Yu-Gi-Oh Card Game

Battle

A good start is to set a monster like Giant Soldier of Stone in defence of your side of the field. The other player will need a very powerful attacker to defeat it. Remember that once all your monsters are destroyed your life points take a direct hit... When they run out you lose!

Sooner or later you will draw a monster with powerful attack from your deck. But, you can't just summon a monster with more than 4 stars. You have to sacrifice one of yours from the field, and to summon one with six or more stars you need to pay two monsters in tribute!

A monster in defence will be defeated if it's DEF rating is lower than the ATK of it's attacker. Not to worry, summon another one in your next turn. You only loose life points when your monster is in attack position! Do watch out though, the position can be changed but once per turn. Having your monsters in the wrong position could leave your life points vulnerable!

Trap Cards Trap cards are just what you would expect. During your turn you can set trap cards face down on the field and you spring the trap during the other player's turn. Magic Cylinder is a good one, damaging the attacker's life points and protecting your side. Don't waste it on the first opportunity, wait until your opponent is ready to do some real damage!

Magic Spell Cards Magic cards take effect when you play them. Raigeki for instance, destroys all the opponent's monsters. Don't feel too sorry for them though, Monster Reborn can bring them back into play! You can play Change Of Heart to persuade an enemy monster to defect to your side for the duration of your turn. Be devious and offer the borrowed monster in tribute to summon one of yours! Some magic cards can last for several turns and there are trap cards like Magic Jammer and Anti Raigeki that can be activated to reverse them.

Effect Monsters There are numerous different monsters and many have special talents. These might take effect when you flip them over to check the strength of their defence. So besides the peril of trap cards and the danger of deflected damage, this adds an extra incentive not to launch recklessly into attack. One of my favourites is Hayabusa Knight. He can strike twice in each turn. He hasn't much ATK power of his own, but equip him with an Axe of Despair and he soon slashes his way through the enemy forces... and you don't even need to pay tribute to summon him!

The Card Trading Game

One can't be expected to know what all the various cards do, but make sure you know the ones in your deck and keep an eye out for ones you would like to add to it. Some cards work well together. You can build your deck and strategy to take maximum advantage of particular combo's.

When you are after a certain card, you might keep buying booster packs until you get one, you might try trading, or scour car boot sales and the internet. Many people don't collect cards to play, but seek out rare and limited edition specimens in mint condition. On the GameBoy and other computerised versions all you need is to punch in the unique card code. Find that on the cards, and various "cheat" sites on the world wide web.