How to play Duel Monsters 101

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Have you ever wanted to play duel monsters, but just did not know how or anything about the game? Here is a basic instruction of how to play.

1. Find some duel monster cards. You cannot play without cards, duh.
2. To make an acceptable playing deck, you must have 40 cards at the very least.
3. You can have a maximum of 80 cards, in your playing deck and that does not include fusion monsters or a side deck.
4. A fusion monster deck can have up to 30 cards in it and they are special monsters that are combonations of monsters. For example:

Crimson Sunbird is a fusion monster with 2300 attack points (one of my favorite fusion monsters, though there are others). This monster is a combonation of 2 specific cards.

One of the cards for Crimson Sunbird is Faith Bird. This Faith Bird on its own can be useful for it has 1500 attack points. Its partner, the Skull red bird is even stronger with 1550 attack points. So, individually, these two are great to have and they seem to become less powerful when fused.

However, to fuse faith bird and the skull red bird, one must have a fusion-application card. Meaning, Polymarization or a fusion-matieral sacrificial monster. These fusion sacrifices are much more numerous and can be very handy when you cannot get your mitts on polymerization.

5. A side deck can also have up to 30 cards and are used when you run out of your original deck, which can happen if you are not careful. If you do run out of cards in your deck before your opponent, you lose automatically.

6. A main deck and a side deck can have up to 4 different types of cards. Monster cards, Trap Cards, Spell cards, and Ritual Summoning cards.

The 4 basic card types

1. Monster cards- There are two types of monster cards. Ones with effects and ones without. Ones with effects have certain conditions to them that can be to your advantage or give your opponent something to smile about.

A decent effect monster that is one of my personal favorites is the man-eater bug. This insect effect monster is a flip effect monster. So you are going to want to place it horizontally and face down and then providing you do not want to place any traps or spells, end your turn.

When Man-eater bug is flipped by your opponent, that monster that tried to attack it is destroyed with no damage to either opponent. That may seem like no fun to a saiyan warrior for they want all the damage they can get, but if you place that thing at the right time, the duel will be much easier.

The other type of monster card are normal types. Now, to summon these things, you must look at the stars at the top corner of them. If they have between 1-4, you can summon it right now. If they are either a 5 star or a 6 star monster, then you need to sacrifice one monster on the field before setting your 5-6 star bad boy on the field. And that can be annyoing sometimes. However, if you have a 7 or higher monster card, on exception of Egyptian God cards, you need 2 sacrifices.

The Dark Magician, and the Blue Eyes White Dragon cards are two monster examples that are normal monsters that need 2 sacrifices each to summon them.

An example of a 5-6 star monster would be the Curse of Dragon.

And a decent 1-4 star monster is the Giant red Seasnake.

2. Spell cards - there are many different types of these things and some have different effects than others.

For example, you have field spells, which will change the background of where you are playing and will have benefits to select monsters.

An example of a field spell is Skyscraper. For this field spell, all cards with "Elemental Hero" in the name can increase their attack by 1000 when facing a monster with a higher attack than them.

Another example would be Umi. All water based monsters, not reptiles per se, will gain their attack by 200 and defense by 200.

Then there is equip spell cards such as Black pendant. Oh... I love this equip card. You can equip this thing to any card that is on the field, and when the black pendant is destroyed for whatever reason, the opponent loses 500 points from their life points.

Life points are how you know when you have won or lost the game. You can have either 4000 for a quick game or 8000 for a normal duel.  

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Another type of spell card is a continuous one. These things can really be useful depending on what one you put down.

There are 2 cards that are common enough and have the best benefits I know of for examples.

The Mass Driver card when placed on the field allows you to sacrifice one of your own monsters to knock off 400 of your opponents life points.

But, if you have Yellow Luster Shield, the defense of all of your monsters will be upped by 300 points.

Imagine the combonation of a water monster such as Maiden of the Aqua with 2000 defense points, then with Umi in play, it increases her defense by another 200, then add the luster shield card... you have a monster with a whopping 2500 defense points. Oh, and plus since she is an Aqua/effect type, then if you add the equip spell card of Power of Kaishin, there is another 300 defense to her already large defense total making it 2800 defense points, then for a final equip card, the Black Pendant I mentioned, well... 3300 defense points, this monster is basiclly undestroyable.

So, as you can see, there are many types of spell cards.

One last type of spell card I will mention are quick plays. That means whenever you want, as long as its either in your hand on on the field face down, you can summon it.

A good one to mention is Rush Recklessly. A saiyan favorite, I think. It will power up any monster for 700 attack points but only for the turn its used. It can help when you are in a tight spot.

For now, this is all I will mention.  

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Okay, okay...

3. Trap cards - like spell cards there are many types. However, unlike spell cards, there is no field traps and you cannot use them right away. They must be set, and then activated by the condition on the card.

A good one worth mentioning and a nasty one to get caught in is Trap hole. Man... I hate this card used against me and that is often enough to get me really, really angry. What it does is if you summon or attack your opponent with a monster that has more than 1000 attack points, it will be discarded like right now as soon as that Trap hole has been triggered.

Its like your monster fell into a big pit and died. *Shudder*

Anyway, traps can be very useful when used properly.

4. Ritual summoning cards. Most of these cards have spells or traps to go with them in order to get these bad boys on the field and more often than not, they require sacrifices.

A good one that I like is revival of Dokurider. This bad boy has some serious attack power. And so does Zera the Mant, another decent Ritual summoning monster. But... there is one problem. In order to summon either of these, you must have their corrosponding cards either on the field face down or in your hand. And, with either of these, since they have a total of 8 stars each, you must sacrifice monsters that total the amount of stars. It can be nastier to try and summon than the dark magician, which the Dark Magician is a normal monster, but requires two monsters to be canned.  

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Basic rule of play

1. Once you have your decks and you are all set to duel, there is one important rule one must know. You cannot duel by yourself unless its a video game, you cannot have 3 players, and you cannot have more than 4 players.

2. To decide who goes first, a simple game of Rock, Paper, Scissors. Yes, the silly thing that the Ginyu Force from Dragonball Z used to do all the time. (A recommended must see episode where the Ginyu force had to decide who gets to fight Vegeta the Prince of saiyans first)

3. Whoever wins the Ginyu Force decision game, then that player decides if they want to go first or not. This is why it is a silly rule, and I can relate this part as a Ginyu force thing because it is just plain silly.

4. Next, whomever starts draws a card. They can then summon (place a monster card vertically face up) or set (Horizontal monster card face down), set whatever spell/trap cards they want in their proper places and end their turn. The one who starts cannot attack on their first turn, otherwise it isn't fair.

5. Person going next draws, then it is up to them what they are going to do. And... unlike the person who went first, they can attack you. Its the benefit of going second.

The dueling arena

Generally, its a piece of or cardboard or something, (You can make these if you want for sturdier results) that has five card sections up top, five card sections on the bottom, three card sections on your left, and three card sections on your right.

The section to place the upper five cards is your "Monster Summoning Zone" aka "The Field".

The section to place the lower 5 cards is your spell and trap card zone.

The section to your left goes like this... Fusion deck is in the bottom left corner, active field spells go in the center left, and then the upper left is for the side deck that you created. (Normally, I see the upper left empty)

The section to your right goes like this... Bottom right is your main deck where you draw your cards from as long as there are cards there to use. The center right is your discard pile aka "The Graveyard". The Upper Right is your "removed from play" section.

*Please note that if someone has a field spell active and you play a field spell, your opponents field spell is discarded. The reverse happens if you have a field spell active and your opponent plays a field spell.  

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And this, my friends, is Duel Monsters 101.

Comments and questions about the game below please.