One of the cornerstones of Dueling is to make the most out of every monster you Summon. Oftentimes, this means making sure that monster’s Summon is successful and that its effect activates and resolves successfully. Summoning more monsters, destroying cards, adding cards to your hand; these are all things that Effect Monsters in today’s most popular Decks are capable of doing. So if you want to gain the upper hand in a Duel, shutting off your opponent’s effects is one of the best ways to do it, and Cosmo Blazer has a new Trap that can do it not once, but twice.

Breakthrough Skill is a Trap Card with 2 effects. The first targets an opposing monster and negates its effects for the turn. This is similar to Fiendish Chain or Effect Veiler, 2 cards that have been quite popular with Duelists over the past 12 months.

Breakthrough Skill’s second effect is the same as the first… except you use it while Breakthrough Skill is in your Graveyard, not on the field! If it’s your turn, and Breakthrough Skill is in your Graveyard (except for the turn it was sent there), you can banish it to target your opponent’s Effect Monster, and negate its effects for the rest of the turn.

To see where Breakthrough Skill can be useful, you only have to look at what monsters the top Decks are using and how you’ll be able to stop their key plays:

• When playing against Wind-Ups you can prevent Wind-Up Rat from reviving a monster, Wind-Up Carrier Zenmaity from Summoning another, Wind-Up Magician from setting up combos, Wind-Up Rabbit from escaping, Tour Guide From the Underworld from setting up a Rank 3 Xyz Summon, and your opponent’s Xyz Monsters from doing what they do best.
• Against Dino Rabbit you can negate Rescue Rabbit’s effect before it can be used, stop Jurrac Guaiba from Summoning another monster if it wins a battle, or one-up the Evolzar Xyz Monsters by negating their negation abilities!
• Mermail Decks won’t do as well if you can stop Mermail Abysspike from finding your opponent’s Genex Undines and Mermail Abyssmegalo from grabbing Abyss-sphere, or even attempting to attack you twice. Moulinglacia the Elemental Lord won’t be able to discard 2 cards from your hand either.

Breakthrough Skill’s is only used during your turn, making it most useful when you need to shut down especially annoying Continuous Effects that are hamstringing your strategy. You can negate Thunder King Rai-Oh’s effect and start adding cards to your hand again, negating Tragoedia will drop its ATK and DEF all the way down to 0 so that you can destroy it. Archlord Kristya prevents you from Special Summoning monsters, but with Breakthrough Skill that’s no longer a concern. Wind-Up Zenmaines can no longer protect itself or destroy anything.

One of the neat things about Breakthrough Skill is that you’ll have no worries by sending it to the Graveyard as a result of other cards’ effects. If you’re playing Lightsworn, Chaos Dragons or anything that includes Ryko, Lightsworn Hunter, you’ll be sending quite a few cards from your Deck to the Graveyard. Normally if you send a Spell/Trap card in this way it’s gone forever, but with Breakthrough Skill you still get a free effect to use later on. If you’re playing Dark World or anything that freely discards cards every turn, Breakthrough Skill is the perfect card to send for the very same reason.

But one of the coolest places to use Breakthrough Skill is in a Ninja Deck. Upstart Golden Ninja lets you send a Trap Card from your hand to the Graveyard to Special Summon a Level 4 or lower “Ninja” monster from your Deck. Send Breakthrough Skill and you’ll get your Special Summon (and potential Xyz Summon) and a free shot at negating an opposing monster effect in the future. It’s a win-win situation!

Breakthrough Skill’s a cool card with 2 simple effects which can make a big impact on any Duel you play. Be on the lookout for it at your local Cosmo Blazer Sneak Peek on January 19^th or 20^th!