Current Yu-Gi-Oh is a no play ZONE!!

 Why are There Handtraps in the Game?

I'm convinced that Yu-Gi-Oh keeps changing in a more complex fashion and that no matter what happens in the future of YGO it is too late to return to the old of playing and old cards will always hide a unknown broken factor that will end up getting then banned. This is where hand traps come in, basically to impose the opponent from being able to complete their turn. There are a multitude of good hand traps and we are only going to cover the good ones.

First up we have the legendary hall of fame, Ash Blossom and Joyous Spring

It don't matter what deck you go up against in Master Duel YOU NEED TO PLAY THREE OF THESE, this card is just that good. It stops the opponent from searching their best cards what more could you want from a card you use against the opponent. 100% recommend using this card.

Up next we have a monster negation.

If your opponent goes first in a duel that means your field will more than likely be free of cards which makes Gamma a useable hand trap. Basically being able to negate any monster effects this card can also stop the opponent from using monsters that search for more resources and after negating the effect it destroys the monster as well.

Next up we have Maxx C

This card a brain game, it makes the opponent think twice about special summoning monsters for the rest of the turn. It allows you to draw a card for every time the opponent special summons a monster, and in todays YGO age, special summoning comes in more than five in a turn. So it slightly slows down the game, use it as a way to play mind games with the opponent.

Next we have effect veiler

You may recognize this card from a earlier post but basically this card is gamma without the destruction effect or the limit of having to have no cards on the field. This negates face up monster effects so the card it negates needs to be face up on the field.

Next up we got Ghost Ogre and Snow Rabbit

Basically this card is good for effects that you can allow to activate but then immediately destroy right after they use said effect of a card. This is good against field spells especially since its a card that gives the opponent a field advantage. But do be careful not all cards being destroyed can make a good one up on the opponent so be watchful of what card you destroy with this.

Now we got Droll and Lock Bird.

This card is in my opinion the better card for hand traps, while it allows the opponent to search for one card it then no longer allows the opponent to draw or add cards from the deck to their hand. Imagine stopping the opponent from searching for the rest of the turn with just one card. Yeah I can't believe it either.

Now we have the meteor that killed the dinosaurs, Nebiru, The Primal Being

Basically this card is cancer, once the opponent summons five monsters, after the fifth monster is summoned this card tributes all monsters they control and then goes to show that dedicating everything to a play in the end its not even worth it because this card exists. 

So if you want any cards to be in your deck to use against the opponent then these cards are what you go for.

Lets Talk about What makes a Good Deck?

   What Makes a Deck good?

Well the answer is quite simple and that is if your deck doesn't brick then yes theoretically your deck should be considered a good deck and really all that means that your deck does not come out with a hand that doesn't allow for any plays at all. So in other words your first hand has to be good enough to be able to set up a pretty good field. So having cards that are good for searching or digging in the deck, are very good and I'm going to list off a few cards that do this very well.

First up we have the pot cards that allow for digging(drawing cards from the deck) the deck for more resources, and first up we have Pot of Desires

This card is good in most decks specifically because the card allows for drawing two cards from the deck at the cost of banishing ten of the top cards of the deck face down. While this is not ideal which is losing ten cards from the deck it also shortens the deck and makes it easier to reach the cards you want unless in those ten cards you banished lays the card(s) you wanted. So its a high risk, and medium reward which is better than nothing in current yugioh.

Next up we got the card known as pot of extravagance

This card is especially good in a deck that doesn't rely heavily in the extra or for people who just need a way to draw cards from the deck without severely hurting their resources the way the previous pot card does. So if you want to draw up to two cards from the deck by losing possibly your boss monsters then this card was made for your deck.

Next up we got the last pot card which is Pot of Prosperity 

This card is basically the last card except instead of randomly banishing cards from the extra deck you are allowed to pick your 3 to 6 extra deck monsters, excavate 3 to 6 cards from the top of your deck and add one of the cards to your hand. This does come with a big downside that being that the opponents damage for the rest of the turn is halved and you cannot draw cards for the rest of the turn. So it might or might not let you get to the card you want for a big cost. 

These Pot cards are honestly the best of current yugioh that are not banned in Master Duel. So next up we got a few good cards that might go good in many decks

First we got allure of darkness for dark decks

If your deck is heavily built with dark monsters then this card was made for your deck. At the cost of banishing one dark monster for drawing 2 cards, this card is just too good not to pass up for dark decks.

Next we got Trade In

This is a very simple card, by discarding a level eight monster of any kind, you draw two cards. If your deck is super heavy with level eight monsters then this card was made for whatever deck you had in mind. 

Next we have a similar card known as Advance Draw

Instead of discarding a level eight monster from your hand, for this card you are tributing a level eight monster and drawing two cards. Basically if you are willing to rid your field of big monsters in exchange for resources then this card is also good your deck. 

This does it for good cards that allow for digging in the deck, if you think I forgot any please let me know leave a comment below and I will update the blog, though I feel I covered all the good ones already.

SOOO how do you play Yu-Gi-Oh?! The final part

   So, this is the end, you've read the many different parts there are to a duel that not mentioned in the rule book and have decided to take up the mantel of becoming a duelist. Well its time to address the elephant in the room and discuss a few things that weren't covered in the past blogs. We can start with effect costs and effect activation.

So what's the significance between these two, and what happens when a card effect is negated does cost still occur?

Long story short cost comes first BEFORE effect activation, in order to be able to activate an effect the player must first pay the cost of the card. A card effect can be negated but the COST will NOT be negated because card cost and card effect are separate from each other. Lets look at an example:

Lilith decrees that you can tribute a dark monster in order to search for a trap, we can tell that this is cost because it is written before a SEMI-COLON a semi colon precedes a card effect cost. A COMMA precedes a part of a card effect so its NOT a card cost.

So lets say the opponent would want to negate the effect of Lilith with a hand trap. In most cases this would not work lets see why.

I summon Lilith in attack mode and as soon as I do the opponent reveals that they have a effect veiler

This card says that it negates a cards effects of a monster that is face up on the field. While this would work on a regular monster Lilith can still attempt to activate its effect by tributing itself since its cost is not part of the actual effect. Liliths effect now resolves in the graveyard since its no longer a face up card on the field. 

A big misunderstanding about card effects which goes as long as time I remember I even used to do was that younger players believed that they could destroy cards and by this they would negate card effects, but this is not true cards have to state whether or not they are actually negating a card effect. That said MST negate is not a real thing, and that marks the end of this tutorial of Yu-Gi-Ohs underground rules about how to play the game with rules that are not specified in the game.

Yu-Gi-Oh is a everchanging game and even though there are times when there are cards that are just too good for the game I will always love this game because it is a big part of my childhood. Part of me is like dang I know more about this game than I would think I do, I should open up a dueling school haha. anyways this is it for dueling tutorials if you have any more things you are curious about in this vast world of YGO please ask it in the comment section I will answer them as they come. 

The biggest advice I have for people that are starting with this is READ YOUR CARDS this helps make the game a little easier. 

On the next blog we will finally discuss Master Duel techs.

So How do I play Yu-Gi-Oh!? Part 5

 How do effects Chain?

So now that we know about how battle happens and how to get rid of monsters from the opponents side of the field and how the phases works as well as how the spell speeds work. Now we need to get to nitty gritty of the world of YGO, chain effects, order of chaining, what cards can chain and also missed timing. Chaining effects is not as difficult as it sounds, it merely means that if you activate an effect the opponent has the option to activate an effect in response so long as it is of the same speed spell or higher. The length of how many chained effects can occur has no limit so long as neither player runs out of cards to activate.

Lets resolve a chain.

Lets see what a normal chain looks like lets say these are the cards in my hand.

During the main phase I'll normal summon the Lilith lady of lament,

I can then use it's effect to tribute itself and search for a normal trap, but since I tributed a DARK attribute monster, Darkest Diabolos effect in my hand has the option to chain to Lilith. That being said this is a chain, and chains resolve backwards. Diabolos gets special summoned to the field first and then I get to search for the trap card and set it.

Next we have to get to miss timing, there are effects that can activate that can miss their timing and there by no longer are able to use their effects.

An example of this is as follows:

Say I were to normal summon Junk Synchron, see how its effect starts with "when" all cards that start with "when," can lose timing however cards that start with "if" can never lose timing. Now going on with the example, when junk syncrhon is normal summoned to the field its effect activates which allows for me to summon out a level two monster from my graveyard. but the opponent activates an effect to chain to junk synchron. They activate call of the haunted.

Now this isn't considered miss timing, since it's a chain to the effect of junk synchron but now it depends on what card the opponent summons. The opponent summons out salamangreat gazelle.

Gazelle has the effect to send a salamangreat card from the deck to the graveyard when it's special summoned, this in turn starts a new chain of effects, further more Junk Synchron loses timing because it's effect must be activated when its normal summoned and since many effects have activated since its summon the timing for it's effect has passed.

That is what miss timing looks like, and like previously mentioned this only occurs with cards that start their effects with the phrase "when."

  

So how do you play Yu-Gi-Oh!? Part 4

 The battle phase part 2 Lets Battle

So now that we have discussed the many ways for one to be able to get rid of cards on the opponents field, so now I have to explain a few things about battling, did you know there is actually multiple steps to battling in YGO? Yeah it was a shock to me too but here they are:

The attack declaration: This part is where you choose what monster is going to attack which monster the opponent has.

The Damage step: This is where damage calculation is performed however this is also where very rare moments in which some card effects can activate to either increase or decrease the attack points of a monster. There are very rare instances where effects can activate during the damage step but the majority of cards in todays YGO say that effects cannot activate in the damage step. An example of a card like that is:

After the damage step is the end step in which the opponents monster goes to the grave yard and then bam you can proceed to attack with the next monster in your arsenal.

Does the position of a monster matter when attacking?

This depends on what is at stake here.

Do you want to prevent taking battle damage?

If yes then place in defense.

Does your monster have a high enough attack to be considered battle ready against other monsters?

If yes then leave in attack.

If the stats are same in terms of attack and defense does the position matter?

This depends on how high the attack and defense are see lets take this card for example:

Now you see this card has the same stats but it has an effect that increases it's attack points in which case we should really leave this card in attack mode and vice versa for if the effect was for the defense of a monster.

But what if the attack points and defense points don't change because of an effect?

In this case it'd be wise to know how high at the attack points, in todays day and age a card with 2500 or more attack points is considered a high attack point monster. So any monster with the same stats of attack and defense with 2500 or more attack, I would leave in attack mode unless the opponent has a bigger monster in which case I would leave said monster in defense, remember we are trying to make sure we take little to no damage in a duel. Anything with equal stats of attack and defense below 2500 should probably be left in defense mode at least that way normal little monsters cannot attack over it and the opponent is forced to attack with their bigger monsters first.

That about sums the battling part of YGO if you have any questions regarding anything that has to do with battling please leave one below and I will answer them in a future blog post in a QnA post.

So how do you play Yu-Gi-Oh!? part 3

The Infamous Battle Phase(part 1)

So there are quite a few things to consider when it comes to the battle phase aside from the common monster effects that can activate during the battle phase as well as back row that the opponent or you just  happen to have while playing the game. So that must be all then correct surely it's just, my monster has more attack points than yours so its a no brainer whether or not I should attack yours so I should just go for it correct? Wrong if the opponent left their monster in attack mode they more than likely have a back up plan and a plan for the backup plan. Yu-Gi-Oh is more complex than that and it has only gotten more complex with time. Granted when it first started this would have been the case it has escalated much more than that.

So what has changed in terms of getting rid of monsters?

Nowadays there are many ways to get rid of your opponents monsters or cards in general the list goes as follows:

Destroy by battle: This is oldest way of getting rid of monsters which is just attacking over the opponents monsters.

Destroy by card effect: I say this to be the second oldest because during the initial release of yugioh, there were only really 3 cards that could destroy by card effect which are cards like Raigeki and Dark Hole, the amount of cards that can destroy by card effects nowadays has increased exponentially but it is currently one of the most common ways of getting rid of the opponents cards.

Tributing: This can only apply to the opponents monsters but by tributing their monsters, if a card permits it like Kaijus it is a very effective way of getting rid of the opponents nearly indestructible monsters like those that are unaffected by card effects. 

Banishing: This is the act of using a card effect that is pretty much effective against most cards that have the ability to activate effects in the graveyard, because instead of sending banished cards to the graveyard they are sent to a special zone that hasn't formally been given a name in the game but for the sake of this, we are going to call it the banish zone. Simply put if a deck revolves around using the graveyard it'll be really hard to reach for their cards if they are in the banish zone.

Sending cards to the graveyard: Aside from the normal way of destroying by battle and card effect there is also a very rare way of getting rid of card not many cards do it this way. Some card effects just allow you to "send" opponents cards to the graveyard, in which case it doesn't count as destruction by card effect because the card specifically states that it sends cards to the grave.

(edit: I forgot to add a few more ways to get rid of monsters without using the above methods I will cover those in a the future so hang tight)

So how do you play Yu-Gi-Oh part 2

 

So what is the significance of spell speeds 1, 2, and 3 maybe a 4th???

Spell speed 1

These effects can be categorized as the slowest of the three spell speeds out there,  effects that start their sentences with "Once per turn" typically are spell speed one. In which case these effects can't typically chain to other effects but if multiple effects activate around the same time then spell speed one effects can chain to each other.

Spell speed 2

These effects are more commonly seen as effects that can be activate from either players turn. These cards can come in the form of a specific type of spell, all trap cards, and monster effects that state that they are "(quick effects.)"

Spell speed 3

These are the fastest of the spell speeds, there is only one type of card that can utilize these effects and those are counter traps which I will showcase down below for the examples of cards. Counter traps can only be chained by other counter traps which is why it makes these cards much more powerful.

Spell speed 1 spell 

Spell speed one monster

Spell speed 2 spell

Real quick this card above is known as a quick play spell you can tell the difference by the little symbol next to the words "spell card."

Spell speed 2 monster

You can tell this card is a quick effect because the effect has quick effect stated in parenthesis.

And once again let me remind you that all normal trap cards are spell speed 2.

Now for spell speed 3 cards which are generally all counter trap cards.

You can tell this from a normal trap by looking at the symbol next to the words "trap card."

But wait is there a spell speed 4???

Well yes and no, while officially there is no such card that Konami has appointed the title of spell speed 4 the community has given this title to cards that cannot be chained to because the card itself forbids it.

An example of a spell speed 4 is:

This card states in the end of the effect that neither player can chain or activate cards and effects in response to its effect. Leaving the opponent to just sit and take all the consequences.

 

So how do you play Yu-Gi-Oh!? part 1

 So how does one... feel the flow?

Well I'm glad you asked because feeling the flow requires a lot  of concentration and commitment, you don't wanna accidentally lose a duel and lose your soul for the great Leviathan now do you? I'm just joking, but these next few blog posts will be dedicated to helping new players understand the mechanics of the game and I don't mean the ones you see in the tutorials of Master Duel, I mean the ones that are conspicuous that you wouldn't normally think of in the game.

First up lets discuss the phases and how each player goes through them.

Draw Phase

This one is sort of self explanatory phase, the turn player is to draw a card and proceed to the standby phase. HOWEVER cards and effects that either spell speed 2 or higher can be activated after the turn player has drawn their card.(I will explain what the spell speeds are in a bit.) After cards and effects resolve then the turn player can proceed to the standby phase.

Standby Phase

This is the phase that comes right before the main phase which is where some card effects happen. It has no other function other than some card effects activate during the standby phases. Again however you could activate spell speed 2 or greater effects here, though generally players wait to use such cards unless it gives them some sort of advantage for the turn.  

Main Phase

The Main phase is where the turn player is able to start making plays with their cards. This is where you can activate your spell speed one effects or greater. Combos can be started here but do be wary that the opponent can activate cards that make it hard for you to be able to have a decent turn. 

Battle Phase

Here is where you can declare attacks on either the opponents monsters or directly to the opponent, you and your opponent can activate spell speed 2 or greater card effects during this time as well.

Main Phase 2

This is where you set up for the opponents turn if perhaps by chance you were not able to win the game by then. You can set traps and do some last minute searches basically set up your defenses for the upcoming turn.

End Phase

Here you merely are declaring that your turn is going to end, some effects happen here during the end phase as well. Again spell speed 2 effects or greater can activate here from either player. Once this phase ends it is now the opponents turn and the cycle repeats.

I will leave this photo to give a better idea of the the phases look.

Link Monsters: I hate these with a Passion.

 Of all the cards Konami could have made Links are possibly my least favorite of all the types. Since it's initial release Links were looked upon with having the potential of slowing down the game as in its time YGO had become such a special fast paced game and it didn't look like it was going to slow down anytime soon. So Links were created to slow down the summons of pendulums, synchro's, fusions, and xyz's, at least initially. There was just one problem during the beginning of the era of Link monsters every YGO player that wanted to play YGO using their old decks were forced to add links to their extra deck and become super creative to use their old decks or completely forget the old decks and only focus on Link based decks.

So what does the Link monster look like? Look below.

This is what a link monster looks like and right off the bat it has a different design than what we have seen previously on other extra deck monsters. These have arrows around the card, there are the black ones that symbolize empty arrows then the lighter colored ones which are the link markers. Those I'll explain in a bit for now lets make us a link summon.

Lets try and summon Decode talker, seems easy enough it says that it needs 2+ monsters so I should only need to effect monsters to summon it right?...Right??? WRONG!! See Konami made these summoning mechanics pretty obscure and bleak for it's time that putting things like 2+ monsters was like saying a tuner and a non tuner monster is used for synchro summons.

Well give me a moment to be able to explain this without being really vague. Yes and no you can use 2 monsters to summon this monster. If we take a close look at the bottom right corner we see the it is a Link 3 monsters which means that at most you require 3 effect monsters to be able to summon this card for an example look below.

You have three effect monsters and send them to the graveyard as link material and summon out the link monsters and that's the first way to summon a link monsters

Now we have the second way with which to link summon using only 2 monsters. We can use smaller link monsters in order to summon the bigger ones. With this I mean if we were to use a link 2 monster and one effect monster then we can summon out the link 3 think of it as just 2+1=3 and bam there's a link 3 for the example look below

                                                                     

To the left have the link 2 Proxy Dragon and to the right we have the effect monster cyberse wizard, if send them to the graveyard then we can summon out decode talker.

Links have had a significant impact on the game since their release this is currently what their game state looks like however:

Link monsters can be used to open up the spaces to other link monsters or pendulum monsters that need to be summoned from the extra deck. Which is honestly so good because the game used to look like this:

So basically Link monsters used to dictate where xyz, fusion, synchros, as well as pendulum monsters could be summoned. This was just such a distasteful way of playing the game it was kind of boring to be honest. 

That is link summons in a nutshell I hope for my case you don't ask questions about this but I will answer all questions about this thanks for reading and I will be back in the next blog.

Pendulum! Pendulum! Pendulum!

 What is a Pendulum card?

Let the madness begin.

      This is honestly one of those few moments in YGO that I don't inherently like per say and that is because whenever pendulums are brought up in the discussion of YGO I remember a dark era of YGO that was overruled or overshadowed by a single new summoning mechanics. Pendulum cards are probably the single most problematic cards out there in YGO even Konami themselves don't have a solid idea of what to do with these cards. Should they gain more support or should they stop the production of these cards and leave them with what they have. I personally feel that they should keep getting support since recently their play ability has gone down in numbers recently since the majority of the decks rely too much on a single link.

So what is a Pendulum card? For an example look below.

As you can see the card is pretty much a half monster and half spell and instead of just having one effect text box it has a pendulum effect as well. The effect that is in smaller font is the pendulum effect and on both sides of the text box there is a number. That number represents the pendulum scale from one end of the spectrum. If you think this is weird then wait till I show you what a pendulum summon is, this one is a doozy. With that said there is such a thing as a pendulum summon... and it's really weird.

In order to better understand how to pendulum summon I need you to look at the field below real quick.

Here we see that there are five monster zones and five spell and trap zones. On the ends of the spell and trap zone there is a blue and red diamond shape this is where you place you pendulum scales. Scales are the number from which you are limiting yourself to be able to pendulum summon. So lets say I want to pendulum summon. I'd have to place two cards in the pendulum zone to be able to do that so I am going to place these two cards in the pendulum zones.

                                                                       

The scales set are 1 and 8 based off what the scales say on the card. Now we are allowed to pendulum summon any monsters that have levels between 1 and 8 so any monsters who are levels 2-7. This is a very broken method of summoning, you can summon any number of numbers whose levels fall 2 through 7. There is a limit however to this, in the past there was the rule that you could summon any number of pendulum monsters from your hand or face up in your extra deck. The new rule states that now you can now only pendulum as many from your hand but the extra deck summons is limited to the extra monster zone or any open link zones which is something that will be covered in the next blog.

BUT SYNCHROACE, you said that there face up pendulums in the extra deck, what is that all about? Well I'm glad you noticed because there is one more special trait about these here pendulum cards.

Should pendulum cards be destroyed either by battle or card effect, instead of being sent to the graveyard they are sent to the extra deck on the very top face up. That's pretty cool considering it can dodge being banished from the graveyard. However there are exceptions to this rule, like being detached from an xyz monster, then pendulum cards are sent to the graveyard, or if a card specifically says to send cards to the graveyard then pendulums once again are sent to the graveyard.

There are variants to these pendulum cards because Konami decided to throw away al logic when creating these cards

There are Pendulum synchros

There are also pendulum fusions

And what a surprise there are also pendulum xyz

Each one these monsters first must be summoned through the regular summoning method before than can be re-summoned using the pendulum summon method. Needless to say these cards are each very powerful in their own way.

This pretty much sums up pendulum summoning in a nutshell it's not very easy per say but it's a good tech card. Sometimes we just need cards to balance the more obscure cards out there and that is exactly what Link monsters were made for.