The ''Duel Masters Trading Card Game'' is a two-player or two vs. two team collectible card game (CCG) jointly developed by

Wizards of the Coast Wizards of the Coast LLC (often referred to as WotC or simply Wizards) is an American publisher of games, primarily based on fantasy and science fiction themes, and formerly an operator of retail stores for games. It is currently a subsidia ...

and

Takara Tomy is a Japanese entertainment company that makes children's toys and merchandise. It was created from a merger on March 1st 2006 of two companies: Tomy (founded in 1924 as Tomiyama, changing the name to Tomy in 1963) and long-time rival Tak ...

(itself an affiliate of

Hasbro Hasbro, Inc. (; a syllabic abbreviation of its original name, Hassenfeld Brothers) is an American multinational conglomerate holding company incorporated and headquartered in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Hasbro owns the trademarks and products of K ...

, which owns WotC). The card game is part of the ''

Duel Masters is a media franchise consisting of a manga, several anime series, a trading card game and several video games. The original manga, accompanied with his sequels, sold 4.5 million copies in Japan. Plot The story centers ar ...

'' franchise. The game was released in Japan in May 2002, where it quickly became the number one selling

trading card game A collectible card game (CCG), also called a trading card game (TCG) among other names, is a type of card game that mixes strategy game, strategic deck building elements with features of trading cards, introduced with ''Magic: The Gathering'' in ...

for over a year. Owing to this popularity, it was released in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

on March 5, 2004. The game shares several similarities with ''

Magic: The Gathering ''Magic: The Gathering'' (colloquially known as ''Magic'' or ''MTG'') is a Tabletop game, tabletop and Digital collectible card game, digital Collectible card game, collectable card game created by Richard Garfield. Released in 1993 by Wizards ...

'', the world's first collectible card game, which was also published by Wizards of the Coast. In fact, ''Duel Masters'' was originally intended as an alternative tradename for ''Magic: The Gathering'' and the earlier game play was abandoned in the ''

'' manga plot to promote this latest experience. As in ''Magic: The Gathering'', ''Duel Masters'' players summon creatures and cast spells using

mana According to Melanesian and Polynesian mythology, ''mana'' is a supernatural force that permeates the universe. Anyone or anything can have ''mana''. They believed it to be a cultivation or possession of energy and power, rather than being ...

. 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”. Owing to the popularity of ''Duel Masters'', four video games (three released for the

Game Boy Advance The (GBA) is a 32-bit handheld game console developed, manufactured and marketed by Nintendo as the successor to the Game Boy Color. It was released in Japan on March 21, 2001, in North America on June 11, 2001, in the PAL region on June 22, ...

and the other for the PS2) based around the game have been produced, titled ''Duel Masters: Kaijudo Showdown'', '' Duel Masters: Sempai Legends'', ''Duel Masters: Shadow of the Code'' for the GBA and ''Duel Masters: Cobalt'' for the PS2. As of December 2006, the English sets of ''Duel Masters'' were discontinued by Wizards of the Coast due to weak sales and was hosted by

in Japan for a brief time. However, in June 2012, Wizards of the Coast relaunched Duel Masters under a new franchise named '' Kaijudo: Rise of the Duel Masters''. Based on the existing Duel Masters brand, Kaijudo featured an online game, trading card game, and a television series. In 2014, the company announced they would stop production of the paper version of the game in the United States.

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," from the Japanese words '' kaiju'', strange beast or giant monster, and ''do'', way or art) to bring their creatures to life to do battle. Players battle each other by placing cards into their respective "mana zones," then using that mana to cast spells or summon creatures into the "battle zone." Each player has five shields that protect them from damage; once these are gone, it takes one successful attack to win the duel. When a player's deck runs out of cards, that player automatically loses the duel. Each player's deck must have a minimum of 40 cards in it. As with all trading card games, players construct their own decks out of cards from their collection. Players can purchase booster packs to increase the number of cards they have in their collection. Boosters are available in English for the first 12 DM-series sets, and Japanese for each expansion set released.

References

External links

* * at

*{{Official website, http://dm.takaratomy.co.jp/ at

Card games introduced in 2002 Collectible card games Wizards of the Coast games Mike Elliott (game designer) games