History UnwinnableByMistake / CardGames

[[AC: YuGiOh]]

* There's an old strategy in the ''{{Yu-Gi-Oh Card Game}}'' known as the Lockdown, a deck that forces a continuous loop that -- once in place -- makes it impossible for the opponent to counter:

[[AC: YuGiOh!]]

[[AC: Yu Gi Oh!]]

* There is also a decktype gaining popularity that runs on this. Called "Empty Jar", it's a deck that forces your opponent to throw away his entire deck in '''one turn.''' A major complaint about this deck is that it kills you and you won't even have a chance to play a single card or even take your turn. With that said, pray that the player running this deck doesn't go first, because all he has to show you in his hand is a Morphing Jar and a Book of Taiyou, and he wins. Full stop.

[[AC: Magic the Gathering]]

[[AC: Pokemon]]

[[AC: Redakai]]

** Amusingly, Yugi uses a loop to win in the anime, so it indeed seems a legal strategy. Naturally, WebOriginal/YuGiOhTheAbridgedSeries has fun with this.

** Play a [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=116724 Stuffy Doll]], but target ''yourself'' with its damage-sharing ability instead of an opponent. Then enchant it with [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=135248 Pariah]], which bounces damage off of you and back on to the Doll. Then tap it to deal one damage to itself. Boom! You now have an infinitely increasing stack of damage constantly bouncing between you and the Stuffy Doll, with no way for it to ever resolve. Unless your opponent is sitting on a Disenchant, in which case he just waits until the damage is up around 10 billion or so, and then disenchants the Pariah...
*** Incorrect, it's just one damage being passed around an infinite number of times. If they disenchant the Pariah, you take 1 from stuffy and that's it. (The actual process is. Stuffy deals 1 damage to itself, that ability resolves (stack is empty at this point), then Stuffy's ability is triggered, dealing 1 damage to you. Then when it begins resolving, pariah redirects the damage to itself. Then it triggers again. The only time to interrupt this loop is when the 1 damage goes on the stack, in which then pariah is no longer around when the 1 damage resolves, so it will be dealt to you.
*** There is a way to make it work though, you just need [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Repercussion Repercussion]]. In this case the damage will grow exponentially.

*** One could also use [[http://magiccards.info/10e/en/204.html Furnace of Rath]] to achieve this same end...[[BeyondTheImpossible INFINITE ACCELERATION]]

** The first popular lockdown combo was the Yata-Lock combination. The player needed to have a Sangan or Witch of the Black Forest on their side of the field, and have one LIGHT and DARK monster in their Graveyard. They remove the two cards to Special Summon Chaos Emperor Dragon and then pay 1000 Life Points to nuke the field and players' hands. The effect of Sangan or Witch would be activated; they would be sent to the player's Graveyard, and the player could search their deck for Yata-Garasu and add it to their hand. Then they could play it and attack their opponent with it. It only did a tiny bit of damage, but its effect prevented your opponent from drawing a card on their next turn, which left them defenceless. When the Ban List was first released, these cards were quickly placed on it.
*** Yata-Lock worked before Invasion of Chaos; that particular combo just ensures that it works. If your opponent has no way of stopping Yata-Garasu, it attacking means that they cannot ''get'' a way of stopping it, resulting in a ThousandCutsOfDeath.

* A particularly famous - albeit rare - example in the Pokemon TCG involves two primary cards to establish a perfect stalemate: Mewtwo LV.X (Legends Awakened), a Pokemon protected entirely from non-evolved Pokemon; and Uxie (Legends Awakened), a card able to return itself - and all cards attached - back to the deck via its Psychic Restore attack. So, when both players are using decks with both cards, as well as no evolved Pokemon, the game often ends perfectly tied, with no remedy per the rules in site.

*** Yata-Lock worked before Invasion of Chaos; that particular combo just ensures that it works: If your opponent has no way of stopping Yata-Garasu, it attacking means that they cannot ''get'' a way of stopping it, resulting in a ThousandCutsOfDeath.
** Lockdown is as valid a strategy as brute force, milling, burn, or satisfying an InstantWinCondition. Those cards were banned due to their nature as [[GameBreaker game breakers]], not because you shouldn't be allowed to employ a lockdown strategy. To illustrate, they never banned any aspect of the blood lock combo: Toll+ Dark Door+ Chain Energy, which requires both players to pay lifepoints to do anything. Render your opponent under 500 lifepoints, and you can finish your opponent with a burner, or just be GenreSavvy enough to keep a few extra cards in your deck and wait for your opponent to deck out before you do (most players keep to the 40 card minimum for speed purposes, but a player can have a maximum of 60 cards in their deck).

** Amusingly, Yugi uses a loop to win in the anime, so it indeed seems a legal strategy. Naturally, YuGiOhAbridged has fun with this.

*** There is literally one way to counter this. There is only one way of getting out of this. You have to put that card on the field. You can equip it to your opponent, or better yet just set it. It's an InstantWinCondition in the video game versions because the AI is too stupid to get itself out of this situation.

*** Yata-Lock worked before Invasion of Chaos; that particular combo just ensures that it works: If your opponent has no way of stopping Yata-Garasu, it attacking means that they cannot ''get'' a wy of stopping it, resulting in a ThousandCutsOfDeath.

-->'''Kaiba:''' Yugi, you took advantage of a glaring flaw in the duelmonsters-rulebook. Truely, you are an honorable duelist.

*** There is literally one way to counter this. You equip your opponent's monster with the card. It's very unintuitive, but by the time you're locked in this situation, your opponent would probably have summoned a couple other monsters, meaning that even at the earliest time, it would still probably be too late to counter.

* There's an old strategy in the ''{{Yu-Gi-Oh}}!'' TCG known as the Lockdown, a deck that forces a continuous loop that -- once in place -- makes it impossible for the opponent to counter:

** If the last card in your hand and field happens to be Sword Of Deep-Seated or Horn Of The Unicorn (both have the effect of being placed at the top of your deck if they're sent to the graveyard) you'd better pray that you don't get attacked by White Magical Hat or Mefist The Infernal General (both have the effect of randomly discarding one card from your opponent's deck). You would end up in an endless loop of discarding and re-drawing the same card over and over with no way to counter.

** Lockdown is as valid a strategy as brute force, milling, burn, or satisfying an InstantWinCondition. Those cards were banned due to their nature as [[GameBreaker game breakers]], not because you shouldn't be allowed to employ a lockdown strategy. To illustrate, they never banned any aspect of the blood lock combo: Toll+ Dark Door+ Chain Energy, which requires both players to pay lifepoints to do anything. Render your opponent under 500 lifepoints, and you can finish your opponent with a burner, or just be GenreSavvy enough to keep a few extra cards in your deck and wait for your opponent to deck out before you do (most players keep to the 40 card minimum for speed purposes, but there is no limit to the number of cards you are allowed to have in your deck).