Duel Rules; Volume One; The Basics
In the game of Duel Monsters there are three types of cards: Monster, Magic, and Trap. Duelists make a deck of forty or more cards that combine these three cards types to create combinations which allow them to win a duel by bringing their opponent's life points to zero.
Duels can have different rules, but in the most original cases duelists have 8000 life points at the start. They then spend each turn summoning monster cards from their hand, and combining those monster cards with magic cards to achieve numerous different results, such as clearing their opponent's field of potential threats, powering up their own monsters, or weakening the strength of the monsters on their opponent's field.
After they have completed combat for that turn, it is normal for them to place trap cards face-down on their field as a defense against their opponent's own magic and monster cards.
This is the absolute basic idea behind a duel. Of course the game of Duel Monsters is far more complex than that, but for a beginner of the game it is best to learn how to duel before they begin the road to an expert.
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The road to success is paved with great wins and great losses, more of the latter than the former in most cases. However in this world there are those which, through great persistence and courage, achieve their desires. It is the desires of those people that shape the world.
This is the story of one such person, who through the assistance of both friends and his own determination reaches the goal he has set for himself…
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Back to Basics; Beginner Level
Chapter 1: How It All Began
"Alright Kagaiya-kun," Adjusting the two play mats on the table, a black-haired teenager dressed in a black school uniform sat down casually in one of the plastic orange chairs and motioned to the mat sitting on the other side of the table. "Let's begin, shall we? I have some other appointments to keep today so I won't be able to waste time like we normally do."
Across from him a younger brown-haired boy in a similar uniform sat down in the other chair. "Alright Kashi-sensei." Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a deck of brown-backed cards and placed them onto the lower right area of the mat in a marked square, though it was placed a bit crooked compared to the square.
Kashi did the same, but he placed his deck down perfectly aligned with where it needed to be. The other difference between his deck and Kagaiya's was that his cards were each individually protected within an orange plastic sleeve. "Do you remember what we do first?"
"Hang on Sensei; I want to play with the ante rule," His brown bangs bouncing up and down as he repeatedly adjusted in his seat, Kagaiya started fishing something out of his pants pocket.
Sighing as if he was facing a hopeless situation, Kashi adjusted his glasses slightly and reached into the pocket of his school coat. "Alright then, Kagaiya-kun. What card will you put up?"
"This." Kagaiya held a single purple-bordered card high up above his head like it was some kind of treasure. "I just got this card today, and it's really good."
Laughing, Kashi gently plucked the card from the boy's hand and placed it down in the small space in between the play mats. "Indeed, Dragon Capture Jar is a very powerful trap against decks that run large amounts of dragon type monsters. Now that card is a rare, so of course I at least have to match its rarity…hmmm…" Pulling a card out of his coat pocket, he flipped it up for Kagaiya to see. "Will this do nicely for my ante?"
Staring wide-eyed at what had been drawn out, Kagaiya nodded eagerly. "Yeah, I'd be really happy to play for that card!"
"Very well then," Kashi replied while placing the card down in between the play mats. "Tell me then; what do we do first before we start the duel?"
"We both cut the other player's deck, right?" Kagaiya reached across the table and took half of Kashi's deck, placing it off to the side where he proceeded to add the other section of the deck on top.
Kashi had done the exact same while this had been happening. "Exactly right. And then?"
"We…" Kagaiya sat back in his chair and thought about it. "Don't we play Janken to determine who goes first?"
"That's also correct." Putting his hand behind him, Kashi got ready at the same time as his younger student did, and then they both shot their hands forward. After a moment of silence they both looked down at their hands, seeing that Kashi had chosen paper and Kagaiya had chosen rock. "I go first."
They both adjusted in their seats and bowed their heads to each other. "Let's have a good game."
Kashi's hands moved calmly out and removed five cards from the top of his deck. "I begin. Draw." Removing a sixth card from his deck, he added it to the others in his hand and looked across the table at the nervous expression of Kagaiya's face. ("Alright then Kagaiya-kun, let's see how well you've learned this game. I'll start with a simple problem.")
His free hand came out and grabbed a single card. "Here I come, Kagaiya!" That single card came down face-up in a horizontal position on the table with an echoing slap noise, showing a yellow-bordered card with a picture of a little green caterpillar on it. "I summon Petit Moth in defense mode. End turn." (300/200)
"Alright, here I go then!" His bangs bouncing again as he tried to copy the cool movements of his teacher, Kagaiya launched his hand out and proceeded to push half his deck off the edge of the table. "AH!" The rest of it went as he tried to stop what was already falling from getting away. In the end most of his cards wound up in a big mess on the ground.
Kashi sighed and shook his head bemusedly while he watched his student gather his cards and shuffle them up into the shape of a deck once more. "That would be a game loss, correct?"
"I'm really sorry though!" Dropping back into his seat and placing his deck at the edge of his mat so that Kashi could cut it again, the boy looked sheepishly as his feet. "Come on, no one is going to be so stingy about the rules if it was an accident."
"I beg to differ." Adjusting his glasses, Kashi cut his student's deck and placed it back in the deck zone on the mat. "There are many players in this world that play this game for large cash sums. They might not be above using technicalities to secure their victory. That's why, along with being an excellent duelist, you have to be well-schooled in proper use of the rules. Anyway, continue with your turn."
Kagaiya carefully reached out and pulled the top card off of his deck, adding it to the others in his hand. "Let's see…" Nervously shuffling the other cards in his hand around, he realized he was holding one of his most powerful monsters. "Alright then Sensei, take this!" Tossing the card down onto the mat in a bad imitation of Kashi's placing motion; he brought out a card that had a picture of a four-armed woman standing in it. "I summon Succubus Knight in attack mode!"
Kashi frowned and snapped a hand up right in front of Kagaiya's face to stop him. "Hang on Kagaiya-kun, how many level stars on the card?"
This brought the younger boy to a halt and he looked down at the card he had just played. "Ummm, five?" After a moment of awkward silence he meekly reached down and picked the card up, shuffling it back into his hand with even more nervousness than before. "…whoops…"
"Level five and six monsters cannot be normal summoned or set without sacrificing a monster on your field." Kashi reached over and picked up a pencil sitting on the table, making a mark on the pad of paper next to him. "You're quite off your game today, aren't you?"
"Well…yeah…" Kagaiya looked at the remaining cards in his hand and stopped at one particular card. ("Hey…that's a good idea.") "That's fine, I'll play this instead! My Gaia the Fierce Knight!" The card was about to hit the table when he realized that Kashi had that disbelieving look on his face again. "What!? It's a level seven monster, not a five or six!"
"Use logic for a moment though," Kashi held up one finger. "If it takes one sacrifice to summon a five or six star monster, and level sevens and higher tend to be stronger than them…" Another finger came up next to the original one. "Then wouldn't it make sense that two sacrifices instead of one would be needed?"
"…oh yeah, I suppose that makes sense." Frustration mounting, Kagaiya grabbed a green-bordered card from his hand and threw it down onto the series of zones behind where the monsters went, though the speed and inaccuracy of his action nearly sent the card sliding right off the mat. "I activate Tribute to the Doomed, so I can destroy a monster in play!"
"You need to discard a card from your hand though." Kashi commented mildly.
"Argh, fine!" Grabbing a random card from his hand, the boy tossed it down into the zone right above where his deck was. That was the graveyard, where all used cards went during the duel. "There, I discarded a card!"
Kashi picked up his Petit Moth card and placed it into his graveyard. "Alright then, I'm wide open."
"Yeah, and I'm going to take you down right here and now!" Kagaiya looked down at his hand and his excitement disappeared as he realized something was wrong. He had figured out that he couldn't summon level five or higher monsters this soon. However he could summon a level four or lower monster, but the single one that had been in his hand wasn't there anymore…
"Is there a problem?" Kashi already had an idea what the problem was, but he didn't feel like commenting on it. Kagaiya probably already felt stupid enough.
("I discarded the only monster I could summon…") Hanging his head slightly, Kagaiya folded his cards up into a single stack that remained in the grasp of one hand. "I end my turn…"
"So I'll start mine." Drawing again, Kashi inwardly sighed and placed a new monster down. ("I won't hold back, sorry Kagaiya.")
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An hour later…
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Kagaiya had gone home long ago. This left Kashi to finish cleaning up the classroom he had borrowed the use of for his lesson. While he put the chairs away he ran through the plays made by Kagaiya over and over in his head. There had to be a way to help his worst student play better. ("His grasp of the game's rules are poor, and he seems to forget everything I teach him by the next lesson…what am I going to do with that kid? He wants to be a professional duelist but he's terrible…")
Packing the folded play mats into his backpack, Kashi looked out at the orange afternoon sun and the blowing trees. "He's not ready to go to a tournament, and yet he's been my student for at least a month. I really wish there was something I could do to make him better…"
Their town was rather small, just big enough to have a high school and all subsequent schools underneath it. However that was about it. The biggest tournament in reachable range of those that lived in town was held by the only hobby shop still in business. That was it. ("However that means the number of players they get for the weekend is pretty much every amateur duelist in town. It's a good number, at least fifty or so.")
Locking the classroom door behind him, the lone junior high student started on his way out. ("Oh well, I guess that's a problem for another day. The weekend has just started and I intend to enjoy it by going to that same tournament tommorow.")
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"ARGH!" Kagaiya kicked a nearby empty juice can high into the air in front of him, not even watching where it landed. "Am I really that bad!? I finally saved up enough to afford the tournament entry fee too! Man, why do I suck so much!?" No one answered him because he was alone on the dirt road that led to his house, his only company the long grass that was swaying in the wind on both sides of him.
Ever since he was a kid he had watched the National Duelist League on television every chance he could. In the world Duel Monsters fell into the same league that many other niche games fell into when it came to their global popularity. To be a professional Duel Monsters player meant that you were recognizable, like a professional sports player.
It was his dream to join the ranks of the world's greatest players. So he had worked hard to make as much money as he could, since his family didn't give him an allowance. Therefore he had to buy the cards for his deck from the cheapest packs for sale at The Starshot, the hobby store on the other side of town.
To accomplish his dream he had sought out someone to teach him how to duel, and how to be the best. His focus was to one day join Duel Academy, which was supposed to be the ultimate place for any aspiring duelists to go. However until then he needed someone to teach him how to be better.
That was where Kashi-sensei had come in. Kashi-sensei had put up posters for a Duel Monsters tutoring service, and while Kagaiya couldn't pay the fee he managed to convince Kashi-sensei to teach him how to duel on the promise that when he became famous he would pay the total fees of all those lessons.
He didn't own any really rare cards, beyond his absolute best monster but according to Kashi-sensei even that monster wasn't really very good. "I've got a terrible deck, a terrible dueling style, and I can't even remember anything past the most basic rules of the game. How am I supposed to be a professional duelist? I can't even beat someone that's trying to lose to me on purpose!"
"...place your off-hand on top of the deck, like this. You push your middle and index fingers on top of the card while using your thumb on the underside to put it in a position so you can withdraw your hand swiftly. If you do it correctly you'll get a whish noise when the card slides away from the rest of the deck." That same sound was heard just then.
Stopping in his tracks, Kagaiya found that he had arrived home without even realizing it. Home was the two-story house that his family had owned since before he had been born. And right next to it was the home of his only friend in this whole town, Heiku Chiji.
Hopping the fence that separated the road from the side of Heiku's house, he strolled into the backyard casually and grinned at what he saw. "That's Heiku for you…trying to be cooler than he really is."
Amongst the numerous flowerbeds and planted trees sat two kids his age. One was a black-haired boy wearing a white t-shirt and brown shorts, and the other was a girl dressed in a girl's uniform for the same high school as Kagaiya. The boy glanced over his shoulder and shot his friend a glare. "Who are you to comment on how cool I am, Kaga?" Tapping the top of the short-legged wooden table they were sitting at, he smirked confidently. "Care to prove me wrong in a duel?"
"I'll pass thanks. I've got other things to worry about right now." Kagaiya waved half-heartedly to the girl. "Hey Rose, you just get out of school or something?"
The girl started to open her mouth but was cut off by a derisive snort from her just slightly older than her brother. "She went to a study session at a friend's house, being the little goody-two-shoes that she is." Rose punched her brother in the arm in response to the insult.
Laughing, Kagaiya walked over and grabbed the lip of the fence that separated their two backyards. "Alright, I need to get home. Later." Leaping over the top, he landed in the plain grassy yard that was owned by his family. Unlike Heiku's backyard, his didn't have any kind of special decorations. It was just plain grass. The only thing that stood out was the old wooden shed in the corner, but that didn't add anything interesting to look at.
Walking to the screen door which led into his house and pulling it open, Kagaiya removed his shoes and carried them inside. "I'm home mom!"
"Welcome home dear, how was school?" His mother's voice came from inside the kitchen, where the delightful smells of dinner that warmed his nose came from.
"It was okay, I guess." Kagaiya grabbed an apple from a bowl sitting on an end table just outside the kitchen entryway and took a bite out of it. "Anything I can do to help out before dinner?"
"Actually yes there is." His mother's hand came into view holding a piece of paper with something scribbled on it. "Could you please go out to the shed and find the box labeled with the number written on this paper? There are some recipe books inside and I need the one labeled 'Western Deserts'."
Snatching the paper and shoving it into his pocket, Kagaiya carried his shoes and apple back out the way he had come. "Yes ma'am!"
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The hinges to the shed's door squealed in protest as Kagaiya forced it open, waving his hand repeatedly to try and clear the clouds of dust that poured out when he disturbed their resting place. "Sorry Rusty, I need to find something so I'll have to bother you a little bit."
Rusty was his nickname for the shed, which had been built the same year he was born. Kagaiya's parents had originally come from America, and had moved to this town because they wanted to learn about Japanese culture. Kagaiya was an unknown factor at the time though, but thanks to that he had dual citizenship.
On topic though, the shed was where his parents stored all their old junk and other things they didn't want cluttering the house. "They must have had a lot of junk though…" There were boxes piled high almost everywhere. In fact he was finding trouble moving around inside the cramped confines of the shed.
Finally he saw the labeled box, the brown cardboard dark in a pattern similar to the numbers that had been written on the piece of paper his mother had given him. Working the top off the box, he starting lifting up book after book into the sunlight coming in from the open doorway to try and find the one labeled "Western Deserts".
From next to him something made a dull thud noise, crashing down at his feet. "Whoops, better fix that…" Putting the current books he was looking at to the side, Kagaiya reached down and picked up whatever had fallen. If the feel and shape of it were any indication, it was some kind of jewelry box. "That's kind of careless, why would they…"
Out of the very bottom of his vision he could have sworn there had been a faint glitter of light. "Wow, what kind of stuff…" Flipping the top off the box, he held it up to the sunlight and blinked at the single item sitting in the center of the wooden container. It was wrapped in a pink cloth, retaining a fairly rectangular shape. "A…deck?"
Even though the first thing that came to mind when cards had been mentioned had been Duel Monsters, he could tell that the cards were too big. There was only one other possibility then. "Tarot cards? I didn't know my parents were interested in that kind of stuff…"
His hand touched the silky texture of the pink cloth around the Tarot Deck and for a moment he felt an overwhelming wave of nostalgia. This caught him off guard and he snapped his hand back as if he'd been burned. ("What was that!?")
After a moment of uncertainty he picked up the deck again. Once more there was that feeling of memory, things once existing and now lost. With shaky hands he unwrapped the deck, revealing the edge of a red-backed card. Keeping the cloth around all but the end of the deck, he inspected it intently. "Weird, but not all that scary."
He suddenly remembered what Heiku had been talking about when he had gotten home, and grinned mischievously. "The powers of a good draw, huh?" Placing the wrapped deck on the wooden floor he grasped the top card of the deck. "Here I go then, I'll show you a real draw!" His fingers pressed down on the card, bending it more than necessary as he prepared to pull it free forcefully…
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Inside the kitchen Kagaiya's mother hummed to herself while she finished washing the pans used to cook dinner. It pleased her to no end that her son was such a good boy. When they had moved here originally she had been worried that the fact he looked completely different from the other children might have caused him problems in school, but he had avoided getting in fights.
Outside the window, Kagaiya could be seen running out of the shed breathlessly and dropping to his knees, acting as if he was sick to his stomach. "Oh dear, was there a spider or something?"
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Body shaking, Kagaiya felt like he was on the verge of vomiting. When he had removed a card from the Tarot deck there had been…
Numbly, he rolled onto his back and looked up at the sky, trying to clear the fog in his mind. ("I can't remember what I saw, but it was terrifying…") Shielding his eyes with a hand, he realized that the card he had taken off the deck was still pinched in his grasp. The face of it was so faded that he couldn't even make out what it was supposed to be.
After taking a couple of minutes to recover his breath, Kagaiya stood up and walked into the shed once more. Without saying or thinking another word he replaced the Tarot card and deck where they were supposed to be, found the recipe book his mother had wanted, and got the shed locked as quickly as humanly possible. He had no wish to ever go near that Tarot deck again as long as he lived, that much he was sure of.
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A few hours later…
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"Good night!" Calling down the stairs to his parents in the living room, Kagaiya closed the door to his room and collapsed on the bed. "Today's been a busy day. Tomorrow is the weekend though so I finally get to…"
The cell phone on his nightstand started ringing incessantly until he finally picked it up just to stop the ruckus. Holding it up to his ear, he sighed and pressed the call button. "Hello?"
"Hey Kaga," Heiko's overly cheerful voice called out from the speaker, "You're still going to come with me to the tournament tomorrow, right?"
"Huh?" Rolling onto his side, Kagaiya yawned loudly right into the receiver. "What are you talking about?"
"You don't remember!?" Sounding a little angry, Heiko's voice picked up in volume and forced Kagaiya to sit up and pull the phone back or risk losing his eardrums. "Yesterday we decided that we were going to get up early and walk to the Starshot so we could try and trade cards with the store owner! Plus we were going to watch the Favorites play to learn about their strategies!" The Favorites were the top six players in town, who always made it to the final eight in the Starshot tournament.
"You don't need to shout, do you?" Kagaiya muttered this to himself and brought the phone back up to his mouth. "Right, right, I'll see you tomorrow at seven then?"
"You'd better be up and out of your house by six-fifty this time, got it!?"
"Yeah, yeah, I hear you. My mother nags less than you do." Turning the phone off, he yawned and slid out of bed to turn the lights off. Collapsing back into his sheets, he started to slip off to sleep…
But something was bothering him. It was a feeling like when trying to remember something just at the tip of the tongue. ("I don't have homework, and even if I did it wouldn't bother me when sleep is involved.") Getting up, he walked over to his desk and flicked on the lamp. At the corner of it was his deck, almost casually discarded there when he had come up to his room before dinner.
Pulling his chair back and sitting down, he took the stack of cards into his hand sleepily and started placing them face-up on the surface one at a time. ("What's wrong with me? It's not like I'm playing tomorrow so why do I have this sudden need to look my deck over?")
Though he was questioning himself mentally, physically he was already working. The few extra cards he had were sitting in a pile next to where his disassembled deck was, and in an almost dream-like state he worked on improving his deck until sleep finally overtook him, face planted atop some of the remaining cards that weren't part of the completed deck that now rested right next to his head.
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Duelist Quiz: In Duel Monsters it has already been established what the types of cards are, so let's do a quick review. What colors are monster, magic, and trap cards? How many life points do the players normally start with?
Though there isn't a prize for answering correctly, feel free to post your answer in your review.