Yu-Gi-Oh

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A CCG based off a shonen battle manga of the same name. Surprisingly fun, and while confusing at first, becomes second nature to most after just a few games. Yu-gi-oh is not as bad as some people have been led to believe. It has a quite interesting amount of game styles to choose from in the way you use the cards in your "deck" which is quite customisable. At first it was just played by a couple of groups of people over the world but then it got a major increase in the player base after its anime came out in the west. It is a simple to play game that can keep you entertained for hours. Perfect for rainy days.... unless you're playing the game outside which isn't advised.

How to Play

Yu-Gi-Oh is rather similar to Magic the Gathering in terms of play. Each player starts with a 40+ card deck and tries to take his opponent's 8000 life points down to 0. Players take turns to play creatures and spells, attack the opponent's creatures and deal with some of the most badass cards brought to play.

The number of cards you can have in play is limited: you can have five monsters, five spells/traps and one field in play at the same time. If you have five monsters you cannot summon additional ones without sacrificing others, you can however play spell/trap cards even if you already have five of them active, and you can play a field card if you already have one.

Note that 8000 is a really fucking huge number of life points to keep track of: you might want to bring a notebook or calculator along to keep track of your life points.

The makeup of a card

The three basic types of cards in Yu-Gi-Oh are Monster, Spell and Trap.

Monster Cards exist in four types: Normal (who have no abilities), Effect (they have an ability which is either always on, trigger upon summon or flip or trigger in certain phases every turn), Fusion (uses the spell card Polymerization: by sacrificing/discarding the monsters required you can grab a monster from your Fusion Deck (which is part of your deck but kept apart from the other cards) and place that onto the battlefield) and Ritual (this requires you to sacrifice monsters from either your hand or in play whose combined levels equal or exceed the summoned monster's). However, thanks to recent updates there are even more kinds: Synchros (which go in the fusion deck, now known as an extra deck, and are summoned by sacrificing monsters with a total level equal to theirs including exactly one (usually) tuner) and XYZ (pronounced "Exceeds", and summoned by placing two or more cards of the same level on top of eachother. Instead of a level they have a rank which reflects the level of the monsters that must be "overlayed" to summon them from the extra deck. Newfags.

Monsters have levels, which affects how you summon them. Monsters from level 1 to 4 can be summoned normally. Monsters of level 5 and 6 require you to sacrifice one of your monsters, 7 or 8 require two sacrifices and 9 and 10 require three. Monsters also have Attributes (think the colors from Magic the Gathering, except there are seven), Monster Types (like creature type, there are 23, including fish, aqua and sea serpent), Attack and Defense (Strength and Toughness).

Spell Cards have six subtypes: Normal (they do their thing and go to the graveyard), Continuous (they keep doing their thing), Equip (are equipped onto a monster to do something benificial), Quick-Play (can be played in response to Monster and regular Spell cards), Ritual (are required for Ritual Summoning and can only be played if you have the appropriate Ritual Monster in your hand) and Field (often has an effect on the ATK/DEF of monsters with certain types/attributes). Field spells are special in that only one can be active at the same time: when the other player plays one the first one is destroyed.

Trap Cards (and you have to say YOU ACTIVATED MY TRAP CARD when playing one; it's in the rules) cannot be played directly: they have to be played face-down and be turned face-up in reaction to something else being played. Trap Cards exist in three kinds: Normal (they trigger and leave), Continuous (they keep doing their thing while on the field) and Counter Trap (who serve as trap cards to trap cards).

The Turn

The turn starts with a Begin of Turn phase where some things can happen depending on the cards in play, but most of the time this turn is just filler.

The Draw phase allows you to draw 1 card from your deck. Again, some abilities might be triggered in this phase, but it's not all that flashy.

The First Main Phase is where it all happens: you can play 1 monster and as many magic/trap cards as you like. Monsters can either be Summoned or Set. Summoning means they are placed in a face-up upright position; this makes their Attack stat the number used in the combat phase. If a monster is set it is placed in a face-down position turned 90 degrees to the right; this makes their Defense stat the number used in combat.

The Battle Phase has four sub phases. Again it has a Start and End step in which some effects trigger, but most of the time they're just there to look pretty. The meat and potatoes is in the Battle and Damage steps: you choose one of your monsters and attack one of your opponent's monsters. You then compare your monster's Attack to the other monster's opposing stat. If it is in Attack Position you compare the two Attack scores: the monster with the lowest Attack is destroyed and its controller loses life equal to the difference in Attack. If the scores are equal both monsters are destroyed. If the monster is in Defense Position you compare your Attack to the other's Defense: if yours is lower you lose life (but not your monster) equal to the difference, if yours is higher the other monster is destroyed but the opponent does not lose life. If the scores are equal nothing happens.

If you attack a face-down monster this way it flips up: either to reveal a weak monster that your opponent put down to stall for time, an effect monster that does something beneficial when flipped or destroyed, or a large blocker that might deal you damage. All monsters you control may attack only once, one by one; you are allowed to attack the same monster several times.

After this is the Second Main Phase which is identical to the First Main Phase: you may play a monster (if you haven't done so already) and any number of spell/trap cards.

Finally there is the End Phase where effects might be triggered and at whose end you have to discard until you have six cards in your hand.

Interesting Notes

• Season 0 Yami Yuugi is a well known follower of Tzeentch (As if the Egyptian gig wasn't enough of a give away). His ability to combine both dickery and Just As Planned into his Yami No Games (Games of Darkness, in English) in such perfect order it most likely earned him the position of Daemon Prince, which would explain his powers. Subsequent Yugis.....were most likely to Slaanesh.
• http://www.duelingnetwork.com/ test it for yourself
• Yu-Gi-Oh was clumsily "advertised" by a cartoon for children about adults playing a children's card game, which shared the same name.
• The aforementioned program was so popular, they released a spin-off show called Yu-Gi-Oh GX, about children attending a university that teaches students how to play a children's card game (really). Even the US dubbers noticed how stupid this was, and would write dialog that mocked the franchise, making some parts of the show look like an Abridged parody.
• This spawned another spin-off, Yu-Gi-Oh 5Ds, where angsty emo teenagers play a children's card game on motorcycles, in a setting that's some sort of attempt at cyberpunk. Seriously, that's actually the premise.
• Now there's Yu-Gi-Oh! ZeXal, which is basically Naruto with card games instead of ninjas.
• Dan Green voices both Yugis in the English version.
• Adding insult to injury is the fact that the original manga/anime (Season 0) it was based on was actually pretty boss and only featured children's card games a few times (And even then, that shit was awesome). Mostly it was about Yami Yuugi punishing local bullies and scumbags by challenging them to a "Yami No Game", a dark and demented game of Yuugi's making with a stringent set of rules (That depends on the current challenge) that are meant to test the person's true character. If the person looses a Yami Game, or breaks the rules in any way, Yuugi will either kill them or give them such realistically horrifying hallucinations that they turn into a gibbering, hapless wreck. As an example, he once played table hockey with a puck full of nitroglycerin and blew the other guy to bits. In another game in the anime, he tricked an armed criminal holding his girlfriend hostage into pouring 180 proof vodka all over himself and putting a lighter on his hand. Ensuring that if he did anything wrong, he'd burn a horrible death. If those are not Awesome, I don't know what is.

IN AMERICA

This is what Japanese people think all Americans look like.

Card Games
Collectible Card Games:	Call of Cthulhu - Cardfight!! Vanguard - Fire Emblem Cipher Force of Will - Jyhad - Magi-Nation Duel - Magic: The Gathering Netrunner - Pokémon - Star Wars: Destiny CCG (Dead) - Yu-Gi-Oh
Other Card Games:	1000 Blank White Cards - 7th Sea - Apples to Apples - Bang! Cards Against Humanity - Coup - Decktet - Dominion - Dvorak F.A.T.A.L. - Keyforge - Mafia - Mag Blast - Mao - Munchkin Race for the Galaxy - Sentinels of the Multiverse - Tanto Cuore
Traditional Card Games:	Bridge - Cribbage - Mahjong - Solitaire/Patience - Poker - Rummy - Tarot