

If your opponent tries Link Summoning Firewall Dragon, you’re allowed to flip that Black Horn of Heaven to negate it! Your o pponent wants to Pendulum Summon some monsters? No problem, Grand Horn of Heaven is there to stop it. Synchro Summons, Xyz Summons, Pendulum Summons, and Link Summons are all Inherent Summons: None of them start a chain. The tell-tale brackets here let you know that Cyber Dragon‘s ability to Summon Itself is an “Inherent” Summon. “ If only your opponent controls a monster, For example, read the effect of Cyber Dragon: These cards also tend to use brackets, which tell you where the card summons itself from. On the flipside, you can tell that anything effect which doesn’t use a colon doesn’t start a chain. This lets you know that Masked Dragon’s effect starts a chain! How do I know if a Summon does not start a chain? Note the colon directly after the word “Graveyard”. You can Special Summon 1 Dragon-Type monster “ When this card is destroyed by battle and sent to the Graveyard: For example, the effect of Masked Dragon reads Specifically, any card effect which uses a colon (:) starts a chain. This means that they’re written very carefully, letting you know which part of the card does what. Modern Yu-Gi-Oh! cards use “Problem Solving Card Text” (PSCT). How do I know if a Summon starts a chain? In a nutshell, you can only use Black Horn of Heaven to negate a summon which does not start a chain. Colloquially, some Yugioh players call this type of Summon an “Inherent” summon. Instead, you can only use a Black Horn of Heaven when your opponent wouldSummon a Monster. That implies that the opponent hasn’t already Special Summoned the monster, nor have they activated an effect to Summon a monster. The text here reads “ wouldSpecial Summon”. Negate the Special Summon, and if you do, destroy it. When your opponent would Special Summon exactly 1 monster: Let’s go over the text of Black Horn of Heaven:

So why is it that Black Horn of Heaven, which negates the Special Summon of any monster for no cost, isn’t played in any meta decks? The answer is seen in how it only negates “Special Summons” which do not start a chain. Yu-Gi-Oh! is a game which revolves almost exclusively around Special Summons. How do I know if a Summon does not start a chain?.How do I know if a Summon starts a chain?.
