Missing Timing



 The entire concept of missing timing is based upon two things in the Yu-Gi-Oh! Trading Card Game. These two things also cause for something else, which would be the difficulty of knowing at what time you can use a card, and when you can’t. Mainly meaning with Summons of monsters.






 So, there are, like previously noted, two main things that make a card effect miss timing. First of all, lets explain what it means. Missing timing, means it has an effect that activates at a specific time in the turn you’re in. However, due to other actions, effects or cards, it cannot activate in that time window. And it’s effect will therefore not be allowed to activate. 







Now, the main reasons of a card missing timing is easy. There’s a rule, which barely anyone knows in the card game, yet is subconsciously always held to. A golden rule, you might say. It’s one of the two aspects that causes this phenomenon. This golden rule is as follows:

“When an action or chain is resolving, neither player can act until the resolve of said action or chain.

This is a very important rule, and like with every other rule, there are exceptions. For example, Bountiful Artemis and Abyss-scale of the Mizuchi. These are cards that can activate while a chain is resolving. But, it says so specifically on the card, so, it shouldn’t be that hard to find out.


 Bountiful Artemis

 

Effect wrote:

Each time a Counter Trap Card resolves, immediately draw 1 card (during the Chain).

 Abyss-scale of the Mizuchi

 

Effect wrote:

Equip only to a "Mermail" monster. It gains 800 ATK. When a Spell effect that was activated on your opponent's side of the field resolves, negate that effect, then send this card to the Graveyard.

 Now, that is the main rule there is, that would cause the cards to miss timing. Now, you would say, that you then just wait until the chain resolves, and then use the card that would otherwise have missed timing. Unfortunately, that’s where the cardtext of said cards is important. Here are a couple of examples of different card texts, that may help to understand what I’m pointing at.







 Peten the Dark Clown

 

Effect wrote:

When this card is sent to your Graveyard, you can remove this card from the Graveyard to Special Summon 1 "Peten the Dark Clown" from your hand or Deck.

 Neo-Spacian Grand Mole

 

Effect wrote:

At the start of the Damage Step, if this card battles an opponent's monster: You can return both monsters to the hand (without damage calculation).

 Ally of Justice Catastor

 

Effect wrote:

At the start of the Damage Step, if this card battles a non-DARK monster: Destroy that monster immediately (without damage calculation).

 There are three different sorts of effect listed above. Optional “When” [Peten the Dark Clown], Optional “If” [Neo-Spacian Grand Mole] and Mandatory. As the name might suggest, optional effects are effects you can decide on using, yes or no, and mandatory effects will activate, when their conditions are met, even if you don’t want them to. Now, seen Mandatory Effects activate anyway, there is no use in making a difference with When and If for them. They are forced to activate, and when their timing were to be improper, game mechanics would make them start a new chain.










 The optional effects, however, are not forced to activate. And that’s what I’ll explain next. The issue, which is the second of the two causes for missing timing, is Causality. And “If” Optional effect does not care, when it activates. It’s only requirement is that the conditions are met, for example, with Neo-Spacian Grand Mole, being in Battle with another monster. So, they wouldn’t miss timing, because they can just wait it out.

The issue is, however, with “When” Optional effects. Due to the fact, that they say “When”. Let’s take Peten the Dark Clown as an example. Its effect says “When this card is sent to your Graveyard, you can remove this card from the Graveyard to Special Summon 1 "Peten the Dark Clown" from your hand or Deck.”. This means, that at the exact time, that Peten is sent to the Graveyard, it will attempt to activate. Because, it says when, and when it does, it’ll try to activate. Now, in the case of for example Dark Hole. Dark Hole’s effect is “Destroy all Monsters on the field.”. Peten, and any other Monsters would be destroyed, and sent from the field to the Graveyard. That’s when Peten activates, and there’s nothing to stop it, mechanics-wise. So, Peten can activate and will Summon another on, by banishing itself, if the effect is allowed to resolve.

 Now, a case where it cannot activate, it when Peten is used as a tribute for a Tribute Summon. The action that occurs, is that you send Peten to the Graveyard as a tribute, and again, at exactly that moment, it will once again, try to activate. But, you are in the middle of an action. Being, the Tribute Summon of a Monster. So, when we then get our Golden Rule back in view, it’ll say, that you cannot do anything while an action or chain resolves. In this case, our action of the Tribute Summon is resolving. And since Peten does not state it can activate while something resolves, it will be unab le to activate at that given moment. So, Peten cannot activate, and you’ll Tribute Summon the intended Monster. And you might think, “But, now that that is done, you can activate Peten now, right?” The answer is no. This is where Causality kicks in. Peten said, “When it is sent from the field to the Graveyard”, and as such, must activate at that exact moment. And since something was resolving at that time, it couldn’t have activated. Aka, it missed the timing to activate.


 Et voila, the first example of missing timing. It’s a lot more easy, then it may seem. As soon as you’ve grasped the main view of it you should be fairly able to know what card will miss timing, and which won’t.





 Also on other note, this is also the reason why you cannot use cards that negate a Non-Inherent Summon on the actual Summon itself. This all is for the same reasons. While a card effect, like Monster Reborn or Gorz, or Call of the Haunted, would Summon a Monster, it is a card effect that is resolving. And at the point where you would use the card that would negate the Summon itself [Note, I say, the Summon, and not the effect that summons], like Black Horn of Heaven, Thunder-King Rai-Oh and Solemn Warning could, the cards effect is still resolving. 
 So, if you activate Monster Reborn, and you have Black Horn of Heaven, you cannot use that Trap. Because, when the targeted Monster is Summoned, Monster Reborn still resolves, aka, Black Horn of Heaven would break that Golden Rule if it would activate. Hence, it cannot activate.




 I hope, this has all been very helpful,  and that you may now understand missing timing to its full extend that I have been able to pass on. If there are any questions or things you might want me to add or edit, feel free to PM me, or reply here on it.


Note: The actual tasks will be added on Monday by Nottu the Evoker. It should give you all some time to read this through already.



C.C.
ODA Admin
 ODA Teacher

^ ^ ^ I think i MIGHT have a Ganashia. Is it the elephant one with the fabled guy beneath his foot?

Anarchist Monk Ranshin: As soon as he is destroyed by your opponent, his effect auto-triggers. Not optional (Unless there's no monsters to target.). If there's an after-battle effect from the attacker, such as Grenosarus (Rank 3 Xyz, 2 level 3s. When this card destroys an opponent's monster by battle and sends it to the graveyard: You can detach 1 Xyz Material: inflict 1000 damage to your opponent.), Ranshin has lost his timing by then.

a card that can commonly miss timing is Fortune Lady Light. the issue with Fortune Lady Light is people often attempt to remove it from the field on a chain link higher than chain link 1. for example, a player normal summons fortune lady light. their opponent responds to the summon with effect veiler. the turn player responds with compulsory evacuation device. fortune lady light will miss the timing as the last action wasnt it returning to the hand, but effect veiler attempting to resolve (and failing). another situation where it can miss the timing is using effects that remove it from the field, but do other things that arent simultaneous. an example would include destroying your own fortune lady light with generation shift. the last action that occurs when generation shift resolves is adding a fortune lady light from deck to hand. the one destroyed by generation shift will miss timing.

Lightpulsar going to grave for synchro summon in chaos dragons will make it miss timing. Reason being lightpulsar goes to graveyard before the monster is summoned and when the monster is summoned the last thing to happen wasn't pulsar leaving the field but the synchro monster hitting the field. Also Soul taker and ryko make elemental hero the shinning effect miss timing. Reason being is that even though shining was destroyed and sent to the grave the last thing to happen was the +1000 lp from soul taker or the mill 3 from ryko ( those cards also make pulsar miss timing as well ).

Freaky Axel wrote:

but fabled monster like Ganashia will always loose timing

You might want to reread the effects of Fabled Monsters. I'm a skilled Fabled player, and I can tell you now, with Morphing Jar or Card Destruction, they will not miss timing. It would defy the use of both Chawa and Nozoochee, since they first discard a Fabled, then summon themselves.

clairedestroyer wrote:

fortune lady light will miss the timing as the last action wasnt it returning to the hand,

I think you want to re-read up on Chain Links. A chain resolves backwards, and given the chain is this:
CL1 - Lady Light 
CL2 - Veiler
CL3 - Compuls
I think you'll do good to think that one through again.

 

Valkoor Lightheart wrote:

As soon as he is destroyed by your opponent, his effect auto-triggers. Not optional

Ranshin has lost his timing by then.

You just contradicted yourself there. Maybe it's handy to read through the article again, I think you either missed it, or you missread. You're mixing things up.

Black★Rock Shoote wrote:

I think you want to re-read up on Chain Links. A chain resolves backwards, and given the chain is this:
CL1 - Lady Light 
CL2 - Veiler
CL3 - Compuls
I think you'll do good to think that one through again.

 no i dont. notice how fortune lady light doesnt have any effect to be at cl 1. it only gains an effect when it leaves the field. the chain would be, in response to lights summon, cl 1 veiler, cl 2 compulsory. light will attempt to activate the moment it leaves the field, but will miss the timing as veiler still needs to resolve.

Mahad II wrote:

I would like to point out that chaining Compulsory Evacuation Device to Veiler is foolish and ignorant. Light does not need her effect active on the field in order to use her remove-summon effect.

 thats irrelevant to the discussion at hand, which is about missed timing. and, if for example, the turn was player was planning on doing that anyways veiler still ends up ruining that plan.

I see that I might had to explain further more, the reason why Fabled Ganashia dont miss timing with cards such as Chawa and Nozoochee, is because their discarding effect is a cost http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/The_Fabled_Nozoochee, you can see under Action Category that I am telling the thruth.

If "The Fabled Cerburrel", "Fabled Lurrie", "Fabled Krus", "The Fabled Catsith", or "The Fabled Ganashia" is discarded from the hand to the Graveyard as a cost, then its effect does not miss the timing, and will activate after the current Chain fully resolves.[4]

Now for cards like Card Destruction and Morphin Jar discard effect is not a cost but part of their effect, hence why Ganashia will miss timing if discarded by those cards.

I hope you will revise your point of view of Fableds

Freaky Axel wrote:

I see that I might had to explain further more, the reason why Fabled Ganashia dont miss timing with cards such as Chawa and Nozoochee, is because their discarding effect is a cost http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/The_Fabled_Nozoochee, you can see under Action Category that I am telling the thruth.

If "The Fabled Cerburrel", "Fabled Lurrie", "Fabled Krus", "The Fabled Catsith", or "The Fabled Ganashia" is discarded from the hand to the Graveyard as a cost, then its effect does not miss the timing, and will activate after the current Chain fully resolves.[4]

Now for cards like Card Destruction and Morphin Jar discard effect is not a cost but part of their effect, hence why Ganashia will miss timing if discarded by those cards.

I hope you will revise your point of view of Fableds

 I think you are getting confused here, it doesnt matter how a fabled monster is discarded to the graveyard wether it is via a cost ie Chawa Monster Reincarnation or Rageki Break or wether it is through an effect such as Morphing Jar or Card Destruction the effects of most Fabled Monsters will go off, this is because 90% of Fabled effects are mandatory and thus start a new chain after the current one resolves.   You are quite right that some will miss timing off hand I cant remember what they are at the moment however.  I hope this helps

Yes my point is only about Ganashia not all Fableds

Freaky Axel wrote:

Yes my point is only about Ganashia not all Fableds

 Ganashia is a mandatory effect though http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/The_Fabled_Ganashia

the effect reads :
When this card is discarded to the Graveyard, Special Summon it. If this card is Special Summoned this way, it gains 200 ATK and is removed from play when it is removed from the field.

Ganashia is not worded like dark worlds with and if clause it is worded as you can see above with when denoting that Ganashia is mandatory and will still resolve normally when discarded by Card Destruction or Morphing Jar

Are sure about that fact you see alot of my friend say that mandatory is those that got IF, not when

Yes I am positive, I have been playing Fableds since there release and am knowledgable about the archetype. 

If and When are commonly confused and if effect is in fact an optional effect to paraphrase  Black Rock Shooter :

 Optional “When” [Peten the Dark Clown], Optional “If” [Neo-Spacian Grand Mole] and Mandatory. As the name might suggest, optional effects are effects you can decide on using, yes or no, and mandatory effects will activate, when their conditions are met, even if you don’t want them to. Now, seen Mandatory Effects activate anyway, there is no use in making a difference with When and If for them. They are forced to activate, and when their timing were to be improper, game mechanics would make them start a new chain.
Optional “If” [Neo-Spacian Grand Mole] and Mandatory. As the name might suggest, optional effects are effects you can decide on using, yes or no, and mandatory effects will activate, when their conditions are met, even if you don’t want them to. Now, seen Mandatory Effects activate anyway, there is no use in making a difference with When and If for them. They are forced to activate, and when their timing were to be improper, game mechanics would make them start a new chain.



However a When Effect can also be mandatory for example Ganashia is mandatory because it say When X happens do this as opposed to When X happens you can do this

I see, when a card contain when, and you can in same phrase then it will miss timing.

pretty much my friend glad I could help  it took me ages to fully understand this too im still not to good on determining effects that would miss timing myself

Sync Gusto Falco and Dandylion, for T.G. Hyper Librarian, Dandylion effect activates and Gusto Falco misses the timing for not being last thing to happen being Hyper summon.

Gusto Falcon has "When...you can" - Miss Timing
Dandylion has only "When" if I believe Scape it is mandatory and will activate

yup that is correct Axel 

My example is Exodia The Forbidden One, now this card can miss timing in one situation only but not many people know about it so here it is :

If you have two cards left in your deck you have appropriate (http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Appropriate) active you play dark world dealings allowing you to draw one card and then Appropriate kicks off making you draw two which puts you over the amount of cards you have left in your deck thus the win condition of exodia misses the timing since you have lost by game mechanics of decking out