= What you need to play? =
- A deck of 40-60 cards. I reccomend keeping it small. Makes it easier to get the cards that you want and forming a straight forward gameplan.
- A play mat. While you don't need one, I reccomend it. I think every struture deck comes with a shitty ass paper mat. Just get a cheap 10 dollar real one, it makes it easy to keep the layout, especially for a beginner.
- Coin/Dice. You need this for various things, mostly for turn determination or cards that need it. Most people/cards use dice now but you'll occasionally come across a person/card who still uses coin.
= Playing the Game =
Yugioh is a easy ass game to start playing with a high ass skill ceiling containing a whole lot of bs. The gameplay gets really deep once you really get into it and the meta. While I'm not caught up with it myself it's gets really scary. I'm talking you're opponent settin shit up that you ain't even think possible. Turns having like 40 actvitions and spell and trap card. Niggas special summoning level 7 monsters on the second turn. You don't need to know that shit, for now. Just the basics.
Every player starts with 8000 Lp(Life Points). This functions as your health total, when it goes to zero you lose. So the main objective would be to depleat your opponents Lp to zero.
= Turn Phases
There are about 6 phases to battling in Yugioh. Each of these phases serves a specific purpose when battling. You can only perform certain actions in certain phases, like only attacking in the battle phase. This really just provides structure to battles. You go back and forth with this order until the battle ends.
> Phase One: Draw Phase
In the first draw phase at the beginning of the match each player draws 5 cards. From then on you can only draw one from the deck during this phase.
> Phase Two: Standby Phase
Any card effect that needs to happen, happens during this phase. So if theres a penalty from a something it will happen here.
> Phase Three: Main Phase 1
You do shit like summoning cards in this phase. So with the cards at hand you lay the ones you want onto the field. You can only summon one monster from you hand in this phase but with Spell and Trap cards you summon any number. You can also still activate cards during this time.
> Phase Four: Battle Phase
An optional phase, you attack your opponent. You can also change the position of your monsters between defending and attacking. Depending on the battle position of the opponents monsters(if there is any), you go off of that stat when attack. So if the opponent is defending and you attack, you would off that number. Which ever number is bigger wins the interaction. If the opponent has the higher stat you take your stat - opponents stat, the opposite for the opposite situation.
Ex: 2000 - 3000 = 1000, So that person would take 1000 damage.
> Phase Five: Main Phase 2
This phase is optional, you can choose to skip straight to the end phase. You are able to do pretty much whatever you were able to in the first one other than summoning monsters.
> Phase Six: End Phase
Your turn ends and moves onto the opponents turn.
= Card Types
There are three general card types, Monster, Spell, and Trap cards. All of these have banned cards within the tcg. A list of them are available easily here.
> Monsters
This is how you attack or defend, with your monsters. One of the main things you want to note about thme is their star rating. Depending on how many stars there are determines if you special summon it or not. Special summoning is when you sacruface monster(s) on the field to summon. Monster with 4 and below can be normal summoned, unless told so otherwise. Above four you have to special summon. It's usually 1-2 monsters you need to sacrifice, although some of them may require more. If it does, it will say it on the card.
Another thing to note is the defense and attack of a monster. Depedning on the position your monster is in on the field determines what stat is active. If its straight up, you are in the attacking position. You will go off you attacking stat number, this also allows you to attack. If your card is placed sideways you are defending. You cannot attack and you go off the defense stat. No matter your position you start off face down. This doesn't effect anything other than hiding the card from the opponent. Until you attack or are attacked, it will stay face down. Afterwards you place it face up and your opponent can request to read it.
A note: If you are first to play in the beginning of a match, you CANNOT attack that turn. It's a rule thats there to give your opponent a chance to defend.
> Spells and Traps
Spell and trap cards serve multiple purposes, mostly to cause effects on the battle. Spell cards can do alot of things, from buffing you attack too being able to wipe your opponents whole board. Just read the effects on the card, it will usually be self explainitory. Same thing with trap cards, they will tell what they do. Both of them stay faced down until they are activated, similar to monster cards.
They both have 6 properties that can be applyed to a card. They pretty much describe what the acrd does with one word, they are:
Equip
Field
Quickplay
Ritual
Continuose
Counter
Since this is a beginner guide I am NOT explaining what chain links are. This is totally not an excuse for me being to lazy. Maybe I'll add it later so consider this a wip.
