Duel Monsters (Toei)
Duel Monsters (デュエル モンスターズ, Dyueru Monsutāzu) is a card game played in the Toei Yu-Gi-Oh! anime. It is based on the Duel Monsters game from the manga.
The backing of the cards featured the letters "MW" for Magic & Wizards, the original name for the game in the manga. However in dialogue, it is called Duel Monsters; the name was adopted to avoid being similar to the trademarked Magic: The Gathering. In the Yu-Gi-Oh! film, the backings were changed to no longer have the "MW".
Contents
Cards[edit]
The game featured a mix of cards from the manga and original cards. In-universe there are thousands of cards.[1]
"Summoned Skull" was at one point considered to be one of the five greatest rare cards.[1]
Rules[edit]
- The game is played in turns between two players.[1]
- A player's Deck contains 40 cards.[1]
- There are two types of card; Monster Card and Spell Card.[1]
- Each player begins with 2000 Life Points.[1]
- When a player's Life Points drop to 0, they lose.[1]
- The turn player draws a card at the beginning of their turn.[1]
- Players can Summon a monster on their turn in one of the battle positions; Attack Position or Defense Position.[1]
- Monsters are placed into square-shaped divisions on a game mat. Different divisions have different fields.[1]
- Each monster has numeric Level, ATK and DEF values.[1]
- The player can use their Attack Position monsters to attack their opponent's monsters.[1]
- If both monsters are in Attack Position, the monster with the higher ATK wins and the other is destroyed. The difference in ATK is subtracted from the loser's Life Points.[1]
- If the opponent's monster is in Defense Position and the attacking monster has an ATK lower than its DEF, neither monster is destroyed and the attacking player loses Life Points equal to the difference between their monster's ATK and the opposing monster's DEF.[1]
- The turn player can change the battle positions of their monsters that did not battle.[1]
- The turn player can play Spell Cards face-down.[1]
- Spell Cards can be flipped face-up when they are ready to be used.[1]
- The different fields strengthen different kinds of monsters.[1]
- Some cards, such as "Gremlin", have abilities that can split the field, which will result in the game ending in a draw.[1]
History[edit]
Duel Monsters became popular when Yugi Mutou was in third-grade (the school year typically for 8–9-year-old children in Japan). Its popularity continued to rise, with various tournaments being hosted and devoted collectors in the United States traveling to Japan just for one card.[1]
Duel Monsters gained popularity in Domino High School when Yugi was in his second year (the school year typically for 16–17 year-old children in Japan). At which point, Yugi introduced his friends to the game and Seto Kaiba began stealing rare cards from students. Kaiba stole the "Blue-Eyes White Dragon" belonging to Sugoroku Mutou from Yugi. This resulted in him being challenged to a Shadow Game of Duel Monsters by Dark Yugi. In this game, the monsters came to life as they were Summoned and their cards were physically destroyed when they were destroyed in-game.[1]
