Game Theory in Yu-Gi-Oh Trading Card Game
The Yu-Gi-Oh Trading Card Game is a collectible card game originated from Japan and was published by Konami. The game was based off of a fictional game from a popular manga and anime franchise that manga artist Kazuki Takahashi had created. The game started from collectors buying the physical cards and challenging each other to duels. Eventually, the game grew more in popularity as internet became more accessible to people. Today, people can duel each other virtually from all over the world. As the popularity of the game grew with the release of new cards every day, the game has taken a new level in the competitive world. The winner of the game is not determined by the duelist with the strongest monsters anymore, but it is determined by the duelist with high-level prediction and intuition skills to formulate strategies.
The game starts out with a deck or cards in which you draw out five cards. The general idea of the game is to use monster cards with the support of trap cards, and spell cards to attack and deplete the opponent’s life points. The only time you can deplete the opponent’s life points is when there are no monsters defending the opponents side of the field and your monster attacks, if your monster attacks another monster with lower attack points or if the effect of a trap or spell card says so. These cards are laid down on the field from your hand to activate them. The opponent also has these different types of cards to defend himself as well. There is no dominant strategy in this game, otherwise a card deck would either just be comprised of monster cards, trap cards, or spell cards. It takes a combination of all these cards and mixed strategies to win.
The strategies of this game are to attack/defend with a monster, use a trap card, or use a spell card. It takes a duelist to predict the probability of his or her opponent’s strategy, and calculate the payoffs to make a correct response in order to win. There are plenty of responses a duelist can take in any situation. For example, take a situation where a duelist has a monster on the field that can attack the opponent’s life points directly, but the opponent has spell or trap cards laid out. The duelist can choose to attack the opponent’s life points and would have a positive payoff, but if the opponent activates his or her trap card to counter the monsters attack then the duelist would have a negative payoff. The duelist has to calculate the probabilities of each strategy happening to earn a higher chance to victory.
The setup of a Yu-Gi-Oh card game with the monster cards on second row on the bottom and the trap/spell cards on the first row.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yu-Gi-Oh!_Trading_Card_Game