Seal

Seal 封印（ふういん） (Fūin)
Japanese Wiki: 8483

Seal is a keyword action.

Details

It is a new mechanic that was introduced in DMR-19 Forbidden Dokindam X, along with the Forbidden Impulses and Forbidden Creatures that use it.

These new cards are put into Forbidden Impulses, and when you put the Forbidden Impulse into the Battle Zone, you put a varying amount of cards listed on the impulse from the top of your deck onto the Impulse face down. To flip over the Impulse to the creature side, you have to put all the seals into your graveyard by putting a Command that has the same civilization as the sealed card into the battle zone. Seals are put into the graveyard before the creature's on-play effects trigger.

Certain cards can also allow you to seal your opponent's creatures. Your opponent's creatures are sealed by placing the top card of their deck onto them face down. While an opponent's creature is sealed, the sealed creature isn't treated as a creature, can't leave the battle zone, can't attack, can't block and can't trigger any abilities listed on it and is treated as if the creature wasn't there. The seals can be removed by card removal, by putting commands that have the same civilization as the sealed card into the battle zone or by various card effects such as Liberation of the End.

Seals are the strongest form of Removal in Duel Masters as the creatures don't leave the battle zone and don't trigger leave or Put Into Graveyard abilities, but also denies their existence. However, it is ineffective against decks with huge amounts of Commands as they can easily deny the removal. However, it can still disrupt the opponent's plans by making his key cards unrecoverable, or even deck out the opponent when he has too many creatures in the battle zone.

The CoroCoro Comic issue that revealed Forbidden ~The Sealed X~ had the text for removing seals written in the Forbidden Characters cipher. When decoded into English, it was written as the following;

“

whenever a player puts a command into the battle zone, he puts seal from one of his cards into graveyard.

Whenever a player puts a command into the battle zone, he puts seal from one of his cards into graveyard.

— CoroCoro Comic

”

List of cards that deal with Sealing/Unsealing

Cards that seal your opponent's creatures

Cards that seal your creatures

Cards that specifically remove your seals

Cards that seal themselves with an ability

Cards that control unseal removal

Forbidden
Dormageddon X, Forbidden Armageddon (Seals sent to a graveyard only.)
FORBIDDEN STAR ~World's Last Day~ (Limits your seal removal only to summoning darkness or fire commands that cost 5 or more, or via ZERO.)

Rulings

If a creature is unsealed any time besides the start of the turn, if it is tapped, it doesn't untap until the start of its owner's next turn.
When targeting cards, a seal is treated as having a cost of 0.
When you put a Multicolored Command into the Battle Zone, you may unseal one monocolored creature which matches a civilization with it.
To successfully unseal a Multi-colored creature, you must put a Command into the battle zone with one of the matching civilizations.
Putting a Zero Civilization command into the battle zone doesn't remove seals from Zero Civilization creatures as Zero is not a civilization.

Example

Forbidden ~The Sealed X~

Fire / Forbidden Impulse
■ At the start of the game, put this Impulse into the battle zone and put 6 seals on it. ■ This Impulse can't leave the battle zone. ■ Forbidden Liberate — When this card has all seals removed, flip it. (When you seal a card, put the top card of your deck on that card face down. Whenever a Command is put into the battle zone, its owner puts a seal from one of his cards that has the same civilization as that Command into his graveyard. While a creature is sealed, both players ignore that creature.)

Dokindam X, The Legendary Forbidden

Fire / Forbidden Creature / 99 / 99999
■ Triple breaker ■ When this card is Forbidden Liberated, your opponent puts a seal on each of his creatures. ■ Whenever your opponent would choose a creature with a spell that costs 4 or less, he can't choose this one. ■ If this card is anywhere other than the battle zone, you lose the game.