Yu-gi-oh

.../> I first got into Yu-Gi-Oh when I went to my cousin’s house. I arrived, all tired and the first thing I was confronted with was “Phil, do you want a game of Yu-Gi-Oh?” I agreed and I must admit, although I am a bit old for it, it was fun to play, as their were loads of monsters and moves possible. Below is a guide on the trading card game, so have fun!

General Info:
Yu-Gi-Oh is a trading card game that is ...
...of Packs and Cards:
Yu-Gi-Oh booster packs are available from Argos and most local newsagents and good toy stores. Structure decks, for example, are harder to find than booster packs and starter decks. Some cards are also available in limited edition. These cards are exactly the same as the first edition ones, except that they are extremely rare. The first edition ones differ from the unlimited (normal) ones, only in the picture, and are also ... more

Intro:
I first got into Yu-Gi-Oh when I went to my cousin’s house. I arrived, all tired and the first thing I was confronted with was “Phil, do you want a game of Yu-Gi-Oh?” I agreed and I must admit, although I am a bit old for it, it was fun to play, as their were loads of monsters and moves possible. Below is a guide on the trading card game, so have fun!

General Info:
Yu-Gi-Oh is a trading card game that is meant for 2 or more players. You are not obliged to play the actual game, but can choose to just collect the cards and not battle with them. You play the game on a ‘game mat’ which could have been made better by making it out of cardboard, rather than paper. Another disadvantage of the paper game mat is that every time you unfold it, there are big creases in it. This means the cards that you put on the mat are not on a flat surface, and must always be straightened up. However, being made out of paper means it can be folded up into a small compact rectangle, no more than 10 x 6cm.

The aim:
The aim of this game, like all other games, is to win! To do this, you mainly use monsters, which each have different attack (ATK) and defense (DEF) levels. Of course, the obvious strategy is to have powerful monsters, but there are other ways of beating your opponent. For example, as well as monster cards, you can use Spell and Trap cards to weaken your opponent, therefore, making it easier to win. (see sections on strategies and spell, trap and monster cards).

Availability of Packs and Cards:
Yu-Gi-Oh booster packs are available from Argos and most local newsagents and good toy stores. Structure decks, for example, are harder to find than booster packs and starter decks. Some cards are also available in limited edition. These cards are exactly the same as the first edition ones, except that they are extremely rare. The first edition ones differ from the unlimited (normal) ones, only in the picture, and are also a bit rarer.

Types of packs available:
There are two main types of packs; deck and booster. There are 3 kinds of decks - starter deck, starter deck evolution and structure deck. The first contains 46 - 50 cards, a game mat and a rulebook. The same applies for the evolution deck, the only difference being the evolution deck contains better cards. The evolution deck may cost more at some stores, and never costs less than a normal starter deck. A structure deck is made up of 40 cards, a game mat, a rulebook, and also a sheet on how to use the deck. In my opinion the structure deck is the best. There are also two types of structure decks - zombie madness (which contains zombie monsters) and dragon’s roar (which contains dragons). Also there are two new structure decks coming out; Fury from the deep (which I assume contains water cards), and Blaze of destruction (which has fire cards). There are many different booster packs, such as ‘soul of the duellist’ ‘dark revelation volume 1’ ‘ancient sanctuary’ ‘legend of blue eyes white dragon’ ‘rise of destiny’ ‘invasion of chaos’ ‘spell ruler’ and ‘magician’s force’ All of these packs contain different monsters, but all types of monsters can be used during the duel.

The game mat:
The game mat is the place on which you play your ‘duel.’ Both players side on either side of the length of the game mat. On each side of the mat, their are 5 spaces for where monsters can be placed and 5 spaces for either spell and trap cards. On the top right is graveyard (where monsters go when they have been killed), a field card zone (where special field spell cards can be placed), a fusion card zone in the bottom left (where special fusion monsters are placed) and finally your deck zone (where you collection of cards are placed, face down)

Monster Cards:
There are four main kinds of monster cards - normal monsters, effect monsters, ritual monsters and fusion monsters. There are also other types of monsters such as spirit monsters, union monsters and toon monsters, but these are not as common. Normal monsters are the basic cards with which you attack your opponent. Effect monsters allow you to do more things such as ‘when this monster attacks, destroy one spell or trap card.’ Fusion monsters can be used when you activate the spell card ‘polymerisation,’ along with two or more monster cards, to create a more powerful monster. (providing that you have the right cards.) Ritual monsters require a special spell card to summon them; e.g. to summon black luster soldier you need the spell card ‘black luster ritual’ in your hand or on the field. Spirit monsters return to your hand at the end of your turn and also have effects. Union monsters can be used as equip spell cards (see section on spell cards) to make monsters more powerful. Toon monsters are very powerful, but also use a special spell card to summon them, and another disadvantage is that they eat your life points. The main advantage of the cards are that they can also attack your opponents life points, if they don't control a toon monster. The most powerful kind of monster card (and every other card!) are the Egyptian god cards. ANY card effects do not destroy these kind of cards. They also have abilities of their own, but these are not shown on the card itself. A major disadvantage of these cards is that you are not allowed to use them in tournaments. Here is a list of their card effects:
Obelisk the tormentor - if you sacrifice two monsters on your side of the field after this card has been summoned (by tributing 3 more monster cards) (see section on ‘playing the game’) you can destroy all monsters on your opponents side of the field and also take off a huge 4000 life points! ATK 4000 DEF 4000

The winged dragon of ra - after you have tributed 3 monsters to summon this card, add all their ATK together to form ra’s ATK and add all their DEF to form ra’s DEF. You can also take off any amount of your life points, and add this to ra’s ATK.

Slifer the sky dragon - You need to tribute three monsters to summon this card. Slifer’s ATK and DEF - how many cards in your hand x1000. Each time your opponent summons a monster, take off 2000 of its ATK. If this monsters ATK now reaches 0 or lower, the monster is destroyed.
In the bottom left of the card, there is the ATK and DEF levels. The picture and the description of the monster and sometimes its effect (the description is below the picture) take up most of the card. Its name is at the top. In the top right, there is its ‘attribute’; which can be one of dark, light, earth, wind, water, fire and divine. .

Trap Cards:
There are three kinds of trap cards - normal trap cards, continuous trap cards, and counter trap cards. All trap cards that you play already have to be face down on the field. This means that they can be activated after one turn, and can only be played face down. When your next turn comes, it can be activated (turned face up). Normal trap cards are the most easily available in booster packs etc. Once you have fulfilled, it gets destroyed. Continuous trap cards stay on the field, until you or your opponent activates a card that allows them to destroy your card. Counter trap cards are generally the hardest to find, and can be activated when your opponent does a specific action. All trap cards can have an effect on either you, your opponent or how the game plays.

Spell Cards:
There are 6 kinds of spell cards. These are - normal, field, continuous, equip, quick-play and ritual. Unlike trap cards, they can be played straight from your hand. Normal and continuous have the same FX as trap normal and continuous cards. Field spell cards are put in the top left of the game mat, and only one can be played at a time. They normally effect monsters on both your side and your opponent’s side of the field. Once a field spell card has been played, the only way to cancel its effect is to play another one on top of it. (or destroy it with card effects). Equip spell cards are generally used to make your monsters more powerful, but the rarer ones can have effects such as making your opponents monsters weaker and summoning monsters from the graveyard. Quick-play spell cards can be activated during your opponents. (see section on playing the game). For example, if you had a card in DEF position, and had 1500 DEF, your opponent attacked it with 2000 points. Then, you could play ‘The reliable guardian’ which increase any monsters defense by 700 points. This means you would win this particular battle, thanks to the quick use of a spell card. Ritual spell cards are needed to summon ritual monsters. For example, black luster soldier can only be summoned by black luster ritual (its ritual spell card counterpart).

Price and packaging:
As said before, Yu-Gi-Oh packs are very expensive for the amount of cards you get. In a standard booster pack you get 9 cards, for a whopping £3-5 depending on where you buy. Pay a visit to eBay however, and get great deals on booster packs such as searching for BATTLE MASTER GAMES, click on yugioh and you can buy 3 booster packs for 4.50 and also on grab bags that range from 10 to about 500 cards for very cheap. Also you can buy booster boxes, than contain 24 booster packs for about £45; if you bought 24 separate booster packs, this would set you back £70!

Strategies:
Most people opt for powerful monsters to win, but these can easily be beaten, if the opponent has the appropriate spell and traps cards in his hand. E.g. - P1 (Player 1) has ‘Blue Eyes white Dragon’ on the field. This has ATK 3000 DEF 2500 (these are both high values, making a strong monster). P2 activates the spell card ‘pot of greed’ which allows him to draw 2 cards from the top of his deck. These two cards are ‘Gaia the fierce knight’ and ‘axe of despair’ ‘Gaia the fierce knight’ has ATK 2300 and DEF 2100. He then uses ‘Axe of despair’ which increases one of his monster’s ATK by 1000 points! He then attacks with ‘Gaia the fierce knight’ (Which now has 3300 ATK) and destroys BEWD. (blue eyes white dragon). There are so many strategies due to the sheer number of cards, but above is just one of them. Other people prefer to play more defensively with their monsters, or to use special cards to defeat their opponents. Some also prefer to use lots of spell and trap cards, which have FW on the opponents monsters, rather than enhancing their own. Finally, you can use special decks that give you control over the opponents cards, for example, ‘Change of Heart’ which allows you to take control of one of the opponents monsters till the end of the turn. To sum up, a bad duellist with a good deck is likely to lose against a good duellist with a bad deck

Playing the Game:
IMPORTANT: in all cases where rules and effects of cards overlap, you must always stick to the cards effect. The first thing that you will need to know about playing the game is that your deck has to include at least 40 cards. This does not mean you should have as many cards as you can, because if you only have 40, you have more chance of drawing and getting the cards that you need. Your deck can contain up to 3 copies of each card. There are also special restrictions, such as that you can’t use cards which are too powerful. Belo is a simple description of how to play a normal game of yu-gi-oh:
First, you both draw 5 cards from your deck, and put them in your hand. The person who starts, draws a sixth card. It is advisable to first read the FX and descriptions of the cards in your hand. You then normally summon a monster to the field. (but it can only have four stars or less) Sometimes, you can equip it with a spell card. You can’t attack your opponent yet, as he had not had the chance to summon a monster to defend himself. Your phase can then be ended, and the opponent’s phase begins. He does the same, in playing a monster to the field, but this time, he can attack your monster if he wishes to. If he attacks you, this is calculated using both your ATK levels. If his is larger than yours, you lose the monster, and the ATK points remaining are taken off your life points. (each person starts with 8000 life points and the game ends when one of you reaches 0. However, if the monster you first played time was in defence mode (Face down) the damage is calculated using his ATK level and your DEF level. Again, if it is bigger than yours, you lose the monster, but this time, not any life points. Once his turn has ended, it is yours again. To summon a monster with 5 - 6 stars, you must first summon a normal monster (4-1 stars). Next turn, you can sacrifice this card to the graveyard (top right), and summon your new monster. This is called a tribute summon. If you want to summon a monster with 7 or more, you must sacrifice two normal monsters.
An official rulebook that comes with all decks is very helpful in explaining all of these complicated rules.

Appearance and Artwork:
On the back of each card is a Yu-Gi-Oh symbol in the bottom right. The whole back of the card is also covered in a swirl of gold and brown colours. The word Konami is in the top left. Some rare cards have shiny title and/or pictures. The title of the card comes in 3 four different colours - white (Spell and Trap cards) black (monster card) silver (special rare cards) and gold (very rare cards). also on the front of each card is a picture of the monster/spell/trap card, which is very detailed, and done in lots of good colours, as well as realistic and unrealistic backgrounds.

Overall:
A fairly complicated game that can be an expensive hobby. The game is enjoyable (even I enjoy at 15) and fun to play. It will take a long time to learn all the rules and possible moves, and also to collect all the cards. I suggest you play this game if either a) you have lots of money b) you have lots of time or c) both!

Phil
 

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