Duelist Pack: Rivals of the Pharaoh contains lots of cards used by Yugi’s greatest rivals in the original animated Yu-Gi-Oh! series; but Bakura’s Dark Sanctuary Spell Card might be the most iconic of them all. In Kaiba’s Battle City Tournament, Bakura used Dark Sanctuary against Yugi in the Quarterfinals to set the pace of their Duel. Dark Sanctuary allowed Bakura to possess Yugi’s monsters and cause their attacks to backfire, while also expanding his Spell & Trap Card Zone to accommodate his Destiny Board Trap Card and its automatic win-condition. When Duelist Pack: Rivals of the Pharaoh releases on September 16th, you can finally harness the power of Dark Sanctuary for yourself!



The Destiny Board Trap Card was released in the Labyrinth of Nightmare booster pack in 2004. Duelists were excited about Destiny Board at the time, because it offered Duelists a new way to win. Instead of depleting their opponent’s Life Points or causing their opponent to run out of cards in his or her Deck, Duelists could spell out Destiny Board’s message over a series of 4 turns to claim an automatic victory.

But doing so has never been easy. Destiny Board lets a Duelist place one “Spirit Message” Continuous Spell Card from his or her hand or Deck onto his or her field during each of an opponent’s End Phases. When all four “Spirit Messages” are placed by Destiny Board, they spell out “FINAL” and the Duel is over.



That may sound simple enough to do, since it should only take four turns to accomplish, but it’s easier said than done. If any “Spirit Message” or Destiny Board is destroyed, all of them go down with it, and with only five Spell & Trap Card Zones per Duelist, Destiny Board’s message requires all of your zones to be dedicated to “Spirit Messages” in order to complete the message.

But now, over a decade after the original release of Destiny Board, it’s is about to become a lot stronger thanks to Dark Sanctuary. While Dark Sanctuary is on the field, you can Special Summon “Spirit Message” Spell Cards to your field as Normal Monsters with 0 ATK and 0 DEF, instead of placing them in your Spell & Trap Card Zone. Then, those “monsters” are unaffected by card effects and can’t be attacked (but they don’t stop your opponent from attacking directly).

Essentially, Dark Sanctuary lets you borrow Monster Card Zones for placing your “Spirit Message” Spell Cards and makes the “Spirit Messages” placed there invulnerable. This is a big deal for Destiny Board Decks, because their biggest weakness has always been their inability to Set Spell & Trap Cards that could protect the devastating message. Thanks to Dark Sanctuary, Duelists can finally spell out the “F-I-N-A-L” message, while also leaving cards like Solemn Strike and Imperial Custom in their Spell & Trap Card Zone to protect Destiny Board.

Of course, without actual monsters it’ll be quite difficult to defend yourself from attack. That’s where the second effect of Dark Sanctuary comes into play. Every time an opponent’s monster declares an attack while Dark Sanctuary is on your field, you get to flip a coin. If the result is heads, negate the attack and inflict damage to your opponent equal to half of the Attack Points of the monster that attacked.

Any attack that an opponent declares can easily backfire while Dark Sanctuary is on your field. Not only will this make it difficult for your opponent to wipe away your Life Points while you’re building up the pieces for Destiny Board, but even if you’re not using Destiny Board in your Deck, the way that Dark Sanctuary turns every one of your opponent’s attacks into a gamble will serve as a powerful defensive card that deters your opponent from attacking.

Dark Sanctuary is a remarkable Field Spell Card used by one of Yugi’s greatest rivals. You can add it to your Deck after the release of Duelist Pack: Rivals of the Pharaoh on September 16th!