Yu-Gi-Oh! (Tabletop Game): Difference between revisions
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{{quote|''"You've activated my trap card!"''}}
The '''''Yu-Gi-Oh''''' collectible card game first appeared in the [[Yu-Gi-Oh! (manga)|manga of the same name]] as a [[Homage]] to ''[[Magic: The Gathering]]'', of which author Kazuki Takahashi is a fan. Originally, the manga was intended to feature a new game every few weeks, and with the trading cards being just one of many. However, Takahashi received a lot of fan mail asking how to play it, and so he cobbled together a rudimentary game system loosely based on that of ''Magic'' which [[New Rules as the Plot Demands|generally]] agreed with how the characters played. Fan mail kept pouring in, and so the editor of ''Shonen Jump'' (in which the manga was serialised) [[Executive Meddling|persuaded]] Takahashi to rework the premise of the manga to be about the cards. When the [[Animated Adaptation|animé]] proved a surprise international hit, [[Konami]] was approached to produce a real version of the game, which was released in 1999. The real game made considerable changes to the rules originally established by Takahashi, and so the manga and animé were revised to more closely reflect the rules of the real game.
''Yu-Gi-Oh'' is essentially a game with different names and administration structures in different territories. The so-called ''Official Card Game'', or OCG, has been handled by Konami since the beginning; it administers East Asia. The other administration setup, called the ''Trading Card Game'' or TCG, was originally manufactured and distributed by Upper Deck Entertainment, at Konami's own behest, throughout the remaining territories worldwide. However, in 2008, UDE lost the license amid some allegations of wrongdoing, and now the TCG is administered by Konami as well. The game is roughly 99% identical on each side of the Pacific
Some of the core gameplay elements are as follows:
* Deckbuilding: Players construct their own decks, which must contain between 40 to 60 cards and no more than three of any single card ([http://
* Monster combat: Players can summon monsters to fight the opponent. Stronger monsters have summoning requirements, most commonly a sacrifice of other monsters.
* Card effects: Most monsters have special abilities aside from their brute force, which is almost always helpful for its wielder, such as the ability to destroy other cards, or to increase its attack strength from its default level. Spell cards are cards that are played directly from the hand with beneficial effects. Trap cards also have special effects similar to Spells; however, they must be set face-down, and then activated later at a later time, which leads into...
* Hidden information: Monsters, spells, and traps can be "Set" face-down on the field to be revealed later, often springing a nasty surprise on the opponent.
A more complete overview of the rules can be found [[Yu-Gi-Oh!/Useful Notes|at this Useful Notes page]], the stories and tropes from the metaplot [[Yu-Gi-Oh!/Metaplot|can be seen here]], and the character sheet from said metaplot is at [[Yugioh Card Game/Characters|this Character Sheets page]]. Subjective tropes can be found [[Yugioh Card Game/YMMV|here.]] Trivia can be found [[Yugioh Card Game/Trivia|here.]]
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* [[Achilles' Heel]]: Some cards have deliberate weaknesses to keep things interesting and keep them from becoming too powerful. The Earthbound Immortals are all very strong, unable to be attacked and can attack the opponent directly, but automatically destroy themselves if there's no Field Spell card on the field. Cloudians must remain in attack position or they also destroy themselves.
* [[Action Girl]]: Several. There are lady warriors, spellcasters, fiends, spirits, fairies... and each of them can kick just as much ass as the male cards, or in some cases even more!
* [[Alien Invasion]]: The point of the [http://
* [[Amazonian Beauty]] [[Amazon Brigade|Brigade]]: The [http://
* [[An Ice Person]]: The "Ice Barrier" archetype and related cards.
* [[Another Dimension]]: The D.D. (Different Dimension) cards.
* [[Antimatter]]: [[Word of God]] is that the Xyz monsters are made up of this.
* [[Artificial Stupidity]]: The gimmick of the Karakuri archetype is that they must attack if able (even if it would get them killed) and always shift into defense when attacked (even when their defense is lower, and they would survive if they counterattacked).
* [[Attack Reflector]]: Available in [http://
** There's also ''Attack Reflector Unit'', which trades in Cyber Dragon for Cyber Barrier Dragon.
* [[Awesome but Impractical]]:
** Pretty much any of the alternate-win strategies, except for the forbidden Last Turn.
** Any Fusion Monster made of at least one other Fusion Monster.
*** With [http://
*** Practically any Fusion Monster ''period'', since they normally require that you waste at least three cards to bring out one (two for the materials, one for Polymerization), and the game is filled with removal effects that can get rid of them; since in Yu-Gi-Oh, card advantage is everything, playing one will usually lose you the game. Before the introduction of synchro monsters, few top decks had ''any'' extra decks, and those that did were either for show <ref>with unlimited size and not having to draw from it, there was no real reason to not put every fusion monster you owned in it, even if you couldn't play any of them, besides having to carry it around</ref> or brought their extra deck monsters out through some alternative method (such as Cyber-Stein, or Metamorphosis). In general, Synchro monsters (which don't require a special spell card to bring them out, and are much more practical as a result) were invented to avoid this problem. Post-Synchro fusion support has helped alleviate this, though nobody uses the original Polymerization, and ''even then'' most fusion summoning in competitive play is really just using Super Polymerization (discard a card to use your ''opponent'''s monsters as fusion material) as glorified removal since it bypasses immunity to destruction.
*** Along the same line, almost no Ritual monsters are playable, since they likewise require wasting several cards to bring out one, and likewise involve cards that are going to be deadweight in your hand if you don't have everything you need. The sole exception is only useful because it can be used in a one-turn kill combo, making the cards wasted on it irrelevant when it works.
*** There are, however, sets that allow one to pursue these tachniques without virtually killing themselves. Elemental HEROes and Gem-Knights for fusion, and Gishkis for rituals. All three sets have cards that generate the advantage one needs to offset the high cost of these summoning methods, and/or greatly reduce the cost.
** Similarly, [http://
** Many other cards too like [http://
** Perhaps one of the earliest examples of [[Awesome but Impractical]] in the franchise is "Perfectly Ultimate Great Moth," which, at 3500 ATK, had more power than most starting cards as of the time of its release, but it is ''infamously'' difficult to summon and nobody uses it. Many video games based off of Yu-Gi-Oh give you a bonus if you ever manage to successfully summon it. In order to bring the moth out, you have to keep a pathetically weak monster (Petit Moth) equipped with a certain card that makes its defense only 2000 (Cocoon of Evolution) for six turns. Additionally, it was ruled that equipping the Cocoon of Evolution to it used up your normal summon for that turn, making it even harder and more annoying since you need to heavily invest in spell or trap cards that can prevent your opponent from attacking during all that time.
*** It's particularly notable that Perfectly Ultimate Great Moth was released to the OCG before either Petit Moth or Cocoon of Evolution were, thereby making it either our Most Triumphant Example, or our Ur Example, of this trope for a time - there's nothing as impractical as something you can't play. Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon went through a similar situation in TCG territories, many years later.
** Consider its [[Rule of Cool|really cool]] [http://img252.imageshack.us/img252/1663/gandora8.png looking] and effect in the [[Yu-Gi-Oh!|anime]], [http://
** Pretty much any [[Physical God|Level 12]] card, the strongest cards ''in theory'', have some nice [[Game Breaker]] effects and absurd ATK, but the requirements to summon them are often just too troublesome to downright impossible in a competitive duel; some require at least ''five'' monsters or specific monsters that already are Special Summon themselves to be sacrificed, so expect to mount a deck solely for the purpose of summoning this ''only'' card if you ''really'' wish to summon it.
*** Five-Headed Dragon is a more easily playable Level 12 Monster, since to Fusion Summon it you can use any five monsters as long as they are Dragon-type. This is made easier thanks to a lot of Dragon support cards.
**** A powerful combo which also shows up in the anime involves using "Future Fusion" to discard five dragons to the graveyard, then using "Dragon's Mirror" to use the discarded dragons to summon a SECOND Five-Headed Dragon. So you gain a 5000 ATK monster, you will get another in two turns, and neither can be destroyed by battle unless the monster attacking them is of the LIGHT attribute.
*** Perhaps the easiest of these to actually use is Malefic Truth Dragon, which only needs to have a Malefic monster be destroyed by anyway possible and [[Cast from Hit Points|paying half your life points]]. However, this is balanced out due to the Malefic's natural effects only allowing one Malefic on the field at a time, needing a Field Spell (or Skill Drain) to stay active, and other monsters you control are not allowed to attack.
*** [http://
** Even if it has the sixth highest ATK points of any monster in the game, [http://
** The new Hieratic archetype makes it easy to summon Neo Galaxy-Eyes Photon Dragon, a 4500-ATK bruiser which negates all other effects on the field if it's summoned with Galaxy-Eyes Photon Dragon (also easy to bring out with Hieratics) and can detach ''all'' Xyz Material from your opponent's monsters, gaining 500 ATK ''and an extra attack'' for each Material detached using this effect. Unless your opponent brings out enough Xyz Monsters to make this second effect useful, however, it's more effective to use Hieratic Dragon of Atum, Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon, and Gaia Dragoon to swarm the field for an OTK.
** Metalzoa. It requires you to summon Zoa (a monster over Level 5, which means you have to tribute at least 2 monsters to summon it) and then equip it with "Metalmorph." THEN you have to tribute "Zoa."
* [[Awesome McCoolname]]: [http://
** [http://
* [[Awesome Yet Practical]]: Beast King Barbaros, a 3000 ATK monster that can wipe out all opposing cards if you tribute summon it with three tributes instead of the normal two. What makes it awesomely ''practical'' is that it can also be summoned from the hand at 1900 ATK (the ATK of a very strong Level 4 monster) with no tributes, so it's never useless in the hand if you have no tribute fodder, unlike virtually every other high-level monster. Its ATK will also reset to 3000 if its effect on the field is negated (as if by "Skill Drain,") so you could potentially drop a 3000 ATK monster on the field with no tributes--''very'' practical.
** Better yet, instead of skill drain, equip it with the card "Axe of Fools". In addition to giving it 1000 ATK, it will also negate the effect just like skill drain, giving you a 4000 ATK monster with only two cards.
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** A lot of top tier decks operate on this trope. In fact, the "awesome" strategies they use can be categorized further as boring-type awesome and purely awesome. Boring-type awesome are usually a deck that uses same, consistent and effective set of strategy and gameplans to win the game (notably Six Samurai which does nothing but play Shi En, Kizan rush, protect Shi En, win game), while the latter plays depend on the card in your hand, and the condition of the field to bring the best result (Plants Synchro, which is, basically, put together a set of card that works well together to create a chain of game winning plays).
** Thunder King Rai-Oh. It can Tribute itself to negate a Special Summon, shutting down XYZs and Synchros, disallows player to add cards from their Decks to their hands outside of drawing, shutting down searchers like Sangan, and has 1900 attack, enough to run over most anything that hasn't been Special Summoned, and when those ones come out, re-read its first effect. It's also a level 4, has no summon restrictions, is Light attribute to support decks that need them including Chaos, and is unlimited.
* [[Badass Adorable]]: Several fairy type cards. For example, the Labyrinth Of Nightmare set gives us [http://
* [[Badass Grandpa]]: For example, [http://
* [[Badass Normal]]: Literaly with Normal monsters like [http://
* [[Bad Export for You]]: The European releases of the first few booster packs were missing several cards. Fortunately, these were restored in later releases.
** The Duelist Pack sets [http://
** Many of the more recent structure decks are like this, either being edited to remove high-rarity cards, or in two cases scrapping the deck altogether and importing the new cards in them as add-ons to normal sets.
** The TCG missed out on the chance to get Dark Magician Girl as drawn by Kazuki Takahashi in the 10th anniversary pack. Justified, however, because Takahashi refused to bow to [[Executive Meddling]] to have DMG censored.
* [[Barrier Warrior]]: Big Shield Gardna, Mid Shield Gardna, Shield Warrior… okay, pretty much anything with the word "shield" in its name. Millenium Shield is a Warrior-type…and a literal shield.
** And, of course, there are many monsters that can't be destroyed by battle, like [http://
** [http://
** Some monsters cannot be targetted for attacks if there is a certain type or archetype on the field, or keep the opponent from attacking monsters of certain types (Solar Flare Dragon, Marauding Captain, Morphtronic Magnen). Getting two or more of the specific card can block nearly all potential attacks.
* [[Battle Royale With Cheese]]: All the rules only ever reference two players, but slight modifications have been made (Primarily thanks to the Tag Force games) to allow any number of players, including teams, typically called "Tag Duels".
* [[Big Damn Heroes]]: Some cards have effects that emulate this trope. For example, [http://
** The [http://
* [[Black Magician Girl]]: [[Trope Namer]], known in English as the Dark Magician Girl.
* [[Black Knight]]: The [http://
** Also [http://
* [[Blind Idiot Translation]]: Frequent on the early cards, many of which seem to have been translated by [[They Just Didn't Care|people who had absolutely]] ''[[They Just Didn't Care|no]]'' [[They Just Didn't Care|idea what they were doing.]] Among the most obvious examples is "Dunames Dark Witch," which is a ''[[Non-Indicative Name|Light-Attribute Fairy.]]'' Its original Japanese name is "Dynamis Valkyria". The fact that a card named "Valkyrie" became "Dark Witch" in the US suggests the origins of this mistake; all the same, it's no less unforgivable, especially since "Dark Valkyria" and "Magician's Valkyria" came out in English without any such mistakes.
* [[Blow You Away]]: A vast number of cards that deal with destroying other Spell or Trap cards happen to be named after wind effects, like [http://
** As are two of the most popular "bounce" cards, [http://
** There are archetypes that has this theme, examples are the [http://
* [[Boring but Practical]]:Normal monsters, in general. They have no effects but often have good combat stats, and there's a lot of support for them, including lots of ways to summon them from the Graveyard. Decks based around them focus on brute force rather than anything fancy.
** Gadgets for a long time plays on this. The goal of the deck is to make the game as simple as possible by playing one for one destruction card and with the help of gadgets self replenishing effect gain advantage and win effortlessly. Such deck can be really boring to play with but its really effective when played correctly.
** Ironically, see the [[Awesome but Impractical]] entry. Read Machina Force there ? Sure, summoning it is downright hard to the point of pointless, but nobody said you cant discard it for Machina Fortress revival effect. As a bonus, since its a Machina, some Machina support can work with it, creating some sorts of synergy.
* [[Bottomless Pits]]: [http://
* [[Bowdlerize]]: In Japan, the Fairy type is actually Angel type (Tenshi-zoku).
** What we know as Fiends, the Japanese know as Demons (Akuma-zoku).
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** What we know as Zombies, the Japanese know as Undead - but the katakana got messed up, resulting in "Undeat" (Undeat-zoku).
** Yu-Gi-Oh! 3D Bonds Beyond Time brought us the Sin archetype, known internationally as Malefic monsters. "Sin" was written in English on the Japanese cards, with furigana as a pronunciation guide; further, there is no explicit "Si" sound in Japanese, and "Shi" is a usual stand-in, so the furigana guide was written as "Shin" - [[Word of God]] takes this as an intentional pun between "Sin" and "Shin", a Kanji denoting truth. The pun was [[Lost in Translation]].
** Many cards in the OCG that portray nudity, religion, guns, blood, [[Big Breasts, Big Deal|bustiness]], etc. were modified in the TCG release. Modified cards are listed [http://
** Generally, if you see a card with "Des" as part of the name (Except for Dark Ruler Ha Des), chances are that it was "Death" in the OGC.
** [[Inconsistent Dub|Inconsistent Bowdlerization]]: [http://
* [[Brought Down to Normal]]: Almost literally; the continuous trap Skill Drain negates the effects of all monsters on the field.
** [[Brought Down to Badass]]: A 3000 ATK monster with no effects is still a 3000 ATK monster; nothing to sneeze at. Skill Drain also happens to negate any ''negative'' effects the card may have, too, so a lot of monsters actually benefit from Skill Drain.
* [[Bullet Seed]]: [http://
* [[Butt Monkey]]: [http://
* [[Buffy-Speak]]: There's a card named [http://
* [[Captain Ersatz]]: Does [http://
** There are not [http://
* [[Cast from Hit Points|Cast From Life Points]]: Many cards require a sacrifice of life points to activate.
** Nearly taken to an extreme with Toon World; the entirety of its text is "Pay 1000 Life Points to activate this card." That's it. Sure, now you can summon your Toon monsters <ref>some don't need it to be in the field to be…well, on the field</ref>, but other than that, it just kinda sits there waiting to be destroyed.
** This is practically the Psychic-Type's main gimmick, with frequent payments to either fire off or maintain their effects. To balance this out, a good amount of their support cards involve healing.
** Some cards, like the Archfiend archetype from ''Dark Crisis'', require a life point payment to keep them on the field. A life point payment ''that is not optional''.
* [[Cherry Tapping]]: The "[http://
* [[Chess Motifs]]: The first [http://
* [[Collectible Card Game]]
* [[Colorful Theme Naming]]: The Dark World archetype. Complete with Dark Overlord Reign-Beaux.
* [[Combining Mecha]]: The VWXYZ archetype, culminating with the [http://
* [[Contest Winner Cameo]]: Quite a few cards are designed by fans.
* [[Continuity Drift]]: Early cards with remove from play effects, such as [http://
* [[The Corruption]]: The new [http://
** [http://
* [[Crazy Prepared]]: "Toolbox" is a type of deck that specializes on searching monsters with many unique (and sometimes situational) effects directly from the Deck or Graveyard to counter your opponent. For example, [http://
* [[Creation Sequence]]: Depicted in [http://
* [[Crippling Overspecialization]]: Some cards exist simply to counter other, very specific cards and are otherwise worthless. "Anti Raigeki" exists only to counteract "Raigeki", "White Hole" only exists to counteract "Dark Hole", and both "Call of Darkness" and "Call of the Grave" exist only to counter "Monster Reborn". Many of these cards counter now banned cards and are ''entirely'' worthless.
** However, not all specializations are crippling; for example, "G.B. Hunter," designed to lock down a Gladiator Beast deck, still has enough DEF to serve as a desperate defense. Likewise, because "Monster Reborn" was first printed in the OCG on March 27, 1999, and wasn't first Semi-Limited until April 1, 2000, its own specific counters spent a few months in a rather less crippled state.
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** [[Justified Trope|Justified]] in the anime, as Pegasus (the creator of the game in the anime) claims to have based most of the cards on various inspirations, including the myths he encountered on his world tour.
* [[Cute Is Evil]]: Several fiend type or darkness attribute cards can be this.
* [[Cute Monster Girl]]: A few, but probably the best example is [http://
* [[Cybernetics Eat Your Soul]]: Gagagigo's eventual fate.
* [[Dark Is Evil]]: The DARK attribute has the greatest portion of evil-seeming monsters, but…
** [[Dark Is Not Evil]]: quite a few heroic cards, notably [http://
** The flavor text of [http://
** The Allies of Justice are all DARK-Attribute, in spite of being, you know, [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|allied with justice.]]
* [[Deader Than Dead]]: Cards removed from play generally won't be seen again in the duel unless your deck is specifically designed to recycle them.
* [[Defictionalization]]: The card game itself, initially intended as a one-shot game in the manga. [[What Could Have Been|Averted with the hundreds of cards that were never made outside of the animé and/or manga.]]
** Masked HEROs and Vision HEROs, formerly manga-only cards, have finally started appearing as alternative support cards to Elemental HEROs.
* [[Death or Glory Attack]]: Meta-version: the spell card [http://
* [[Death World]]: The "Venom Swamp" field spell card will slowly kill ''everything'' on the field except the native Venom monsters. The "Zombie World" field spell card causes everything to count as zombies (even in the graveyard!) so it could be called an Undeath World.
* [[Dem Bones]]: The [http://
* [[Department of Redundancy Department]]: The "Ninjitsu Art" cards and Thunder King Rai-Oh. "Ninjitsu" means "Ninja Art" and "Rai-Oh" means "Thunder King".
* [[Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?]]: Some monsters' relative ATK scores aren't exactly what you'd expect. For example, [http://
* [[Difficult but Awesome]]: The Koa'ki Meiru monsters all have high attack power and incredibly useful anti-meta effects and support cards. What makes them difficult to use is that they all destroy themselves at the end of the turn if you don't discard the Iron Core card or reveal a card in your hand that's the same type as the monster on the field (and there are many different types of Koa'ki Meiru monsters!). It's difficult to have more than just one Koa'ki Meiru out on the field at any given time, though they can still be quite effective if you splash them into another deck full of the same monster type as them so they don't self-destruct.
** It gets worse: the Iron Core itself is completely useless, but is required to use powerful Spell or Traps, so sooner or later you're bound to have to decide between a monster or keeping a way to use your Spell or Trap. Even worse, a few of those need the Core in your ''Graveyard'' instead, so if you're using ''those'', you could end up with no ways to use the ones that need them in your hand.
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** Another ideology to use with the Ko'aki Meiru monsters is to throw them into decks among their own types. Bergzak gets excellent mileage among Warrior decks.
** Vennominaga the Deity of Poisonous Snakes requires a lot of set-up; a reptile-based deck, a card like "Damage = Reptile" to easily summon its predecessor Vennominion, a pre-set "Rise of the Snake Deity" to summon Vennominaga when Vennominion gets destroyed, a card to destroy Vennominion and perhaps a use of "Snake Rain" to flood your Graveyard with Reptiles to boost Vennominaga's attack. Once all that is said and done, however, Vennominaga is virtually unstoppable since it is ''completely'' immune to all card effects, and it needs only to damage the opponent three times for an instant win. The only hope the opponent has is to either summon a monster that Vennominaga can't overpower, or to find a way to get those reptiles out of the graveyard (such as with "Zombie World" or "Soul Release").
** [http://
* [[Dinosaurs Are Dragons]]: Averted. The two have been completely separate categories since the very beginning. Though both focus upon having supremely nasty powerhouses, Dinosaurs tend more towards brute force while Dragons often have devastating effects to go with their physical power.
** Played straight with a new Archetype collectively called '''Evol'''''(ve)'': [http://
* [[Disability Superpower]]: Infernities are a variation of this trope: Typically not having cards in your hand would be considered a bad thing, as it would require you to constantly draw the cards you need from the top of your deck with no backup plan, but Infernities benefit from this situation.
* [[Discard and Draw]]: Many cards use discarding as part of a cost for an effect(ex. [http://
** Note that certain cards such as Graceful Charity and Dark World Dealings allow the player to draw cards prior or after discarding as an effect.
* [[Eldritch Abomination]]:
** [http://
** [http://
** [http://
* [[Elemental Powers]]: The idea behind monster Attributes, and the specialty of the [http://
** [[Blow You Away]]: Wynn
** [[Casting a Shadow]]: Dharc
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** [[Making a Splash]]: Eria
** [[Playing with Fire]]: Hiita
* [[The End of the World as We Know It]]: [http://
** Also caused in the Duel Terminal verse by [http://
** [http://
* [[Equippable Ally]]: The Dragon-Type Dragunities are both this. As well as [[Attack Animal|Attack Animals]].
* [[Everything's Deader with Zombies]]
* [[Everything's Better with Penguins]]: The [http://
* [[Precious Puppies]]: [http://
* [[Evil Twin]]: The [http://
** The [http://
* [[Evil Versus Evil]]: There is a war between Dark Ruler Ha Des and Dark King of the Abyss. Ha Des tricked Dark King out of his throne with Demotion. Dark King got his revenge, but was killed by the Revived Ruler Ha Des.
* [[Evil Weapon]]: [[Word of God]] says the Equip Spell [http://
* [[Evolutionary Levels]]: Pretty much any monster with LV in its name. Their main schtick is weak cards replacing themselves with stronger and stronger versions of themselves.
** The Evol archetype that will be released in Photon Shockwave sort of fits this too. "Sort of" in that while the younger versions special summon older ones, the younger ones don't need to be offered up in order to do so.
* [[Exact Words]]
** An interesting side-effect of Equip Spell Cards that give Piercing, is that you can inflict damage to your opponent by equipping them to your opponent's monster(s). Then, when your opponent attacks one of your Defense Position monsters with an ATK greater than your monsters DEF, he/she will take the difference. After all, even though it's '''your''' opponent's monster, it's your Spell Card, and thus it's your opponent — not ''you'' — who takes the extra damage, due to the wording on the cards.
** Some continuous card effects have linkage to another monster cards such as [http://
*** When [http://
** Many cards say to destroy the ''card'' under a certain condition, rather than the gameplay element it represents (monster, spell, trap, etc.) Cue many beginner players literally ripping up the card when the conditions are met.
** Many cards require, as a cost, that a player "sends a card to the graveyard" usually from their hand or deck. An interesting side effect of a card called Macro Cosmos that states that cards are removed from play instead of sent to the graveyard, is that cards that specify this can't be used, even if their effect is unrelated to the graveyard. This leads to interesting loopholes.
** As of July 8, 2011, wording is such that '''individual semi-colons and commas''' can dramatically change how a card works. Thankfully ''most'' of the time the impact is purely for how chains work with it.
* [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin]]: [http://
* [[Exact Time to Failure]]: Once you activate the "Final Countdown" card, your opponent has exactly 10 of their turns (or less thanks to a handful of support cards) to beat you or you win.
* [[Explosive Overclocking]]: The theme of the [http://
* [[Eyes Do Not Belong There]]: [http://
* [[Fallen Angel]]: The [http://
* [[Family-Friendly Firearms]] - Many cards with realistic guns in the art had them replaced with lasers, fanciful guns, or knives, with varying success.
** Great example of a card that explicitly has a [http://
* [[Fantasy Kitchen Sink]]
* [[Feathered Fiend]]: A number of monsters, but the [http://
* [[Flaming Sword]]: Wielded by [http://
* [[Fragile Speedster]]: Some decks focus on getting out monsters as quick as possible, [[Zerg Rush|swarming the field]] (like the Harpies, the Blackwings, Frogs, and so on). To balance this out, most of them do not have very high attack power.
* [[Frogs and Toads]]: [http://
* [[Fusion Dance]]: Fusion was a gameplay feature since the early days of the game, but the Elemental HEROs are entirely based around fusing with one another. There are dozens of potential combinations present. To a lesser extent, the newer Gemknight archetype is also based around fusion.
* [[Gameplay and Story Segregation]]: Many cards have slightly different effects between the anime and the physical card game; what would be a game-breaker might be Nerfed when it becomes real, or vice-versa. Sometimes the rules are a little different as well; summoning monsters in face-down defense position hasn't happened in the anime since the first season, but it's still an important part of the rules of the real game.
** As for a more direct example, Normal monsters. Take [http://
* [[Gang of Critters]]: Seen [http://
* [[Giant Germs]]: The [http://
* [[Gladiator Games]]: [http://
* [[Glass Cannon]]: The Lightsworns were designed as this with a combo of [[Fragile Speedster]]. Most of their monsters are quite powerful and a good Lightsworn deck will probably win very quickly...or not win at all. This is because almost all of them send cards straight from your deck to the graveyard at the end of the turn, meaning your deck will burn itself out after a while.
** There's also quite a few monsters that have high attack points but pathetic defense points. The mighty Rainbow Dragon has 4000 ATK and 0 DEF, for example. Similarly, the Inverz/Steelswarm monsters all have 0 DEF. If a clever player runs cards that can switch attack and defense positions or stats, or outright nuke said low-defense monsters, these monsters are toast.
* [[God Save Us From the Queen]]: Ruin, Queen Of Oblivion and the [http://
** [http://
* [[Gotta Catch Em All]]: This is impossible in real life (unless you're insanely rich and have a lot of spare time on your hands, and even then [http://
* [[Gratuitous English]]: At this point, the OCG probably has more cards and booster packs with English than Japanese names. A good deal of Japanese cards also have English names.
* [[Gratuitous Japanese]]: In the first few booster packs, UDE's policy was that [[Keep It Foreign|cards with English names would have their names translated into Japanese]]. They've since stopped, but some card names are left untranslated.
* [[Harping on About Harpies]]: The Harpie Lady monsters.
* [[Hermaphrodite]]: [http://
* [[Holy Hand Grenade]]: Remember Horakhty, the Egyptian god that won the day against Zorc in the original anime and manga? [http://
* [[Humongous Mecha]]: Many of the Machine-type monsters, especially some of their Fusions.
* [[Instant Win Condition]]: Several, listed on the [[Useful Notes]] page.
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* [[Invulnerable Knuckles]]: An important gameplay ''aversion.'' To explain: If your monster attacks an opponent's defense-position monster, and the defender has more DEF than the attacker has ATK, it's the attacker who takes damage; think of it like punching a brick wall with your fist. This is one of the reasons why monsters can be summoned in face-down defensive position; the attacker doesn't know what he's in for. Some decks can be built around this, with defensive monsters that flip themselves back down and "Shifting Sands" in play that lets you randomize the positions of your face-down monsters.
* [[Joke Character]]: The Toons. Portrayed as a wacky subset of monsters in the game [[Awesome but Impractical|that can attack Life Points directly, but usually have to wait a turn to do so, which hampers their playability a lot.]]
** Also, there's honestly no reason to ever carry a "Sparks" card, and, unless you're running a Skill Drain deck, [http://
** The addition of [http://
* [[Kamen Rider]]: The [http://
* [[Keep Circulating the Tapes]]: There are some cards that just can't be bought normally, first hand as in the way they were meant to be; the most famous example is the first edition of the 3 Egyptian God Cards: foiled, shiny and [[Color-Coded for Your Convenience]], these were packed with the [[GBA]] game ''Yu-Gi-Oh! Reshef Of Destruction''; people went crazy for this game ''just to get the cards'', a great deal of the copies sold for this game was due fans wanting the cards, eventually retailers came to know that some people just bought the game for these cards, so they would gladly put a reminder for used copies '''Does Not Contain The Limited Edition Cards!''', people on [[EBay]] followed suit as guillable fans also thought that buying a $20 copy of the game would grant them shiny and exclusive cards that were sold for about $100 separately.
* [[Kill'Em All]]: Some cards are able to wipe out everything on both sides of the playing field (or just all cards on the opposing side). A couple of cards take it even further by also wiping out every card in the players' hands!
* [[Kill Sat]]: [http://
* [[Knight Templar]]: Vylons are so focused on creating a world of [[Perfect Pacifist People]] that they are willing to make a [[World of Silence]] to accomplish it. [[Logical Fallacies|By killing everyone, apparently.]]
* [[Kraken and Leviathan]]:
** [http://
** [http://
* [[Leeroy Jenkins]]: Some cards have compulsory attack effects (i. e. Berserk Gorilla, Battle Mania).
* [[Leet Speak]]: There's a card called Mind Haxorz. Seriously.
** [http://
* [[Lethal Joke Item|Lethal Joke Card]]: There's a bunch of these. The Ojamas, three exceedingly weak monsters with no attack points, got a number of support cards that let them drastically turn the table on the enemy. "Gift Card" increases your opponent's life by 3000, but if you combo that with "Bad Reaction To Simochi", or have "Nurse Reficule The Fallen One" on the field, which turns healing into damage, you've just dealt a ''serious'' blow to the opponent. "Skull Servant" was famous for being an extremely weak card (in fact, most video games give you credit if you can win a game with the Skull Servant) but can act as fuel for "King of the Skull Servants," who becomes increasingly more powerful the more Skull Servants are in the Graveyard.
** Grinder Golem and Inferno Tempest. Grinder Golem summons a 3000 attack point monster on your opponents side of the field and gives you two tokens with 0 attack points. Now attack the Golem with one of your tokens, take 3000 damage, and activate Inferno Tempest. It removes every monster in both players decks and graveyards from play. You may even be able to perform an OTK by activating D.D. Dynamite which does 300 damage for every card of your opponents that is removed from play.
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*** Foolish Burial also sets off Dandylion, which summons two Level 1 tokens when sent to the grave. This is especially useful when Synchro summoning. If you summon Debris Dragon after doing this and use it to revive Dandylion, you can now Synchro Summon any Dragon-type synchro monster between level 5 and 9, and then gain another two Level 1 tokens. All this from two cards.
**** Using the above strategy and a Level 1 Tuner, you can summon Formula Synchron and Stardust Dragon, and then Shooting Star Dragon, which has 3300 ATK and a myriad of powerful effects. If you use Glow-up Bulb as the Level 1 Tuner, it can revive itself and you can play a second level 2 synchro monster, allowing you to play Shooting Quasar Dragon. So basically you just played a 4000 ATK monster with three cards, and drew an extra one thanks to Formula Synchron. All 4 of the setup cards, Foolish Burial, Dandylion, Formula Synchron, and Debris Dragon, have since been limited.
** Tour Guide From the Underworld is a monster with unimpressive stats and an ability that at first glance seems fairly minor (she lets you choose and summon a relatively weak monster of your choice from your deck, but negates its ability and prevents you from using it for a Synchro summon, which eliminates two of the most obvious things you'd use it for.) Yet she's currently considered one of the most powerful cards in the metagame and sells for over a hundred dollars -- just [http://
* [[Light Is Good]]: Most monsters of the LIGHT attribute seem to be heroic, but...
** [[Light Is Not Good]]: seems to be the theme of the Arcana Force monsters and most of the [http://
** The Vylons are an interesting example. In the story they teamed up with the Lavals, Gishki, Gusto, and Gem-Knights in order to beat back the Steelswarms. This ultimately leads to [http://
* [[Limited Special Collectors' Ultimate Edition]]: Quite ''many'' cards are this, which kind of diminishes its value a bit; but there some among these that really are worthy of its title, examples are cards that are actually sold separately in one big deluxe package: ''Shinato of A Higher Plane'' was this at first. Other examples are Special Summons hyped in the [[Animated Adaptation]] and [[The Movie]], expect to only get them in special events or packed with another product of the franchise (usually a [[Video Game]]).
* [[Loads and Loads of Characters]]
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** Also, Lightsworns. Lightsworn cards send cards from the top of the Deck to the Graveyard, and abuse this with plenty of monsters whose effects activate in Graveyard. Of course, many key cards, including the [[Game Breaker]] Judgment Dragon need to be in the hand to use. Running Lightsworns is just hoping you get the right cards in your Graveyard and the rest in your hand. Just as Arcana Force, you can try to build them to get around this, but most of the time it's better not to.
** Tour Guide From the Underworld summons a second monster when she comes into play, with lots of limitations on what you can do with it. But, of course, it doesn't forbid you from using the monster with mechanics that were added to the game ''later'', like XYZ summons...
* [[Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me]]: [http://
* [[Luck Manipulation Mechanic]]: [http://
* [[Lunacy]]: [http://
* [[Made of Explodium]]: Scrap monsters are always either being destroyed by their own effects or the effects of their support cards. Fortunately, their secondary effects usually kick in after this, allowing you to recycle other Scrap cards.
* [[Mad Scientist]]: [http://
* [[Magical Land]]: Well, it's only advertised as a [http://
** Arguably, the entire monster world would count, as it's the home of all sorts of fantastic creatures.
** [http://
* [[Magic Knight]]: [http://
* [[Magikarp Power]]: A lot of the LV monsters are weak in their initial forms but replace themselves with much, ''much'' stronger versions. One of the biggest Magikarps in the game is Winged Kuriboh, who, on its own, simply prevents you from taking damage for a turn. There's a card that can replace it with a "Winged Kuriboh Level 10", which makes every monster your opponent has on the field explode and damage them equal to the total ATK of the monsters destroyed, usually more than enough to finish them off and win the Duel.
** There are also cards that slowly build up power over time - they gather tokens, so many turns need to pass, etc - with strong effects that trigger once they're charged up.
** As a meta example, a lot of old weak archetypes (Gravekeepers, Batterymen, Frogs) will often receive new support cards in sets released years later that suddenly make them much more viable.
** The Ojama own this trope. As if Ojama Delta Hurricane!, which obliterates your opponent's hand and field but requires the three Ojama brothers as an activation condition, weren't enough, the more recent additions to the family, Red and Blue, can mass-summon fellow Ojamas from the hand and tutor Ojama cards from the deck respectively. Last but not least, Ojama Country can summon Ojamas from the grave and flips the attack and defense of all monsters on the field. Run with Ojama King and other [[Stone Wall]] monsters and...
* [[Magma Man]]: [http://
* [[Man-Eating Plant]]: [http://
* [[Married to the Job]]: Poor poor [http://
* [[Mask of Power]]: Not too many, but enough to count as [http://
* [[Matryoshka Object|Matryoshka Card]]: Tomato Matryoshka allows you to summon another Tomato Matryoshka from your hand or deck when it's Normal Summoned.
* [[Meaningful Name]]: Earthbound Immortals. Yeah, they're really '''Earth'''bound (as in bound to the ''Field'' Spell!).
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* [[Metagame]]: Try to run a deck ''without'' cards like ''Heavy Storm'', ''Lightning Vortex'', or defensive traps such as ''Scrap-Iron Scarecrow'' and ''Mirror Force'' and count the time until someone says you ''can't'' run a deck without them.
** The Forbidden/Limited lists that change every 6 months tend to both reflect and change the Metagame.
* [[Metaplot]]: There was an attempt to have one for a while, based on the artwork of the [http://
** The new Duel Terminal arcade game's card archetypes seem to have this going for them, as evidenced by a few cards both within [http://
** World Chalice and its related archetypes form a very long and very complex story. How long and complex? The very short and abridged version takes six minutes to explain, the full version can take an ''hour''.
* [[Meteor of Doom|Meteor Of]] <s>Doom</s> [http://
* [[Mighty Glacier]]: Some decks require a lot of set-up before you can bring out the big offensive guns. One example is the Destiny HEROs, who are almost all defensive monsters that help the player increase their hand and field presence. This is because their two trump card monsters, Plasma and Dogma, require three Tributes to summon (but are so powerful they can really hamstring the opponent once finally out).
* [[Mind Control]]: One of the main features of the Aliens is infecting opposing cards with A-counters (called "A-cells" in lore) which they can then take control of. Mind control effects are often limited in some way, so if you can avoid destroying your stolen monsters, [["I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight|they might come back to you]].
** There is [http://
*** There was also once [http://
* [[Monster Clown]]: A literal example! Mystic Clown... Dream Clown... Crass Clown... Saggi The Dark Clown... as you might have guessed none of these guys are very pleasent. Luckily, most clown cards are fairly weak or have no effects. Most.
* [[Mook Maker]]: Anything that generates Tokens regularly, like "Goka, the Pyre of Malice".
* [[Mushroom Man]]: There are cards specifically named Mushroom Man #1 and #2.
* [[Mutual Kill]]: Both monsters are destroyed when they have the same ATK and attack each other.
* [[My Death Is Just the Beginning]]: A number of the new Psychic types from Extreme Victory practically exist to be sent to the graveyard. (Namely [http://
* [[Names to Run Away From Really Fast]]: There's a list on the Trivia page.
* [[Negate Your Own Sacrifice]]: The popular Stardust Dragon can sacrifice itself to prevent some other card on the field from being destroyed, but it can also bring itself back every turn it does this.
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* [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero]]: Quite a few cards can be used to Special Summon a more powerful monster upon the death of the first. For example, Rise of the Snake Deity can be used upon the death of Vennominon, the King of Snakes to summon Vennominaga, the Deity of Poisonous Snakes which gets 500 ATK for each Reptile in the graveyard, can't be the target of abilities, can come back from the dead with the sacrifice of a Reptile from the graveyard and causes an instant victory in 3 attacks.
** Yubel is probably the best example: If you attack it, then ''you'' take damage instead and Yubel itself survives. If you destroy it, then it becomes stronger. The only way to destroy it is... [[Sheathe Your Sword|waiting]]: Yubel needs a sacrifice each turn to stay alive, and being destroyed this way won't bring up its stronger forms. Unless, of course, your opponent abuses the many reusable Tribute fodders in the game; then you're screwed.
** The [http://
** Also, Berserk Dragon can only be summoned by a spell card that can only be used if one of your Level 8+ monsters is destroyed.
* [[Ninja]]: A whole lot of them, in fact. A trio of them even serve as a [[Shout-Out]] to Konami's popular video game series ''Ganbare Goemon''
** In Recent Packs, Ebisu has been added as "Masked Ninja Ebisu", which means you can now have the Main 4 characters from ''Ganbare Goemon''
* [[No Export for You]]: For many years, some of the earlier (and more requested) cards released in the OCG would take years before they finally appeared in the TCG. [[Overshadowed by Awesome|The playability of some cards compared to others available in the same time period, however...]]
** The [http://
** Recent TCG sets have included more cards than the corresponding OCG set- some of these are cards that were previously OCG only, while others are cards that are exclusive to the TCG. In turn, TCG only cards have recently begun to be released in the OCG through the Extra Pack sets. ''Eventually'' the two card pools may become equal...
** Sometimes this applies to the video games as well. ''Tag Force 6'', hotly anticipated by some as the first video game to feature Xyz cards, was not released outside of Japan.
* [[Non-Human Undead]]: Quite a few, including the recent variants of legacy cards (i. e. Summoned Skull -> Archfiend Zombie Skull, Red Eyes Black Dragon -> Red Eyes Zombie Dragon, etc.).
* [[Not Quite Dead]]: Numerous cards allow other cards to return from the Graveyard (either to the field or the player's hand), though not so much that [[Death Is Cheap]]. In fact most Zombie monsters have effects like this.
* [[Nothing Is Scarier]]: [http://
** [http://
* [[Not the Intended Use]]: A number of instances. For example, Barrel Behind the Door was initially meant to bounce back damage done to you by effects. It works just as well bouncing non-cost damage from your cards to your opponent.
** One of the most interesting examples is [http://
* [[Nuke'Em]]: Shown in the artwork of [http://
* [[Numerical Theme Naming]]: The Karakuri archetype. In Japan, their names are actually numbers: "Karakuri Soldier Nisamu," for example, is written with the kanji 弐参六 (236). In the US, the dual nature of their names is retained by translating the kanji as both a ''model'' number and the actual reading thereof (or a variation); e.g. "Karakuri Soldier mdl 236 'Nisamu'".
* [[One-Hit-Point Wonder]]: All except a dozen or so monsters only need one attack to be destroyed, regardless of how low or high the difference is.
** And a few of them have effects where they are destroyed after they are attacked, regardless of ATK or DEF points.
* [[Our Angels Are Different]]: In fact, some of them are [https://web.archive.org/web/20120320112049/http://
* [[Our Dragons Are Different]]: Mostly western dragons, though a few eastern dragons also appear. Some dragons stretch the definition of "dragon," like Black Rose Dragon, which appears to mostly be a giant rose with thorny vines and a dragon head.
* [[Our Monsters Are Weird]]: Oh, yeah...
* [[Orochi]]: [http://
* [[Oxymoronic Being]]- Behold the [http://
* [[Personality Powers]]: Light-based monsters are often benevolent, or [[Knight Templar|overbearing]] and intimidating. Earth monsters are usually [[Dumb Muscle|unsubtle]], but [[Closer to Earth|balanced and grounded]]. Dark monsters are often sinister, but sometimes more "crafty" than evil. (Especially if you associate dark with "magic"). Wind decks are often fast but flighty, and not always dependable; the vast majority of Spell and Trap destroying cards are named after wind effects. Fire decks love roasting the opponent and the "Backfire" card causes them all to be [[Made of Explodium]] (by burning the opponent when a Fire monster is killed), or else are highly aggressive and hotheaded, burning through their own cards. Water monsters can be weak with surprising [[Hidden Depths]] and clever utility.
* [[Petting Zoo People]]: The [http://
* [[Physical God]]: Obviously not to us, but within the cards there are the Egyptian Gods, Wicked Gods, Sacred Beasts, Earthbound Immortals, and Aesir monsters.
* [[The Plague]]: With a handful of virus cards to play with, very few of them don't dish out immeasurable damage to the opposing player. Crush Card Virus, Epidemic Eradication Virus, Deck Devastation Virus, and Cell Explosion Virus. Did I mention they have ominous names as well?
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* [[Power Equals Rarity]]: ...and the rare cards get pretty expensive.
** As of now there's only twelve Level 12 cards in a TCG composed of ''thousands'' cards, and arguably for [[Game Breaker|a very good]] [[One-Hit Kill|reason]].
* [[Power Limiter]]: Part of the backstory behind [http://
* [[Precision F-Strike]]: [http://
* [[Real Robot]]: About half of all machine monsters. The other half are [[Super Robot|Super Robots]].
* [[Regenerating Health]]: As long as you have "Marie The Fallen One" in your graveyard, you gain 200 LP each Standby Phase. A lot of other cards can heal as well, but they have to be on the field, where they are wide open to attacks or effects.
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* [[Retcon]]: A few cards have been renamed outright in order to make them fit better with later-released archetypes: "Amazon Archer" became "Amazoness Archer," "Oscillo Hero #2" became "Wattkid," and the various "Heroes," such as the "Elemental Heroes," are now all officially "[[HER Os]]," since there are ''five different sub-archetypes'' which use the keyword.
* [[Retired Badass]]: The set "Storm of Ragnarok" heavily implies that the support monsters for the Six Samurai archetype were the original members of the group.
* [[Revolvers Are Just Better]]: In every country besides the U.S., Barrel Dragon is known as Revolver Dragon. One look at the original [http://
* [[Riddling Sphinx]]: [http://
* [[Ridiculously Cute Critter]]: Many low-level monsters, but special mention goes to the many Kuribohs, the Charmers' familiars, and the Neo-Spacians' Chrysalis forms.
** The Watt and Naturia archetypes are made up almost exclusively of these.
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* [[Scenery Gorn]]: A lot of cards have this, including a few (non-field) magic and trap cards.
* [[Scenery Porn]]: Some Field spells are just ''gorgeous'', and if not, the designs are at least ''very'' intricate and detailed.
* [[Schizo-Tech]]: Everything from stone clubs to [[Steampunk]] ancient robots to the [http://
* [[Schmuck Bait]]: The illustration of [http://
* [[Sealed Evil in a Can]]: Seeing the destruction the war was causing, the Ice Barriers decided to [[Idiot Ball|unseal]] Trishula, the strongest of the Ice Barrier Dragons. It did [[The End of the World as We Know It|NOT]] [[Reset Button Ending|end well]].
* [[Series Mascot]]: Kuriboh and Winged Kuriboh have been this for years, Stardust Dragon for the 5D's-era. Number 39: Utopia seems to be shaping up to be the one for the current ZEXAL era.
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*** Synchro Monsters in general are this. Now summoning your deck's ace monster is usually done mostly with monster effects and is usually summoned in your first or second turn. In the olden days, you were considered lucky to summon any thing over a level six without deleberatly stalling or using Foolish Burial + Monster Reborn.
* [[Shock and Awe]]: Thunder-type monsters. Additionally, a lot of cards that deal with destroying monsters happen to be named after or themed after electricity, like the Thunder Monarch, Raigeki and its variants, Elemental HERO Thunder Giant/Evil HERO Lightning Golem, and so on.
* [[Sibling Rivalry]] / [[Sibling Yin-Yang]]: [http://
* [[Sigil Spam]]
** The [[Gratuitous English|Koa'ki Meiru]] monsters all feature their emblem somewhere on their person.
** [http://
** Most of the cards that use the [http://
** The Emblem for the [http://
** All the X-Saber archetype have the emblem of an X somewhere on their person. Even more so, the XX-Saber all wear red capes as well has having the emblem.
*** Every post-Trishula Duel Terminal Archetype features a logo of some sort.
* [[Spider Tank]]: [http://
* [[Starfish Aliens]]: The Alien archetype. Some of the bigger ones border on [[Eldritch Abomination]]. One of them is even a [[Cosmic Horror]] by name! Also, they are the true masters of turnabout. Zeta Reticulant and Greed Quasar are not ''technically'' of the Alien archetype, but are still in the same visual class. The Worms of the Worm archetype are even ''more'' Starfishy, ranging from hideous blobs to rampaging chitinous monstrosities. The only common feature they have is a [[More Teeth Than the Osmond Family|toothy, vertical mouth]].
* [[Steampunk]]: The Ancient Gear archetype, though bordering on [[Clock Punk]].
* [[Superhero]]: The [http://
** [[Anti-Hero]]: Their counterparts, the [http://
** [[Villain Protagonist]]: The [http://
* [[Super Mode]]: [http://
** And several for LV Monsters and cards like Vampire Genesis
** Stardust Dragon and Red Dragon Archfiend also have a small handful of other advanced forms.
** Classic cards Blue-Eyes White Dragon and Red-Eyes Black Dragon have a number of other, more powerful forms as well.
* [[Suspiciously Similar Substitute]]: Whenever a card is declared Forbidden for being too powerful, Konami tends to release a watered down version of it. A couple of straight examples would be "[http://
** [[Incredibly Lame Pun|Wouldn't the latter be a Suspiciously Similar Substitoad...?]]
* [[Take Me Instead!]]: There are a few monsters that let you send them to the graveyard to protect your other cards from being destroyed, Stardust Dragon being a famous example.
* [[Taking the Bullet]]: [http://
** Players can subvert this in the case of Astral Barrier by coupling it with [http://
** The GX anime-only [http://
* [[Taking You with Me]]: Several ways. Activating Self-Destruct Button is one. Playing Ring of Destruction on a monster whose attack is more than both player's Life Points is another. Flipping a Morphing Jar when both players have less than 5 cards in their deck? [[Crowning Moment of Funny|Indeed.]]
** Attacking a face-down monster with a flip effect causes its effect to activate, even if it would be destroyed. [https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Man-Eater_Bug Man-Eater Bug]] is the most iconic.
* [[Tarot Motifs]]: The Arcana Force monsters are based on tarot cards, including names and numbers, though not all 22 made the cut. There were also a couple of minor arcana thrown in: Ace of Cups, which randomly may let you or your opponent draw extra cards, and the anime-only Ten of Swords.
* [[That Cloud Looks Like...]]: [http://
* [[The Last of His Kind]]: [http://
* [[Theme Naming]]: Many archetypes work this way. Those that don't just have common visual themes.
** Some examples: Dark World monsters have a warped version of a color for a name ("Gren," "Goldd," "Silva," "Broww,"). The [[Starfish Aliens|Worms]] have names beginning with a different letter of the alphabet, from A ("Worm Apocalypse") to Z ("Worm Zero"). Gladiator Beasts all have Roman or Greek themed names.
* [[The Scapegoat]]: [http://
* [[The Virus]]: Ekibyo Drakmord returns to its owners hand (so long as it's not destroyed or the equipped monster is removed from the field), allowing it to spread to other monsters.
** "DNA Surgery" can be seen as this, too, as its effect changes all monsters on the field to a single type (chosen by the cards activator). "DNA Transplant" does the same thing, but with Attribute in place of type.
** [http://
** [http://
** The Alien Archetype is based largely on using this to weaken monsters.
** The [http://
* [[Time Bomb]]: [http://
* [[Time Machine]]: [http://
* [[Time to Unlock More True Potential]]: The basis of the Gemini monsters, who must be normal summoned after already being on the field to gain their effects. There are cards to bypass this limitation, however, which may overlap with [[Eleventh-Hour Superpower]].
* [[Toon]]: [http://
* [[Transforming Mecha]]: The [http://
* [[Trap Master]]: [http://
* [[Trickster Archetype]] / [[Troll]]: The Jars. The majority of them have game-breaking effects that can turn entire strategies upside-down...and the artwork indicates that they do it all with [[It Amused Me|a huge, goofy smile on their face.]]
* [[True Companions]]: The Six Samurai, who can sacrifice each other if another one would be destroyed.
* [[Ultimate Universe]]: [http://
* [[Underwear of Power]]: The Ojamas. All of them.
* [[Black Holes Suck]]: Dark Hole.
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* [[Unperson]]: Konami has been taking the focus away from Synchros and Tuners ever since the debut of ZEXAL, which takes place in an alternate reality where they never existed, all in favor of the new Xyz mechanic. The former two have also been hit hard in the banlists, in contrast to the latter. The still running 5Ds manga is the last refuge for new Synchros and Tuners for the real life game.
* [[Up to Eleven]]: Monsters that are Level 8 are usually the strongest monsters you're likely to see in a deck, and they usually don't have an ATK of over 3000. Any effect monster with 3000 or higher ATK or a Level of 9 or higher usually has much stricter summoning conditions or an [[Achilles' Heel]], but they make up for it by being really powerful.
* [[Villainous Rescue]]: When your opponent attacks one of your Fiend-type monsters, you can send that Fiend to the graveyard, as well as one in your hand, to bring out [http://
* [[Wave Motion Gun|Wave Motion]] [http://
* [[Weak but Skilled]]: In general, there are a lot of cards with low attack and defense points that have powerful effects. There's even a few archetypes based around [[Weak but Skilled]] cards, like the Frogs, the Watt monsters, Ojamas, and so on.
* [[Weapon of Choice]]: The common theme for the Equip Spell Card-based Guardian archetype.
** [[The Archer]]: [http://
** [[An Axe to Grind]]: [http://
** [[BFS]]: [http://
** [[Boom Stick]]: [http://
** [[Dual-Wielding]]: [http://
** [[Knife Nut]]: [http://
* [[Wind Up Key]]: This [http://
* [[Winged Humanoid]]: The Harpie Lady archetype, [http://
* [[Winged Unicorn]]: [http://
* [[Wolf Man]]: [http://
* [[The Worf Effect]]: The [http://http://
* [[Word of God]]: Two, as a matter of fact; until 2008, card rulings were given by both Konami and UDE, and they didn't always agree with each other. Many cards actually have different rulings for the TCG and OCG versions of the game because of this.
** It's notable that in case of disagreement between the companies, it's rare but not impossible for the TCG's claims to gain worldwide sway in terms of deciding how cards actually work once word of the disagreement gets across the Pacific - and any cases where the TCG's claim does stand ultimately stand because the OCG and TCG management departments agree that "that works better for our purposes." Ultimately, the game's management (at least in some senses, including rulings) considers YGO to be 1 worldwide game with different names in different regions; and the OCG is the origin point, thus it's the locale that holds sway a good chunk of the time. Points of disagreement that aren't ironed out are simply points of disagreement that either went unnoticed or were noticed but deemed unimportant; but while a disagreement DOES exist, you are required to follow the orders of your own jurisdiction, regardless of whichever side you think will "win" the argument.
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** There's also "Light and Darkness Dragon," which counts as both a light and dark monster; its main deal is that it blocks ALL card effects from happening, but becomes weaker each time it does; when it inevitably gets destroyed, you can choose any other monster in your graveyard to resurrect (and then blow up all OTHER cards you control). So it's protection, destruction, sacrifice and rebirth all at once--perfect for a creature of both light and darkness.
** "Elemental HERO Darkbright," a fusion between a light and dark Elemental HERO monster. It has a powerful piercing attack, but makes itself vulnerable immediately afterwards by shifting to defense position. If it gets killed, though, you get to destroy an opposing card, too.
* [[Yin-Yang Clash]]: Many examples, but one of the biggest is the ongoing and escalating Duel Terminal battle originally between the [http://
* [[You Gotta Have Blue Hair]]: And red...and green...and some purple...
** The Dark Magician in particular is notable for having a different hair color in each of his five seperate artworks.
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