Yu-Gi-Oh

A game, made by Maximilian Pegasus, based on ancient Egyptian carvings he found during a piramid excavation. several of duel monster's iconic cards, such as the Blue-eyes white dragon, and the Dark Magician, are based on images found on those carvings.

cards are split into four main categories: Monster, Spell, Trap, and Pendulum. Monster cards are a duelists main line of defense, and the best method for inflicting damage to the opponents life points. Spells are cards that can add attack/Defense points, remove points, summon monsters, and specified cards from deck, or graveyard, to hand, or other effects. spells can be played on the duelists turn, or on the opponents turn if set face down. Traps are similar to spells, except they must be set face down, and cannot be activated the turn they are set. Pendulum are cards that are a combination of Spell and monster, as they can be summoned as a monster, or set on the field in the far left and far right spell and trap zone for two possibilities. first, is a specified pendulum effect. the second, and more popular effect, is to Pendulum summon, in which a Duelist can summon onto the field, from their hand, any number of monsters whose levels are between the set pendulum card's pendulum scale.

monster cards are the best way to protect your own life points, while inflicting damage to your opponents.

Monsters have a few different ways to summon them. first, is Normal summoning. any monster that is between level 1, and level 4, can be summoned from the hand without tribute. level 5 and 6 require one monster to be tributed, 7, and 8 require two tributes, and level 9 and above require three tributed monsters.

special summoning happens if an Effect monster's conditions are met, and then they can be placed on the field. spell and traps can also do this.

there are stronger monsters, that exist in separate categories, known as Extra deck monsters. these have very specific requirements, such as certain monsters, or cards.

Ritual monsters need ritual magic cards, and sometimes monsters up to a specific level, or named monster(s).

Fusion monsters need a polymerization card, or similar. these monsters work by taking two, or more monsters(Sometimes named, sometimes specified attributes/Types), and combined them to make stronger monsters. Link monsters require a set number of monsters, often specified by type, to create them. Link monsters must be summoned in one of the Extra Monster zones, located two zones in, and three zones up. once a Duelist takes one of these zones, they cannot use the other one, unless they link zone with other Link monsters, and have a link arrow on their monster that points to said extra zone. Synchro monsters require three simple things: A tuner monster, a non-tuner monster, and for those monster's levels to equal the summoned synchro monster's level XYZ are monsters made by overlaying two or more monsters with matching levels, and those monster's then become the XYZ monster's material for its effects.

the golden age, where it all began. the Ritual, and fusion monsters first appeared in this era.

Yugi Moto/Dark Magician deck user/King of Games/holder of the Millennium Puzzle Atem/Yami Yugi/Ancient Pharaoh/The original King of Monsters/Spirit of the Millennium Puzzle. Seto Kaiba/Kaiba Corp President/Creator of the Duel disk system/Blue-eyes user/Yugi's rival. Joey Wheeler/Red-eyes user/Yugi's best friend/bit eccentric as a Duelist. Maximilian Pegasus/Creator of Duel Monsters/Toon World user. Tea Gardner/Casual Duelist/Dark Magician Girl Deck user/Avid Dancer/friend to Yugi, Joey, and Tristan. Mai Valentine/Harpy Lady deck user/friend of Yugi's group/veteran Duelist/secretly likes Joey/but sarcastic at times. Serenity Wheeler/Joey's sister/doesn't actually duel/more like Joey's cheer squad.

the second age of Duel Monsters, Fusion monsters were the mainstream extra deck archetype.

The Link monsters era.

a era far in the future, where Synchro monsters reign supreme

The XYZ era of Duel Monsters.

the era where the Pendulum system was introduced.