u/Eragonnogare

I have been playing quite a lot of Magistus, as well as Centur-Ion, and at this point, the frequency with which niche edge case rulings with how monster cards are treated in the backrow have come up quite a lot. I have learned at least some of them - to the best of my understanding - but at this point, I really just am not confident in how they are generally treated universally, and how to decide how to rule things on the fly by myself.

I plan to go to a Locals tomorrow (well, today at this point), running my deck, and I want to be more prepared to handle any questions that arise than last time. So, under this post, if anyone who is CONFIDENT in their knowledge of the exact edge case and niche rulings for the game regarding how monsters in the spell/trap zones work could post all of the specific interactions and general rules of them they know for me to read up on, that would be greatly appreciated.

Some highlights I know, or at least think I know currently - they are still known by the game as "monster cards" while in the backrow, which I am confident in because obviously that is a core detail for various cards like Magistus Chorozo and Snake Eyes Doomed Dragon to work. On top of this, however, the activation of their effects are, I believe, treated as spell/trap effect activations.

One thing I am specifically less sure about is whether the activation of the effect of, say, an equipped Magistus monster is the activation of a Spell Card effect, not just a Spell effect. I don't know how many, if any, cards care about this, but it's something I've been wondering. I know some cards do mention Spell Card and some mention Spell, but I also saw a post earlier today mentioning how it's just a modernization card wording change swapping from one to the other - which seems very strange, since with monsters changing from Monster Card to Monster would be a mechanical change for things like Chorozo, which is part of why this is a big thing I'm wondering about the details on. An example from that post was that the Burning Abyss monsters used to say they could be special summoned if you didn't control a spell card, which could be read to mean that an equipped monster, since it's a spell but still a monster card (as we can see through Chorozo), wouldn't prevent that, but now they have been changed to just say you can't control a Spell, no "card" mentioned at all. Presumably, that'd indicate that this doesn't matter, or maybe it means that Monsters equipped are both Monster Cards and spell cards simultaneously? Which would be very odd, but I wouldn't put it past Yugioh rulings ig. Knowing the details of this does presumably impact some specific cards, though seemingly mostly just cards from before the swap from "spell/trap card" to "spell/trap" that cards have been doing. Some things like a Superheavy Samurai Ninja Sarutobi or a Paleozoic Olenoides do have wording that would seemingly make this distinctly matter (well, whether the equipped cards are Spell Cards at least, regardless).

And I'm sure there are other, more niche, things, or miscellaneous details, that I'm not even remembering to mention - that's a lot of the point of this post. I hope to hear about whatever edge cases I am or am not even aware exist. What cards might come up that could interact weirdly, especially that I could remotely possibly see at a Locals game? What interactions should I look out for mistakenly doing? How do I best make sure to consistently rule my own things correctly off of a consistent base using some standard of logic for how they work? Last time I was at locals like a month or two ago, I was still getting caught off guard by my monster getting negated destroying the equip equipped by its own effect or not (it's a bit unintuitive 😅), the one actual judge call I did was on whether Magistus Rilliona worked the same way as Verre Magic where you can use both effects on the same turn if you bring them out twice (ruling is no you can't, which seems to be how Konami has declared it - I still think that words as written on the card that doesn't make sense lol, super unintuitive based on how it's practically the same wording as Verre Magic). I hope to try to be the guy familiar with the ins and outs of my own deck this time, rather than fumbling through it, this time around.

So yeah - anything that anyone here, who is really confident in their ruling knowledge (bonus points for any actual judges in the chat!) can contribute on the topic of monsters in the spell/trap card zone would be greatly appreciated. Things likely to come up in the context of Magistus and/or Centur-Ion monsters at a realistic Locals game get bonus points!