Egyptian God Cards

The Egyptian God Cards, known in Japan as the , are a series of cards in Yu-Gi-Oh! that serve as a focal point in the series' manga, the second series anime, and video games based on the anime and manga. Introduced as the strongest of all Duel Monsters, the cards have heavy ties to the fictional history of Ancient Egypt within the series and become central plot devices. The cards inspire events in various spin-offs of the series as well and have inspired the creation other cards directly based on them. The real versions of the cards have become widely hunted collector's items, but are not legally playable in any sort of official tournament.

The Egyptian God Cards are:

Anime history

The Egyptian Gods are one-of-a-kind all-powerful cards created by Maximillion Pegasus, the creator of Duel Monsters in the anime. Pegasus modeled the cards after three Ancient Egyptian beasts whose likenesses surround the Millennium Puzzle on the stone tablet said to hold the memories of the nameless Pharaoh. The wielder of the cards is able to acquire great power, but in the wrong hands they are capable of causing injury or even death.

The cards are used in the series as the key to unlocking the memory of the nameless Pharaoh. Marik Ishtar captures two of the cards in an attempt to dethrone the Pharaoh and claim his title, but his sister Isis manages to safeguard the final card. This is the edited English version of the anime: in the Japanese anime, Marik desires to use the cards to kill the Pharaoh. Isis gives the final card - Obelisk the Tormentor - to Seto Kaiba, whom she believes he is destined to help the Pharaoh defeat Marik. Kaiba, eager to show off his new power at a tournament he is planning to throw, spreads news of his new card as Isis has hoped, luring Marik there with the promise of acquiring the final card and meeting the Pharaoh. Marik loses Slifer the Sky Dragon to Yugi Mutou in a duel, but manages to keep The Winged Dragon of Ra. After Yugi defeats Kaiba and claims Obelisk from him, he uses Obelisk and Slifer in a final battle with Marik, winning and claiming the final God card.

Afterwards, the God cards are stolen in Season 4 by Dartz and his henchmen, and are not retrieved until the end of the season and used against Dartz's Leviathan. The cards are used in Season 5 to send the Pharaoh into a world made up of his own sealed memories, allowing him to recover them and defeat the opponent he could not defeat in the past, the God of Darkness, Zorc. During the battle the Pharaoh learns his true name, Atem, and merges the Gods together into their ultimate form, The Creator of Light - Horakhty. He uses the God cards in his final duel with Yugi, and they are sent to the afterlife with him at the end of the series.

The God cards Appear in the movie Yu-Gi-Oh! The Movie: Pyramid of Light, where the film villain Anubis uses the titular item to attempt to destroy the God cards and revive the power of light using Kaiba's Blue-Eyes White Dragon. However, the film is not considered canon to the anime or manga. The God cards are featured prominently in the video games Yu-Gi-Oh! The Sacred Cards and Yu-Gi-Oh! Reshef of Destruction, both of which are alternate universe games based on the second season of the anime.

Anime god cards

The God Cards are unaffected by all card effects, but the specifics of this varies subtly in each duel they are played; sometimes they are immune to card effects entirely, at other times they are not immune, but card effects only affect them for a single turn. The God cards are only capable of being summoned by Tributing 3 monsters, and their summoning counts as a Special Summon. When summoned from the Graveyard, the God card is destroyed at the end of the turn. The God cards also have an unofficial effect that states only someone with a Millennium Item, or a connection to a Millennium Item, can wield them. Anyone else is punished with death or near-fatal injury, but this is only seen happening on limited occasions.

Obelisk the Tormentor

Obelisk the Tormentor is the first of the cards to appear in the anime. Obelisk is the only card Marik could not acquire, and his sister Isis gave the card to Seto Kaiba in the hopes he would use the card in his upcoming tournament and lure Marik out of hiding to claim it for himself. Kaiba used Obelisk as his trump card during the preliminaries, but lost to Yugi Muto in the semi-finals and thus handed the card to him. Yugi went on to use Obelisk against Marik in the tournament finals.

Obelisk makes sporadic appearances throughout the rest of the series. It is used by Gurimo in Season 4 of the anime, and takes part in the battle against the Leviathan. It is used to battle Bakura's Diabound in the final season; it defeats Diabound in the manga, while it is a draw in the anime against the power of the Blue-Eyes White Dragon that Diabound had absorbed. In the manga, it is the only God card that Atem uses in his duel with Yugi (in the anime, he uses all three Gods).

Obelisk's ATK and DEF are 4000 and its effect allows a player to offer two monsters as Tribute to destroy all of an opponent's monsters and inflict 4000 damage to the opponent. When used by Seto Kaiba, Obelisk was used multiple times to achieve a one-turn kill victory in such a manner. It is also shown that Obelisk is able to achieve an infinite attack strength. However, this only happened in Yu-Gi-Oh! The Movie: Pyramid of Light, and a single time in the canon series which was then explained as "a miracle of Obelisk's anger" and not confirmed as an actual effect.

Slifer the Sky Dragon

Slifer the Sky Dragon is the second God card revealed. It is one of the two God cards owned by Marik, who gives it to one of his mental slaves in an attempt to defeat Yugi. Yugi defeats the slave, however, and claims Slifer as his prize. Although reluctant to use Slifer, Yugi uses him in the finals of the tournament and in the battle with Marik due to The Risk presented by Marik's own God card.

Slifer makes sporadic appearances throughout the rest of the series. It is used in Season 4 to battle the Leviathan, and in the final season it battles Bakura's Diabound, but Bakura is able to weaken and destroy it by having a brainwashed priest attack the stone tablet housing Slifer's spirit. In the anime, it takes part in the final battle between Atem and Yugi, and in both the anime and manga is Atem's final summoned monster before the duel ends.

Slifer's ATK and DEF scores are equal to the number of cards in its owner's hand times 1000. This allows it a potential of 7000 ATK and DEF with a full hand, disregarding any ways of bypassing this limit. Whenever the opponent summons a monster, Slifer inflicts an attack worth 2000 damage to it with its second-mouth ability, either destroying the monster if its current mode score (ATK or DEF) is less than 2000, or weakening it if its mode score is higher than 2000.

The Winged Dragon of Ra

The Winged Dragon of Ra is the final and strongest of the God cards. It is the key card of Marik Ishtar during the Battle City arc of the series, and is described as being so powerful even the other two God cards combined cannot defeat it. To contain this power, an extra level of protection exists on the card; besides the above mentioned qualification of possessing a Millennium Item, a special text on the card referred to as the Hieratic Text (古代神官文字, ヒエラティックテキスト) prevents anyone who does not recite this text from using it. The text is described as a secret code known only to the highest ranking members of the Pharaoh's court.

In the quarter-finals of Battle City, Marik has his servant and adopted brother Rishid use a counterfeit copy of the card to impersonate him, but when Rishid loses Marik reveals himself before being consumed by his evil alter-personality. He uses the card in his battles with Mai Kujaku and Katsuya Jonouchi during the finals, as well as Ryo Bakura in an unofficial duel, exploiting Ra's various powers during the duels to easily claim victory. During his duel with Yugi, Marik's evil side merges with Ra using one of its powers, and Yugi takes the chance to destroy Marik's evil side by destroying Ra and him together. Afterwards, a reformed Marik surrenders and hands the card to Yugi.

Ra makes sporadic appearances throughout the rest of the series. It is used in Season 4 to battle the Leviathan, and in the final season it battles Bakura's Diabound. Unlike Slifer and Obelisk, it is able to destroy Diabound, but Bakura reverses time to prevent Ra's summoning and avoid defeat. In the anime, it also takes part in the final battle between Atem and Yugi, although Atem does not use the full extent of its power in the battle. It is not used in Atem's final duel against Yugi in the manga.

Ra appears in Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, when the a counterfeit version of the card is stolen from Maximillion Pegasus by a rogue card designer, Frantz. By using a card of his own design, Mound of the Bound Creator, Frantz is able to enslave Ra and avoid having to fulfill any of the requirements to using it. He is defeated in a duel by Jaden Yuki, and the card is returned.

When summoned by a Tribute Summon, Ra's ATK and DEF become the combined ATK and DEF of the Tributed monsters. When summoned from the Graveyard, Ra gains additional powers; it can merge with its summoner and drain their Life Points to increase its ATK points, absorb the ATK of other monsters on the field, and turn into a Phoenix immune to destruction and capable of destroying any monster regardless of attack scores. However, the exact manner in which any of these powers activates varies from duel to duel in the series, and because Ra's card text is written in the unreadable Hieratic Text, its final effects cannot be determined.

Real god cards

The use of the God Cards is forbidden in all sanctioned tournaments of real-world competition because of their unique color templates and backings. Each God Card has its back colored the same color as the god card itself, blue for Obelisk, red for Slifer, and yellow for Ra; compare to the normal brown backing used for standard cards. The cards themselves possess text on the bottom of the card that states that they may not be used in a duel. As they do not possess effect text, conflicts arise over how they operate once summoned in unofficial duels. Some local hobby stores allow people to play "unofficial matches" provided everyone playing agrees on their effects before play.

The first version of the God Cards was released by Konami as a privilege for those who made a pre-order of the Japanese Game Boy Color game Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters 4: Battle of Great Duelist released on December 7, 2000. The second set was released by Konami on April 17, 2003 as special pack-in cards in the Game Boy Advance game Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters International — Worldwide Edition, the Japanese version of the English-language Yu-Gi-Oh! Worldwide Edition: Stairway to the Destined Duel.

Unlike previous versions, the third version of the God Cards was not released simultaneously. The Winged Dragon of Ra was included as a limited edition card in the Yu-Gi-Oh! The Dawn of Destiny game for Xbox, released March 23, 2004. Slifer the Sky Dragon was released as a special pack-in card for the ani-manga of Yu-Gi-Oh! The Movie: The Pyramid of Light, published November 23, 2004 by VIZ Media. Obelisk the Tormentor, finally, was released as a free gift to subscribers of United States Shonen Jump in May 2005.

Obtaining the God Cards once demanded high prices on the secondary market. This was prior to their current widespread availability. During this time, countless counterfeit copies were made and distributed primarily throughout East Asia, causing widespread warning articles on the internet and in card price guides on how to avoid paying for counterfeits and ensuring authenticity.

External Links

Egyptian God cards at yugiohcard.net
Egyptian God cards at yugiohetc.com
eBay guide to avoiding counterfeit God cards
Egyptian God cards at inmint.com
Yu-Gi-Oh! season summaries at retrojunk.com
Egyptian God cards at kidzworld.com Egyptian God cards at the Yu-Gi-Oh! Wikia

See also

• List of Yu-Gi-Oh! cards

Notes