Card of the Week #4: Forbidden Chalice

Target 1 face-up monster on the field; until the End Phase, it gains 400 ATK, but its effects are negated .

Random Rulings:

Target 1 face-up monster on the field; until the End Phase, it gains 400 ATK, but its effects are negated.

If a monster like “Fusilier Dragon, the Dual-Mode Beast” is targeted with “Forbidden Chalice,” it has 3200 ATK, then 2800 ATK after the End Phase.

Forbidden Chalice, I always loved this card. It's like a focused Skill Drain that, like its counterpart, Forbidden Lance, has a double use. Well, let's see it:

Quick-Play Spell, this kind of card is the best in the world, you can activate them in opponent's turn like Traps, you can activate them in your turn like spells, but you can even use them in some phases where spell card can't activate (spell card activates only during main phase 1 and main phase 2, while quick-plays can be used pretty much in every phase, and even in some substeps hard to reach, like damage step.

Negating Effect, negates 1 monster effect. Being only for a turn, you can use it to run over monsters that have an effect that make them indistructible by battle or card's effect. You can stop even monsters that have an effect that activates only once, like a gadget, that activates when summoned, you can stop that card, and your opponent won't be able to activate it the next turn, if the gadget stays alive.

Boosting Effect, can be useful on your monsters to run over other monsters, and won't probably help your opponent, since you're going to negate monsters that have giant effect, like Rescue Rabbit, and those monsters usually have low stats, making them no more than monsters that can run over another copy of themself.


Note how this card doesn't have a restriction of which kind of monsters this card can be used, so you can use it on normal monsters, or you can use it on monsters that have their effect negated yet, like if there is a skill drain on the field.

Why do I prefer this card over skill drain? (of course it changes from deck to deck)

Forbidden Chalice doesn't affect our games, letting us to use our monster's effect.

Even if Skill Drain negates the effect of all the monsters, it requires 1000 lp, and the fact that affects all of the monsters isn't necessary good.

Skill Drain stays on the field, that means that if it is MST'd its effect wil vanish and you've payed 1000 lp for nothing, while Forbidden Chalice isn't negable if not with a spell/trap negation at the moment of its activation, but that's not assured, since most deck play only Solemn Judgment to negate spell and traps, some (rabbit laggia) play laggia, but if you use chalice on opponent's laggia, he won't negate it, and you can do all of the comboes you want, summon a big monster, and kill Laggia.

Forbidden Chalice modifies attack, that's good to power-up your monster, but it could be used to negate monster's effect during damage step, making it harder to counter.

Forbidden Chalice can negate barbaros' effect in damage step to make him a 3400 ATK beater 'till the end of the turn, and 3000 for all the rest of the turn.


Of course in some decks, skill drain is far better. Decks that have monsters that have bad effect, decks that don't need effect, decks that have monster's effect that activates in the graveyard and so on, but Chalice is more versatile and playable in more decks.

Overall: this card is versatile, can counter pretty much all of the decks in actual meta (inzektors, rabbit, chaos dragon, Wind-up) and even some fun deck that could be seen (Dragunities, random synchro deck, and so on), and even staple cards played in a lot of decks, Tour Guide mainly. The ATK boost is useful on your own monsters, and usually it doesn't help opponent's monster.

That was all, See Ya.