There seems to be a lot of confusion among players when it comes to targeting effects. The problem appears to be due to players viewing two or more different effects that accomplish similar goals as identical effects. Take the following example:
Your opponent has Malefic Blue-Eyes White Dragon and Blue-Eyes White Dragon on the Field. You have Soul Taker and Smashing Ground in your hand. It is your turn.
While each of these Spells accomplishes the more or less the same goal in this instance, they do so in different ways. One targets (Soul Taker), the other doesn't (Smashing Ground). But why is this?
Well in this case, Soul Taker allows to select a monster to apply its effect on, whereas Smashing Ground indiscriminately hits the opponent's monster with the highest defense. While the latter does allow to choose in the event of a tie, a card cannot target in one instance and not target in another so the effect is ruled as a nontargeting.
It's also important to note that for an effect to be considered a targeting effect, any card(s) affected by it must selected prior to resolution. It's for this reason that an effect like Magical Dimension is nontargeting.
Now there is one last distinction that players should find helpful in figuring out which effects target and which don't. In this game their are six zones each player owns: a Deck, a Hand, a Field, a Graveyard, a Removed From Play Zone, and an Extra Deck. These zones can be divided into two classes:
- Targeting Zones: Field, Graveyard, Removed From Play Zone
- Targeting-Free Zones: Hand, Deck, Extra Deck
Any effect that affects a card(s) in a Targeting-Free Zone is a nontargeting effect even in cases of overlap with a Targeting Zone. This is why Gigaplant's effect doesn't target and Zombie Master's does.
And that's as clear as I can make it. Hopefully my efforts won't have been in vain. ^_^
Remember players, the game ends with you.
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