Duel Masters (Card Game) (2024)

Duel Masters デュエル・マスターズ (De~yueru Masutāzu)
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Duel Masters is a trading card game made by the Wizards of the Coast company and is distributed by Takara Tomy , formerly known as Takara.

In Japan it is often known as DM as well as デュエマ (Duema).

While it is seldom played in Western countries, due to the English game being discontinued, in Japan it is next to Yu-Gi-Oh! in terms of popularity.

History[]

The card game was first released on May 30, 2002 in Japan, and March 5th, 2004 in America. The game was intended to be discontinued after the Third Expansion but due to the popularity it has received it continued. In November 2006, the last set of the English Game, DM-12 Thrash of the Hybrid Megacreatures was released then the game was discontinued. It was later rebooted as "Kaijudo" in June 2012 but it was also later discontinued in September 2014. The Japanese game (also known as the OCG) is currently the only game currently in production.

While its originality is now established, it had many concepts that came from Magic: The Gathering, a card game made by Wizards of the Coast and their most long-running series, such as:

• Clash becoming Gachinko Judge
• Landwalk becoming Stealth

On the other hand, there are reverse inspirations, such as;

• Turbo Rush becoming Frenzy
• Awaken for the Psychic Creatures card type becoming Transform for Double-faced cards.

• See also: Collaboration Card

Additionally, many elements from the Duel Masters trading were also introduced in another card game made by Takara Tomy known as "WIXOSS".

While generally aimed as a card game for primary students, the packaging rate for useful cards are extremely low and are not that friendly to players without much money. Fortunately, reprints are frequent and when the DASH Golden List or Duema Golden List restrictions for reprints rotates off, players can obtain those cards extremely easily. (Example: Gaial Kaiser in DMD-18 and Onimaru "Head", Victory Rush in DMD-20.)

• In Revolution this has improved due to the abandonment of Victory Rares in exchange of Legend Cards which have a guaranteed appearance in a box of 30 booster packs, as well as the increasing of the packaging rates of Super Rares and Very Rares while maintaining their card power to a reasonable degree. The high packaging rates of high rarity cards continued in New Duel Masters and further blocks.

Background Story[]

• See also: Timeline

The story of Duel Masters takes place in a "Creature World" which is distant from our world. There are 5 civilizations:

• The Light Civilization which lives on top of the sky
• The Water Civilization which lives under sea
• The Darkness Civilization which lives underground
• The Fire Civilization which lives in the southern volcanic range
• The Nature Civilization which lives in the vast jungles of the planet.

At first the civilizations lived in peace and respected each other, but after a strange aurora, the civilizations started fighting each other. So far the reason of the Aurora is not explained.

From the Beginner's Block to the Reincarnation Saga, the story is about the civilizations fighting and cooperating with each other. In the Phoenix Saga, It is about the Hybrid Races against the Phoenixes who attempted to invade the world. In the God Apex Saga, it is about the Gods and the 4 Civilizations fighting the Darkness Civilization. In the Sengoku Saga there were no wars, while in the Divine Evolution Saga it was about the world fighting the Origins and Origin Gods in unison.

Then in the Psychic Shock it is about the 4 Civilizations fighting the Darkness Civilization which later escalates into all civilizations fighting a part of the Light Civilization and Darkness Civilization, which later unravels as a facade for the invasions of the Aliens, which in return serves a facade of the invasions of the Unknowns and Zeniths. In the Episode Series all civilization wars had ended and the story escalates into a race war, such as those of the Hunters and Aliens.

The story of Dragon Saga takes place in another world and the concept returns to inter-civilization war. Civilization relationships are different however.

The story of New Duel Masters continues from the fallout of the great Invader war and takes place in a world where there are no Dragons and instead new species of creatures exist. These include races with multiple creature forms of each civilization, a new Colorless race known as Jokers and the melding connections between the human and creature world.

At first due to Magic: the Gathering's influence, the style of the creature artworks and story were based on western fantasy, but starting from the God Apex Saga it slowly became into eastern fantasy, then in the episode series of set blocks it became similar to those of typical Japanese role playing games and teenage comics. This is especially seen in the design of humanoid characters, (especially female characters) and the naming of cards, which gradually deviates from Magic: the Gathering nomenclature.

In Duel Masters, as the title "return to the origin" suggests, the strategies of the civilizations at the start of the game were greatly enforced and formerly abandoned creature designs such as Fish and Insect creatures are seeing a return, with little or no presence of humanoid or human-like creatures.

How to Play[]

• See also: How to Play

The player breaks the opponent's Shields and does one more attack to win the game. Unlike most games, power is only used to battle creatures and determining removal targets.

Gallery of first Kaijudo Launch Campaign in America[]

Trivia[]

• In the background story and in the world of Dragon Saga, every 10 years a survival race with the same name takes place.
• Traffic toKaijudo.comhit a peak of800K unique visitorsa month during the 2004 launch.