How to Play Yu-Gi-Oh: Part 2

Greetings! Last time, we talked about starting and ending a game, as well as the basic flow of a turn. Now we'll be talking about monsters! You can't live without them. Seriously, though, making a no-monster deck is an awful idea, why would you do that.

We're going to need some large images in this how-to today, so if your computer and/or internet can't handle that...it's a problem.

So let's throw up a monster card! Ladies and gentlemen...Dark Magician!

Look at him. That bastion of manliness.

Anyway, let's review him from top to bottom! At top is his name, Dark Magician, and his Attribute, DARK. Attributes are denoted by the circles in the top-right corner of the card; they're

,

...oh, and

, but you don't see it that often. By itself, Attribute does nothing, but it does affect what cards can be used with a monster.

As mentioned last time, next is Level, or

. Dark Magician has 7

s, so to Normal Summon him you'd need two monsters already on the field, and you'd have to send them to the Graveyard. Levels are also very important for most of the special Special Summoning methods.

Then his artwork! ...artwork does nothing. But it looks cool! And he has a lot of artworks.

Next is the most important thing: the text box! In the brackets is Dark Magician's type, Spellcaster. At the bottom is Dark Magician's ATK and DEF; pretty good, but not spectacular. Under his type, we can see his flavor text, The ultimate wizard in terms of attack and defense. This doesn't do much for us (and is also a filthy lie). But what if we had another monster...?

Enter DM's protege, the Dark Magician Girl! What a cutie. In the brackets, she's denoted as an /Effect monster. What could that mean? ...maybe if we read the rest of the text box...

"This card gains 300 ATK for every "Dark Magician" or "Magician of Black Chaos" in either player's Graveyard."

Now this actually impacts gameplay! Effect monsters (which is completely separate from actual type, so DMG's still affected by cards that affect Spellcaster-type monsters) have special effects that alter gameplay. And are what you'll be seeing 99.99% of the time. DMG's effect in particular is a Continuous Effect, which means that as long as her effect isn't negated (and, in some cases, the condition is met, though not for DMG) her effect is active. There's five types of effects - Continuous, Trigger, Ignition, Quick, and Flip. Trigger effects activate when certain things happen (sometimes it's optional, sometimes it's not; if it is optional, the word "can" is somewhere in it). Ignition effects can be triggered during your Main Phase 1 or 2. Quick effects...

...can be activated during either player's turn, at any time, and can be used in response to something. Pretty handy, if I do say so myself. What sets Quick Effects apart from other effects is that they're Spell Speed 2; other effect types are Spell Speed 1. Everything that's Spell Speed 2 can be activated whenever; things that are Spell Speed 2 include all Trap Cards and Quick-Play Spell Cards. Of course, sometimes they have to have requirements in order to be activated. A-Team: Trap Disposal Unit, for example, has to have a Trap Card be activated before you can activate its effect and Tribute it to negate a Trap Card and destroy it.

Speaking of, things like Tributing A-Team are costs. A cost isn't part of the effect; a cost is what you pay to activate the effect. Costs are non-refundable, so if A-Team manages to get negated, you don't get them back.

Finally, Flip effects.

How to Play Yu-Gi-Oh: Part 2 MagicalUndertaker-BP03-EN-C-1E

Flip effects are actually a type of Trigger effect; their trigger, in this case, is being flipped face-up. It doesn't matter how a Flip monster gets flipped face up - it can be from a Flip Summon, being flipped over when targeted for an attack, or through a card such as Swords of Revealing Light. Either way, once it's flipped face-up, you can activate its effect.

To be a Flip monster, it has to have FLIP: at the start of its effect. (I'd say it has to have /Flip/Effect in its type brackets, but many older cards don't have such an identifier.) If it doesn't have such an identifier, such as Snowman Eater, it's not a Flip monster, and thus effects that apply to Flip monsters specifically don't apply to them.

All Effect monsters have an orange border, while Normal Monsters - those without effects - have yellow borders. You can safely ignore the text of most Normal Monsters, except for two monsters. They don't effects, just fixing a naming issue (they were originally known as "Daemon" monsters in Japan, but that was religious, so it was changed, but that caused problems when "Daemon" - Archfiend - became an archetype), so they can't be negated.

Other than Flip monsters, there's some other types of monsters that are effect-based. Everything that has to do with them is already written on the card; I just covered Flip monsters because a) just seeing FLIP: might be confusing and b) to preemptively stop any confusion between Flip monsters and monsters with Trigger effects that apply upon being flipped face up. They might seem the same, but the specifics are very important in Yu-Gi-Oh.

Shying away from effects for a bit, there's another type of monster I'd like to show you. Introducing...Tuner monsters!

Tuner monsters are vital to a special type of, er, Special Summoning called Synchro Summoning! I mentioned it all of once last time. Now to go more in depth!

This is a Synchro Monster! Unlike every other monster type covered so far, these bad boys take up space in your Extra Deck. To summon them, you need at least one Tuner monster (Junk Warrior needs a specific one) and at least one other monster on the field.

You can Synchro Summon during your Main Phases. To do so, you'll need to send the Tuner monster and any non-Tuner monsters from the field to the Graveyard. The only catch is that their total Levels have to exactly match the Level of the Synchro Monster you want to Synchro Summon. The Tuner you need to Synchro Summon Junk Warrior - Junk Synchron - is Level 3, so you'd just need one Level 2 monster or two Level 1 monsters. Send them to the Graveyard, and bam! You can Special Summon Junk Warrior from the Extra Deck. (This is specifically called a Synchro Summon. It's like Tribute Summons to Normal Summons - any card that affects a Special Summon affects a Synchro Summon, but there are Synchro Summon-specific cards.)

Monsters sent to the Graveyard as part of a Synchro Summon are called Synchro Materials; this is important for some cards. Some cards can't be used as Synchro Materials, some monsters have special effects when used as Synchro Materials. Being used as a Synchro Material counts as being sent from the field to the Graveyard (unless effects make you not be sent to the Graveyard), so any Trigger effects that rely on that will activate at that time. The monsters a Synchro Monster needs as Synchro Materials (outside of the Level requirement, of course) are listed on the first line in the text box, underneath the type bracket. Normally it's just 1 Tuner + 1 or more non-Tuner monsters, but some Synchro Monsters require more complex Synchro Materials. (Such as Junk Warrior here, who needs a specific Tuner.)

That's pretty much it for today. Next time: covering more monsters!

How to Play Yu-Gi-Oh: Part 2

How to Play Yu-Gi-Oh: Part 2

How to Play Yu-Gi-Oh: Part 2 :: Comments