Victory condition

Victory conditions (勝利条件 Shōri Jōken) refer to the various ways a player can win a Duel or Match.

Standard victory conditions

These are the typical ways to win a Duel in the game's mechanics.

• Your opponent's Life Points are reduced to 0.
• Your opponent is required to draw a card, but has no cards left in their Main Deck.

A player can also win a Duel if their opponent surrenders, or is issued a Game Loss penalty in a tournament. In addition, most tournament Duels are timed; if time runs out and the Duel has not ended, the player with more Life Points wins. If Life Points are tied, the Duel will continue until the first change in Life Points happens ("sudden death").

A Match is typically won by winning two Duels. In tournaments, Matches can also be won by the opponent forfeiting the match or receiving a Match Loss penalty, or by time running out when the player has won a Duel while the opponent has not.

Alternate victory conditions

Duel winners

There are currently twelve cards in the OCG or TCG whose effects provide additional ways to win a Duel:

• "Exodia the Forbidden One": If your hand contains this card along with "Left Arm of the Forbidden One", "Right Arm of the Forbidden One", "Left Leg of the Forbidden One" and "Right Leg of the Forbidden One", you win the Duel. All five of these cards are currently Limited.
• "Destiny Board": This card can place 1 "Spirit Message" card from your hand or Deck to the field at the end of each of your opponent's turns. If this card places "Spirit Message "I"", "Spirit Message "N"", "Spirit Message "A"" and "Spirit Message "L"" all on your side of the field in that order through its effect, you win the Duel. (In the manga, the "Spirit Messages" were not separate Spell Cards but rather simply spectral forms that appeared above this card. In addition, it required "Dark Necrofear" to be in the Graveyard to activate its effect.)
• "Last Turn": When you activate this card by having 1000 or fewer Life Points, you choose one monster you control, and all other cards on the field and in both players' hands are sent to the Graveyard. Your opponent then Special Summons a monster from their Deck. A special Battle Phase occurs in which the two monsters battle and Battle Damage is ignored. The player whose monster remains alone on the field at the End Phase of this turn wins the Duel. This card is currently Forbidden.
• "Final Countdown": This card requires a cost of 2000 Life Points to activate. 20 turns after its activation, you win the Duel. This card is currently Limited in the TCG only.
• "Vennominaga the Deity of Poisonous Snakes": This card gains a Hyper-Venom Counter each time it inflicts battle damage to your opponent. If this card has three Hyper-Venom Counters on it, you win the Duel. (In the anime, this card allowed you to win the Duel three turns after it inflicted Battle Damage to your opponent, with no Counters involved.)
• "Exodius the Ultimate Forbidden Lord": This card sends 1 monster from your hand or Deck to the Graveyard each time it attacks. If five different "Forbidden One" monsters are in your Graveyard that were sent there by this card's effect, you win the Duel.
• "The Creator God of Light, Horakhty": The only way to Summon this card is by Tributing monsters whose original names are "Slifer the Sky Dragon", "Obelisk the Tormentor" and "The Winged Dragon of Ra" (meaning that you cannot use cards like "Phantom of Chaos" to copy any card names). If this card is Summoned, you win the Duel. The Summon of "Horakhty" cannot be negated, so cards like "Solemn Warning", etc. cannot stop it.
• "Number 88: Gimmick Puppet of Leo": This card can gain a Destiny Counter once per turn by detaching one of its three Xyz Materials, but in order to do so, you must have no cards in your Spell & Trap Card Zone and must skip that turn's Battle Phase. If this card has three Destiny Counters on it, you win the Duel. (In the anime, this card could detach one of its Xyz Materials once per turn with no restrictions, and it allowed its controller to win the Duel if it detached all of its Xyz Materials by its own effect, with no Counters involved.)
• "Number C88: Gimmick Puppet Disaster Leo": Once per turn, this card can detach an Xyz Material to inflict 1000 damage to the opponent. During your End Phase, if this card has no Xyz Materials while the opponent has 2000 or fewer Life Points, you wins the Duel. (In the anime, the damage was 4000 instead of 1000, and it allowed its controller to win the Duel if it had no Xyz Materials at the end of a turn, with no requirement on the opponent's Life Points.)
• "Creator of Miracles": By shouting "ZEXAL Field!", this card allows a "Number C39" monster you control to attack directly for one turn. If you have previously activated the effects of "Winning Formula" and "Creator of Hope" during that Duel, and if it successfully inflicts battle damage that turn, you win the Duel. "Creator of Miracles", "Winning Formula", and "Creator of Hope" are all Illegal to use in official Duels.
• "Jackpot 7": This card banishes itself when sent to the Graveyard by your opponent's card effect. When three "Jackpot 7" are banished by this effect, you win the Duel.
• "Relay Soul": This card allows you to Special Summon a monster from your hand, but if it leaves the field, then your opponent wins the Duel. (In the anime, this card had a different effect; see the "Removing or replacing victory conditions" section below.)

There are also three additional anime-only Duel winners:

• "Deuce": See "Removing or replacing victory conditions" below.
• "Number Ci1000: Numerronius Numerronia": At the end of the opponent's turn, if they did not declare an attack, you win the Duel. This card also has an effect that allows it to negate an opponent's attack by detaching an Xyz Material.
• "Draw Reset Battle": This card negates an opponent's attack and then has both players draw 1 card. Whoever has not used their drawn card by the End Phase loses the Duel.

Match winners

Main article: Match winner

A series of monsters, known as the Match winners, all possess the effect that if they successfully attack your opponent directly and make their Life Points 0 by the battle damage it inflicted (sometimes with additional conditions), then you win the entire Match instead of just the Duel. All Match winners printed are Illegal, except for "Victory Dragon", which is instead currently Forbidden.

Removing or replacing victory conditions

These cards have effects that remove or replace the standard victory conditions. Currently, no such effects exist in the TCG or OCG.

• "Divine Serpent Geh": While you control this face-up card, you cannot lose the Duel. This is an anime-only card.
• "Relay Soul": This card's anime effect allows you to Special Summon a monster from your hand when your Life Points become 0, and makes destroying that monster your opponent's only victory condition (removing all others).
• "Deuce": While this card is face-up on the field, neither player can lose the Duel if their Life Points become 0. Instead, a player wins the Duel if they damage their opponent twice in a row. This is an anime-only card.
• "Infernity Zero": While you control this face-up card, you do not lose the Duel if your Life Points become 0. This card exists only in the anime and in Tag Force 5 and Tag Force 6.
• "Zero Gate of the Void": Similar to "Relay Soul", this card's effect allows you to Special Summon "Void Ogre Dragon" when your Life Points become 0 while your field and hand are empty, and your opponent's only victory condition becomes the destruction of that monster. This is a manga-only card.

Video game automatic surrender

• "Yata-Garasu": In most video games, if a player successfully inflicts battle damage to their opponent with "Yata-Garasu" while the opponent controls no cards and has no cards in their hand, then the opponent will automatically surrender the Duel at the start of their next turn, because of the lock effect of "Yata-Garasu". This forced surrender applies to both human and CPU players, and will occur even if not surrendering would have been beneficial (such as if the controller of "Yata-Garasu" had no cards left in their Deck and would have lost had the opponent not surrendered).