How to play, and how to read the art

The rules

One Yu-Gi-Oh! card's artwork is shown on its own, cropped out of the frame, with the name and text gone. Name the card. You get five guesses, picked from a searchable list, so spelling never costs you a try.

  1. Miss one: the card type is revealed, so you know whether it is a monster, a spell, a trap, or something from the extra deck.
  2. Miss two: the set it was first printed in, which dates it to an era.
  3. Miss three: its Cardmarket price, which tells you whether it is a staple or a curiosity.
  4. Miss four: its full rules text, at which point most players have it.

Get it right and the whole card is revealed. A new card goes up every day at 00:00 UTC, and it is the same card for every player that day.

Date the art before you guess

Yu-Gi-Oh! art has eras, and each one looks different. Duel Monsters cards from the early 2000s are painted, slightly murky, and framed tight on a single creature. GX-era cards get cleaner lines and more sky. 5D's brings in the mechanical dragons and the wide diagonal compositions. Zexal and Arc-V art is brighter, busier and full of energy trails, and Link-era art tends toward cyber panels and glowing circuitry.

Guessing the era first cuts the list down more than guessing a name does.

Watch for TCG edits

Some artwork was altered for the western release: weapons removed, clothing changed, religious symbols painted over. If a card looks oddly empty-handed or unusually covered up, you are probably looking at a TCG edit of a well-known card, which itself narrows things down.

Use the price hint properly

A Cardmarket price in the tens of euros usually means a modern staple or a tournament-legal power card. A price of a few cents means a common from a starter deck or a structure deck, which points at the older, more iconic cards most players own without thinking about it.

Practise on the archive

Every past card stays playable, so you can work back through all of them at your own pace, and past answers are listed once a puzzle is over.

Browse the archive · Past answers

Play today's card