Hand

For the archetype, see Hand (archetype).

Hand
Japanese	手（て）札（ふだ）
Japanese (ruby)	てふだ
Japanese (base text)	手札
Japanese (romanized)	Tefuda
English	hand
Other names French: main German: Hand Italian: mano Korean: 패 (牌) Pae Portuguese: mão Spanish: mano Traditional Chinese: 手牌 Shǒupái / Sau2 paai4

A hand of cards in the second series anime.

A player's hand (Japanese: 手（て）札（ふだ） Tefuda) refers to the cards each player holds that have not yet been played, but that they have drawn during the Draw Phase or via card effects. As the name suggests, such cards are generally held in a player's physical hand. From your hand, you can Normal Summon or Set Monster Cards, Set Trap Cards, and Set or activate Spell Cards.

Any cards that you draw are added to your hand. The normal hand size limit is six, so during your End Phase if you have more than six cards in your hand, you must discard cards until you have six cards left. Some cards are able to increase the hand size limit, while others can decrease it.

A well known term, "Hand Advantage", refers to a deck's ability to perform strong combos while maintaining a good number of cards in hand should their plan fail or should they require extra cards to sustain their plan. For example, "Gadget Xyz", "Qli", "Junk Synchro" and "Harpie" decks contain many cards that can maintain hand advantage.

Certain card effects can interact with cards in players' hands. For example, "Spirit Reaper" can discard 1 card from the opponent's hand as part of its effect, and "Exchange" allows you to swap one card from your hand with one card in your opponent's hand. Many card effects have costs that require discarding a card(s) from your hand, such as "Raigeki Break", and you cannot activate such effects unless you have enough cards in your hand to pay the cost.

See also

• Hand size limit