Equip cards are powerful tools that constantly target the monster they are equipped to, even when negated. They remain equipped and continue to target the monster even if it is no longer face-up on the field or a valid target. Equip cards can only be equipped to face-up monsters, and even if the Equip Spell Card increases the DEF of the monster, like “Horn of Light”, it cannot be used to a face-down monster.
When an Equip card is activated, it targets one monster in your Graveyard, which can be any face-up monster on either side of the field. However, face-down monsters cannot be equipped with Equip Cards. When TER is flipped face-down, the ruling of Equip cards for face-down monsters does not allow it to perform its effect completely.
Title monsters that are unaffected by the Effect of Spell Cards can be tributed, as they are sent to the graveyard for costs. Fusion spells/effects do not often target face-down monsters, and Call of the Haunted is not an Equip card but a Continuous Trap that targets the monster. Snatch Steal will be removed if the target is flipped face-down.
In summary, Equip cards are powerful tools that can be used to target monsters on the field, but they cannot be used to target face-down monsters. Equip cards must be used with caution, as they cannot be used to target face-down monsters.
📹 Yu-Gi-Oh! Rulings You Should Know: Face-Down Banished Cards
Can you equip 2 spell cards to one monster?
A player may equip their monster with as many cards as they wish on their side of the field. Additionally, their opponent may add five cards from their side.
Can you activate the effect of a face down monster?
The act of “setting” a monster entails positioning it in a face-down defense position on the field. It is important to note that the effects associated with a monster cannot be activated when it is in a face-down position on the field.
What are the rules for face-down cards in Yugioh?
In a game, cards are typically placed face-down by setting them, which allows their controller to view them at any time but not their opponent unless otherwise stated. Face-down cards can be flipped face-up, such as Flip Summon for monsters and Activation for Spell/Trap cards. However, face-up cards cannot be flipped face-down unless an effect specifically states so. Monster cards can be placed in face-down defense position by Normal Set, but they cannot be in face-down attack position. Some effects may Special Summon face-down, but only if explicitly stated. In some games, effects that Special Summon multiple monsters face-down also shuffle them on the same side of the field.
Can you equip an equip spell to a face-down monster?
When a monster is equipped with an Equip Card, if it is flipped face-down or removed from the field, the Equip Card is destroyed. This applies to face-up monsters with an equip spell card, such as Book of Moon. If the card is flipped face-down, it remains useless and its effect returns when the monster is flipped back face-up. If the card is an equip trap card, such as Call of the Haunted or Birthright, all equipped cards are destroyed. If the monster is flipped face-down, it loses its connection to the Call of the Haunted, making it meaningless. If the monster is flipped face-down, Birthright is destroyed.
Can face-down monsters be targeted?
Face-down cards cannot be targeted for effects, except when specified in the wikia. They have no properties until they are changed to face-up. This means that certain actions, such as tributing a face-down Majespecter monster for a spell/trap effect, using Shaddoll Fusion to fuse face-down Shaddoll monsters, or activating Icarus Attack by tributing a face-down Winged Beast-Type monster, cannot be performed. These actions are not allowed until they are changed to face-up.
Can you use equip spells on opponents monsters?
It is possible to utilise the cards that are already equipped in order to deploy monsters belonging to one’s opponent.
What happens when a face down monster is attacked?
In order to activate cards or effects that modify ATK/DEF, it is necessary to flip a face-down monster face-up. In the event that the monster in question possesses a Trigger Effect that is activated by the act of flipping it face-up, said effect does not yet become active. The rules governing the Damage Step provide a comprehensive account of the manner in which this step is conducted. A more general overview of this process can be found in the Rulebook.
Do equip spells count as targeting?
Equip Spell Cards are powerful tools that can be used to equip monsters on the field. They are equipped to face-up monsters on the field, and their effects apply to that monster as long as it is equipped. Equip Cards are not required to include the word “target” in their effects as part of Problem-Solving Card Text, unless they target a monster outside the field upon activation. Unless specified, Equip Cards can be equipped to monsters controlled by either player, and changing the control of a monster does not change the control of an Equip Card.
The Equip Card’s controller is the one referred to as “you” in the card text, not the monster’s controller. Examples of Equip Spell Cards include ATK-boosting Axe of Despair, DEF-boosting Horn of Light, Premature Burial and Re-Fusion, Falling Down and Snatch Steal, piercing, attack ability, and negative effects like Mask of Brutality and Darkworld Shackles. Equip Spell Cards can also grant other effects, such as piercing, attack ability, or direct attack.
Can you target a face down banished card?
Specific cards are capable of banishing face-down cards, thereby limiting their potential to return to play in the event that another card does not specify the card type or allows it to target a face-down banished card. To illustrate, Primal Seed enables a face-down banished card to be returned, whereas Return from the Different Dimension does not possess this capacity. The card cannot be designated as a monster and is not visible to an opponent.
Can you put spell cards face down?
Some cards allow spells and permanents to be face down, with no additional characteristics beyond those listed by the ability or rules. These cards are typically treated as simple 2/2 creatures and some have ward 2. Some effects turn cards face down with different properties. The Morph keyword ability introduced the face-down status category, followed by Manifest, Megamorph, Cloak, and Disguise.
Hidden zones like the library contain face-down cards by default, and some abilities may exile them face down. A face-down permanent is a 2/2 creature with no rules text, name, subtypes, expansion symbol, mana cost, or color indicator. Morph-type abilities allow cards to be cast as face-down spells, which have the same properties and become face-down permanents when they resolve. Disguise and Cloak grant ward 2 to the face-down creature. Some abilities provide alternative characteristics for the face-down object. A player can view the front of face-down spells and creatures they control at any time.
Can you use a counter target spell on a creature?
Counter a target spell by placing the card on the battlefield under your control instead of its owner’s graveyard. Creature and enchantment spells cannot be countered. If the spell’s controller pays, create a 1/1 colorless Eldrazi Scion creature token with “Sacrifice this creature: Add”. Create X 1/1 colorless Thopter artifact creature tokens with flying, where X is the spell’s mana value.
📹 Equip Spell Cards – Failed Cards and Mechanics in YuGiOh
Equip spells are one of the base types of cards in the game, where there’s rules of the rulebook to explain how they function so …
Man can you make more rule articles? It took me a long time to figure out the whole simultaneous effects go on chain thing. I just didn’t know what I was looking for so finding that took forever. I personally don’t understand what can and can’t activate during the damage Step. I read that only monsters can, unless a card says it can. I also don’t know when the damage Step ends. Is it after destruction? Or after damage? If you firmly understand the rules you could make more articles explaining the tricky rulings
Imagine if Yu-Gi-Oh! had a realistic Anime. First turn: I summon this monster By the effect of this monster I can special summon this monster By the effect of this monster I can send to the graveyard a monster from my deck By the effect of the monster I sent to the graveyard, I can special summon it if it’s sent to the graveyard by the effect of a card I XYZ summon this monster that requires 3 level 4 monsters I discard an XYZ material to search for a spell card in my deck, I pick Scapegoat I use Scapegoat I use the 4 Scapegoat-tokens for a Link summon of Firewall Dragon I special summon this level 4 monster that can be special summoned only if there are a linked monster and also an XYZ monster on the field I special summon this tuner level 3 monster that can be special summoned if there were more than 4 special summons this turn. I use the last 2 monsters I summoned to Synchro Summon this level 7 monster that negate the activation of opponent cards, this include spells, traps and monsters. Also I set a card. Your turn. End of Season 1 Season 2 start “In the previous season: Season 1 recap” And now: I can’t activate traps, spells and monsters effect, so I set this monster. Your turn. I activate my trap that allow me to destroy your set monsters if there are a Synchro, an XYZ and a Linked monster on my field, also it allows me to summon a Pendulum monster from my deck for each monster destroyed by this effect, I special summon this pendulum monster that allow me to search for a spell card in my deck, I use this spell that give me an istant win if there are a Link, a Synchro, an XYZ and a Pendulum Monster on the field.
Thank you for making these kind of articles explaining the rules and metagame of Yugioh. I haven’t played this game in over 10 years and probably can never play the TCG itself due to living in a rural area, but these kind of articles are neat to watch since Yugioh has more characteristics about it I find desirable than other card games don’t have and the more you describe it the more appealing it sounds.
I got a game loss because a judge saw me check my own face down banished cards before desires existed. He said since I didn’t banish them, I could not check. Another important rule. APPEAL APPEAL APPEAL the judge ruling. Let the head judge tell you the ruling. There are TONS of judges that are misinformed and they will ruin your day. Don’t be like me.
Devil’s Playmate (Counter Trap) When this card is activated apply one of these effects then banish this card face down- – Pay half your life points; banish one card on the field faced down. -If a spell/trap card or monster effect is activated, pay half your life points; negate the activation and and if you do, banish it faced down – Once per duel if “Devil’s Playmate” is in the banish zone face down you can pay half your life points; return one other banished card to your hand. You can pay half your life points to activate this card from the hand. If you’ve paid life points as a cost more than once the same turn this card was activated, during the End Phase of that turn you lose the duel.
2 things I’d like to add: 1st – EVEN IF the monsters are banished from the Extra Deck by the effect of Eater of Millions, and both players know they are monsters, a random person who came over and looked at the Duel would NOT KNOW they are monsters! That’s how you should think of the game rules – consider if you took a screenshot of the board and asked someone what happened, they could take a guess but they wouldn’t know for certain – what if instead of banishing 15 with Eater of Millions, you banished the minimum then played Pot of Desires? Or what if you used Psy-Framelord Omega’s effect 15 times then played Pot of Desires? There’s no way of knowing for certain. 2nd – This more applies to banished cards in general, but is especially important for face-down ones because of how hard they can be to get back into play. If a card states “return it to the GY” about a banished card, then it doesn’t HAVE to have been banished from the GY! It saying “return” is basically the game saying “put it back into a zone that ordinary cards can interact with” since clearly the card came from your Deck if you banished it with Desires, or the field if you chose to banish it off your opponent’s Evenly Matched, or from your hand if your opponent used Trickstar Reincarnation. If cards did need to come from the GY to be returned there then a LOT of cards would be really bad but that’s not how it works. This isn’t something I thought needed explaining but people have proven me wrong on that one three times now so I thought it should be said
The history of YGO’s banish and MTG’s exile is actually kinda similar. The term “exile” wasn’t introduced until 2009, before that it was “remove from game” and the zone was called “removed-from-game zone”. They felt that since they created more and more cards that interacted with the zone or only temporarily put cards there, that exile was a much more fitting and also shorter term. MTG even has facedown exile, though in that case neither player is allowed to look at them unless the exiling card specifically says you can. Maybe that’s where the confusion comes from?
I’ve been playing banish decks for a little over a year and I’ve been really interested in facedown banished cards. So far I only know 3 cards in yugioh that can target facedown banished cards (omega, primal seed, and paleozoic leanchoilia) One thing that I really wanted to experiment with is what happens when you use these cards on face down extra deck monsters and put them in the gy (using paleozoic leanchoilia to target a banished monster that has an effect when its sent to the gy) sadly due to wording of leanchoilia and omega, it doesn’t say “send the banished card to the gy” it says “return that banished card to the gy” which is because I had some really cool eater of millions + omega/leanchoilia plays in mind with cards like N’tss and others. Interesting article though
Im new to the game thanks to master duel and my first deck is Zoodiac, In that deck I use pot of desires and the first time I use it the animation is face down cards but you do can see what cards where banish, In my mind I was: the description is pointless because face down means nothing cuz I can see them” Now I know my opponent can’t lol
So I don’t play Yu-Gi-Oh, haven’t for a decade, and when I did I only ever casually played the apparently-awful structure decks; I acknowledge that I don’t have much background knowledge here. That being said, I’ve watched several of your articles over the last few weeks and I feel like I’ve gotten a basic sense of the mechanics of competitive play, and Pot of Desires is a card I can’t seem to understand. What sort of strategy can benefit from losing a quarter of the deck at random, in a way that can’t be retrieved, even for a +1 advantage? What sort of list can reliably draw two cards that can offset losing that much of its pool of cards? I’m not arguing against it, I just was hoping someone could explain a situation that would be good in. Thanks in advance!
I fundementaly disagree with konamis or any tcgs printing cards that interact with exile/banished/removed from play cards. Its poor design those places exist to prevent interaction and if you change that you get into bad places with needlessly odd rulings like face down banishing.i dont mind difficult to undertand interactions but it annoys me to no end when they dont need to and shouldnt exist.
Necroface and Elemental Hero Electrum are the two main cards that I can think of that will return facedown banished cards. I think Soul Release has an even cooler text that they really should make a new effect. “Removed from the current Duel” would mean that it is impossible to return those cards to play in any form and that they have no effect on the duel in any way.
Here’s a weird one. If you correctly summon BLS Envoy and its banished facedown then returned to the GY you can still summon it using cards like Monster Reborn. Normally cards lose their “must first be summoned by” if they leave Public Knowledge but there is a ruling that specifically says its fine with facedown banished.
I really don’t understand why konami is so cautious about using key words to reduce card text. There are so many cards that have the text, “this card cannot be normal summoned or set and must be special summoned by X” or “this card cannot be targeted by card effects”. Why not just come up with a word that implies those effects? It works fine for most other card games.
I’m an OG YGO player but haven’t really touched the game since 2013. I watched some of your articles and YouTube just continued to recommend your articles to me. So it’s the third night in a row I’m lying in bed with my phone in hand perusal your stuff. I have one request. Most of the time you’re just showing one card at a time, maybe consider rendering your article in 1080×1920 (vertical). On the desktop it’ll be turned, but on mobile, like for me right now it’d make the cards a lot easier to look at.
@dzeef So if your monster has a banishing effect instead of sending your creature to the GY, does that mean flip effects don’t happen if they were attacked and banished. I thought that if I had a Man-Eater Bug and he got attacked facedown it’ll be destroyed, but I still get the card effect correct after the damage caculation phase?
Can you choose what card you put back with Omega? For example: I use desires and the most bottom card in the Banished Zone is an Honest (I know because I looked at it) and I want that Honest in my GY. With Omega’s effect, do I select what card I put back or is it just the first card of the pile? In the graveyard, you put it face-up, right?
Quick summary: Now you can see your banished face-down cards but not your opponent Face-down banished cards is not public knowledge (except you and your opponent know what is banished while that card is public knowledge) And it is almost impossible to recover those banished face-down cards I think there is an intersting thing about it Thrre is a World duel where pot of Desires banished all 3 copy of the card Oppenent activate it and declare that banished card
I don’t play Yu-Gi-Oh (had cards when I was much younger but never really played (didn’t even really know how), played one of the GBA games a year or two ago, and watched the anime (Yugi seasons only) around when I played that GBA game) yet I enjoy perusal your articles, dzeeff. You’re just really interesting to listen to with your in-depth explanations of things, I guess 😛 Also, Spheal = the best
Now, if only we could find a better way of placing banished cards. I remember the days of being a middle schooler playing Yu-Gi-Oh and using the basic bitch little paper playmat things. if I remember correctly, there was no banished zone on it, especially not on the overpriced piece of plastic called a duel disk. On a side note, please refrain from wasting money on one of those. They ruin your cards since they can hardly fit sleeved cards. Anyways, I remember losing some cards because me and my buddies were the types of idiots who followed the anime rules. We’d just be throwing cards onto the little playmats and then scooping them back up in hopes we didn’t forget any as we go to class. And of course, using a duel disk sucked for stuff like that. I remember having to put banished cards in my pocket because the duel disk just could not handle that.
What about a card like “different dimension capsule”? DDC stays face up on the field for two turns while the face-down card is banished, then the banished card goes to your hand. It does not say what happens if opponent destroys DDC before the 2 turn cycle. Does the card stay banished? It is awkward but I like that card.
I wonder what the next “permanently removed” area will be. It was graveyard, then banished(or remove from play), now banished faced down. What’s next “target one card and annihilate it from the duel”. We gotta keep making places for cards to go. I eagerly await for Banish face-down to just be another resource. Hell, there’s already a few.
I honestly tought that face down banished cards would be hidden from both players If you can actually know what cards you banished this already makes them a MUCH better thing, since the deck thinning that something like Pot of Desires does to your deck sudenlly makes sense, even with a drawback as large as that Great article
Testing out my own custom archetype that banishes cards face-down on duelingbook; ; more people need to see this article. I constantly run into situations where people try to target face-down banished cards by name/type/attribute or attempt to activate “leave the field” effects when a monster is banished face-down… hard to try to balance something when people cant understand easy rules
Hey man been a fan for a little while now and I’m really happy to see how you’ve grown and excited about the future of the website. Now as someone who’s really annoyed by the Yugioh community right now for often complaining about banning firewall dragon, I think it’s important to ask “why doesn’t anyone talk about Konami maybe breaking new ground and introducing Yu-Gi-Oh’s first twice or thrice per turn clause?”
This isn’t regarding rulings much but what about a article going over cards or monsters that were using future mechanics at least in some form, Like how in the anime Gate Guardian worked as a sort of awkward xyz monster being able to detach its components to prevent it being destroyed, Just things like that with cards that were ahead of their time if you will.
I already knew the ruling but it’s always great to see how you explain things so this was yet another 10/10 enjoyable article. I commented on another article of yours but just in case I missed the window where you look at comments, I have an idea for you, where you could take a look at cards that were popular but not that great, Like the Egyptian Gods, and explain why they are too slow/ineffective nowadays and how they could be redone to be more competitive
I thought that in magic “exile” and “remove from the game” were different effects. The logic being that exiled cards can be affected by cards that interact with exiled cards, when the “remove from game” are literally removed, no way to interact them in anyway. Guess that was one of the head rules my friends came up with. Thank lord for the internet and wiki sites.
I have a question regarding face-down cards. You say that face-down cards are not public knowledge (which makes sense), and stuff like Tyranno Infinity won’t get the attack plus even if you can technically reveal that those cards are there. But in Duel Links (which allegedly is run by the official rules) I can summon Silent Magician (which requires a spellcaster monster) by tributing a face-down Spellcaster monster. Why?
I hate how there’s no competitive Banish face down deck, I made one and it’s good,but if it’s good in competitive idk. I like knowing that my Opponent can’t get thier cards back, only if they got specific cards like NecroFace. cuz I do in case my cards get banish. It makes the game for fun at least for me. It’s a challenge. I only need Evently Matched
So… just want to make sure I get this… the card owner can look at the face down banished cards, and you can target the cards to be put back in if it meets public knowledge criteria associated with the face down card. So my question would be: if there is a card that is a generic “put a card from banish zone into owners graveyard”, would you be able to select a face down banished card from your opponent without being able to see which cards you are selecting? (Effectively, at random)
Interesting article. Then, I understand from what you said that cards that have banishing effects are simply useless when they are banished face-down in terms of their effect activation. My question is: a card like D.D. Scout Plane is affected by these condition, too? And why not to think that cards that have banishing effects could have activated their effects and establish a rule that make cards being verified for any doubt?
Missing time rule and chaining I just got back into the game just to play with my cousins however I wanna do locals nothing big however missing time rule and chaining I never quite understood chain links I mean for example If I for monsters Like dark grepher I use his effect to special summon him send darkest Diablos to the grave tribute dark grepher for light plusar dragon do get darkest Diablos back from the Grave since I sent Grepher there
Question about Imperial Iron Wall: The card states that neither player can banish cards. So does that mean that any action that involves banishing cards cannot be activated? There are cards that start their effect by ‘banishing cards’, so are they unable to be played? There are other cards that have ‘banish cards’ at the end of the effect, so do the cards go to the grave? I remember when rocking the Stardust Warrior deck and i threw in a junk berserker. The deck had Imperial Iron Wall and i out-argued against my brother that i could technically infinitely use junk berserker’s effect, declaring that ‘I remove junk synchron’ from my graveyard from play’, but then imperial iron wall blocks the card from being sent- but i believed that the effect still went through, so i could do it infinitely per turn if the effect was like that- but i don’t believe it is. So what would be the actual ruling for this card?
I’d love to see more articles like this that cover rulings that don’t come up often in games and/ or aren’t explained particularly well in the rule book. Maybe a Token episode next? You can get some pretty interesting scenarios when tokens are involved. Like, I’m pretty sure Tokens can’t be face down with the odd exception of Magical Hats? Cards just being face down in general can also have quirks like how chaining Book of Moon to a monster effect activation can “pseudo-negate” that effect because the monster effect is nowhere in play. But I think I’ve also heard that Facedown monsters can be used for contact fusions which makes no sense to me at all because face down cards have no properties beyond the zone that they’re in. (I could be wrong about these, I’m not a judge). Nice work. 👍
facedown banished cards are treated like facedown cards! wow that really needed to be said! next week Dzeeff teaches you that you cannot activate trap cards the turn they are set! not for nothing buddy but if people don’t undertsna dthat a facedown card is treated as a facedown card, they probably don’t have the mental capacity to read cards like tyranno infinity in the first place.