Surprise! Losing from the unexpected

You have set up the perfect field, your ener and hand is superb, no matter what your opponent does, he will never break through your rigid defense. You still have life cloths and you can afford to take your opponent's attack,

then it happened,

a surprise attack that you failed to realize, causing you to lose the game.

Today we will be looking at some of these possible SIGNIs that can end you without you realizing.

Otagame

Commonly seen in: Piruluk

Extremely famous during the Lostorage Era, Otagame often appears out of nowhere from using Daihouika's effect, making opponent take a damage they thought they have stopped. Hence to fully stop such incidents from happening, the opponent has to either stop the attacks without removing any SIGNI on the field or all SIGNI.

Texahammer/Hammerfake

Commonly seen in: Alfou

Another 2 sneaky SIGNI, it pretty much has the same situation as the above -mentioned Otagame-Daihouika, either clearing all their SIGNI or stop the attacks without removing any SIGNI. The trigger SIGNI is most often Alfou's signature SIGNI, Sayuragi but can also be done in other LRIGs like Umr using Nyarctho.

Ifrid/Nothoto

Commonly seen in: Alfou and Yuzuki respectively

One common blind spot players tend to have is that they assume when a SIGNI has an 'on-attack' effect that opens 1 SIGNI zone, it means only 1 SIGNI zone would be opened.

However that isn't entirely true as these SIGNIs condition to open SIGNI zones may be chained with other card effects to clear an ADDITIONAL SIGNI zone, surprising the player and ending them.

One common example is Sayuragi's 'on-attack' effect, milling out 1 or more Ifrids which can open another SIGNI zone, allowing an attack you thought that could not bypass your SIGNI to happen. Another example is Nothoto in combination with cards like Dinos and Guetzal in Yuzuki 3.

In fact such situations also exist in Key Selection, cards like Oreore can be chained with other effects like J Ripper to open extra holes against unsuspecting opponents. It is always wise to carefully consider each SIGNI attacks while responding.

Kaizuka

Commonly seen in: Decks that can put SIGNI from trash to field during attack phase (AKA many decks)

While Kaizuka is often seen as a defensive SIGNI, she can also be used offensively, allowing the player to call her out when a SIGNI is called from trash to field, creating a surprise attack to destroy your opponent. Such SIGNI includes Otagame and Nihoningyo. 

As usual, such opportunities are not possible if you clear the opponent's entire field or stop their SIGNI attacks without removing them (such as down or giving 'cannot attack').

Playgrounds

Commonly seen in: Spinner, Tama, Aiyai and Guzuko.

The most scariest one of all introduced here, sometimes even the player using them do not know how many attacks can happen. If you do not think through your responses thoroughly, a single attack can easily turn the entire board into a new set of continuous attack, killing you from the unknown.

 

One possible interactions is calling Hacka Doll 1 from Blajack or Nihoningyo, which can be chained into one extra SIGNI from Hacka Doll 1's on-play effect. Another would be hiding Bed Merry in hand and calling it to field by using Pricas's 'on-attack' effect to swap a standing SIGNI on the board with it. Seriously there are so many different interactions playground SIGNIs can make that listing all of them here would just flood the article (even I doubt I know the full extent of playground's possible combinations). 

Conclusion

When you die to the most random attack of all things.

Really, it is important to always treat every SIGNI with caution and think through thoroughly before deciding whether to let an attack in or open the appropriate response to stop those attacks. 

Usually if you are unsure whether your opponent can open extra SIGNI zones or get in an extra attack through such SIGNI effects, determine whether your life cloth can take the hit if he does have such effects. This would allow you to reach a win-win situation where if he do not have such effects, you saved yourself from opening a needless response while if he did, you ain't dead!

Even if you died to such attacks, do not wallow in despair. Rather learn from it and remember in your head so the next time you faced something similar, you will be more than ready to take them on. 

Hope this article gives you some insight into the different ways WIXOSS can be played. With that, see you next time~