Card Game Mechanics 101
"Okay, okay okay!" Suzaku huffed, waving his pen in mid-air as he squinted at his best friend's handwriting. "Let me see if I got it down right. Basically, there are three categories of cards in this game. There are monster cards, spell cards, and trap cards." The brunette looked up from his notes, noting Lelouch's single nod of approval.
"Go on…"
"But there are several kinds under each card category, am I right?"
Suzaku scratched the back of his head, trying to make sense of Lelouch's newest obsession. His best friend had just recently come back from a business trip with his family overseas, and upon Lelouch's return, the raven-haired teen instantly jumped at the chance to teach Suzaku 'this cool new game' he had picked up. And so, plans for a Saturday afternoon were made, ending with the childhood friends sprawled across the carpeted floor of Lelouch's lavish bedroom, a game mat spread out between them as they both sat on opposite ends of it.
Suzaku was always up for learning something new, and since the days got increasingly boring, the brunette figured he might as well learn about this new game—if only to fight off impending boredom. And right from the moment Suzaku sat down, Lelouch shoved a piece of paper at his face and instructed him to read and try to make sense of it while Lelouch pointed to the various types of well-illustrated cards laid out neatly on the floor.
"There are three kinds of monster cards. The yellow ones are normal monsters, the brown ones are 'effect' monsters, and the purple ones are 'fusion monsters.' Spell cards are sorted as follows: normal, equip, quick-play, field, continuous, and ritual." Suzaku paused, tilting his head to the side in confusion. "How do I know which is which?"
"I forgot to draw the symbols for each spell card type. I'll draw them on your notes later. Keep going though." Lelouch muttered, sorting the trap cards in a neat row as Suzaku began to read again.
"Trap cards are the same and sorted as: normal, continuous, and counter." Suzaku looked at his best friend. "This sounds like a really complicated game, Lelouch. Do I need to memorize all of this?" The brunette spoke hesitantly, frowning at the deck of cards set aside, and the growing number of other cards being arranged neatly in a row, sorted by color.
"Mm, you familiarize with them as you keep playing, but it helps to learn them beforehand."
"Okay? So how do you play?"
Lelouch straightened. "Basically, each player starts out with a deck consisting of 40 to 60 cards, and a set number of life-points—usually between 4000 or 8000. Professional tournaments utilize the 8000 LP system. The goal of Duel Monsters is to reduce your opponent's life points to zero. In terms of chess, think of the LP as your king. Protect it at all costs." When Suzaku nodded, Lelouch continued. "Deplete your opponent's life points by means of utilizing all of these cards."
At that, Lelouch placed a stack of cards onto Suzaku's and his deck slots.
"This," he gestured to the game mat, "is a duel platform. These 5 card slots at the vanguard is your monster card zone. The 5 other slots at the rear are your spell and trap zones. The slot above your deck is the card graveyard. Cards banished from the game are placed outside the mat. And that empty slot to the left of your spell and trap zone is where your extra deck—consisting of fusion monsters only—will be. And the other empty card slot above your extra deck is where field spells are put when activated."
Suzaku blinked, blown away by Lelouch's rapid-fire way of dishing out game instructions.
There's a vanguard and a rear slot, and a field zone. Okay? But why the hell would a card game even need a graveyard, much less an 'extra' deck slot? Can't they all be shuffled into one deck?
They barely started, but this game was confusing already.
Nevertheless, for the sake of friendship, Suzaku persevered and sighed exasperatedly as Lelouch continued discussing terms and card game language that sounded far too alien for him.
"In professional matches, a coin toss determines who goes first. At the start of the game, each player draws 5 cards. That's your starting hand."
Heeding his friend's words, Suzaku looked at his cards.
Okay, let's see. I have two monsters… The yellow cards are monsters right? Right. He nodded, assured. "I have two green cards. Spells, apparently, and one trap. What the hell do I do with these?
Lelouch ignored Suzaku's scowling. And in a valiant attempt to try and play, Suzaku began laying his cards on the designated zones. He laid two yellow cards on the field, along with his two green cards that had too many words under it, and a pink one.
"Is that how you do it?"
Emitting a patient sigh, Lelouch just shook his head. "No no no." He picked up Suzaku's cards and handed them over to him, before resuming his instructional and demonstrative discussion.. "Duel monsters is turn-based. And one turn has six phases. The first phase is the draw phase. We just did that. Second, is your stand-by phase. As the game progresses, this phase is where either you or your opponent can activate continuous trap cards or spell cards. Third is your main phase one. The first main phase is where you lay down traps or set up spells and summon your monsters—whatever floats your boat. Trap cards are always set on the field face-down. Spell cards on the other hand, and depending on the kind, can be activated from your hand or while they are set on the field. Try setting up your field, Suzaku."
Suzaku idly tousled his hair, thoroughly confused. He laid out his cards wrong the first time, apparently. "I got two monster cards, one trap, and two spells. Is there a specific rule for summoning a monster?" The brunette inquired with narrowed eyes.
"Rules." Lelouch grinned mischievously. "See the number of stars on your monster cards?"
"Yeah?"
"That determines their levels."
Oh god. First the card zones, and now this. The gods damn Lelouch if there are more. Why would these awful things need levels?!
"Monsters leveling from one through four can be summoned or set on the field anytime during your first main phase." At this, Suzaku squinted at the yellow cards he had in his hand, proceeding to count the stars. One had four. The other had seven. "Monsters having levels of five or six require a sacrifice to summon them. Let's say you have three level four monsters on your field. You have to throw one of them to the graveyard to summon your 5th or 6th level monster."
"I count seven stars on this one." Suzaku piped up, showing Lelouch the Barrel Dragon he had managed to draw on the first turn.
Lelouch nodded. "Monsters with seven or eight stars require two tributes for you to summon them."
"So I can't summon this on my first turn." Suzaku huffed. If this was the case, how the hell did people even win in this? What's the point of drawing a monster that looked powerful only to be told that you couldn't summon it because of restricting technicalities.
"Unless you have a special spell card that will let you do it, no you can't."
"What special spell card?"
"Spell cards do different kinds of things, depending on their descriptions. An example of summoning a high level monster at the very first turn would require a level four or lower monster on the field, and then activating a spell card called, Tribute Doll. It lets you sacrifice one monster to special summon a level 7 monster from your hand. The draw back though, the summoned monster can't attack on the turn it was special summoned. So in that case, you'd have to wait for your next turn to launch an attack."
"Why'd I even bother to ask?" Suzaku grumbled, massaging his temples as a defense against an oncoming headache. What was it with Lelouch and his obsession for overly strategic and complicated games? "Can I summon this one?"
Lelouch squinted at the normal monster card Suzaku shoved in his face. "It's a level 4 monster, so yes you can. Depending on your strategy, you can either choose to set some traps for later use or activate spells immediately, but it's up to you. Now since attacking on the first turn is prohibited, it is my turn. But generally, main phase one precedes the battle phase. The rules surrounding battling monsters are simple. Placing your monster vertically means it is in attacking position. Placing the monster horizontally means it is in defense position. During battle, the monster with the higher attack points wins. For example. Your Overdrive has 1600 attack points, and my Gem-Knight Lazuli only has 600 attack points—"
"Based on the rules, if I attacked your monster right now, I'd win the battle." Suzaku piped up.
Lelouch nodded. "Right. And the difference of the attack points comes out of my life points. Our LPs are at 4000, and now, I just lost 1000 LP because your monster attacked mine. And since my monster lost, I'm sending it to the graveyard. However, if an attack position monster assaults a defense position monster, the same rules apply, but your opponent doesn't take battle damage. If my Gem-Knight Lazuli was in defense position and it has 100 defense points, I would still lose the battle, and I would send this to the graveyard, but my LP would remain intact."
In all his life, Suzaku never fully grasped the true meaning of the term 'information overload'… until now. Because this was what it was. As if the rules governing the entire game weren't daunting enough. There were specific instructions for everything. And Lelouch wasn't even through thoroughly explaining the policies revolving around the battle phase.
"Okay, before you go at it any further, what are these?" Suzaku pointed at the tiny icon beside his monster cards' names, and the descriptions of the cards.
Lelouch nodded, not even fazed. "Duel Monsters cards have descriptions. These tiny paragraphs are for art when it comes to normal monsters. But for effect monsters, it tells you what they do. Same principle applies to spell and trap. The tiny icon adjacent to the monster cards' names identify the attribute of the monster you have."
Suzaku's frown deepened. "Attribute?"
"Seven attributes." Lelouch nodded, holding up his fingers and ticking them off one by one. "Light, dark, water, earth, fire, wind, and divine. And while we're at it, monster cards are designated into types to. Take note please. You have dragon, fiend, sea serpent, machine, dinosaur, beast, plant, warrior, fairy, thunder, psychic, zombie, pyro. Hm. There's also rock, fish, insect, beast-warrior, aqua, winged-beast, spellcaster, reptile, and of course, the divine-beast." Lelouch pointed at Suzaku's monster card on the field. "Your Overdrive is a light attribute machine monster."
Lelouch blinked at Suzaku, watching his friend's jaw literally drop.
"Too much?"
"No s***, Lelouch!" Suzaku's threw his hands up in exasperation. "This is the most ridiculous and unnecessarily complicated game I have ever heard of." The brunette began rubbing his temples. "I think I liked it better when you gambled in chess."
Lelouch merely shrugged, gathering all the cards on the mat into a pile as he began to shuffle them.
"It was worth a shot." The raven-haired teen smirked. "We weren't even half into the mechanics of the game play."
Suzaku's eyes bulged. "Not even half!"
Lelouch nodded, eyes gleaming with mirth at his best friend's evident distress. "There was still a main phase 2 and an end phase. And then I would have taught you how spell and traps work."
"Congratulations, you gave me a raging headache." Suzaku sighed. "Can we just play video games or something? Anything else would do."
Hours Later…
Silence reigned in Seto Kaiba's room, leaving the young billionaire to his own thoughts and musing whilst he contemplated the cards he would add to bolster his already unbeatable deck. The new booster packs he ordered just got delivered earlier today, and now that he was done with his fair share of office work for the day, the CEO was free to dabble in his own hobby as much as he pleased.
Intently focused on skimming through the new cards he ordered, it took three chimes before the CEO's card-game addled brain registered the sound of his computer trying to snag his attention. Seeing that it was a request for a video-call from a fairly recent newly made acquaintance, Kaiba accepted the call without much preamble, smirking smugly at the familiar face that greeted him on the screen.
"The mechanics frustrated my friend. I'm itching to duel, so I challenged you on Duel Links."
Peeking at his phone that had the same application pulled up, the smirk on Kaiba's face morphed into a shit-eating grin.
"For someone who is new to the game, you seem pretty eager."
"It intrigued me." The caller shrugged, holding his own mobile phone. "Ready to lose, Kaiba?"
Blue eyes met gleaming violet irises in a fiery challenge.
"Nothing will save you from humiliation, Lamperouge."
A/N: I couldn't stop myself, I'm sorry xD