HypnoDarkrai
Member
Draw Phase - the turn player draws 1 card from their Main Deck
Standby Phase - some card effects activate during this phase
Main Phase 1 - summon monsters, set or activate spells and traps
Battle Phase - attack with your monsters during this phase
Main Phase 2 - summon monsters (normal summon/set if you haven't), set or activate spells and traps
End Phase - declare the end of your turn, discard cards if you have more than 6, effects (that say: until the end of this turn) expire
Here's a tutorial from the 5D's era
Each player has a Main Deck (40-60) cards with Normal/Effect/Ritual/Pendulum Monsters, Spells, and Traps.
There is an optional Extra Deck (0-15) cards with Fusion/Synchro/Xyz Monsters.
A Side Deck (0-15) cards where you can change contents of Main/Extra Deck between Duels in a Match.
Each player starts with 8000 Life Points and 5 cards. On the 1st turn the 1st turn player does not get to draw a card.
You can only Normal/Set a monster once per turn, unless a card effect is activated that gives you an additional Normal/Set. You can Special Summon as many times as you want.
Winning a duel means getting your opponents Life Points to 0, however, there are alternative win conditions such as Destiny Board and Exodia.
3 of each card can be used in your decks unless it is part of the ban list.
Forbidden = 0
Limited = 1
Semi-Limited = 2
Unlimited = 3
TCG Forbidden & Limited List
Official Tournament Stores
US & Canada
Normal/Effect Monsters
Normal monsters don't have effects but they have some neat lore in place of effects. Effect monsters are orange cards that have a variety of effects that can turn the tide in a duel.
Lv. 1-4 can be normal summoned/set.
Lv. 5-6 can be summoned with 1 tribute/sacrifice
Lv. 7-12 can be summoned with 2 tributes/sacrifice unless the card specifies 3 like the Egyptian God Cards.
Spell Cards
Green cards. Can be used immediately on your turn unless specified otherwise. Spell cards can be used to draw more cards, destroy monsters, destroy other spells and traps on the field. They basically have a variety of effects. There are several types of spells such as normal, quick-play, continuous, equip, and field spells.
Trap Cards
Purple cards. Cannot be used until they have been set on the field for at least 1 turn. Trap cards are usually used to disrupt your opponent whether it be preventing attacks or destroying monsters, spells, and traps. Just like spells, there are several types including normal, continuous, and counter traps.
Ritual Monsters
Blue cards. They are in your Main Deck, so you have to have it in hand to summon it. Ritual monsters must be Ritual Summoned first by using a Ritual Spell Card. These usually require you to tribute monsters from your hand or field that equal the Level of the Ritual Monster. There are some Ritual Spell Cards that allow you to exceed the Level required for tribute.
Fusion Monsters
Violet cards. Usually uses Polymerization with the monster materials listed on the Fusion Monster. There are also other forms of Fusion Summoning such as Contact Fusion used in the Neos, Gladiator Beast, and Ritual Beast archetypes.
Elemental HERO Avian + Elemental HERO Burstinatrix + Polymerization = Elemental HERO Flame Wingman
Synchro Monsters
White cards. Adds up the levels from the Tuner monster used and the non-Tuner monsters.
Example: Lv. 3 Tuner + Lv. 5 non-Tuner = Lv.8 Synchro Monster
Xyz Monsters
Black cards. Use monsters with the same level to build the overlay network and summon an xyz monster. Monsters used in an xyz summon are stacked on the bottom of the xyz monster and detached when the xyz monsters effect is used. Xyz monsters do not have Levels, they have Ranks, meaning that they won't be affected by cards such as Level Limit Area B or Gravity Bind.
Lv. 4 Monster + Lv. 4 Monster = Rank 4 Xyz Monster
Pendulum Monsters
Orange/Blue cards. These monsters have two effects, a pendulum effect and monster effect. You can use the pendulum effect when they are placed in the pendulum scales. When Pendulum monsters are destroyed they are sent to the Extra Deck face-up.
Pendulum Summon
There are two pendulum zones on the field, you place pendulum monsters on either one, depending on the scales of the pendulum monsters you can special summon (once per turn) from your hand monsters with the levels between your scales. If you have pendulum monsters in your Extra Deck face-up you can also special summon them along with your monsters from the hand.
Say I have a Lv. 7 Dark Magician in my hand and my pendulum scales are from 1 to 8, I can Special summon him using Pendulum summoning.
Here's a useful Tutorial
Link Monsters
Introduced from the 6th installment of the Yu-Gi-Oh! anime, VRAINS. With these new monsters come rule changes, Pendulum Zones have been changed to the leftmost and rightmost Spell/Trap zones if you wish to use them as Pendulum Zones. Monsters summoned from the Extra Deck (including face up Pendulum monsters) must be summoned to the new Extra Monster Zone or to Monster Zones that a Link Monster's Link Markers point to. Summoning Link Monsters is pretty straightforward, there is a recipe you have to follow such as Decode Talker's "2 or more Effect Monsters" and you have to have the same amount of monsters as the Link, 3 in Decode Talker's case. You can bypass the amount of monsters required by using Link Monsters as the materials, for example Link 2 Honeybot and Link 1 Link Spider can net you Link 3 Decode Talker.
Here's a useful video detailing these changes
Ways to Play Online (not buying cards)
Dueling Network
Browser based unofficial Yu-Gi-Oh! game that has all the latest cards. Everything is manually controlled from life points to cards, gives you the sense that you are actually playing.
After a recent cease and desist from Nihon Ad Systems DN had to remove card images. It has been taken down until further notice unfortunately.
Devpro/Ygopro
Download based application that is also unofficial, has all the latest cards and is fully automated. Beware of bugs.
TCG/OCG News
Check out the The Organization (Ygorganization) for info on new cards as they get revealed/leaked!
Upcoming TCG Releases
Legendary Dragon Decks 10/6/2017
Circuit Break 10/19/2017
Stricture Deck: Cyberse Link 11/03/2017
Spirit Warriors 11/17/2017
Upcoming OCG Releases
Structure Deck R: Surge of Divine Light 9/23/2017
Extreme Force 10/14/2017
Anime
Manga
Yu-Gi-Oh! Arc-V |OT| Card Games on Hippos
Yu-Gi-Oh! Legacy of the Duelist |OT| Yes, I did summon a bunch of monsters in one turn
Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Links |OT| A Speedy Beatdown
Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS |OT| A Link Between Worlds
