For those of you who're new to the game or just haven't come in contact with some card groups and perhaps never heard of the cards in the group it can be difficult to know if what you're looking at is just a bog standard common or something of true value, and there's nothing worse than getting ripped off either in a purchase/sale or in a trade. So to help people out I've put together the following description of the card rarities (and rare cards) for those who can't tell the difference between them all, obviously there are other factors in determining a card's worth, things such as its condition and how desireable (supply and demand) it is also apply. Many of the older cards are less valueable now due to either being released as promos in newer sets (e.g. Vampire Lord and Dark Magician Girl), being put on the banned list (e.g. Yata & Raigeki) or their rerelease as a more commonly available card in the new compilation sets, Dark Beginnings and soon Dark Revelations.
Fake, cards which are currently being produced in large numbers, unfortunately for us, due to the huge amounts of money to be made. They are not tournament legal and absolutely worthless other than as comic relief when people read the titles and such. There's nothing worse than buying a box only to find out it's nothing but fake cards so here are some ways to spot them;
If you've bought a box and are dubious of it:
1.Does the shrink wrap run with it's holes at the smaller sides of the box, UDE ones have the holes on these sides, some fakes have them at the front and back.
2.Does the shrink wrap strip pigmentation from the box, UDE produce shouldn't.
3.Do the boosters smell funny, if they do it doesn't bode well.
4.UDE boosters have a wavey, crinkle type seal to them, many fakes have a pixel type one (made up of many dots type indents pressed into the end seal).
5.Do the boosters have the full flap at the back of them, UDE ones should, fakes can be shorter or seem thicker than usual.
As for spotting individual fakes on their own/spotting boosters of fakes:
1.The hologram in the bottom right corner on the front of the card, if it's either not holographic or doesn't have "yu-gi-oh" it's fake, many of the fakes have "yu-gi-on" so keep an eye out for this.
2.If the Konami logo on the back is misspelled.
3.If they're in English but have Aisian lettering on the back where "Yu-Gi-Oh" would normally be written then they're Aisian American and so useless in tournaments.
4.If the card's in a booster from the wrong set, e.g. if you get Toon Blue Eyes White Dragon in a pack of Dark Crisis or something similar.
5.If the text and/or picture are of a poor quality.
6.Again if they smell funny they're most probably fake.
7.If the name's misspelled or completely different to what it should be.
It should be noted though that just because a card doesn't look quite right doesn't mean that it's a fake, there are many common misprints out there, e.g. the Goblin Attack Force cards with a level star instead of their attribute symbol. Sometimes the card's text can be misaligned with respect to the picture, the picture can be wrong (there was an initial run of Dark Paladins like this), the title text can be misaligned too. Then there are cases of where the title text is just an indent and not metallised, again these are real cards, just misprints. The most well known misprints are the print test cards which keep slipping out these days (they're never supposed to make it to the boosters). As a rule misprints are considered slightly more valuable but it depends on the misprint and whether you're offering it to someone who's a straight out player or who is also/only a collector, players won't care less but serious collectors can pay silly amounts for good quality and rare form misprints.
Common, standard card & easily obtained, normal picture, normal text. Examples: Giant Orc & Chaos Sorcerer. Get 8 of these per pack (barring the Dark Beginnings type and Tournament Pack series).
Rare, card with a standard picture but silver, slightly indented, title text (sometimes a misprint can cause there to just be an indent, no silver). Get one of these in most packs (if you don't you probably got something better, barring in Tournament Packs). Examples: Fissure, Shallow Grave & Horn of the Unicorn.
Short Print, unusually rare Common appearance card, looks no different than any other Common, just harder to get one of. Rarity can vary but some have claimed it to be similar to any one specific normal Rare. Examples: Ultimate Obiedient Fiend & Mokey Mokey.
Super Short Print, extremely rare Common appearance card. Examples: Oppressed People
Short Print Rare, unusually rare Rare appearance card, looks just like a normal Rare card. Example: Book of Moon.
Super Rare, card with standard text but a shiny picture, get one in approximately every 6 packs. Examples: Chaos Rider Gustaph & Z Metal Tank.
Starter Deck Super Rare, card with normal text but a shiny picture, all starter decks have the same cards as these, depending on which starter deck you buy. Examples: Scapegoat, Flute of Summoning Dragon & Shadow Spell.
Ultimate Rare, varient of a Rare/Super Rare/Ultra Rare card from the series SOD, RDS or FET. Entire card is shiny, some feel 3-D due to indentations from printing. Get one in approximately every 12 packs. The major difference between Ultimate and Ultra Rares is that the Card type (Spell, Trap or the monster's element type), and level stars too if it's a monster card, are also shiny on Ultimate Rares whereas they are plain on Ultra Rares. They're more common than Ultra Rares but due to there being more cards as Ultimate Rare it's more difficult to get a Ultimate Rare of an Ultra Rare card. You can get any Rare, Super Rare or Ultra Rare as an Ultimate Rare version of the card.
Ultra Rare, card with a shiny picture and gold title text, get one in approximately every 12 (24 for SOD, RDS & FET) packs. Examples: Dark Mirror Force, XYZ, Exodia Necross.
Starter Deck Ultra Rare, card with gold title text and a shiny picture, all starter decks have specific cards as these. Examples: Dark Magician & Blue Eyes White Dragon.
Secret Rare, card with sparkly (in diagonal parallel lines) & shiney picture and normal text. Only 2 such cards per set and no Secret Rares in SOD/RDS/FET/DB1 series. Rarity is supposed to be ~1/72packs, don't think there's any official rarity statistic though.
The Secret Rares are:
Tri Horned Dragon
Gaia The Dragon Champion
Gate Guardian
Thousand Dragon
Toon Blue Eyes White Dragon
Serpent Night Dragon
Jinzo
Imperial Order
Gemini Elf
Magic Cylinder
Yata Garusa
Injection Fairy Lily
Lava Golem
Ring of Destruction
Dark Magician Girl
Diffusion Wave Motion
Vampire Lord
Judgement of Anubis
Chaos Emperor Dragon
Invader of Darkness
End of Anubis
Mazera DeVille
It should be noted that there are more common versions of these available as Special Edition Promo cards in the RDS and IOC Special Edition Promo Packs, also as commons in some starter decks, promos in Collectors' Tins and in various rarities in the Rerelease booster series (Dark Beginnings).
Game Promo Secret Rares, earlier ones look as true Secret Rares do but with more pixelated sparkly bits as opposed to diagonal lines running parallel, the newer ones only appear as Super Rares do. These are found only in the packaging of the Yu-Gi-Oh video games, the particular cards depend both on the game and the region the game is from (Europe vs. US). Some are of a limited run and so extremely valueable, e.g. Red Eyes Black Metal Dragon, Harpies Pet Dragon and Metalmorph from Forbidden Memories or Exodia, Blue Eyes White Dragon and Dark Magician from Dark Duel Stories.
Shonen Jump Promo Cards, limited edition promotional cards from the Shonen Jump Magazines: Blue Eyes White Dragon (JMP-001, Ultra Rare appearance), Red Eyes Black Dragon (JMP-002, Ultra Rare appearance) & Archfiend of Gilfer (JMP-EN003, Ultra Rare appearance).
DMG Dark Paladin, limited edition card given with the Duel Master's Guide boxed set, has the appearance of a Secret Rare.
Slifer The Sky Dragon YMA-EN001, comes with the Ani-Manga Magazine, specifically states that it cannot be used in a Duel so its just a pretty collector's item. Has the appearance of a Secret Rare but with no text of any kind on it's back.
Special Edition Pack Promo Rares, Ultra Rare appearance, get them in the IOC and RDS Special Edition packs with 3 boosters and one of these promo cards in them, not very rare at all.
Gemini Elf, IOC-SE1
Magical Cylinder, IOC-SE2
Ring of Destruction, IOC-SE3
Lava Golem, IOC-SE4
Diffusion Wave Motion- RDS-SE1
Dark Magician Girl- RDS-SE2
Judgement of Anubis- RDS-SE3
Vampire Lord- RDS-SE4
Collectors Tin Promos, limited edition promo card given with each collectors tin, which tin you get decides which card you get. Has the appearance of a Secret Rare. Earlier ones had the designations of BPT-0xx, where xx was its number in the series, 2004 ones instead have the designations CT1-EN00x.
Movie Promo Cards, there are two groups within these, one set is a group of 4 obtained by attending the movie/buying the video/DVD of it, they were/are in a gold foil packaging, one card per pack. The others are a group of 8 which came in a Limited Edition Pack, same 8 in every pack and 3 appearing as Ultras while the others appeared as commons.
The 4 cards from going to the cinema/buying the film:
Blue Eyes Shining Dragon, MOV-EN001, Super Rare appearance
Sorcerer of Dark Magic, MOV-EN002, Common appearance
Watapon, MOV-EN003, Common appearance
Pyramid of Light, MOV-EN004, Common appearance
The 8 card pack:
Theinen the Great Sphinx, EP1-EN001, Ultra Rare appearance
Andro Sphinx, EP1-EN002, Ultra Rare appearance
Sphinx Teleia, EP1-EN003, Ultra Rare appearance
Rare Metal Dragon, EP1-EN004
Peten The Dark Clown, EP1-EN005
Familiar Knight, EP1-EN006
Inferno Tempest, EP1-EN007
Return From the Different Dimension, EP1-EN008
Duelist League Promo Cards, series of cards given out to participants in Duelist Leagues. Designations of DLx-00z, where x is the series (1,2,3,4 or 5) and z is the number (either 1 or 2). The appearance varies depending on the series.
DL1E= Time Wizard & Barrel Dragon, Super Rare appearance
DL1= Thousand Eyes Restrict & Buster Blader, Super Rare appearance
DL2= The Masked Beast & Dark Necrofear, Super Rare appearance
DL3= Necrovalley, ordinary Rare appearance
DL4= Machine King, Super Rare appearance but with white title text
DL5= Restructure Revolution, Super Rare appearance but with white title text
DL6= Toon Gemini Elf (Super Rare appearance)
Hobby League Promo Cards, series of cards given out to participants in Hobby Leagues. Designations of HL1-EN00x, where x is the card number in the series (Don't have any of these so high quality scans/descriptions would be appreciated).
Lord of the Lamp, HL1-EN001
Greenkappa, HL1-EN002
A Legendary Ocean, HL1-EN003
Levia-Dragon Daedalus, HL-EN004
Tournament Pack cards, series of cards purchased in Tournament Packs, usually on sale at tournaments (surprisingly enough!
), with 3 cards per pack. Cards have a designation of TPx-0zz/TPx-E0zz/TPx-EN0zz, where x is the Tournament Pack series they're from (currently 1-5) and zz is the card's number within that series. Can get Ultra/Super or normal rares in these as well as the commons which make up the bulk of them, all appear as they would in any other booster series. Cards from these of any particular rarity tend to be more valueable than cards of the same rarity from other series as Tournament Pack cards are produced in much smaller numbers and so harder to get.
Master's Collection, appear as Secret Rares, get them with the Masters Collection binder;
Exodia The Forbidden One, MC1-EN001
Barrel Dragon, MC1-EN002
Relinquished, MC1-EN003
Thousand Eyes Restrict, MC1-EN004
Dark Necrofear, MC1-EN005
Dark Ruler Ha Des, MC1-EN006
Machine King Regional Promo, appears as an Ultra Rare, given for participation in specific regionals in Europe in 2004, EM1-EN001
2004 World Championship Promos: info from yugiohrealms http://www.yugiohrealms.com/forum//threads/366580
Mateo The Matchless, WC04-001, given to 2nd, 3rd and 4th place in the Yu-Gi-Oh and Yu-Gi-Oh GBA video game tournaments, Ultra Rare appearance, only 6 in the world.
Ulevo, WC04-002, given to the winners of the Yu-Gi-Oh and Yu-Gi-Oh GBA video game tournaments, Ultra Rare appearance, only 2 in the world.
World Championship Series Sengenjin Promo, WCS-EN403, received for participation in the GameBoy Advance World Championship Tournament 2004 in Toys'R'us stores, (don't have it so a good quality scan/description would be appreciated)
Shonen Jump Championship promo Cyber-Stein, given to the winners of Shonen Jump Yu-Gi-Oh Championship tournaments, only 2 currently in the public domain. SJC-EN001, appearance as an Ultra Rare (I think, hard to tell from the Ebay pics).
As I've said anyone who has a copy of the card's I don't have descriptions of on the above list a reasonably detailed description/high quality scan would be appreciated so that I can put proper descriptions in above.
Also any card groups/specific promos I missed, just let me know and give me the details/a scan and I'll fill them in too.
Also any other inputs on ways to spot fake cards/boosters of them etc"¦ are welcome.
All criticisms and inputs are of course welcome.
Fake, cards which are currently being produced in large numbers, unfortunately for us, due to the huge amounts of money to be made. They are not tournament legal and absolutely worthless other than as comic relief when people read the titles and such. There's nothing worse than buying a box only to find out it's nothing but fake cards so here are some ways to spot them;
If you've bought a box and are dubious of it:
1.Does the shrink wrap run with it's holes at the smaller sides of the box, UDE ones have the holes on these sides, some fakes have them at the front and back.
2.Does the shrink wrap strip pigmentation from the box, UDE produce shouldn't.
3.Do the boosters smell funny, if they do it doesn't bode well.
4.UDE boosters have a wavey, crinkle type seal to them, many fakes have a pixel type one (made up of many dots type indents pressed into the end seal).
5.Do the boosters have the full flap at the back of them, UDE ones should, fakes can be shorter or seem thicker than usual.
As for spotting individual fakes on their own/spotting boosters of fakes:
1.The hologram in the bottom right corner on the front of the card, if it's either not holographic or doesn't have "yu-gi-oh" it's fake, many of the fakes have "yu-gi-on" so keep an eye out for this.
2.If the Konami logo on the back is misspelled.
3.If they're in English but have Aisian lettering on the back where "Yu-Gi-Oh" would normally be written then they're Aisian American and so useless in tournaments.
4.If the card's in a booster from the wrong set, e.g. if you get Toon Blue Eyes White Dragon in a pack of Dark Crisis or something similar.
5.If the text and/or picture are of a poor quality.
6.Again if they smell funny they're most probably fake.
7.If the name's misspelled or completely different to what it should be.
It should be noted though that just because a card doesn't look quite right doesn't mean that it's a fake, there are many common misprints out there, e.g. the Goblin Attack Force cards with a level star instead of their attribute symbol. Sometimes the card's text can be misaligned with respect to the picture, the picture can be wrong (there was an initial run of Dark Paladins like this), the title text can be misaligned too. Then there are cases of where the title text is just an indent and not metallised, again these are real cards, just misprints. The most well known misprints are the print test cards which keep slipping out these days (they're never supposed to make it to the boosters). As a rule misprints are considered slightly more valuable but it depends on the misprint and whether you're offering it to someone who's a straight out player or who is also/only a collector, players won't care less but serious collectors can pay silly amounts for good quality and rare form misprints.
Common, standard card & easily obtained, normal picture, normal text. Examples: Giant Orc & Chaos Sorcerer. Get 8 of these per pack (barring the Dark Beginnings type and Tournament Pack series).
Rare, card with a standard picture but silver, slightly indented, title text (sometimes a misprint can cause there to just be an indent, no silver). Get one of these in most packs (if you don't you probably got something better, barring in Tournament Packs). Examples: Fissure, Shallow Grave & Horn of the Unicorn.
Short Print, unusually rare Common appearance card, looks no different than any other Common, just harder to get one of. Rarity can vary but some have claimed it to be similar to any one specific normal Rare. Examples: Ultimate Obiedient Fiend & Mokey Mokey.
Super Short Print, extremely rare Common appearance card. Examples: Oppressed People
Short Print Rare, unusually rare Rare appearance card, looks just like a normal Rare card. Example: Book of Moon.
Super Rare, card with standard text but a shiny picture, get one in approximately every 6 packs. Examples: Chaos Rider Gustaph & Z Metal Tank.
Starter Deck Super Rare, card with normal text but a shiny picture, all starter decks have the same cards as these, depending on which starter deck you buy. Examples: Scapegoat, Flute of Summoning Dragon & Shadow Spell.
Ultimate Rare, varient of a Rare/Super Rare/Ultra Rare card from the series SOD, RDS or FET. Entire card is shiny, some feel 3-D due to indentations from printing. Get one in approximately every 12 packs. The major difference between Ultimate and Ultra Rares is that the Card type (Spell, Trap or the monster's element type), and level stars too if it's a monster card, are also shiny on Ultimate Rares whereas they are plain on Ultra Rares. They're more common than Ultra Rares but due to there being more cards as Ultimate Rare it's more difficult to get a Ultimate Rare of an Ultra Rare card. You can get any Rare, Super Rare or Ultra Rare as an Ultimate Rare version of the card.
Ultra Rare, card with a shiny picture and gold title text, get one in approximately every 12 (24 for SOD, RDS & FET) packs. Examples: Dark Mirror Force, XYZ, Exodia Necross.
Starter Deck Ultra Rare, card with gold title text and a shiny picture, all starter decks have specific cards as these. Examples: Dark Magician & Blue Eyes White Dragon.
Secret Rare, card with sparkly (in diagonal parallel lines) & shiney picture and normal text. Only 2 such cards per set and no Secret Rares in SOD/RDS/FET/DB1 series. Rarity is supposed to be ~1/72packs, don't think there's any official rarity statistic though.
The Secret Rares are:
Tri Horned Dragon
Gaia The Dragon Champion
Gate Guardian
Thousand Dragon
Toon Blue Eyes White Dragon
Serpent Night Dragon
Jinzo
Imperial Order
Gemini Elf
Magic Cylinder
Yata Garusa
Injection Fairy Lily
Lava Golem
Ring of Destruction
Dark Magician Girl
Diffusion Wave Motion
Vampire Lord
Judgement of Anubis
Chaos Emperor Dragon
Invader of Darkness
End of Anubis
Mazera DeVille
It should be noted that there are more common versions of these available as Special Edition Promo cards in the RDS and IOC Special Edition Promo Packs, also as commons in some starter decks, promos in Collectors' Tins and in various rarities in the Rerelease booster series (Dark Beginnings).
Game Promo Secret Rares, earlier ones look as true Secret Rares do but with more pixelated sparkly bits as opposed to diagonal lines running parallel, the newer ones only appear as Super Rares do. These are found only in the packaging of the Yu-Gi-Oh video games, the particular cards depend both on the game and the region the game is from (Europe vs. US). Some are of a limited run and so extremely valueable, e.g. Red Eyes Black Metal Dragon, Harpies Pet Dragon and Metalmorph from Forbidden Memories or Exodia, Blue Eyes White Dragon and Dark Magician from Dark Duel Stories.
Shonen Jump Promo Cards, limited edition promotional cards from the Shonen Jump Magazines: Blue Eyes White Dragon (JMP-001, Ultra Rare appearance), Red Eyes Black Dragon (JMP-002, Ultra Rare appearance) & Archfiend of Gilfer (JMP-EN003, Ultra Rare appearance).
DMG Dark Paladin, limited edition card given with the Duel Master's Guide boxed set, has the appearance of a Secret Rare.
Slifer The Sky Dragon YMA-EN001, comes with the Ani-Manga Magazine, specifically states that it cannot be used in a Duel so its just a pretty collector's item. Has the appearance of a Secret Rare but with no text of any kind on it's back.
Special Edition Pack Promo Rares, Ultra Rare appearance, get them in the IOC and RDS Special Edition packs with 3 boosters and one of these promo cards in them, not very rare at all.
Gemini Elf, IOC-SE1
Magical Cylinder, IOC-SE2
Ring of Destruction, IOC-SE3
Lava Golem, IOC-SE4
Diffusion Wave Motion- RDS-SE1
Dark Magician Girl- RDS-SE2
Judgement of Anubis- RDS-SE3
Vampire Lord- RDS-SE4
Collectors Tin Promos, limited edition promo card given with each collectors tin, which tin you get decides which card you get. Has the appearance of a Secret Rare. Earlier ones had the designations of BPT-0xx, where xx was its number in the series, 2004 ones instead have the designations CT1-EN00x.
Movie Promo Cards, there are two groups within these, one set is a group of 4 obtained by attending the movie/buying the video/DVD of it, they were/are in a gold foil packaging, one card per pack. The others are a group of 8 which came in a Limited Edition Pack, same 8 in every pack and 3 appearing as Ultras while the others appeared as commons.
The 4 cards from going to the cinema/buying the film:
Blue Eyes Shining Dragon, MOV-EN001, Super Rare appearance
Sorcerer of Dark Magic, MOV-EN002, Common appearance
Watapon, MOV-EN003, Common appearance
Pyramid of Light, MOV-EN004, Common appearance
The 8 card pack:
Theinen the Great Sphinx, EP1-EN001, Ultra Rare appearance
Andro Sphinx, EP1-EN002, Ultra Rare appearance
Sphinx Teleia, EP1-EN003, Ultra Rare appearance
Rare Metal Dragon, EP1-EN004
Peten The Dark Clown, EP1-EN005
Familiar Knight, EP1-EN006
Inferno Tempest, EP1-EN007
Return From the Different Dimension, EP1-EN008
Duelist League Promo Cards, series of cards given out to participants in Duelist Leagues. Designations of DLx-00z, where x is the series (1,2,3,4 or 5) and z is the number (either 1 or 2). The appearance varies depending on the series.
DL1E= Time Wizard & Barrel Dragon, Super Rare appearance
DL1= Thousand Eyes Restrict & Buster Blader, Super Rare appearance
DL2= The Masked Beast & Dark Necrofear, Super Rare appearance
DL3= Necrovalley, ordinary Rare appearance
DL4= Machine King, Super Rare appearance but with white title text
DL5= Restructure Revolution, Super Rare appearance but with white title text
DL6= Toon Gemini Elf (Super Rare appearance)
Hobby League Promo Cards, series of cards given out to participants in Hobby Leagues. Designations of HL1-EN00x, where x is the card number in the series (Don't have any of these so high quality scans/descriptions would be appreciated).
Lord of the Lamp, HL1-EN001
Greenkappa, HL1-EN002
A Legendary Ocean, HL1-EN003
Levia-Dragon Daedalus, HL-EN004
Tournament Pack cards, series of cards purchased in Tournament Packs, usually on sale at tournaments (surprisingly enough!
), with 3 cards per pack. Cards have a designation of TPx-0zz/TPx-E0zz/TPx-EN0zz, where x is the Tournament Pack series they're from (currently 1-5) and zz is the card's number within that series. Can get Ultra/Super or normal rares in these as well as the commons which make up the bulk of them, all appear as they would in any other booster series. Cards from these of any particular rarity tend to be more valueable than cards of the same rarity from other series as Tournament Pack cards are produced in much smaller numbers and so harder to get.Master's Collection, appear as Secret Rares, get them with the Masters Collection binder;
Exodia The Forbidden One, MC1-EN001
Barrel Dragon, MC1-EN002
Relinquished, MC1-EN003
Thousand Eyes Restrict, MC1-EN004
Dark Necrofear, MC1-EN005
Dark Ruler Ha Des, MC1-EN006
Machine King Regional Promo, appears as an Ultra Rare, given for participation in specific regionals in Europe in 2004, EM1-EN001
2004 World Championship Promos: info from yugiohrealms http://www.yugiohrealms.com/forum//threads/366580
Mateo The Matchless, WC04-001, given to 2nd, 3rd and 4th place in the Yu-Gi-Oh and Yu-Gi-Oh GBA video game tournaments, Ultra Rare appearance, only 6 in the world.
Ulevo, WC04-002, given to the winners of the Yu-Gi-Oh and Yu-Gi-Oh GBA video game tournaments, Ultra Rare appearance, only 2 in the world.
World Championship Series Sengenjin Promo, WCS-EN403, received for participation in the GameBoy Advance World Championship Tournament 2004 in Toys'R'us stores, (don't have it so a good quality scan/description would be appreciated)
Shonen Jump Championship promo Cyber-Stein, given to the winners of Shonen Jump Yu-Gi-Oh Championship tournaments, only 2 currently in the public domain. SJC-EN001, appearance as an Ultra Rare (I think, hard to tell from the Ebay pics).
As I've said anyone who has a copy of the card's I don't have descriptions of on the above list a reasonably detailed description/high quality scan would be appreciated so that I can put proper descriptions in above.
Also any card groups/specific promos I missed, just let me know and give me the details/a scan and I'll fill them in too.
Also any other inputs on ways to spot fake cards/boosters of them etc"¦ are welcome.
All criticisms and inputs are of course welcome.
