Yu-Gi-Oh! Trading Card Game - The Basics of Playing
The evolution of games over the years has been quite fascinating. You have so many different options to choose from, and each offers quite an entertaining and unique experience. Video games alone offer a wild variety of catering to different tastes and preferences. It is card games, though, that have seen the most remarkable evolution with time.
While you have newer ones like ‘Cards Against Humanity,’ it is games like Yu-Gi-Oh that really take things to the next level. You might have read the manga series or watched the anime, and even if you didn’t, this is quite an interesting and challenging card trading game. But it is also a bit complicated, so we will go through the basics so you could understand how to play Yu-Gi-Oh.
Get the Gameplay Items
You can’t really start playing Yu-Gi-Oh without getting the necessary items for your gameplay. You should start with your decks –– any player needs three: main, extra, and side deck to be qualified for a Yu-Gi-Oh game. Each of those decks carries certain types of cards, and you need to know those, too. One of the more essential items that a lot of players forget is playmats as well as card sleeves, which act as protectors for your cards and keep them safe. There are plenty of different designs out there that you can choose from, and they do look pretty cool, too. You should also get a coin since some cards need a coin flip; dice as others require a dice roll and don’t forget your monster tokens.
Understand Your Cards
This is a card game where you aim to defeat your opponent using yours, and you cannot do that unless you fully understand what each one means and how you can use it. So, the main ones that you use are called monster cards, and you use them to attack your opponents and defend yourself. Each monster has a level, from 1 to 12, and the color of the cards varies –– usually yellow or orange but it might vary. On each monster card, you will find the stats and the abilities listed so you can understand just what exactly they can do. More importantly, you will find the type of monster you’re dealing with.
Effect monsters are known to have game-changing effects, unlike normal monsters who only have lore and who are mostly used for support. This is why effect monsters are the most commonly used since they can win you the game if you know what you’re doing and know how to leverage their power. You then have monster tokens, which can be summoned into the battlefield using the card’s effect –– you can use any item that you can move around for defense and offense. Those only exist in the battlefield, and cannot be in the decks. When one of them is destroyed, it is taken off the field.
You also have Fusion, Synchro, Link, and Xyz monsters, which are found in the extra deck –– they are not in the hand or regular deck. Those have ranks rather than levels, and they have unique signature colors that you need to identify. There are other types like ritual monsters which are blue, but the ones mentioned earlier are the main types that you will deal with. You will also need to understand monster abilities like Tuner, Flip, Union, and the rest of them. You then need to learn about the other cards that you have that are not monster cards, like field spell, continuous traps, equip spells, and continuous spell cards.
The Game Zones
Before you play Yu-Gi-Oh, you will also need to understand the game zones so you know where to place your cards on the battlefield. For instance, you have the monster card zone which can hold up to 5 monsters, and you position them based on what you want to do with the card. There’s also the spell and trap zone which holds the same number of cards, but those ones can be activated or kept face down for later use. There are four other zones that you will need to understand carefully so you can play.
Gameplay
Players first draw cards and can activate special ones if they choose. You can then set monsters and engage in battle with other players, depending on your strategy. You can choose not to engage in battle if you want, which moves you to the end phase of the game.
Yu-Gi-Oh is anything but an easy game to learn, but once you do, you will not be able to stop playing it. Make sure you read up as much as you can about the game before you try playing it, and watch players engaging in battle and the different tactics they use so you can figure out how the gameplay works.
