Card Rulings - Pot of Duality

Pot of Duality, since its release, has quickly become one of the most commonly played cards. Behind it, however, are a batch of rulings that are either misunderstood, or just not common knowledge. This article hopefully will serve to clear these rulings up.

Pot of Duality

Normal Spell

Reveal the top 3 cards of your Deck, add 1 of them to your hand, then shuffle the rest back into your Deck. You can only activate 1 "Pot of Duality" per turn. You cannot Special Summon a monster(s) during the turn you activate this card.










Reading it, it's easy to see why a lot of people opt to run 3 of this card. But as I've noticed, a few people seem to not be fully aware of the rulings behind it, so here we are. Conditions are usually the rules behind what you can and can't do regarding any particular card or effect. Pot of Duality has 2 of these: "You can only activate 1 "Pot of Duality" per turn." and "You cannot Special Summon a monster(s) during the turn you activate this card." Let's go in depth around a high rank of rulings behind Activation and Effects.

There's two ways to negate a card or effect. The first one is to negate the activation, using cards such as Solemn Judgment or Divine Wrath. The second is to negate the effect, with cards like Effect Veiler or Royal Decree. Let's say, during my turn, I were to activate Call of the Haunted targeting a monster in my Graveyard. And let's say you have 3 options available to respond: You have a Solemn Warning already set, as well as a set Trap Stun, and a D.D. Crow in your hand. If you were to respond with Trap Stun, then my Call of the Haunted would resolve without effect. Same thing for if you chained the effect of D.D. Crow, banishing my target. In these cases, Call of the Haunted (an effect that Special Summons a monster) resolved - There was simply just no monster Summoned. I am still considered to have attempted to Special Summon, meaning that I cannot activate Pot of Duality this turn. However, if you negated my Call of the Haunted with your Solemn Warning, the activation of my Call of the Haunted is negated. The game state doesn't recognise that I tried to Special Summon a monster this turn, meaning I am able to activate Pot of Duality.

Another example: I have a Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon that I have summoned from a previous turn. I activate its effect, and you have 2 possible responses: Either your set Divine Wrath, or that Effect Veiler in your hand. If you used Effect Veiler targeting my Red-Eyes, then only my effect is negated, meaning I'm not able to use Pot of Duality this turn. If you used Divine Wrath, the activation was negated, meaning I can use Duality.

This has so far only covered one way to Special Summon. What about Inherent summons, such as Synchro Summons, or the summon of Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning? In these cases, if the Special Summon is negated by a card like Black Horn of Heaven, then Duality cannot be used. Inherent Special Summons do not use the chain in any way, so they fall into a different category of rulings than the above. Simply put, if an Inherent Special Summon is negated, then the Game State recognises that a Special Summon was attempted, therefore Pot of Duality cannot be activated.

Similarly, let's say I activate Pot of Duality. You have 2 possible responses: Dark Bribe, or Imperial Order. If you respond with Dark Bribe, then the activation of my Pot of Duality was negated - The conditions of Duality no longer apply. I am able to Special Summon this turn, or I am able to activate a second copy. Imperial Order, on the other hand, only negates the effects of Spell Cards. As Pot of Duality still resolves (even if the effect was negated), the conditions still apply.

Now let's look at Pot of Duality vs Thunder-King Rai-oh. If Rai-oh is on the field and his continuous effect is active (Neither players can add cards from their Deck to their hand except by drawing them), then Duality just flat-out can't be activated. If, however, I activate Pot of Duality, and you respond with Call of the Haunted to summon Rai-oh, then a different thing happens. Pot of Duality's activation and effect still resolve, although the effect is treated differently. I would still reveal the top 3 cards of my deck. I would still select 1 of them to add to my hand. But, because I am currently not able to add cards from my deck to my hand, it is sent to the Graveyard instead. The other two cards are still shuffled into the deck, and the conditions of Pot of Duality still apply.