Spell 'activation' questions and FET-EN039 Spell Absorption

[CraniumX]

I know the card isn't out yet, but it will be in about a week's time with all the prerelease tournaments happening across the country. After examing the card a lot, there are some very sick, perfectly legal things possible to do with it, that I'm sure others have even figured out, but I do have some serious questions about its card text, if this indeed is the official English card text, it makes me question some things, and possible brokenness of it. Comments are greatly appreciated by any and all people, judges or not.

Spell Absorption
Spell - Continuous
"Each time a Spell Card is activated, increase the life points of this card's controller by 500 points."

Alright, now, here's the thing that bothers me. "Activated." It's continuous, so, when a new spell card is played, that's obviously activated, so then, wouldn't Spell Absorption itself "activate" by gaining the 500 life from the other card's activation? If so, then wouldn't itself activating cause it to keep gaining 500 life? That, I'm doubtful of, but what might worry me is having two down on the field at once. If they do "activate", then wouldn't they activate each other into an infinite chain of life point gain, simply by having two out? The one triggers the other, which triggers the other, and it bounces back and forth? My logic might be skewed here, but as I said, it's the whole "activation" word that bugs me.

I'm also going by a question that was cleared here for me before while designing my friend's "Exodia the Underdog" deck for fun, by the combination of "Heart of the Underdog", and "Solemn Wishes", both being continuous, and everytime a new normal monster is drawn with HotU, it "activates" and thus Solemn Wishes "activates", giving 500 life for each normal monster drawn. By this logic even, you could replace Solemn Wishes with Spell Absorption and for each normal monster drawn, HotU "activates" and thus triggers Spell Absorption into "activating" and gaining the 500 LP. This /really/ gets me to start wondering about other cards, like "Skilled Dark Magician" or "Royal Magical Library" as well, as they say "activates" on it. In effect, that would mean that if every time you played a Spell card, or everytime a continuous Spell, such as HotU or Spell Absorption was "activated" by their conditions being met, they would get a counter?

I know this is a lot of questions, but ones I feel need brought up, because if what I'm thinking is indeed correct, this card could be amazingly broken without anyone really looking at it closely. The combos are practically limitless in many cases. The one that easily stands out to me is especially first turn, Gearfried + Spell Absorption + Butterfly Dagger - Elma = Infinite Life Points. That's just using logic on the already known combo with Royal Magical Library. Three cards, all playable on the first turn easily, leading to basically the only chance of you losing is to Exodia, Decking Out, Final Countdown, Last Turn, Destiny Board, or drawing with Self-Destruct Button. Am I forgetting any others? Figure out a way to dump a Fire Princess into the graveyard and Premature Burial it, and you've got a first turn kill possibility even. Completely situational, of course, but still.

Perhaps my mind has just been running rampant since seeing this card, but good grief, if everything I said happens to be true, a card most people would probably just laugh at instead becomes a possible powerhouse. I've already got a couple deck designs thought out based around the card, so please, by all means, feel free to prove me wrong. I would almost hate to be right in a case like this, it's downright scary.

 

[Y.G.O. nul]

Everyone says bye to "Butterfly Dagger - Elma" and his combos, because he just get banned (I know some people already've sayd it but it's funny )

But to get bacck to the question :

There's Card activation and Effect Activation.

Card Activation is playing magic/trap card from your hand or flipping them face-up.

You can easily see when it is a Card Activation : Because normally you say :
I activate the card who's name's "blablabla". You can see "Card" and "Activation".


Effect Activation is using the effect of cards already face-up on the field like monsters effect or continuous magic/Trap cards.

You can easily see when it is an Effect Activation : Because normally you say :
I activate "blablabla" his effect. : You can see "Effect" and "Activation".

So :

I activate "Mystical Space Typhoon" : Card Activation.

I activate "Ultimate Offering" his effect : Effect Activation.


For simple : With "Spell Absorbtion", it is : when a player activates a Spell card. You see "Card" and "Activation", so the effect is used when a Card Activation happens.

Hope I've helped you out of here.

 

[daivahataka]

Well, the JPN List is active March 1, however there is no date for the NA List to be changed. It could be another month.

So you will at the very least get to try it out. Sadly, not in Tournament play since FET does not become legally playable until April 1.

The UDE swap over's set for April 1st.

And sadly, we can all can any ideas of doing this combo now in Advanced format, the Japanese Yu-Gi-Oh website has the new banned list on it, and Butterfly Dagger - Elma is on it.

Ah well, Infinite Life combo, we never knew ye, and I salute you. Perhaps in another 6 months we can actually try it out.

What of Butterfly Dagger-Elma, Gearfried, Magical Marionette and Mystic Wok, 4 cards instead of the 3 above but it works and has been around for ages.