How to Play/Basic

This page details the basic how-to, turn-by-turn explanation of the game, as well as details on how to use some of the various card types.

Deck Construction
Before a game begins, each player must have a deck of 40 cards, with a few building constraints.
 * You may only have up to 4 cards with the same name.
 * The deck must be exactly 40 cards.
 * You may only include 1 copy of a card in the Hall of Fame and no copies of a card in the Premium Hall of Fame.

Card Types
There are many card types in the Duel Masters trading game, but 2 are the most important.

These are Creature and Spell.

Card Frame
The card frame details the different aspects of a card.

These include:

Before Playing
When you wish to start a game, put cards on the table in the following way.


 * 1) This is the battle zone. It is where creatures are put to battle other creatures and break shields.
 * 2) This is your shield zone. It is where you put your shields to protect you.
 * 3) This is your deck. It is where you draw cards from.
 * 4) This is your graveyard. It is where you put your destroyed creatures and spells that you cast.
 * 5) This is your hyperspatial zone. It is where you put your psychic and dragheart creatures before a game starts.
 * If you aren't playing with Psychic or Dragheart creatures, please ignore the Hyperspatial Zone.
 * 6) This is your mana zone. It is where you put cards from your hand to use as mana.

As you Start

 * Handshake with your opponent.
 * Shuffle your deck.
 * Take 5 cards from the top of your deck without looking at them and put them in a row in front of you face down. These face-down cards are your shields.
 * Draw 5 cards from the top of your deck.
 * Decide who goes first by a randomly decided process.
 * This can be done as a coin toss, a dice roll or via Rock-Paper-Scissors.

Turn Order
1. Start your turn.
 * At the start of your turn, untap any of your tapped cards in the battle zone or your mana zone. (Ignore this on your first turn)

2. Draw a card.
 * Draw a card from the top of your deck. (Ignore this on your first turn)

3. Put a card from your hand into your mana zone.
 * You may put a card from your hand into the mana zone (this is also known as a Mana Charge).
 * Put the card into your mana zone upside down so you can read its mana number. Mana is used to summon creatures and cast spells.

4. Play cards.
 * You can summon as many creatures and cast as many spells as your mana zone can afford during this step. You can play any card in any order.

5. Attack with your creatures
 * You can attack with your creatures in the battle zone. You can't attack with creatures you just put into the battle zone this turn because they have summoning sickness. As many of your creatures as you want can attack each turn.
 * You can't summon creatures or cast spells after one of your creatures attacks.
 * When you attack your opponent and aren't blocked, you break one of your opponent's shields!

6. End your turn.
 * Tell your opponent that you are finished with your turn. Now it's your opponent's turn! Continue taking turns until one of you wins the game.

Victory Conditions
Duel Masters has 2 main victory conditions.

Direct Attack
 * If you break all your opponent's shields, and then attack them directly, you win!

Deck Out
 * If your opponent draws the last card in their deck, you win!

Sometimes other cards will enable you to win the game via their effects.