point 1: You don't go minus—Normal Summon 1 Gadget, replace it with another Gadget, and you always keep a monster in hand."
"Point 2: A small engine that starts off 1 card—1 Gadget equals multiple Gadgets; if uninterrupted, 1 Gadget equals the entire Gadget lineup in your Deck."
"Point 3: The ATK isn't awful, and more importantly, your Spell/Trap lineup won't brick."
"Alright, put it together—"
"With Offering + Gadgets, you can flood the field with explosive bodies at once!"
"Pay with Offering twice, and that equals 3 Gadgets!"
"Their combined damage reaches 3900!"
"And that's not even counting other monsters."
"That was the meta-shaping 'Offering Gadgets' deck."
...…
Huh? Huh? Huh?
What the heck?
So that's what the Gadget system was all about?!
At this moment!
Duelists across all worlds finally and fully understood how Gadgets actually linked up!
They'd heard rumors before.
But it wasn't until they saw the Offering + Gadget combo—
—that they truly realized how valuable the trio of Gadgets was in that era's environment!
One Gadget equaled all Gadgets in the Deck!
That really was the logic!
And [Ultimate Offering]—
Pair it with a single Gadget—
—and you could casually fill your field with five Gadget monsters!
At first glance, 3900 damage total.
In practice—
Cracking 5000 total damage was absolutely within reach!
More importantly—
Resources!
In the 5D's world, ZEXAL world, and VRAINS world, once they understood this combo—
—their expressions all changed drastically!
Yusei Fudo: "If you can churn resources like that, you can go crazy with Synchros, right?"
Yuma Tsukumo: "No no no, Big Bro Yusei! It's Rank-4 Xyz! All the Gadgets are Level 4!"
Yusaku Fujiki: "It's Link! Refill Links, and spitting out a Link-5 in one go isn't even a problem!"
Yuya Sakaki: "Phew—no self-restrictions feels good! Back then it really was a dimensionality-reduction beatdown!"
In the group chat, duelists from those later worlds…
Immediately grasped the key resource-leveraging point of Offering Gadgets.
Which made Sei Yuki of the main world feel deeply gratified upon seeing it.
Looks like they've begun to understand the true essence of Yu-Gi-Oh.
Offering Gadgets.
At first glance, it just looks like you're spamming Gadgets.
But two Gadgets make a Rank-4.
Then two more, another Rank-4.
That's the Offering + Gadget Xyz gameplan!
Of course, that should be later on!
Because in that era, Xyz didn't seem to exist yet?
Yu-Gi-Oh Forbidden/Limited Card Commentator: "Of course, Offering Gadgets wasn't invincible."
Yu-Gi-Oh Forbidden/Limited Card Commentator: "Gadgets did provide explosiveness."
Yu-Gi-Oh Forbidden/Limited Card Commentator: "But those three, individually, don't even hit 1500 ATK!"
"And that's painful—if your opponent has a 2000 ATK body—"
"—you're in trouble, never mind a high-ATK monster like Blue-Eyes White Dragon!"
"It wasn't exactly the age of casual Link or Xyz plays."
"The straightforward way to clear a Gadget board was simply to Tribute Summon."
"Hence, the solution was simple."
"Run the Monarch suite, or Cyber Dragon!"
"A 2100-ATK Cyber Dragon that can Special Summon itself was truly a god among gods in that era!"
"Only after that did Offering Gadgets become a complete build!"
"And it began to make waves in the meta!"
"But the good times didn't last!"
"In September 2006, Ultimate Offering was Limited!"
"Some said it was because of Offering Gadgets that Offering got Limited."
"Others believed it was due to a card about to release—one that upended the entire HERO framework."
"[Elemental HERO Stratos]!"
"Yup."
"Possibly because of Stratos—if Offering weren't Limited, something terrifying would have happened!"
"1 Offering + 1 Stratos!"
"Offering has no once-per-turn, and Stratos also doesn't have a 'once-per-turn by name!'"
"1 + 1 4"
"Or it can be 1 + 1 3 + 2 back row."
"That power is downright explosive!"
"If you don't Limit it, Stratos + Offering—"
"—is way stronger than Offering + Gadgets!"
"If you didn't Limit it, the meta would've turned into a tumor among tumors!"
"Everyone becomes HERO!"
"As long as you've got Stratos + Offering, you're a HERO!"
"Even if Limited, there were still ways to search Offering!"
"For example, [A Cat of Ill Omen] or [Gold Sarcophagus]!"
"They could still get to Offering—it was just a matter of speed."
Elemental HERO, Stratos, huh?
In an instant!
Duelists across all worlds felt everything click!
Yugi Muto, Jaden Yuki, and even Yusei Fudo's faces all changed!
They stared, dumbstruck, at the video's explanation of the Stratos + Offering combo!
They knew full well what that arithmetic "to 5.4" implied!
"1 + 1 4."
It means Stratos + Offering can flood out four monsters at once!
Normal Summon Elemental HERO Stratos, effect adds a second Stratos.
Offering brings out the second Stratos; Stratos adds a third Stratos.
Offering brings out the third Stratos; Stratos adds a fourth HERO.
Boom!
Your field's basically full!
Three bodies with 1800 ATK apiece!
Way more practical than Gadgets!
And "1 + 1 3 + blow up 2 back row"—
—that's because Stratos can also pop back row equal to the number of HERO monsters you control!
With 2 Stratos out, the third Stratos can choose the back-row destruction mode.
Against back row at attack declaration?
That's a pure dimensionality-reduction beatdown!
In the GX world.
"So this is the power of HERO plus Offering?"
"As expected."
"My understanding of the card pool really was too shallow."
"If my HERO deck ran Offering—"
"..."
After taking it all in—
Jaden Yuki couldn't sit still.
He was deeply shaken by the Stratos + Offering combo.
And what mattered even more was the environment!
Back then—
This was pure, unadulterated steamroll!
In the 5D's world.
Yusei Fudo and the others were also shocked by the combo.
As a Synchro-based era—
They knew exactly how important cards that grant extra Normal Summons are!
So the more they looked at Offering—
—the more it felt like a treasure!
"No once-per-turn."
"That's the main thing."
"And in that ancient environment—"
"It really could create a lot of oppressive lines."
Jack Atlas spoke coolly.
Though he was impressed by Offering—
Jack still felt:
Is this card's power really that outrageous? …
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