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)