Banished Zone

The playing field as it appears in Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's World Championship 2011: Over the Nexus. Note the location of the "Banished Zone" to the right of the Graveyard, and how it is offset from anywhere else on the playing field.

The Banished Zone, known as the Removed from play Zone or Removed Zone prior to the PSCT update, is a semi-official term used to refer to the location where a player's banished cards are placed. It has also been referred to as the banished pile, or the removed from play pile (sometimes formatted as removed-from-play pile) prior to the PSCT update.

The Banished Zone is not actually a zone, and as such, it is not included on official playmats. Instead of using the term "Banished Zone", card texts directly refer to "cards that are banished" or "the player's banished cards" (previously "the player's removed from play cards" or "the player's cards that are removed from play").

Banished cards are left face-up, unless an effect specifically banishes them face-down. Cards that are banished face-down are not public knowledge and can only be looked at by their possessor.

Most video games place banished cards either to the right of or above the Graveyard Zone. The artwork of one particular card, "Chain Material", explicitly shows an example of where banished cards may be placed.

In the anime, there is no place on a Duel Disk to place banished cards. In the Yu-Gi-Oh! anime, Seto Kaiba is seen placing his banished cards to the right of his Deck Zone while Dueling using his Duel Disk connected to a Dueling Arena. In the Yu-Gi-Oh! GX anime, Duelists utilize their pockets for banished cards. Other series do not draw attention to the physical locations of cards.

Game mat