#mirror force

Now that we're covering Duelist Kingdom, we finally have the chance to see some of the game's famous Trap Cards! We'll start with perhaps the most well-known: the one and only "Holy Barrier: Mirror Force"!

A part of my drive to work on this project came from me relishing the fact that, since I was remaking the cards from scratch, I could finally give them proper names accurate to the Japanese release. This card was one I remember wanting to do in particular- I was so excited to be able to put the "Holy Barrier" back in this card's name!

But when it came time to finalize this card and send it off to be printed, I got cold feet about it. At the time, I remember thinking that "Mirror Force" alone just seemed like the cleaner, punchier name for it. Plus, I wasn't satisfied with how the full title looked at the top of the card. So I left out the "Holy Barrier" part of the name on my first print run.

For my second printing, I had a change of heart. While looking over the master files of all my cards, I experimented a little more and found a better-looking way to fit longer titles onto my cards. And so "Holy Barrier: Mirror Force" now has its proper name in my project's archives!

There's something funny to me about how this card's effect was handled by Konami. See, the manga's "Holy Barrier: Mirror Force" destroys all of your opponent's monsters, and not just the Attack Position ones. The "Mirror Force" in Konami's game was nerfed to only destroy Attack Position monsters, and it was still considered too strong, spending quite a lot of time on the banlist in the game's early years. Seems like it's just in this card's identity to be a little too strong!

Mirror Force

3rd level abjuration

Casting Time: 1 reaction which you take when you are hit by an attack made by a creature you can see

Range: Self

Components: V, S, M (a mirror shard)

Duration: Instantaneous

Classes: Bard, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard

A reflective shield appears in front of you, redirecting the incoming attack. Make an ability check using your spell attack bonus. The DC equals the attacking creature’s AC. On a success, you cause that attack to hit the attacking creature instead of you. On a failure, the attack misses you.