Yu-Gi-Oh
A bad card game.
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: These cards are your warriors who will do the fighting for you. 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 higher require two sacrifices. 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). exist in four types:
- Normal - A straightforward card with no abilitis
- Effect - A card that has a special modifier once summoned face-up.
- Ritual - A ritual monster is summoned using a ritual spell card and tributing monsters. They are placed in the main deck and cannot be summoned without a ritual spell. They have a blue border and can be either effect or normal.
- Fusion - A fusion monster is one where you have to combine two or more cards in order to summon it, using the polymerization card to fuse multiple monsters together
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 each other. Instead of a level they have a rank which reflects the level of the monsters that must be "overlaied" to summon them from the extra deck.
- Pendulum - These are monsters that can also be played as spells and go to the extra deck when they're destroyed while on field. They also allow you to summon a bunch of monsters in one turn, as long as the levels are between the scales of the two pendulum monsters you have in your pendulum zones. Newfags.
- Spell Cards: These cards are for support, augmenting monsters, giving you more cards or life points, stunning the opponent...etc, anything to give you an upper hand in the battle. They have have six subtypes:
- Normal - A one-time use card that is discarded after its effect is completed
- Continuous - The effect persists, so long as the card is still in play
- Equip - Equipped on a monster card to augment their stats or give them special abilities
- Quick-Play - Can be used to counter certain monsters and spell cards once they land on the field.
- Ritual - A specific ritual card where you have to sacrifice certain monsters in order to bring forth the patron of the ritual.
- Field - Changes the attribute of the playing field, which can give certain monsters buffs or penalties (I.E: Water monsters benefit from Umi and Dark monsters benefit from Yami). Back then, only 1 field spell may be active at a time, but later rules made it that each player may have their own field spell.
- Trap Cards: Trap cards can't be played directly and have to be deployed in the face-down position. As their name implies; they're traps for your opponent, which can be triggered either by your decision or once your opponent meets certain conditions. Thanks to the animu's flair for the dramatic, you're required to say "YOU'VE ACTIVATED MY TRAP CARD!" in a loud and smug fashion, while dramatically flipping your trap card, when you decide to activate your's. Verbally explaining the trap's effects in a dramatic fashion is optional. Trap Cards exist in three kinds:
- Normal - The card can be used once and discarded after its effect is completed
- Continuous - The trap persists so long as the card is still on the field
- Counter Trap - A trap to counter other 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 Standby Phase the phase that happens between the Draw and Main Phase. Nothing really happens here, but some abilities use this as part of their trigger requirements. But really nothing at all.
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.
- 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 dystopian cyberpunk. Seriously, that's actually the premise. Not terrible. Surprisingly interesting and edgey at times. The dub is mediocre compared to the subbed, as 4kids of course excised the more "mature" parts from their localization.
- THEN there was Yu-Gi-Oh! ZeXal, which is basically Naruto with card games instead of ninjas set in an alternate universe from 5Ds where Synchros don't exist.
- And now there's Yu-Gi-Oh! Arc-V, which seemed to have remembered the other series and summoning methods existed, but the promise the show had got butchered once they travelled to the world of 5D's.
- 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 *tips fedora*.
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 |