Yu-Gi-Oh! - Episode 182

The 3 Knights Unite.

 * "Divine Serpent" is trying to Destroy Yami's "Dark Magician Girl". However, Yami uses "Legendary Knight Hermos's" Special Ability: he 'absorbs' the power of the "Obnoxious Celtic Guard" and gains its Effect: it cannot be Destroyed in Battle by a Monster having 1900 or more ATK.


 * The 3 Knights claim, that, by staking their lives, they shall protect their Master. Dartz grumbles and has to End his Turn. Yami Draws and claims that it's finally time to settle scores. Dartz shrugs and points out that his adversary, the "Divine Serpent" has Infinite ATK.


 * Yami recalls about how this is a battle for the sake of a lot of people. By using a combo of the Legendary Knights' Special Abilities, he's able to deliver the finishing blow to Dartz's Monster with "Knight of Destiny", whose power tears a crack into space-time and opens up the dimension in which the seized souls are being fed to the Orichalcos God.


 * However, the Orichalcos God comes out of an inter dimensional portal and Dartz disappears, to Yami's surprise. However, the 3 Knights are able to recall the Souls of Yugi, Joey and Kaiba.

Rise of Atlantis.

 * Atlantis emerges from the ocean and everyone knows that they must go there and fight the final battle: Kaiba, Joey and Yugi decide to go on their own. While walking back inside of the temple, Yugi's Millennium Puzzle is triggered: he fins the God Cards in the slots where Dartz had placed them back during Yugi freed Timaeus.


 * The rise of Atlantis causes a gigantic tsunami (200 meters tall!) to form and head towards the mainland: it'll reach the American Eastern Coast in roughly 1 hour!


 * Yugi returns the other two "Legendary Dragon" Cards to both Kaiba & Joey before Dartz's face (projected by magic) invites them to come over.


 * Upon reaching the palace's courtyard and finding the origin of the green beam of energy which is being emitted, they find Dartz's body turned into an ice statue which is sitting in a throne. It fades away. Dartz then magically projects his face in the area and claims that his God will be resurrected: he will be offering his soul instead of those of the Chosen Duelists.


 * The 3 of them attempt an attack on it, but nothing seems to come close to scratching it: suddenly, the aurora forms in the sky.

=Notes= In this Episode, Yami exploits the Special Abilities of his "Legendary Knight Hermos" and "Legendary Knight Critias" to create an an infinite loop of Attacking Power / ATK in order to defeat Dartz's "Divine Serpent". These steps are outlined in detail in the Featured Duel section below.

However, how exactly the steps are achieved is not fully covered in the anime (neither in the original Japanese or English dub). What follows is an attempt to provide a reasonable explanation and possible alternatives for each step.


 * STEP 1)
 * In the original Japanese anime, Yami declares (in this episode, and episode 181) that "Legendary Knight Critias" absorbs a Trap's power. This is different than simply being able to Activate the Trap Card from the Graveyard. In the Yu-Gi-Oh! series, Monsters and Spell Cards/Trap Cards are often shown to work in conjunction for visual & dramatic effect, but in this particular case the absorption of "Attack Guidance Barrier" instills Critias with New abilities, different than the Trap's original text (in particular it allows it to ignore the Activation Conditions of the Trap, namely that the Attack can be only be redirected to a Defense Position Monster).
 * On a side note, the evidence that Yami plays his own "Attack Guidance Barrier" (from his Hand) instead of using "Legendary Knight Critias'" first Special Ability and Activate Seto 's "Attack Guidance Barrier" (from Seto's Graveyard), is exemplified by the fact Yami Draws a Card at the beginning of his Turn and then plays it from his Hand. That Card is "Attack Guidance Barrier".


 * STEP 2)
 * The third Special Ability of "Legendary Knight Hermos" isn't entirely clear: must monsters be removed from the Deck EACH TIME the effect is activated? If so, Yami's attack could have never reached the infinity loop, failing the second time Critias redirected the Attack back at Hermos. For this reason, "Legendary Knight Hermos's" third Special Ability must allow it to remove the Monsters only ONCE, and then make him able to triple the ATK each time it bounces back to him. Another thing to note is that Yami removed Alpha, Beta, and Gamma The Magnet Warriors from his Deck to Activate this Effect. Yami's announcement makes it sound like they haven't been played yet.

(NOTE: In the original Japanese, Yami Yugi says: 'Then, I engage the Special Effect of "Legendary Knight Hermos". Absorb the power of three Monsters from the Deck.)


 * STEP 3)
 * It is unclear which Knight is redirecting the Attack during this step. It could either be "Legendary Knight Critias" (thanks to having absorbed "Attack Guidance Barrier"), or "Legendary Knight Hermos" (activating its first Special Ability). In the former case, Critias's Ability to 'absorb' a Trap would make him able to use that Trap's effect until the End Phase as well, just like Hermos is able to use its third Special Ability in such a way.


 * STEP 4) & ALL STEPS
 * In the real game of Duel Monsters, an "Attack" is what a player declares with a face-up Attack Position Monster. It is not a numerical value. Conversely, the term ATK refers to the points determining a Monster Card's "strength" when it Battles another Monster. The only thing that can triple or increase to infinity are a Monster's ATK points. In the case of this episode however, it would be difficult to identify whose ATK points increase to infinity (Hermos's or Critias's), and how exactly the infinity loop is broken to allow for the Summon of "Knight of Destiny".

Featured Duel: Yami Yugi & Seto Kaiba vs. Dartz
Duel continues from previous episode.

Turn 28: Dartz


 * Thanks to the Effect of "Impact Revive" Dartz is repeating his Battle Phase, and has just used his "Divine Serpent" to Attack Yami's "Dark Magician Girl".
 * Yami Activates "Legendary Knight Hermos'" first Special Ability: he redirects Dartz's Attack to "Legendary Knight Hermos", then selects "Obnoxious Celtic Guardian" in his Graveyard and Removes it from the Duel so that "Legendary Knight Hermos" can absorb its Special Effects (i.e. this Card is not Destroyed by Battle against a Monster with 1900 ATK or more).
 * "Legendary Knight Hermos" survives Dartz's Attack and Damage Calculation is applied normally, but since Yami is already at 0 LP that does not affect the outcome of the Duel.

Turn 29: Yami


 * Draws "Attack Guidance Barrier".
 * Uses "Legendary Knight Hermos" and "Legendary Knight Critias" to Attack Dartz's "Divine Serpent", initiating a series of steps to increase the power of his attack to infinity: (NOTE: there are several problems with this series of steps, all of which are discussed in the 'NOTES' section above)
 * STEP 1) Yami Activates "Legendary Knight Critias'" first Special Ability: he Activates Trap Card "Attack Guidance Barrier" from his Hand and lets his Monster 'absorb' the Trap's power. This lets "Legendary Knight Critias" use its newly acquired Effect to redirect its own Attack to "Legendary Knight Hermos" (NOTE: it can be postulated that by 'absorbing' the Trap, "Legendary Knight Critias" is able to ignore "Attack Guidance Barrier's" original Conditions, namely that the Attack can be only be redirected to a Defense Position Monster).
 * STEP 2) Since it is Attacked, Yami can Activate "Legendary Knight Hermos'" third Special Ability: he Removes "Alpha The Magnet Warrior", "Beta The Magnet Warrior" and "Gamma The Magnet Warrior" from his Deck, so that "Legendary Knight Hermos" gains the Ability to redirect any Attack it receives back at the Attacking Monster, multiplying its power by the number of Monsters Removed. "Legendary Knight Hermos" redirects the Attack back to "Legendary Knight Critias" and triples its power.
 * STEP 3) Yami Activates "Legendary Knight Hermos'" first Special Ability: he redirects the Attack to "Legendary Knight Critias" back towards "Legendary Knight Hermos".
 * STEP 4) Steps 2 & 3 are repeated in an infinite loop, as the attack bounces back and forth between Hermos and Critias and triples in power each time. As it reaches infinity, it eventually satisfies the conditions for the Special Summon of "Knight of Destiny" (∞ ATK / ∞ DEF).
 * Yami uses "Knight of Destiny" to Attack & Destroy Dartz's "Divine Serpent". Thanks to the effect of Knight of Destiny it cannot be Destroyed in Battle. Because "Divine Serpent" is Destroyed, Dartz loses the Duel. Yami wins.

=Featured Battle: Yami + Seto + Joey vs. Dartz & The Orichalcos God - Part 1=

Yami Yugi, Seto, and Joey Summon Monsters to battle the God (this is NOT a Duel):
 * Yami Summons "Dark Magician", "Summoned Skull", and "Kuriboh".
 * Joey Summons "Flame Swordsman", "Jinzo", and "Red-Eyes Black Dragon".
 * Seto Summons "Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon", "Gadget Soldier", and "Vorse Raider"
 * They each Summon "The Eye of Timaeus", "The Fang of Critias", and "The Claw of Hermos", then Yami activates "Legend of Heart" to reveal the Legendary Dragons' true form: "Legendary Knight Timaeus", "Legendary Knight Critias", and "Legendary Knight Hermos".

All Monsters attack the Orichalcos God, with no success.
 * Yami lets "Legendary Knight Timaeus" absorb Kuriboh's Special Ability combined with the Spell Card "Multiply". Again, with no success.

The Orichalcos God counter-attacks:
 * Yami lets "Legendary Knight Timaeus" absorb the power of "Big Shield Gardna".
 * Despite the Shield, all of their Monsters are Destroyed except their Legendary Knights.

Battle concludes next episode.

Trivia

 * In the English Dub, Joey refers to Red-Eyes Black Dragon as "Good Ol' Red-Eyes" much like he did after he had it attack himself to end his duel with Yugi (in Episode 78) in a draw.
 * Apart from the 3 Dragons/Knights, Kaiba, Yami Yugi, and Joey each only summon 3 "real" monsters at a time, much like the DiaDhanks of Ancient Egypt.

Mistakes

 * Big Shield Gardna is once again shown as a normal monster when absorbed by Timaeus (after having been shown the same way during the Duel With Dartz only in the International anime).

Featured cards
The following cards appeared in this episode. Cards in italics debuted here.