Slayer  スレイヤー (Sureiyā)
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| Released: | DM-01 Base Set (OCG) DM-01 Base Set |
| Dmwiki.net: | Article |
Slayer is an evergreen keyword exclusive to the Darkness Civilization.
Details
Whenever a creature with Slayer battles, the opposing creature is destroyed regardless of the battle's outcome, regardless of your creature's power.
While the ability is exclusive to creatures in the Darkness Civilization, the ability of cards such as Quake Staff or Hourglass Mutant can share the ability to your creatures in other civilizations.
As the power of the creature is often unnecessary to destroy your opponent's creature due to this ability, they often have a lower than average power to cost ratio. However, some creatures released in the Katta Era and later such as Truename Screaming Psycho feature higher power.
- Although the reminder text specifies 'opponent', it affects any creatures that the Slayer battles, including your own. Therefore, even an ability such as Xanatic X had one of your creatures battle a creature with slayer, both a destroyed.
As it doesn't choose creatures, it can be used to get around the effect of (pseudo) Unchoosable creatures such as Supernova Apollonus Dragerion.
While your opponents creatures are destroyed after the battle, its not considered as 'winning a battle' in the same way as comparing power.
Due to its text change from DM-10 Eternal Arms onwards, the creature with Slayer doesn't need to lose the battle in order to use its ability, and destroys after the battle, regardless of winning or losing in the power comparison. As a result, it can be used to still destroy creatures that have the ability to Win All Battles and cards such as Amnis, Holy Elemental.
- This original wording of this ability was only featured on four English cards, two each in DM-01 and DM-03.
Multiple instances of the Slayer keyword stack, so if a creature with multiple Slayer abilities battles another creature, that creature is destroyed that many times.
- This is important for creatures with Resistance abilities such as a God Linked creature, Psychic Super Creatures with Release or a Dispector with EX Life.
Reminder Text
The latest reminder text for Slayer reads:
| Slayer (Whenever this creature battles, destroy the other creature after the battle.) |
It originally read as
| Slayer (When this creature loses a battle, destroy the other creature.) |
Example
| 3 Wailing Shadow Belbetphlo |
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Darkness  Creature / 1000 |
| ■ Slayer (Whenever this creature battles, destroy the other creature after the battle.) |
Cards with the Slayer ability
Cards that give creatures the Slayer ability
Rules
- Slayer is a 'delayed triggered ability'.
- The destruction caused by the Slayer ability also applies when winning a battle. Additionally, if a creature that already has Slayer gets the ability again, the effect stacks, and each instance is processed separately.
- For example, if a creature with two instances of Slayer wins a battle, the opposing creature is guaranteed to be destroyed three times in total. Normally, creatures go to their owner's graveyard after the first destruction, so this doesn’t matter often. However, against creatures with destruction Resistance, such as God Link, Escape, or EX Life, the number of times that a creature being destroyed becomes crucial. In particular, EX Life creatures tend to be high power, making it useful for conserving destruction counts or bypassing strong resistances. However, as mentioned earlier, Slayer only destroys the opposing creature in battle. You can't do something like "destroy the Dispector by winning the battle" and then "use Slayer to destroy a secondary creature".
- Even if the battle ends without a clear victory due to a triggered ability like power reduction from Death March, Reaper Puppeteer, the Slayer ability still applies since a battle took place.
- The destruction occurs after the battle. Therefore, if a triggered ability such as bounce is triggered during a battle, you can choose the creature that would be destroyed by Slayer and bounce it to its owner's hand, nullifying the destruction.
- Previously, "after the battle" and "after the attack" were considered the same timing, with the turn player determining the order of Resolution. However, after the introduction of Gaiginga, Passionate Star Dragon, the timing was clearly separated, with "after the battle" occurring before "after the attack." If Glenmalt, Dragon Ruler equipped with Gaiheart, Galaxy Greatsword suicidally attacked a creature with Slayer or was blocked by one, it would be unable to Dragsolution.
- Conversely, since Slayer destruction now occurs during the attack step, it can sometimes be nullified by Gigaheart, Invincible King Sword.
- The "after the battle" timing occurs later than the resolution of battle-related triggered abilities. If there are pending triggered abilities that triggered before the battle, they must be resolved before the destroy of Slayer. Many players mistakenly believe "after the battle" means immediately after the battle, at the same timing as the battle-based destruction.
- For example, if Katsuking, Kung Fu Shogun wins a battle against a Slayer creature, Katsuking's ability triggers first, breaking a shield. Then, Katsuking is destroyed by the Slayer ability. If the broken shield triggers Spiral Gate and Katsuking is bounced, Slayer doesn't activate as a result, and Katsuking's Doron Go ability also doesn't trigger.
- However, as mentioned in the battle details, abilities that trigger at timings unrelated to the battle will trigger only after the battle has ended. In the above example, if the triggered card was Aqua Surfer, it would resolve after the battle ends, allowing you to choose the resolution order between Slayer and Aqua Surfer's Come Into Play ability.
Trivia
- Wisp Howler, Shadow of Tears and Gigakail are unique for having a conditional ability for its Enemy Civilizations of Light and Nature.
- While unique for being in the Fire Civilization, Rising NEX, the Enlightened had a variant of the ability, God Slayer to destroy creatures with a God race.
- It is the Duel Masters' equivalent of Deathtouch from its sister series Magic: The Gathering.
- While the ability has existed since DM-01, unlike the Blocker or Speed Attacker keywords, there are no cards that support Slayer.
Related Categories
- For cards that give your creatures the Slayer ability, see here.
- For creatures that have the Slayer ability conditionally, see here.
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