Duel Masters Trading Card Game

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The Duel Masters Trading Card Game is a two-player and 2 vs. 2 team collectible card game (CCG) jointly developed by Wizards of the Coast, Shogakukan, and Mitsui & Co., Ltd.. The card game is part of the Duel Masters franchise.

It was released in Japan in May of 2002, where it quickly became the number one selling trading card game for over a year. Due to this popularity, it was released in the United States on March 5, 2004, where it has also done well. The game shares several similarities with Magic: The Gathering, the world's first collectible card game which was first published by Wizards in 1993. In fact, "duelmaster" was originally intended as an alternative tradename for Magic: The Gathering and that the earlier game play was abandoned in the Duel Masters manga plot to promote this latest experience.

As in Magic: The Gathering, Duel Masters players summon creatures and cast spells using mana. Key differences include the fact that all creatures and spells can act as mana producers, creatures cannot block attacking creatures without having the "blocker" ability, and that creatures only have one "power" statistic. Furthermore, duelists have shields in the form of cards that go to their hand when "broken" as opposed to Magic's "life points". Whether this will be the norm remains to be seen, as Wizards of the Coast may add new rules and card types to increase the game's longevity. Due to its popularity , it has successfully launched three video game ( two in GBA and the other in PS2 ), titled "DuelMasters Kaijudo Showdown" , "DuelMasters Sempai Legends" for the GBA and "DuelMaster PS2".

1 Game Play
2 Set Releases (In Order)
3 The Five Civilizations
4 Strategy
5 Tournaments
6 Related Topics
7 External links

[edit] Game Play

In Duel Masters, two players play the role of duelists, using the 'art' of "kaijudo" (a marketing term created for the North American version which supposedly describes the "art of battling with giant monsters") to bring their creatures to life to do battle. Each player has 5 shields that protect them from damage; once these are gone, all it takes is one successful attack to win the duel. Also, if a player runs out of cards to draw from their deck, or library, when required, then that player loses. Players battle each other by playing mana, and then using that mana to summon creatures or cast spells, described below:

Creatures: Creatures are summoned to attack the opposing player's creatures and shields, and then the opponent themselves, for the win. There are many types of creatures, with different powers and abilities.
Spells: When cast, spells do something for the player, then go to the graveyard. Spells can do a variety of things, like give the player more shields, power up their creatures, etc.

The more creatures you have in the battle zone the sronger your side of the fild is. In addition to the two card types, there are also different keyword abilities that the cards can have that alter what they can and cannot do:

Blocker: Allows a creature to stop an attack from an opposing creature. For example, if a creature attacks one of your shields, you can use a creature with the Blocker ability to stop the attack. Sometimes this is specific to a given trait, e.g. a "fire blocker" can only block fire creatures.
Charger: Allows a spell to be put it into your mana zone instead of your graveyard after it has been cast.
Double/Triple Breaker and soon to be Quadruple Breakers: Allows a creature to break two/three/four shields instead of the normal one.
Crew Breaker: Allows a creature to break more than one shield if you have 1 or more creatures in the battlezone that have the same race as the Crew Breaker.
Power Attacker: Makes a creature more powerful when they attack. For example, a creature that has power 3000 and Power Attacker +2000 will deliver an attack of 5000.
Shield Trigger: Allows a player to use a card from the shield zone without paying its cost when that shield is broken if it has the shield trigger ability.
Stealth: Allows a creature to be unblockable when it attacks an opponent with a specific civilization card in their mana zone. For example, a creature with "water stealth" cannot be blocked by an opponent who has water cards in their battle zone. Synonymous with Landwalk in Magic: The Gathering.
Slayer: Allows a creature to destroy another creature in battle, regardless of the other creature's power. For example, a 1000 power creature with slayer can battle and destroy a 5500 power creature. Sometimes this is specific to a given trait, e.g. a "nature slayer" can only use its slayer ability against nature creatures.
Speed Attacker: Allows a creature to attack on the turn that it was summoned. Synonymous with Haste in Magic: The Gathering.
Silent Skill: An effect that triggers when you refuse to untap the tapped Creature with Silent Skill during the Untap Step.
Tap Ability: Instead of using that creature to attack, you can tap the creature. When it is tapped, its ability triggers and you can use it.

Along with keywords, there are cards that have special mechanics. There are three mechanics in the game so far:

Evolution: A creature mechanic that allows you to "evolve" a creature into a more powerful creature. This is done by placing the "evolved" creature on top of the original. Both the original and "evolved" creature must be of the same type (human, guardian, etc.)
Survivor: A creature mechanic that allows your survivor creatures to share abilities with other survivor creatures.
Turbo rush: A creature mechanic that allows creatures to gain special abilities when other creatures break a shield.
Wave Striker: A creature mechanic that allows Wave Striker effects to take place if there are three or more Wave Strikers in the battle zone.
Rainbow Type: A creature or spell that has 2 or more civilizations instead of 1. If these types of cards are placed in your Mana Zone, they are tapped.

[edit] Set Releases (In Order)

A player must have at least 40 cards in their deck. Players can purchase booster packs to increase the number of cards they have. Expansions are sets of cards that build upon the foundation laid out by the base set, the original set of cards released. At the time of this writing, boosters are available for the following expansions:

DM-01 Base Set: The original set of 120 cards.
DM-02 Evo-Crushinators of Doom: This set introduces the Evolution mechanic.
DM-03 Rampage of the Super Warriors: This set focuses on decks that use only one civilization.
DM-04 Shadowclash of Blinding Light: This set focuses on cards with abilities affecting other civilizations, eg: a creature that increases the mana cost of another civilization to hinder your opponent. Mainly focuses on Dark/Light support and hate.
DM-05 Survivors of the Megapocalypse: This set introduces the Survivor mechanic. It also contains "Billion-degree Dragon", the card with the highest base power (15000). It also introduces "Triple-breakers".
DM-06 Stomp-a-Trons of Invincible Wrath: This set introduces creatures with "Tap" abilities. These are abilities that activate when the creature is tapped. It is also the second set to have 120 cards, including reprints of cards introduced in the Base Set.
DM-07 Thundercharge of Ultra-Destruction: This set introduces creatures with "Stealth" abilities, allowing them to be unblockable as long as an opponent has a specific civilization card in their mana zone. It also introduces spells with the "Charger" ability, allowing you to put it into your mana zone instead of your graveyard after it is cast. Finally, it introduces creatures that gain extra abilities when you have no shields left in your shield zone.
DM-08 Epic Dragons of Hyper Chaos: This set focuses on Dragons, and introduces 3 new Dragon races: Earth Dragons, Volcano Dragons, and Zombie Dragons. It also introduces the Turbo Rush creature ability.
DM-09 Fatal Brood of Infinite Ruin:This set adds cards that allow you to power up creatures of a race of your choosing, and creatures that get bonuses if their attacks are unblocked. As well as creatures with a base power of "0000+" (A creature with power 0000 or less is destroyed).
DM-10 Shockwaves of the Shattered Rainbow: This set introduces the dual-civilization and Silent Skill (creatures than you can keep tapped to use their abilities) mechanics. This is also the third set to have 120 cards, including reprints of cards from previous sets. This set also features the first card to be put on Wizards of the Coast's watch list, Bombazar, Dragon of Destiny, meaning that it may eventually be banned from constructed play following tournament results.
DM-11 Blastosplosion of Gigantic Rage: This set introduces the Wave Striker ability. Creatures with Wave Striker can only use their abilities if there are two other creatures with Wave Striker in the battle zone. This set also introduces dual-civilization spells.
DM-12 Thrash of the Hybrid Megacreatures: Released in December 2006. This set brings a new race type, Vortex Evolutions, which include races like Phoenix and Saint Pegasus. 'Thrash' also adds more HUGE 'double breaker' creatures to the game.

[edit] The Five Civilizations

Duel Master cards represent five different civilizations. It is possible to build a viable deck with one, two or even three civilizations; four and five civilization decks are rarely seen. If used properly, the civilizations can complement each other nicely. Each civilization has their unique strengths and weaknesses. The five civilizations are:

Water : The Water Civilization is composed of sunken, technologically advanced cities.

Races: Cyber Clusters, Cyber Lords, Cyber Moons, Cyber Viruses, Earth Eaters, Fish, Gel Fish, Leviathans, Liquid People, Merfolk, and Sea Hackers.

Traits: Water focuses on hand advantage (drawing cards), bounce (sending creatures back to the hand) and unblockables. Also features blockers, although not as good as most Light blockers. The disadvantage of water creatures is that the cost needed to summon usually are high and its power are usually low. Water may be concluded the weakest civilization due to its weak attacking formula unlike Light , Fire and Darkness.
Nature : The Nature Civilization is a savage world of never-ending forests.

Races: Balloon Mushrooms, Beast Folk, Colony Beetles, Earth Dragons, Giant Insects, Giants, Horned Beasts, Mystery Totems, Snow Faeries, Tree Folk, and Wild Veggies.

Traits: Nature focuses on mana manipulation eg: increasing and destroying mana, power attackers and rushing weenies (cheap and weak creatures used to overrun enemy). Nature possesses no blockers. Nature features lots of powerful creatures but has many negative effects and are of high cost of mana.
Light : The Light Civilization is located high among the clouds in celestial structures.

Races: Angel Commands, Berserkers, Gladiators, Guardians, Initiates, Light Bringers, Mecha del Sols, Mecha Thunders, Rainbow Phantoms, Soltroopers, and Starlight Trees.

Traits: Light possesses the best blockers and focuses on shield generation and tapping and untapping creatures. Light is the civilization that has the leats side-effect . Their evolution are usually of average mana cost and has many high-power blockers in it that possess many useful effects such as double breahers or untapping it after it blocks or at the end of the turn.
Darkness : The Darkness Civilization is located underground, with an evil and poisoned landscape.

Races: Brain Jackers, Chimeras, Dark Lords, Death Puppets, Demon Commands, Devil Masks, Ghosts, Hedrians, Living Dead, Pandora's Box, Parasite Worms, and Zombie Dragons.

Traits: Darkness focuses on hand destruction, creature destruction and slayers. Darkness has many powerful creatures, including blockers, but the cards usually possess negative side-effects. Together with Light and Fire , Darkness is one of the three most powerful civilization.
Fire : The Fire Civilization is located in a volcanic and battle-torn land ruled by those with the most power.

Races: Armored Dragons, Armored Wyverns, Armorloids, Dragonoids, Dune Geckos, Fire Birds, Humans, Machine Eaters, Melt Warriors, Rock Beasts, Volcano Dragons, and Xenoparts.

Traits: Fire focuses on rushing weenies, speed attacking (allows creatures to attack the same turn that they are summoned) and creature destruction with power limits (eg: destroy a creature with 3000 power or less). Along with Nature, Fire possesses no blockers. Fire possess many powerful creatures and double breakers , thus making them one of the most unique civiization.

There are two races that do not fit under any one of the five civilizations. These being the Survivors and Spirit Quartz. Survivors can be of any civilization, while Spirit Quartz are always multi-colored creatures. Spirit Quartz, so far, must have fire and/or darkness as one of their civilizations and can't have light as one of their civilizations. This is because dual-civilization creatures must have two allied civilizations in their civilizations.

[edit] Strategy

There are a number of different strategies that a Duel Masters deck can be build around. Each one of these strategies has its own strengths and weaknesses, and each rely on the player to make the correct choices in both deckbuilding and actual gameplay for the strategy to be ultimately successful. The following is a list of the most common Duel Masters strategies:

Rush: The simplest type of strategy to build a deck around. Rush relies on low-powered creatures that can be summoned early in the game or en masse in the later turns. Rush generally employs Fire when it wants to power up its creatures and give them double-breaker early on, or Nature when it wants to build up mana and swarm its opponent with a large amount of creatures. Some rush decks also employ speed attackers from the fire civilization. Rush is generally weak to Fire field-killing spells (such as Searing Wave) and blocker-heavy decks.

Control: A control deck is a complicated deck to use. Control generally employs a large number of blockers and focuses on destroying or bouncing the opponent's creatures as he summons them. Control decks almost always include the Darkness civilization because of its creature destruction spells (such as Terror Pit). Many control decks also use Water for its bouncing and hand advantage cards. Hand advantage is important in a control deck, as the player wants to have many options at his disposal to counter his opponent's moves. Some control decks will employ Light for lockdown cards. Generally, a control deck will focus on building up its field early on, repelling opponent's attacks as they come, and breaking most of their sheilds and then attacking the opponent themselves in one turn late in the game. Control is weak to rush decks and other control decks.

Mill: A mill deck is similar to a control deck; however, in addition to reacting to an opponent's moves, it will also take action to prevent the opponent from making those moves. A mill deck does not seek to break the opponent's shields and attack him; instead, it will lock down the field and prevent the opponent from acting, then wait until the opponent draws all the cards in his deck (thus losing the game by default). Because a mill deck relies on victory by default, it will almost always have over 80 cards. Mill almost always employs the Darkness civilization because of its hand discarding and deck discarding. Water and Light are also occasionally used in Mill decks. A Mill deck is very hard to build and use, and some players avoid them because they result in long and drawn-out games; a properly constructed mill deck, however, can counter and defeat almost any other deck type.

High-Low Deck: High-low decks have cards with high and low costs so that the opponent can put all the high-cost cards into mana, then summon all the low cost creatutres. High-low decks are similar to rush decks, they usually have fire or nature in them. Fire has a lot of high and low cost cards, and nature because they can use cards like Rainbow Stone or Bronze-Arm Tribe to put lots of mana, then summon lots of creatures. Also useful with cards that have the effect'This creatures attacks if able' so it has to attack every turn. High-low decks, like rush decks are weak to blocker heavy decks.

Bounce and Return from Mana: These decks must have water in them, because some water creatures(like Thrash Crawler) make you return cards from your mana zone. The decks must usually include cards such as Shock hurricane, Riptide and Abduction Chargers, and Thrash Crawler. You might also need Aqua Surfer. This is one way of making your deck work. Cast Riptide Charger. Return your opponent's biggest creature to his hand. Then he would probabaly summon it again. If he does, summon Thrash Crawler. Return Riptide Charger to your hand and make your opponent return that creature to his hand again!

The deck types listed above are generalizations; many decks use more than one strategy to defeat their opponent. More detailed discussions of deck strategy can be found elsewhere; in the end, however, the true test of any deck is how well it does playing against other decks. This being said, players are encouraged to experiment with and modify their decks and enter them in tournaments.

[edit] Tournaments

Like Magic: The Gathering, Wizards of the Coast also hosts tournaments for Duel Master players. Players can go to their local card shops and participate in these tournaments, called JDC Tournaments. Tournaments are governed by the DCI, the same body that governs Magic: The Gathering tournaments. There are no banned cards as of yet, although Bombazar, Dragon of Destiny (from the Shockwaves of Shattered Rainbow expansion) has been placed on the "watch list" and may be banned in the future.