Chapter 1252: Discord Counter

Fake Jack had suffered a silent loss. His arrogantly deployed lethal formation hadn’t even lasted one turn before being completely dismantled by a couple of lousy frogs.

Feeling stifled, he glanced at the two Dragons that had just been bounced back to his hand, then at his empty front field, and gritted his teeth.

With no defense on the field, he would probably be OTK’d next turn.

In that case...

"Looking down on the King’s duel—you’ll pay the price for it!" Fake Jack roared.

"I activate the Spell Card ’Card Destruction’! Both players discard their entire hands, then draw the same number of cards from their Decks!"

Fake Jack discarded all the cards in his hand at once, including the Vice Dragon and Strong Wind Dragon that had just been bounced back.

"At the same time, among the discarded cards is the Spell Card ’Card of Compensation’—its effect lets me draw two more cards from my Deck!"

Fake Jack swept his arm and drew wildly. He quickly had a fresh handful of cards in hand.

"Excellent!"

It seemed this round of frantic drawing had indeed given him an opportunity. Fake Jack felt slightly reassured and set cards to his back row.

"I Set four cards and end my turn!"

"Four Set cards... tsk tsk," Kira remarked.

The real Jack, riding parallel on his Fortune Wheel and observing the duel, couldn’t help but warn, "Be careful, Kira. This guy is up to something. His skills aren’t weak, and he even has the same..."

"It’s fine. He’s just a clumsy imitator," Kira said with a faint smile. "I’ll tear off that fake mask for you soon enough.

My turn—draw!"

The real Jack remained silent beside him.

A clumsy imitator, huh...

He had thought the same earlier, but as the one who had lost to this "clumsy imitator," he found himself at a loss for words.

"During the Standby Phase of this turn, the effect of ’Sinister Serpent’ that I discarded from my hand when Summoning ’Swap Frog’ last turn activates. During my Standby Phase, if Sinister Serpent is in the Graveyard, I can return it from the Graveyard to my hand."

Kira showed the Sinister Serpent returned from the Graveyard and added it to his hand.

"Next, I activate the Spell Card ’Salvage’," Kira continued. "It lets me add two WATER monsters with 1500 or less ATK from my Graveyard to my hand. I add ’Flip Flop Frog’ and ’Swap Frog’ from my Graveyard to my hand."

Kira displayed the two cards and returned them to his hand.

"Then there’s this card..."

Kira smiled mysteriously and raised a Spell Card high.

"Continuous Spell ’Card of Safe Return’!"

The legendary banned card first appeared in the hands of one of Marik’s puppets and debuted in the same duel as the Slifer the Sky Dragon. Its effect was simple yet brutally powerful: each time a monster is Special Summoned from your Graveyard, draw 1 card.

The version Kira held followed the real-card effect, which differed from the anime. The anime version Mr. Marik used was even more vicious, drawing three cards. However, when Kira searched the market, the Marik version was long out of print—or perhaps the one Mr. Marik used had been a counterfeit printed by the infamous Rare Hunters, the top fake-card peddlers in Duel Monsters.

Of course, although the anime version allowed violent draws of three cards per Graveyard Special Summon, it had its own drawbacks. The anime version was mandatory, while the real-card version was optional. If the anime "Card of Safe Return" hadn’t been mandatory, Mr. Marik wouldn’t have been drained dry by the traitor dragon.

Additionally, although Card of Safe Return is a perennial banned card now, it wasn’t banned in the real-card environment during the early-to-mid 5D’s era—it was only limited. From today’s perspective, an effect that lets you "draw one card every time a monster is Special Summoned from the Graveyard" would let you draw your entire Deck in minutes. But in the speed of the Yu-Gi-Oh! environment up through the Synchro era, it wasn’t entirely unacceptable. After its release, Card of Safe Return actually went eight years without being banned—unlike what many modern players assume, it wasn’t banned from the very beginning.

Kira: "Next, the effect of the ’Swap Frog’ I just returned to my hand—I discard a WATER monster from my hand to Special Summon Swap Frog once again!"

Kira discarded another card to the Graveyard. It was obviously the Sinister Serpent he had just recovered. Sinister Serpent could self-retrieve every turn from the Graveyard to the hand, and being WATER gave it excellent synergy with the Frog deck.

[Swap Frog, ATK 1000]

Fake Jack snorted. "You recovered this Frog just to mill another card from the Deck to the Graveyard?"

"Correct. I send one WATER monster that is an Aqua-Type with 2 or fewer Levels from my Deck to the Graveyard."

A card satisfying the condition automatically popped out of Kira’s Deck.

"I send ’Unifrog’ from my Deck to the Graveyard."

"Then I activate my Set card, the Continuous Trap ’Limit Reverse’—Special Summon a monster with 1000 or less ATK from the Graveyard. Special Summon Unifrog from the Graveyard!"

[Unifrog, ATK 100]

Fake Jack: "All this effort just for a 100 ATK Frog?"

Kira smiled.

ATK 100? It looks like you have no idea how valuable the Frog deck’s number one banned card really is.

"Because I Special Summoned a monster from the Graveyard, the effect of the Continuous Spell ’Card of Safe Return’ activates—I draw one card from my Deck."

Kira drew a card, then said calmly, "Unifrog’s effect activates. Tribute one monster you control to Special Summon one ’Frog’ monster from your Deck to the field.

I Tribute the ’Unifrog’ on my field to Special Summon ’Des Frog’ from my Deck!"

The small Unifrog turned into light particles as it was Tributed. A large emerald-green Des Frog, bigger than a person, leaped onto the field in exchange.

[Des Frog, ATK 1900]

"I haven’t Normal Summoned this turn yet," Kira said. "I Normal Summon ’Fishborg Blaster’ from my hand."

[Fishborg Blaster, ATK 100]

"Level 1 Tuner monster ’Fishborg Blaster’! Level 5 ’Des Frog’! Tuning!"

[1 + 5 = 6]

"Polar stars condense at the blade’s tip—the piercing winter spear that traverses the heavens! Synchro Summon— Level 6, Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier!!!"

A biting aurora suddenly tore across the battlefield as a six-pointed star array bloomed amid the blizzard. The tuning monsters turned into two spiraling azure light pillars. Countless ice crystals coalesced into the slender outline of a dragon.

Fake Jack, however, gave a heavy snort. "I already saw through the fact that you would use Synchro to launch an attack!

Counter Trap ’Discord Counter’!

This card can only be activated when the opponent Synchro Summons. Return that Synchro Monster to the Extra Deck, then Special Summon the group of Synchro Materials from the Graveyard onto the opponent’s field!"

Purple energy chains shot out from the card’s surface and precisely wrapped around the Synchro ring on Brionac Dragon’s neck. The giant dragon let out a pained roar as cracks like spiderwebs appeared across its icy body. Finally, it exploded with a "bang" into sparkling shards. The blizzard suddenly ceased, leaving only a few unmelted ice crystals drifting slowly down—witnesses to the Synchro that had been strangled in the moment of its birth.

"Not yet!" Fake Jack laughed loudly. "Furthermore, the player who was hit by ’Discord Counter’ cannot perform Normal Summon, Flip Summon, or Special Summon of monsters until the end of their next turn!"

...