Dark Hole is a powerful card. But that doesn’t mean you should always activate it as soon as you draw it. Dark Hole wipes out all monsters on the field – including your own – whenever it’s activated! You’ll need to be careful if you want to make the best use out of Dark Hole.

Dark Hole is best to use when your opponent has a better field than you do. It instantly equalizes both Duelists’ fields by wiping out all of the monsters in play. But this doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s always a good idea to activate Dark Hole when your opponent hasmore monsters than you, or when your opponent has a bigger monster than all of yours. You’ll always want to measure whose field is better overall before activating Dark Hole.

Let’s say you have Stardust Dragon on the field, and your opponent has 2 Fluff Tokens and a Defense Position Reborn Tengu. You have Dark Hole in your hand. Should you activate it?

At first glance, it might not look like a bad idea. Your opponent has 3 monsters, and you only have 1. But under closer examination, you might realize that your field is better than your opponent’s. Your opponent has no way to get rid of your Stardust Dragon with his on-field monsters, and you can gradually chip away at your opponent’s field by attacking with Stardust Dragon. There’s no reason to give up your in-hand Dark Hole and your on-field Stardust Dragon to take down 3 monsters that aren’t posing a threat. From this example, you can see that it’s not always a good idea to activate Dark Hole just because your opponent has more monsters than you do.

It’s not always a great play to use Dark Hole when your opponent has the strongest monster on the field, either, even if you can’t destroy it any other way. Let’s switch up the situation. Let’s say you have Reborn Tengu and 2 Fluff Tokens on your field, and your opponent hasTrishula, Dragon of the Ice Barrier in Attack Position. There are 2 Reborn Tengus in your Deck. You have Spore and Dark Hole in your hand, but you already used your Normal Summon for the turn. Should you activate Dark Hole to clear the field, just because none of your on-field monsters can get past Trishula?

Probably not. Hold onto Dark Hole. Then, on your next turn, you can Normal Summon Spore, a Level 1 Tuner, and Synchro Summon a monster that can rid the field of Trishula. By TuningSpore with Reborn Tengu, you can Synchro Summon Ally of Justice Catastor and destroy Trishula with its effect. Alternatively, you might be able to Synchro Summon Orient Dragon. There’s a good chance that you’ll be able to use Spore to take down Trishula on your next turn, while saving the Dark Hole. Then, you can use your new Synchro Monster to start dominating the Duel.

If your opponent swarms the field with monsters and uses them to clear your field so that you have no monsters left to Tune with Spore, that’s okay too. It means that you’ll be able to destroy more of your opponent’s monsters by activating Dark Hole on the following turn. When you have a wall of monsters defending your Life Points, there’s no rush to activate Dark Hole.

Dark Hole is a powerful card, but you’ll always want to use it to take the lead away from your opponent. Don’t use it when both fields are evenly matched, and don’t use it when your field is better than your opponent’s. Save it until you’re in a tight spot, and then use it to get ahead. Always be careful when activating Dark Hole and you’ll see just how many Duels it can turn around.