Difōmā Raiton and going to zero Life Points

Question

I have a question about a Yu-Gi-Oh card that I have been thinking a bit about: Difōmā Raiton or in English Morphtronic Lantron.

In the anime, it appears in 5D's in the second season (episodes 142-143) as a Deus Ex Machina and reads the following effect:

● While in Attack Position: Any effect damage you would take from an opponent's card effect is inflicted to your opponent instead. ● While in Defense Position: When your Life Points become 0 while this card is face-up on the field, toss a coin and call it. If you call it right, gain 100 Life Points. Each player can only use the effect of "Morphtronic Lantron" once per Duel.

Its Defense Position effect was used in the anime.

This card was printed in the TCG in Extreme Victory, alongside a lot of late-second season cards. Its effect reads:

● While in Attack Position: Any effect damage you would take from an opponent's card effect is inflicted to your opponent instead. ● While in Defense Position: When this card is destroyed by battle and sent to the Graveyard, you take no Battle Damage this turn.

You can see that the Attack Position effect is the same, but not the Defense Position.

I am curious about why this effect was changed. Here were a few clues I had:

• Card too overpowered alone Maybe this would have been too overpowered alone. I don't think so compared to the meta at that time, in my opinion
• Card is too strong in combo with another card Maybe there is a combo with another card that is way too strong. I didn't manage to find a good combo for that
• Rulings problem with the card I believe this is the most likely case. I think there might be some shenanigans with the fact that you drop to zero Life Points; but I didn't find something clear enough in the Rulings.
• Rulings problem in a combo I didn't find a combo that fits this.

Could someone please provide an explanation?

Answer 1

It's hard to say why Konami chose the specific replacement that they did, but the reason why the effect changed is quite simple: The effect would be inconsistent with the rules of the game.

Your third assumption is correct. Quite plainly stated in the rules, if any player's LP becomes 0, that player loses the Duel (or, if both players simultaneously reach 0 life points, the Duel ends in a draw).

When LP reaches 0, that's that - the player loses. As a real-world example, consider the second effect of the card Salamangreat Sanctuary:

You can pay 1000 LP, then target 1 Link Monster you control; make its ATK 0, and if you do, gain LP equal to its original ATK. You can only use each effect of "Salamangreat Sanctuary" once per turn.

It is legal to pay 1000LP when you have exactly 1000LP remaining. In this instance, you pay the 1000 LP, your LP drops to 0... and you do not gain LP from the effect of Sanctuary. You will immediately lose the Duel at this point.

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Now, just on the side: that's not to say that it's impossible to make the effect work for the physical card game. It could easily have been something like, "When damage would be inflicted to you that would reduce your LP to 0: Toss a coin and call it. If you call it right, your LP becomes 100 instead." But that's neither here nor there.