Forgotten secondary effects

A while ago, I stole an opponent’s Ally of Justice Decisive armor through Tragoedia’s effect, by discarding Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon. My opponent looked at me with a surprised look. He looked at Tragoedia's card’s text and slapped himself on the forehead, because he “forgot Tragoedia had that effect”. If there would’ve been a rank 10 xyz out, I would’ve showed him what happens when you forget things like that.

And that’s what I wanted to talk about in this post. There are a lot of monsters out there that people use frequently, but they tend to forget certain parts of their effect.

Tragoedia

Tragoedia is the first of these monsters. Special summoning itself when receiving damage, gaining attack equal to the amount of cards in your hand x600, stealing opponent’s monsters & changing its own level are all part of his effect. It wouldn’t be the first time I see a seemingly dead Tragoedia laying around on the field, because people forgot they could use his last effect to perform an easy XYZ summon.

Elemental HERO Stratos

People use Stratos as a recruiter to get Elemental HERO Neos Alius, Bubbleman or god knows what else to their hand. It has happened to me that an opponent special summons Stratos (while he controls another E-Hero) and decides not to use his effect, because "all HERO monsters were already removed from the deck". Good for me he forgot about Stratos’ other effect or that Mirror Force on my side of the field wouldn’t have survived.

Thus again, the habit of using Stratos’ first effect so many times pushed my opponent to forget there was a secondary effect.

Kycoo the Ghost Destroyer

When somebody pointed out at me that Kycoo was a great tech to fight against Chaos Dragons, I looked kind of surprised. I mean, sure he can banish 2 monsters when he inflicts battle damage. But how could an 1800 attack monster stop an army of boss monsters that are so easily summoned? He then suggested I should take a look at the WHOLE card effect.

Yes, I was guilty of the same force-of-habit. I’ve used Kycoo so many times for his first effect that I forgot his secondary (continuous) effect, where the opponent cannot banish monsters.

Gorz, the Emissary of Darkness

Gorz is perhaps the king of all monster cards in this category. Everyone knows his most prominent effect. While you control no cards, when your opponent attacks you, you can special summon him and summon the infamous Gorz Token (Kaien), whose attack equals the damage you just took.

Then what do people forget about him?

• Kaien (the token) is not a DARK fiend (like Gorz), but a LIGHT Fairy. This means you can use Honest’s effect on it! People tend to forget about this, because a token card doesn’t show attributes or types, and the only visible card is Gorz himself, who’s is almost literally screaming that he’s dark! It’s not the first time an opponent called a judge because I used Honest to boost Kaien’s attack, but it’s a perfectly legal move.
• This card can be tribute summoned! Sounds logical, but people forget this. People have a tendency to not use Gorz and wait until their opponent can attacks them directly. The most stupid thing I’ve seen is people wasting tributes on Stardust Dragon, Utopia or Leviathan Dragon to aim for a suicide attack, when they might as well tribute summon a stronger monster!
• The most forgotten effect… Gorz can be special summoned when you take effect damage! No, you don’t get your token in this case, but your opponent takes the same amount of damage as you. And considering Chain burn has increased in popularity, this is an effect to remember.