This would soon be pushed even further with the release of Mechanicalchaser (1850 ATK) in the first Tournament Pack. From the beginning, La Jinn, the Mystical Genie of the Lamp set the high mark for ATK on non-Tribute monsters with his 1800 ATK. As a Level 6 monster with 2500 ATK, Summoned Skull was stronger than every other one-Tribute monster, and even stronger than most two-Tribute monsters that existed at the time.Īnother defining feature of the game's early evolution was the powercreep of Level 4 monsters in terms of ATK. As the game advanced and more cards were released throughout 2002, many of the emerging higher-level players recognized that Summoned Skull was going to be the power benchmark. Most monsters were either Normal Monsters or had rudimentary, one-line effects. At this very early stage in the game’s history, the cardpool was extremely small. The trading card game we know today began all the way back in March of 2002 with the release of the first-ever TCG booster set, Legend of Blue-Eyes White Dragon, and the first two Starter Decks which corresponded with Yugi and Kaiba, the two main characters of the anime. This further solidified the franchise's popularity, leading to an eventual worldwide export of both the show and the cards in early 2002. The game rapidly gained steam in Japan, becoming a sensation almost instantly, alongside the premiere of the Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters anime in 2000. This version of the game included new rules not seen in the manga, most notably Tribute Summoning and the increase of Life Points from 2000 to 8000.
The idea didn't really take off any further until Konami created an official trading card game in 1998. These cards were not truly designed to be used in a playable game format, and were more collectors' pieces than anything – factors which shortened their print run. However, it quickly gained a life of its own, with fans clamoring for it to be brought back into the manga, and so it reappeared in later chapters.ĭuel Monsters' popularity eventually led to the manga shifting its focus entirely toward it, and also to the release of the first physical Duel Monsters cards by Bandai.
One of these games was called Magic and Wizards, but was later renamed to the more familiar, "Duel Monsters." The game was originally intended to be a reference to the various trading card games that had taken off in the mid-1990’s thanks to Magic: The Gathering. Yu-Gi-Oh! started out as a weekly manga about a young boy who gets possessed by an Ancient Egyptian pharaoh and challenges a variety of antagonists to all kinds of different games.