Duel Masters Trading Card Game

Duel Masters Trading Card Game

The card back of the Duel Masters TCG
Designers	Mike Elliott, Charlie Catino, and Tyler Bielman
Publishers	Wizards of the Coast Takara Tomy
Players	2 or 4
Playing time	Approx 20 min
Chance	Some
Skills	Card playing Arithmetic Basic Reading Ability Strategy

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 and Takara Tomy (itself an affiliate of Hasbro, which owns WotC). The card game is part of the Duel Masters franchise.^[1]

The game was released in Japan in May 2002, where it quickly became the number one selling trading card game for over a year.^{[citation needed]} Owing to this popularity, it was released in the United States on March 5, 2004. The game shares several similarities with Magic: The Gathering, 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 Duel Masters manga plot to promote this latest experience.

As in Magic: The Gathering, Duel Masters players summon creatures and cast spells using mana. 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 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. As of 2024, the game is still published in Japan by Takara Tomy ^[2] where it's still one of the most popular trading card games.^[3] In June 2012, Wizards of the Coast relaunched Duel Masters for the western market, 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.^[4][5] In 2014, the company announced they would stop production of the paper version of the game in the United States.^[6]