Jayrus' Dorm

Greetings everyone. I am Jayrus. Many of you here already know me, but for those of you who don't I am a long time friend and dueling rival of Dante Kestrel and Lucky Coin. We've made several clans/rp groups/academies together through DMG on Byond, and now we have migrated to Dueling Network. Dante told me about his new home here, and I decided to come join the fun. See you all in the duel arena!

Terminal Terminology Part 1 - "Missing The Timing" or "The difference between 'If' and 'When'"

Welcome friends, to the first installment of my new series "Terminal Terminology". Here I’ll be discussing those annoying dueling concepts that cause confusion and frustration to even the best duelists. Today’s episode is about a concept that has caused all of us pain and annoyance at some point.: “Missing The Timing”

This concept isn’t as hard to understand as it seems, and yet many duelists both new and experienced seem to have troubles with it. I shall do my best to break it down in a manner that makes it easier to understand.

In the simplest terms “Missing The Timing” is what occurs when the triggering event for a card’s effect has been passed by before you were able to activate the effect, thus causing you to lose out on it. Let’s go over an example. For instance, below is the effect of Peten the Dark Clown.

“When this card is sent to your Graveyard, you can remove this card from the Graveyard to Special Summon 1 "Peten the Dark Clown" from your hand or Deck.”

Notice that the effect says “When”. Now let’s compare to the effect of Vylon Prism :

“If this card is sent from the Monster Card Zone to the Graveyard: You can pay 500 Life Points to target 1 face-up monster you control; equip this card to that target. If the equipped monster attacks or is attacked: It gains 1000 ATK during the Damage Step only.”

Notice the “If” instead of “When”. On a card that says “If” it’s simply “If” the trigger happens, then this effect happens no matter what else occurs on the chain. However Peten the Dark Clown’s effect says “When” which adds a time equivalent as it’s telling us the effect only can happen at the exact moment in the chain that the trigger effect occurs. Meaning in the case of Peten the Dark Clown that his effect ONLY occurs if his being sent to the graveyard is the last thing that happened before you get to act again. For instance if he were destroyed by battle, or by a card like dark hole. If he were tributed for a monster, or an effect then the last thing that happened would be the summoning of the monster or the resolution of the effect he was tributed for, and thus he would miss the timing. Meanwhile, Vylon Prism being an IF card, doesn’t care what’s going on in the effect chain. You can use his effect no matter what (Unless it was negated by something of course)

Now where this REALLY gets sticky is when you have a card like Sangan :

“When this card is sent from the field to the Graveyard: Add 1 monster with 1500 or less ATK from your Deck to your hand.”

Notice that just like Peten the Dark Clown, Sangan’s effect says “When” but also notice that there is no “You can” as in Peten’s effect. This makes Sangan’s effect a mandatory effect. It HAS to happen no matter what, and therefore cannot miss the timing.

So to summarize, a card misses the timing :

When the effect says “When” instead of “If”

AND

If it is an optional effect (The effect reads “You can” do something).

If you're still unsure my final bit of advice is when in doubt, to always ALWAYS check out the rulings for your card. It can save you a great many headaches later on.

That's it for the first chapter of my "Terminal Terminology" series. Stay tuned. I'll be back next time to discuss "Priority". Win Button? Or moderately useful ability? Find out next time.

TL;DR :

When the effect says “When” instead of “If”

AND

If it is an optional effect (The effect reads “You can” do something).

Thanks for teh summary, jayrus.

Well Written article.

1 thing to add is, there is 1 more group of cards to add to the books. Cards like Van'Dalygon the dark dragon lord. Which is an optional effect monster whose effect reads After a Counter Trap Card you control negates the activation of an opponent's card(s) or effect(s), you can Special Summon this card from your hand. This being neither a "When this " or "If This" card. This is a card which starts a chain after the current one has resolved. This means you cannot miss the timing of such cards.

also if its a xyz overlay card the effect is cancled out so u dont get the if or when effect for those duelests that didnt know that you be surprised at how many people think they get sangans eff from overlaying with him.

actually that only applies to cards that need to be sent to the graveyard from the field such as sangan` if you have a card like dandylion as it is a manditory effect that can occur from anywhere it does apply.