So How do I play Yu-Gi-Oh!? Part 5

 How do effects Chain?

So now that we know about how battle happens and how to get rid of monsters from the opponents side of the field and how the phases works as well as how the spell speeds work. Now we need to get to nitty gritty of the world of YGO, chain effects, order of chaining, what cards can chain and also missed timing. Chaining effects is not as difficult as it sounds, it merely means that if you activate an effect the opponent has the option to activate an effect in response so long as it is of the same speed spell or higher. The length of how many chained effects can occur has no limit so long as neither player runs out of cards to activate.

Lets resolve a chain.

Lets see what a normal chain looks like lets say these are the cards in my hand.

During the main phase I'll normal summon the Lilith lady of lament,

I can then use it's effect to tribute itself and search for a normal trap, but since I tributed a DARK attribute monster, Darkest Diabolos effect in my hand has the option to chain to Lilith. That being said this is a chain, and chains resolve backwards. Diabolos gets special summoned to the field first and then I get to search for the trap card and set it.

Next we have to get to miss timing, there are effects that can activate that can miss their timing and there by no longer are able to use their effects.

An example of this is as follows:

Say I were to normal summon Junk Synchron, see how its effect starts with "when" all cards that start with "when," can lose timing however cards that start with "if" can never lose timing. Now going on with the example, when junk syncrhon is normal summoned to the field its effect activates which allows for me to summon out a level two monster from my graveyard. but the opponent activates an effect to chain to junk synchron. They activate call of the haunted.

Now this isn't considered miss timing, since it's a chain to the effect of junk synchron but now it depends on what card the opponent summons. The opponent summons out salamangreat gazelle.

Gazelle has the effect to send a salamangreat card from the deck to the graveyard when it's special summoned, this in turn starts a new chain of effects, further more Junk Synchron loses timing because it's effect must be activated when its normal summoned and since many effects have activated since its summon the timing for it's effect has passed.

That is what miss timing looks like, and like previously mentioned this only occurs with cards that start their effects with the phrase "when."