How does one play Yu-Gi-Oh!, anyway?

Yu-Gi-Oh! Month

How to Play

5Ds: Duel Transer - Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3

Legacy of the Duelist - Part 1 - Part 2

This is the main reason why I haven't been posting much lately on this blog. I am currently writing two reviews of Yu-Gi-Oh! video games, which, as you can guess, are very long to play. I am doing my best to get the first part of the first review posted this Friday, and finish the second review in the meantime. These games have a lot of content, from the cards you can own to the hundreds of duelists that can be battled.

However, before I can discuss the games, I felt a crash course in Yu-Gi-Oh!'s gameplay mechanics and rules was needed for my readers who aren't quite as knowledgeable in this card game.

How does one play Yu-Gi-Oh!, anyway?

Both players have a deck that contains between 40 and 60 cards, an Extra Deck with 0 to 15 cards, and a side-deck (also containing up to 15 cards) thanks to which they can edit their deck between duels of a match (A format in which two to three duels are played, the winner of two duels wins the match).

A regular victory VS a victory achieved through a special win condition.

Both players start with 8,000 Life Points (LP). The main method of defeating an opponent is to take down their LP to 0, but there are alternate ways to win, such as the opponent decking out (a player automatically loses if they are required to draw a card but their Deck is empty) or special cards with win conditions.

The player that goes first is determined by rock-paper-scissors, with the winner of the rock-paper-scissors choosing whether they want to go first or second on the first duel (and in the case of the second and third duels of a match, the one who goes first is the one who lost the previous duel). Each player draws 5 cards.

Left to right: Draw Phase - Standby Phase - Main Phase 1 - Battle Phase -
Main Phase 2 - End Phase

Each turn is split in six Phases:

• Draw Phase, where a card is drawn from the Deck.
• Standby Phase, in which some effects can be activated.
• Main Phase, where the turn player can play the cards from their hands, activate effects, summon monsters.
• Battle Phase, in which the turn player can select one of their monsters in Attack position and use it to attack a monster controlled by the opponent (or launch a direct attack at the opponent, if they control no monsters). 
• Main Phase 2, which is identical to Main Phase 1, allows a player to Normal Summon/Set (if they didn't do so during Main Phase 1), Special Summon, or play or Set more Spell or Trap cards from their hand.
• End Phase, where the turn player ends their turn (some effects may activate during that Phase).

There are three types of cards: Monsters, which can be Normal or Special Summoned to the field, or Set; Spells, which can be played almost exclusively on your own turn; and Traps, which you must Set on the field ("Set" means "Placed face-down") and can’t use until at least your opponent’s following turn, but afterwards you can activate them anytime, even on your own turn.

Left to right: Monster card, Spell card, Trap card.

5 stars = needs 1 Tribute.

Each player is allowed one Normal Summon every turn, of a monster that can be summoned to the field with no requirements. A Level is indicated by the stars on the right side of the card, underneath the name and Attribute. Monsters with a Level of 1 to 4 can be Normal Summoned without any requirements. Monsters with a Level of 5 or 6 must be Tribute Summoned or Set from your hand by tributing one monster on your side of the field, while those with a Level of 7 or higher need two (A Tribute Summon still counts as a Normal Summon). Tributed monsters are not considered "destroyed" but are still sent to the GY.

Special Summons can only be achieved through card effects or the Summon requirements of monsters in the Extra Deck (more info on that below), but there is no limit to how many you can do per turn. Same for the number of Spells and Traps you can Set or activate on your turn, no limit, except you can only use those in your hand or activate the ones on your side of the field. Monsters that are Tributed, removed from the field, or destroyed are sent to the Graveyard (recently shortened to GY), same for Spells and Traps whose effects have been used. There are effects that banish cards from the game, to a Banish Zone, located near the GY, that is harder to recover cards from.

Click the picture to zoom and view where every Zone is located.

There are various types of Spells and Traps.

• Normal Spells and Traps are sent to the GY after they're used.
• Continuous Spells and Traps remain on the field and their effect either lasts through multiple turns, or can be activated repeatedly.
• Equip Spell cards can be equipped to a monster, and give them a stat boost or an additional effect. Those are usually sent to the GY when the monster they're equipped to is destroyed or removed from the field.
• Quick-Play Spell cards can be activated on any phase on your turn, or on the opponent’s turn if they were Set to your field during your turn.
• Field Spell cards have effects that encompass the entire field. Before 2014, there could be only one Field Spell on the field at a time, but since 2014 it is possible for both players to control a Field Spell. Of note, those particular Spell cards have their own dedicated Zone on the playing field: The Field Spell Zone.
• Ritual Spell cards only serve the purpose of Ritual Summoning Ritual Monsters (which counts as a Special Summon).
• Last of all, Counter Trap cards are activated to counter specific situations on the field.

There are many kinds and sub-kinds of monsters. The basic ones are Normal (yellow card, nothing special) and Effect (orange card, has an effect described in its card text). Every other type of monster is special.

• Ritual (blue cards): These monsters can only be summoned if you have, in your hand, a precise Ritual Monster and a Ritual Spell card that is able to Ritual Summon that monster, as well as monsters in your hand or on the field whose Levels are equal to or higher than the Level of the Ritual monster you’re trying to summon. Ritual monsters stay in the Main Deck.

• Fusion (purple cards): These monsters require a Spell card that allows fusion (the main one being called Polymerization, though there are others), as well as usually some precise monsters on the field or in your hand (called Fusion Materials). A Fusion monster usually needs two Materials, but may require more. Some Fusion monsters may function differently. Fusion Monsters are in the Extra Deck. (For Fusion and Synchro monsters, the Materials used for the Summon are sent to the GY.)

• Synchro (pale grey/white cards): These monsters can only be Special Summoned with monsters on the field. They require one Tuner monster (a kind of monster created along with Synchros) and one or more non-Tuner monsters. The levels of the monsters used for the Synchro Summon must also be equal to the level of the monster being summoned. Synchro monsters are also in the Extra Deck. Most Synchro monsters can be summoned with any Tuner monster, but some require precise monsters (such as the example below).

• Xyz (black cards): Pronounced “Ex-ease”. These creatures can be summoned by having two (sometimes more) monsters of the same Level on the field. You can then summon the Xyz monster from your Extra Deck, with a Rank equal to those monsters’ Level (example: A Rank 4 monster for two or more Level 4 monsters), placing the monsters used for its summon underneath the Xyz monster as “Xyz Materials”. Most Xyz monsters have an effect for which the cost is to remove an Xyz Material from it. The other detail about Xyz Monsters is that since they have a Rank instead of a Level, effects that involve Levels can’t be applied to them.

• Pendulum: Half-monster, half-Spell card. Those start off in the Main Deck. Can be summoned as a monster to the field, or used as a Spell Card and placed on a Pendulum Zone. Those monsters have a Pendulum scale, and if both Zones have a Pendulum monster in them, you can Pendulum Summon (a form of Special Summon) as many monsters as you want from your hand whose levels are between those cards’ Pendulum scales (example, you could Special Summon Level 4 monsters from your hand if your scales are 3 and 5). Most Pendulum monsters have both a monster and a spell effect. Also, when a Pendulum monster is destroyed, it is sent to the Extra Deck instead of the Graveyard, and destroyed Pendulum monsters in the Extra Deck zone can also be summoned to the field again through Pendulum Summoning. Note that Pendulum monsters, aside from being half-Spell cards, can have their other half be a Normal, Effect, Fusion, Synchro or Xyz monster, with the Summoning conditions of each. (Recently, Pendulum Zones were integrated to the Spell and Trap Card Zones, but from 2014 to 2017 they used to be their own separate area on the board.)

As an example, this is a Normal Pendulum monster.

• Link (blueish card with a hexagon pattern?): Those have no level, no Defense (thus cannot be placed in Defense position), and must be Special Summoned (using the required cards as stated in the card’s text) so that you can summon more than one monster from your Extra Deck. Even then, you could only summon Extra Deck monsters to an empty Monster Zone that that Link monster points to. (Those did not exist until 2017, so they're not in either game I'll be reviewing over the next few weeks.)

Many regular Effect monsters (the orange cards) can have an additional special ability attached to them: Flip, Toon, Spirit, Gemini, Union… Those, along with "Tuner", are attributes written on the card immediately after the monster's Type and card genre.

Monsters can only be Normal Summoned in face-up Attack Position or in face-down Defense Position (also known as "Set"). Attacks can only be carried during the Battle Phase. An attack from an opponent monster will flip a face-down monster face-up. Afterwards, damage is calculated based on the monsters’ Attack (ATK) and Defense (DEF) stats.

If the attacked monster was in Attack position and weaker than the attacker, the weaker monster is destroyed and its owner loses LP equal to the difference in ATK (example, a 1700 ATK monster destroys a 1300 ATK monster, the latter's controller loses 400 LP).
If the monster being attacked is in Defense position and destroyed due to its DEF being lower than the attacker's ATK, its controller doesn’t lose LP. However, if that monster’s Defense was higher than the ATK of the monster attacking it, then the attacker’s owner loses LP equal to the difference but the attacking monster isn’t destroyed.
If an opponent has no monsters and the player has at least one monster in Attack position on the field, that monster is able to attack the opponent directly, inflicting to the opponent's LP in damage the total ATK value of that monster.

Bam, 2600 ATK to the face!

Various effects also exist to damage a player’s Life Points (through what’s known as Effect Damage), while there are effects that require a cost in Life Points to be paid so that you can use them. Effect damage is also called by fans "Burn", and Decks focused on Effect damage are called "Burn Decks".

So yeah, that’s the basics. Do note that a lot of card effects play around these rules and may change them a bit, so always make sure to read each card carefully (thankfully, games like Duel Transer allow you to read the cards played by opponents so that you know what to expect from them).

In official tournaments, there are restrictions on Decks based on banlists. Konami releases hundreds of new cards each year, and revises the list of banned cards accordingly. Most cards can be used in up to three copies in a Deck, but others have limitations.

• Forbidden: This card is not allowed for use in a Tourmanent.
• Limited: This card is allowed in a Tournament, but your Deck can only contain one copy of it.
• Semi-Limited: Same as Limited, but that card is limited to two copies in your Deck.

Random questions:

-Is it possible to end a duel in a draw? Yes, but it’s extremely rare. So rare, some video games have a special achievement for it!
-Is it possible to surrender a duel? Yes, in video games it's done by clicking the Deck and selecting "Surrender", while in real life a common way is to put the hand over the Deck.
-Explain some other terms on cards? "Excavate" means you look at a certain number of cards on top of your Deck, without adding them to your hand. Effects that involve this mechanic often indicate what to do with the excavated cards. "Mill" is a fan term referring effects that send cards directly from the top of the Deck to the GY, disregarding the kinds of cards - basically, you don't control which cards from the Deck get sent. "Bounce" is another fan term referencing effects that return cards from the field to the hand (and, in the case of Extra Deck monsters, returns them to the Extra Deck.) Cards returned to the hand or Extra Deck are not destroyed. Other effects exist to send cards back from the hand or field to the Deck, those are also not destroyed. "Stall" is a type of Deck focused on blocking the opponent's strategy, usually by preventing them from attacking, uasing effects, activating cards and so on.
-What's an archetype? Archetypes refer to a group of monsters, Spells and Traps who usually share a common term(s) in their card names. Those can be referred to through that archetype name. Modern decks tend to focus on one archetype, as the game has evolved to make use of them above anything else. Name examples include "Lightsworn", "Elemental HERO", "lswarm", "Odd-Eyes" and "Melodious".

-Can a duel be won in one turn? Yes! Those strategies, known as "OTK" (for "One Turn Kill"), involve getting the opponent's Life Points from 8000 to 0 in a single turn. There are even rarer cases of OTKs, such as the First Turn Kill (where an opponent wins on their first turn) and Zero Turn Kill (where a player wins without even having a turn... good luck pulling that one off.)

-Are there formats? Yes, Traditional and Advanced. Advanced is the format for official tournaments, with the banlist that updates depending on new releases, usually adding new cards that become Forbidden or Limited, while on rare occasion other cards can be removed from the banlist or go from, say, Forbidden to Limited. The Traditional format is a lot more lax, allowing more cards, though it still has restrictions on some cards.

As an example, this monster is Forbidden in Advanced, but only
Limited in Traditional (meaning you can have one copy of it).

Let me know if there are still questions you may have, and I'll add them to this article.

Well! This was a pretty long article!