Aqua Chorus and Damage Step?

T

Tkwiget

Da Twiggy Man!
Ok, I was asked this question in a PM. Just want to make sure that I made the correct ruling.

Player A has two face up Gemini Elf and a set Aqua Chorus.
Player B has an empty field.

Player A attacks with one of the two Gemini Elf. Player A activates Aqua Chorus in the Damage Step.

Now stop.

The question was, "Can I activate Aqua Chorus in the Damage Step?" and now look at Aqua Chorus's card text.

"If there are monsters with the same name on the field, increase the ATK and DEF of all of those monsters with the same name by 500 points."

Bolded text is what I was looking at when I determined my ruling. The following is my ruling.

"Aqua Chorus can activate in the Damage Step "only" if there's monsters of the same name on the field. If not then Aqua Chorus can't be activated in the Damage Step."

I was basing this ruling not only off the above bolded card text of Aqua Chorus, but from the results about the Deck Devastation Virus v.s. My Body as a Shield.

We came to agreement that Deck Devastation Virus couldn't get negated by My Body as a Shield if there wasn't a face up monster with low enough attack points for My Body as a Shield to register. It has to see that a monster is definately being destroyed; otherwise, you're going off face down monsters which are considered to have no stat values until flipped face up.

To me this is a similar case with Aqua Chorus. Aqua Chorus would have to require at least two monsters of the same name on the field to recieve the attack boost.

Now lets use the same example with Gemini Elf situation.

Player A has one Gemini Elf and a set Aqua Chorus.
Player B has a completely empty field.

Player A attacks with Gemini Elf. Player A activates face down Aqua Chorus in the Damage Step.

Now stop.

Is this legal? Aqua Chorus isn't giving any attack boost to anything; thus, it's activation would be illegal.


So is my ruling, "Aqua Chorus can activate in the Damage Step "only" if there's monsters of the same name on the field. If not then Aqua Chorus can't be activated in the Damage Step." accurate and correct?
 
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I honestly don't see why not. This sounds vaugly familiar, Like we may have touched on this on another one of our any Damage Step threads. I don't remember if there was a concensus on this, but since it's activation is limited to monsters of the same name anyway, that shouldn't exclude it from activation during the Damage Step.
 
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I don't think so either, but there has to be two monsters with the same name (or considered to be the same monster such as Harpie cards) to allow Aqua Chorus to activate in the Damage Step.

There isn't any ruling that I've found thus far that proves that my own ruling is incorrect. However, there isn't any card in the game that I know of or can think of that has a similar effect as Aqua Chorus.
 
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This has been discussed in previous threads, the ruling is "No, you can't activate Aqua Chorus in the Damage Step." I suppose the logic is that much like Reverse Trap it would depend on circumstances as to whether there is a boost or not. There was frustration at the ruling. And it has even been mentioned as one of those little things we love to hate about ruling inconsistency.
 
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Alright, I'll need a link to that thread cause I'm having problems finding it. I keep getting zero results.

I don't remember that ruling or that thread. So if COG has it then please link me to it so I can develop more of a mechanical point of view on the subject.
 
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Yeah I wasn't involved in the whole Aqua Chorus discussion. Lol, but I do have my own way of looking at it.

After looking over Reverse Trap and reading it several times, I compared it to several other cards and came to a conclusion.

Reverse Trap reminds me way too much of Barrel Behind the Door. It doesn't specifically modify attack or defense because it's transfering the attack and defense points to become their exact opposite. If has no specific amount of attack or defense that it's changing.

Before you argue that Mirror Wall and Limiter Removal don't specify anything I'll just let you know this. Halving and doubling are specific value amounts that modify monster stats. Reverse Trap doesn't modify by any specific amount.

Like the ruling discussion about Deck Devastation Virus v.s. My Body as a Shield came to a close. We aGreed that as long as the game state sees Deck Devastation Virus is destroying a monster for sure, that My Body as a Shield can be chained and negate Deck Devastation Virus.

My Body as a Shield's 2nd ruling is referencing to effects that are 100% for sure are going to destroy a monster. A face up Don Zaloog will be destroyed by my Deck Devastation Virus. The game state knows this. My Body as a Shield can negate DDV and destroy it.

Look at Aqua Chorus now. The whole word "if" is important yes, but the argument that was brought up - in the second link anthonyj gave - said that Aqua Chorus "might" boost attack and defense.

My argument is if the game state sees two monsters with the same name on the field then Aqua Chorus will give a specific modification to attack and defense.

There's two out comes - like there is with DDV v.s. MBaaS - in that Aqua Chorus should beable to activate in the Damage Step "only" if two monsters of the same name exist on the field face up.

<shrugs and goes home to continue the disucssion>
 
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You cannot activate "Barrel Behind the Door" against effects if you don't know for certain that they will inflict damage when the effect is activated. So you cannot activate it against "Dice Jar", "Judgment of Anubis", "Time Wizard" or "Ante". Your cannot activate "Barrel Behind the Door" against "Ceasefire" if all monsters on the field are face-down, or if all monsters on the field are face-up Normal Monsters, but you can activate it against "Ceasefire" if there is at least 1 face-up Effect Monster on the field.
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Ok, I bring this example of Barrel Behind the Door vs Ceasfire, for a simple fact that a "might" or "uncertainty", really don't make much of a difference, the only thing that really matters is if the condition is in fact met at some point.

So, IMHO if Aqua Chorus has it's requirements met, I really don't see why wouldn't it be able to be activated during the Damage Step.
 
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Tkwiget said:
Someone here on City of Gamers by the username Jason_C. I'm sure you've seen him around. XD
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You do realize the SOLE reason I brought this up was because I knew you hated discrepencies, right?

You weren't supposed to start a thread about this, because I already KNEW the answer. I just wanted to see how long it would take before a fuse blew. :D :p ;) ...anger = ko0l...
 
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Me + Discovery of inconsitant anything = AJ about to pull all hair out, go Rambo on everyone, and destroy Konami single handedly.

Good thing I have self control. Lol..
 
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