So the last thread hasn't been utilized in forever but there's probably people out there on Smogon still interested in this game, so this OP will be a refresher/guide/resource for players wanting to play Yu-Gi-Oh again. It's a very skill based card game (but with luck elements) that anyone can play, but where there is always room to improve.
A quick guide to the rules:
The two players decide who goes first by playing R/P/S or by rolling a die. If you win, ALWAYS go first. One of Yu-Gi-Oh's biggest flaws is that going first is a huge advantage in comparison to going second - it allows you to draw an extra card before your opponent every turn, and allows you to make plays on your opening turn uninterrupted.
Once it's been decided who's starting, both players draw 5 cards from their main decks (which can be 40-60 cards). The playing going first draws a 6th to start their turn, and the game begins.
During your turn, you can choose to Normal Summon a monster, set a monster, or Special Summon a monster(s). Normal Summoning/Setting is usually limited to once per turn unless a card specifically says so otherwise, while Special Summoning can be done as many times per turn as the cards allow. Special Summons usually place restrictions on how to summon the monster making them more difficult.
When Normal Summoning or Setting, you can immediately summon or set any level 1-4 monster unless the card forbids it (see Rare Metal Dragon as an example). However, if you want to Normal Summon/Set a level 5-6 or a level 7+ monster, it is called tribute summoning. Just like it sounds, it requires tributing 1 monster (for level 5 or 6s) or 2 monsters (for level 7+). This is generally very slow but there are some monsters or scenarios where tribute summoning isn't awful. An example being using Dragon Rulers and using Super Rejuvenation, where tributing 2 dragons would give you 2 extra draws during the end Phase.
For Special Summons, there are 5 monster cards that can be special summoned.
- Effect Monsters - This is just an effect monster in your deck that can be special summoned, either by it's own effect or by the effect of a monster/spell/trap.
- Fusion Monsters - This is usually done by using a fusion card such as Miracle Fusion or Polymerization to bring out a specific monster. Fusion monsters require specific materials for their fusions, although there are support cards for them such as Instant Fusion and Fusion Material Replacement Monsters. These would be in your Extra Deck, and are scarcely ever used in any serious deck, outside of Elemental Heroes. There are also some fusion cards that only require contact fusion without the use of cards to actually fuse them. Chimeratech Fortress Dragon is a good example.
- Ritual Monsters - These are blue cards in the main deck, that require usually require a specific ritual spell card and monsters to tribute from your hand or field that have a combined level of the monster you're attempting to Ritual Summon. These cards are mostly non-existent, but a few decks can use them such as Gishkill.
- Synchro Monsters - These white cards live in the extra deck and hold a lot of popularity even today, most notably in Dragon Rulers atm. To summon a Synchro Monster, you only need a tuner and a non-tuner that equal the level of the monster you're attempting to Synchro Summon. There are some restrictions to this, where a certain card must be a certain attribute or type (Naturia Beast requires its materials to be Earth for example), but most Synchro Monsters are only concerned with level.
- Xyz Monsters - The bad boys of the new era of dueling. These black cards are summoned from the extra deck by Overlaying, which is when you put two or more monsters of the same level (the Xyz monster will tell you how many) on top of each other. Those monsters become of the materials of the Xyz monster you're summoning. Xyzs are extremely easy to summon because of their lax restrictions, although some Xyzs, like synchros, have specific rules on which monsters can be used to summon them.
Spell and Trap cards are another type of Yugioh cards that you play or set during your turn. Spell cards can generally be activated only on your turn unless it's a quick play Spell card (which takes on the properties of a trap once it's set) or a continuous effect Spell card with an activation effect such as Wind-up Factory. Otherwise, you play your spell cards on your turn. Trap cards on the other hand, can not be played during the initial turn that you put them on the field. Instead, they have to be set and you must wait until your opponent's next turn until a Trap card could be activated. Generally trap cards are easy to follow with what they're doing or when they can be activated.
The last cards that can be activated during your turn are card Hand Traps/Effects and Graveyard effects. These cards activate from the hand or graveyard to get off their effects, and in many cases, can be activated during either player's turn. Effects like this are often cards that discard themselves from the hand to search a card from the deck, cards that discard themselves from the hand to negate an effect, cards that discard themselves from the hand for advantage purposes, and cards that banish themselves from the graveyard for a whole lot of purposes. You also have cards such as Gorz and Battle Fader which activate in the hand and special summon themselves to the field. Be sure to note that these are effects that Special Summons, rather than monsters that Special Summon themselves. It's important because of negation cards like Solemn Judgment and what they can, and cannot stop.
A turn consists of many phases/steps. The phases are:
Draw Phase - This is where you draw a card
Standby Phase - Effects can be activated here before MP1 begins
Main Phase 1 - You can basically do whatever during this phase
Battle Phase - This is the phase where attacking happens
Main Phase 2 - Same as Main Phase 1 except you obviously can't attack after actions here
End Phase - This is the phase you enter before officially ending your turn. Cards and effects can be used in End Phase!
The Battle Phase is probably the most confusing phase because of how many different steps are in it. I couldn't even bother trying explain how difficult it can be to grasp all the different rules of the different steps but this link can: http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Breakdown_of_the_Battle_Phase
Seriously, study that link, you'll have a huge advantage against less informed opponents.
Both players start with 8000 Life Points, and the player to lose all their Life Points first loses the game. Usually you play a match which consists of a best of 2/3. The player who lost the previous game has the option of going first the next game to make up for it.
There are also other win conditions such as Deck Out, Exodia, Destiny Board, weird shit, etc. There's also a ton of different strategies on how to achieve these win conditions.
A guide to this format:
So this is where I'm going to talk about our current format of Yu-Gi-Oh so you can know what to expect if you begin playing today.
The two best decks atm: Dragon Rulers and Spellbooks
Dragon Rulers - This deck takes advantage of the recently released Dragon Rulers which can special summon themselves to the field by banishing a Dragon/Attribute-shared card from the hand or grave. In other words, they're extremely easy to get out. They're also incredibly strong, ranging from 1600 Atk/3000 Def in Redox, to 2800/1800 in Blaster. As if that wasn't enough, they also all carry secondary effects accomplished by discarding the dragon from your hand and another monster of the same attribute that are all quite powerful in their own right. I'll list the 4 Dragons and their effects:
Tidal - Send 1 card from Deck to Grave
Tempest - Add 1 Dragon from Deck to Hand
Blaster - Destroy 1 Card on the field
Redox - Special Summon 1 Monster from the grave
I forgot to mention, they also carry a THIRD effect which allows them to search any Attribute Dragon from their deck to hand their when banished. While only one effect can be used per turn (and their Special Summon is counted as an effect), they're efficient killing machines for the most part.
The Dragons also have a bunch of baby Dragons that discard themselves and another monster of attribute/Dragon to Special Summon the big dragons.
What makes this deck is the access to Xyzs and Synchros that being level 7, easily summonable Dragons give. Dracossack and Big Eye are your two go to Rank 7s (Rank is the term for an XYZ and its "level" (they have Ranks rather than levels)), both with incredible effects. The deck also has a great way of gaining resources, usually by utilizing Super Rejuvenation. Because the dragons and baby dragons discard themselves for their effect, Super Rejuv will draw a card every end phase. Add that alongside Gold Sarc and their Seven Sword and the deck will draw into resources quickly.
An example Dragon Ruler list from US Nationals Top 6 Aaron Riker:
Spellbooks - This deck focuses completely on one of the best cards ever printed, Spellbook of Judgment. Once activated, every time a Spell is activated, you can search as many spellbooks during your end phase as many spells were activated during the turn. Because the other spellbooks and spells you're running are replacement cards (they search new cards, destroy cards, or even protect your spellcasters), you're basically just gaining cards for free. If that wasn't enough, you get to summon a Spellcaster = spells activated during the turn. Jowgen and Kycoo are the goto monsters, being able to easily shut down the opponent's plans when backed by cards such as Fate and Wisdom. There's not much to say, the deck plays itself but falls to worse openings more easily than Dragons.
The decklist for this one is kind of simple, just use a lot of spellbooks and Spellbook Magician of Prophecy. Other than that, your goal is advantage and grinding down the opponent until they're out of resources.
Other decks: Mermails/Evilswarms/Constellar
Decks that soon will gain usage: Bujin/Fire Fists
These 4 decks are "usable" but clearly are behind Dragons and Spellbooks. You can read about them in discussion forums but realize that the two decks you MUST watch out for are Dragon Rulers and Spellbooks.
Simple Rulings
These are just rulings I think come up the most that you'll want to know, lest you wait for an admin or judge to finally come around and help:
- Solemn Judgment can negate almost anything, but cannot negate the summon of monsters that were summoned by an effect that special summons. While in most cases, you could just solemn judgment the spell/trap, there are scenarios like Gorz, Gravekeeper's Spy (assuming it was attacked into) or Dragon Rulers where you cannot Solemn Judgment. Thunder King Rai-Oh is the same. Understand that there are cards such as Solemn Warning which specifically says that it can negate effects that Special Summon.
- Skill Drain and Fiendish chain only apply to cards still on the field. They're completely different from Effect Veiler which negates the targets effects that activate on the field. This sounds extremely confusing so I'll explain more in-depth.
If a monster has an effect, it can activate either on the field, or in the grave (technically there are also weird monsters such as Reborn Tengu who can for some reason activate in the hand as well if they're bounced from the field to hand). Usually a monster that activates in the grave will specifically say so: "When/If this card is sent to the graveyard" is usually the goto text of it. Veiler/Skill Drain/Fiendish Chain cannot stop these cards.
Now, if the monster says something such as "When this card is summoned, you can search your deck for ___", Veiler/Skill Drain/Fiendish would all stop it.
BUT, if the monster says something where it activates on the field but pays it's cost (notated by anything before a semi-colon on cards) by leaving the field, then Veiler will stop the effect from resolving because effects activate and resolve on the field which is all Veiler cares about. Meanwhile, Skill Drain and Fiendish chain don't actually negate the resolution of effects, so that if the monster is off the field at the time it effect attempts to resolve (even though it's technically resolving on the field), then it can't be stopped.
The exception to Veiler stopping it is it a card is chain to Veiler that leaves the monster somewhere that isn't face-up on the field. Book of Moon, Compulsory Evacuation Device, etc can all be chained to a Veiler chaining to your effect and allow your monster to resolve.
- Cards that change Atk/Def or negate those cards can be activate in Dmg Step. That's it. So if you're facing an Evilswarm Ophion and you ask Damage Step and Lance, they can't chain Pandemic to it in order to stop Lance. The neat thing is if they said they meant to use it on the attack declaration, you could just chain Lance to it so that Lance resolves first and their Ophion dies anyway. This is a great way to beat stupid people :P
- This segways into the next important ruling that I've already talked about: Chains resolve backwards. Everything placed onto a chain goes on a chain link, and then is resolved backwards. This is important to note because it means a player can easily mess up their chain and not get the intended effect. Example would be an opponent is using Chain Burn against me. They decide to use Ojama Trio and then chain Just Desserts to inflict damage on me. DONT LET THEM SUMMON THE TOKENS FIRST FOR MORE DAMAGE! If they chained Desserts, it resolves first before ANY tokens are summoned.
- A Counter Trap has the highest speed spell, which means you can't activate cards in response to a counter trap other than another counter trap. This is important to note for attacking windows particulary, where if they chain a Solemn Judgment to Mirror Force, you can't chain Dimensional Prison in response. Some cards though, such as Book of Moon, don't have to be used in response to the actual attack and can be activated at any time. Know your rulings.
Rule Sharking - Rule Sharking has a flimsy definition, oftentimes though its misleading your opponent to activate or miss effects that must be used in order to benefit yourself. An example of NOT rule sharking? If your opponent draws a card illegally and shuffles their hand, and you call an admin and want the win. That is not rulesharking, no matter what your opponent says. You're entitled to the win because its an irreversible gamestate.
There are a million rulings you have to know to play Yu-Gi-Oh, but most of them are common sense and those that aren't can be solved by problem solving text of Yu-Gi-Oh Cards. Just google it, it'll help alot.
Useful Info:
#yugioh - this is where me and other yugioh guys spend our days cuz we're lonely fucks. however, we're all competent at yugioh enough to help you with rulings, decks, etc but understand we're an obnoxious clique and don't want people pestering us like assholes. Act normal and do your best to learn on your own, but we can help.
http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page - everything yugioh. Has a ton of rulings and info to help you out. If a ruling doesn't appear on the rulings page of a card, check the tips page - i find it has a lot of rulings there for some reason.
http://duelistgroundz.com/ - very good deck discussions and threads from good players. is the yugioh smogon except a lot more elitist and a no scrub policy (for the mostpart). I'd say don't make an account except to lurk to see how the community is like if you're interested, otherwise you're going to just be fucked in the ass.
forum.duelingnetwork.com - the official forums of duelingnetwork.com. they suck dick. all you want there is maybe tournaments, otherwise no thanks
http://www.pojo.biz/board/forumdisplay.php?f=10 - lol
duelingnetwork.com - your place to duel online, it's all manual but it has the cards of the newest sets as theyre released in japan and our friend noenian is like one of the head admins. nexus and hobo joe are also admins there but theyre old timers so dont bother them about your troubles.
devpro - the shitty duelingnetwork replacement for when DN is down. it really is bad, but it is automated.