Rulings 101
Just got back from my local Yugioh turney and let tell you I never thought I would win a game by beating down my opponent with three Magicians of Faith and a Stim-Packed Hane-Hane. ~_o I’m not kidding, it was our second game in finals and all I drew was a Trap Hole, three Magicians of Faith, Hane-Hane and my sixth card was Swords of Revealing Light. To make a long story short I drew a lot of monster removal but no monsters so I was just attacking with the Magicians of Faith, go 900 points of damage per turn!!! ^_^
Anyway, I was planning on writing a tournament report but during that tournament I realized a lot of players don’t know all the rules about the game. :-/ A few of my early rounds were matches against players who didn’t know about the Upper Deck site and only knew what they had learned from the rulebook. The poor judge running the event was bouncing from one place to the other making rulings only to be challenged by the players because those rules weren’t in the rulebook or because they misunderstood the rule.
Here’s a brief explanation of a lot of the rules players didn’t know about or were confused about:
Playing Monster Cards, Trap Cards, and Magic Cards:
How many can I play per turn?
As most of you know you can only play one monster card per turn but you can still play as many Magic and Trap cards as you wish. This means you can play more than one Magic card and more than one Trap card per turn but remember that you can not have more than five in play at any time during the game.
Playing Monsters with 5 monsters already in play.
The next major question I’ve noticed is “Can I play a Summon Skull if I already have 5 monsters in play?”. According to the way it has been ruled you pay the tribute of a monster first, then the monster comes into play. This means that even if you have already reached the maximum amount of monsters you are allowed to have in play you can still play monsters like Summon Skull because you pay the tribute first which leaves you with four monsters in play.
I truly don’t know where this rule came from but I’ve seen a lot of players trying to turn their face up monsters face down to get their Flip effects. I don’t think the rulebook covers this so it might be one of those rules that were left out but once a monster is in play face up it can not be turned face down unless it’s done by a card effect. So no trying to get the Flip effects of monsters that are already face up on the Field. ^_<
Targeting a Face Down Monster:
Whenever a face down monster is attacked that monster gets to Flip and you can use any Flip effects the monster might have, but if a face down monster is targeted by an effect that would destroy it or return it to the owner’s hand (like Hane-Hane or Man-Heater Bug) the monster would not get any Flip effects that it might have. You have to remember that a monster only gets to Flip when your opponent’s monsters attack it, when a card effect Flips it, (like Swords of Revealing Light) or when the controller of the monster chooses to Flip that monster. Since cards like Man-Eater Bug and Hane-Hane are just targeting a monster with their effect the monster would not get any Flip effects that it might have.
Switching a Monster from ATK to DEF:
You are only allowed to switch a Monster from attack position to defense position or from defense to attack once per turn during one of you Main Phases, but you can not Switch of Flip a Monster that was just played. This rule is not too confusing but some of the players are still having trouble with it because they think that you can not attack with a Monster and then Switch it during your second Main Phase or Switch a Monster from defense position to attack position and attack with it during your first Main Phase. That pretty much means that you can attack with a Monster and if that Monster has not Switched during this turn you can Switch it during your second Main Phase and that you can Switch a Monster from defense to attack during your first Main Phase and then attack with it during your Battle Phase, just remember you are only allowed to switch a Monster once per turn.
Timing:
All of you who have played other games besides Yugioh know how much fun it is to deal with timing, with which effects happen first and so on. In Yugioh is rather simple and easy to understand, =) the way it works is that if a player has multiple effects happening at the same time that player gets to choose in which order those effects happen. In other words, you get to decide which of your effects happen first when you have multiple effects activating/happening at the same time.
Example:
If player A has a Magician of Faith, a Mask of Darkness and a Big Eye in play face down in defense mode and player B plays a Swords of Revealing Light which forces all of your opponent’s monster in play to Flip. Player A would get to decide in which order the Flip effects of his monster would happen because even though all three of his monsters are Flipping at the same time the owner of the card gets to decide in which order those effects happen.
The Golden Rule:
What I called the Golden rule is a rule, which states that whenever a card contradicts a rule the card overwrites the rule. That rule is just there because some of the cards have special effects which allow you to do things you normally wouldn’t be able to do because of the rules.
Example:
If player A controls a Monster with an effect that allows him to draw two cards during his Draw Phase instead of just one, then player A would be able to draw two cards even though the rules state you can only draw one card during your Draw Phase. There are situations like this one where a card tells you to do something, which you normally couldn’t do because of the rules. In these situations the effect of the card will always overwrite the rules.
Official Upper Deck Rules:
All of the official rules, list of restricted cards and latest updates can be found at www.yugioh-card.com. If you ask for a ruling a message board you should be aware that if that rules is not covered in the Upper Deck official site then it is not an official rule and it might be ruled differently by your local judge. There have been many debates with a lot of players because they get rulings from message boards, friends, and sometimes even the Japanese sites, which are NOT OFFICIAL RULINGS. If you have a question about a card I personally suggest asking Upper Deck directly and checking the rulings section on their site.
That’s all the major questions I can remember from the tournaments I’ve attended and it’s time to get ready to go clubbing *does dance of joy* so I’m off. Hope this rules help you understand the game more and that they didn’t confuse any of you, just remember to have fun and to watch out for those pesky Blue-Eyes White Dragons because they’ll sneak up on you when you lease suspect them. ^.^
~IQ
[[NOTE]]
This article was e-mail to the Upper Deck people before it was posted to make sure none of the rulings were wrong or anything like that, they didn’t mention any mistakes on it so all the rules in this document should be correct. I would also like to thank the Upper deck guys for all they’ve done for the game in such a short period of time. Thanks guys and keep up the good work!! =)