God Cards

In the manga and anime series Yu-Gi-Oh!, the God Cards, a.k.a. the Egyptian God Cards, are three all-powerful Duel Monsters cards created by Maximillion Pegasus (Pegasus J. Crawford in the Japanese anime and manga) after the mysterious Shadi showed him an ancient stone carving of three ancient creatures, the Divine Beasts (幻神獣 Genshinjū, lit. "Phantom God-Beasts"), surrounding the Millennium Puzzle.

The three Divine Beasts (and thus, the three God Cards) are:

Obelisk the Tormentor (translated as "The God of the Obelisk" in the English manga)
Slifer the Sky Dragon ("Osiris" in the original Japanese; called Slifer in the English anime after a 4Kids producer, much to many fans' disgruntlement, annoyance, and irritation), and
The Winged Dragon of Ra ("The Sun Dragon Ra").

Each of these Divine Beasts represents two poles in the universe: Obelisk represents "light" and "darkness", Slifer represents "good" and "evil", and Ra represents "heaven" and "earth".

According to legend, those who own all three God Cards shall acquire the title of the "Duel King" (Yu-Gi-Oh!, lit. "King of Games"). The God Cards are also the key to the nameless Pharaoh (Dark Yugi or Yami Yugi)'s lost memories.

Although the God Cards seems to be normal pieces of cardstock, in the anime and manga they possess the actual powers of the Divine Beasts they represent. Furthermore, the nature of the God cards is based upon the heart of its controller: should one with an evil heart use them in a duel, they may capable of taking their opponent's life. For this reason, they are described as the "ultimate weapons" in duels. God Cards become a focal point later in the series.

Spoiler warning: Plot or ending details follow.

Contents

1 The "Fusion" of the Gods

2 Abilities shared by all three God Cards

2.1 A note on "Spellbinding Circle"
2.2 A note on "Erosion of the Earth"

3 The real God Cards

4 Notes

The "Fusion" of the Gods

The combined spirits of the Gods form an unstoppable force known as "Creator of Light — Harakhti". She is summoned at the end of the Memory Arc, when the Pharaoh recovers his real name (Atem). When the Pharaoh pronounces his true name, the spirits of the Gods are combined using the power of friendship. She destroys the evil Zork, freeing Egypt from its dark power, and imparts key information about the final battle 3,000 years ago.

Abilities shared by all three God Cards

N.B.: The effects explained in this section are only inferences based on what is seen or heard in the various versions of Yu-Gi-Oh!; other interpretations of the cards may be possible. No version of any of the God Cards, whether anime, manga, or physical trading card, has any effects printed on it. (See also the Obelisk, Slifer, and Ra pages for details on their individual effects.)

In the anime and manga of Yu-Gi-Oh!, the three God Cards have the following in common:

Common statistics:
- Attribute: God (神)
- Level: 10
- Type: Divine Beast
  - In the manga, the Attributes of all three God Cards, and the Types of Obelisk and Ra are not stated; the Type of Slifer is "Dragon", first revealed by Yugi in Yu-Gi-Oh! manga Duel 173 and anime episode 66.
Common effects:
- All God Cards must be Normal Summoned by sacrificing three monsters as Tributes. This effect was first revealed in Yu-Gi-Oh! manga Duel 172 by Marik Ishtar and anime episode 54 by Seto Kaiba.
- God Cards are unaffected by the effects of Trap Cards. (See 'A note on "Spellbinding Circle"' and 'A note on "Erosion of the Earth"' below for explanations on possible contradictions to this effect.) This effect was first revealed by Kaiba in Yu-Gi-Oh! manga Duel 236 and anime episode 97.
- Control of the God Cards cannot be switched by the effects of Spell Cards. This effect was first revealed by Marik in Yu-Gi-Oh! manga Duel 176 and anime episode 67.
  - i.e., cards like "Change of Heart" (effect: receive control of 1 of your opponent's monster on the field till the End Phase of the turn) are useless against God Cards.
- God Cards cannot be possessed by the effects of Monster and/or Spell Cards. This was first shown in Yu-Gi-Oh! manga Duel 208, when the effect of the Monster Card "Dark Necrofear"Template:Ref was proved useless against Slifer.
  - Main effect of "Dark Necrofear" (in manga only): when "Dark Necrofear" is sent to the Graveyard, its soul will possess on 1 monster on your opponent's side of the field (chosen by the owner of "Dark Necrofear"). This owner can change the target of possession in each of his/her turn. Your opponent is not allowed to know the target of possession. When a possessed monster attacks, negate the attack and inflict damage of an amount equal to half the ATK (ATtacK points) of that monster on your opponent's Life Points. Also recover your Life Points by the same amount of points.
    - Note that in the anime (episode 84), this effect was carried out by the Field Spell Card "Dark Sanctuary" instead, and the "soul" that possessed other monsters was considered an Equip (Spell) Card.
  - The above two effects are preferential to the one below.
- The effects of Monster and/or Spell Cards can only affect God Cards for one turn. This was first revealed by Kaiba in Yu-Gi-Oh! manga Duel 236 and anime episode 97.
  - e.g., if you use the Spell Card "Monster Reborn" (effect: Special Summon from either player's Graveyard 1 monster into your side of the field) to resurrect Ra, it will be sent back to the Graveyard at the end of the turn that you use "Monster Reborn"'.

A note on "Spellbinding Circle"

In Yu-Gi-Oh! manga Duel 173 and anime episode 66, during the duel between Yugi and Marik's "mind slave" — the Pantomimer (Strings in the English anime), Yugi used the Trap Card "Spellbinding Circle"Template:Ref (effect (in anime/manga only): a chosen monster on the field cannot attack; its ATK is lowered by 700 points.) against Slifer. Although the effect of "Spellbinding Circle" was negated after one turn, being a Trap Card, it did affect Slifer. One may then conclude that the effect stated above is wrong. However, this is not true.

In fact, the reason behind this "contradiction" is that the author of Yu-Gi-Oh!, Kazuki Takahashi, somehow considers "Spellbinding Circle" as a Spell Card in the card game. Although the phrase "Trap Card" did appear on the "Spellbinding Circle" card in the manga, and all characters referred to it as a "Trap Card", it was still considered a Spell Card in terms of gameplay. Whether this contradiction is caused by that miswritten phrase, or that Takahashi forgets about what was indicated on the "Spellbinding Circle" card, or even that "Spellbinding Circle" is in fact a Spell Card with Trap properties is unknown.

In fact, similar problems have appeared before in Yu-Gi-Oh! manga. In Duel 96, during the double duel between Yugi-Jonouchi team and the Meikyu Brothers (Paradox Brothers in the English anime), bigger brother Mei (a.k.a. Para, who has the kanji "迷" on his forehead) used the Spell Card "Release Spell"Template:Ref (魔法解除. Effect: negate all Spell effects received from your opponent.) to destroy Yugi's "Spellbinding Circle" card (still indicated as "Trap Card"). However, unlike the previous case, this time the "contradiction" did not appear in the anime, as what was used in the anime (episode 21) was the Spell Card "Remove Trap" (effect: destroy 1 face-up Trap Card on the field.) instead.

A note on "Erosion of the Earth"

In Yu-Gi-Oh! manga Duel 340, during the duel between Yugi and the nameless Pharaoh, Yugi attempted to use the Trap Card "Cracked Hatchet" (皹割れゆく斧. Effect: For every turn this card spent in face-down position, decrease the ATK of 1 monster on the field by 500 points.) to decrease Obelisk's ATK. The Trap Card did work on Obelisk and this is clearly another contradiction to the effect stated above.

In fact, this contradiction is widely considered a true contradiction — a mistake made by Takahashi. And during the same duel in Yu-Gi-Oh! anime episode 221, this card was replaced by another Trap Card (yes, still a Trap) "Erosion of the Earth" (大地の浸蝕) which, instead of targeting Obelisk himself, targeted the "Monster Card Zone" he was staying in, thus bypassing Obelisk's Trap-negating effect.

(Effect of the Continuous Trap Card "Erosion of the Earth" translated from the text printed on the card: In each of your Standby Phases, put 1 Turn Counter on this card. Offer this card with Turn Counter(s) to a sacrifice to select 1 Monster Card Zone on your opponent's side of the field. During the rest of the Duel, for each Turn Counter put on this card, the ATK of a monster staying on the selected Monster Card Zone is decreased by 500 points. All effects of this monster are sealed( meaning even if Obelisk had an effect of negeting it, his own effect would be negated). The effects of this card apply to all monsters staying on that Monster Card Zone.)

The real God Cards

The real God Cards have three versions. The first one is printed in Japanese, the second one in Japanese and English, and the third one in English only.

The first version of the God Cards was released by Konami as a privilege for those who made a pre-order of the Japanese GBC game Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters 4: Battle of Great Duelist (遊戯王デュエルモンスターズ4 最強決闘者戦記(バトルオブグレイトデュエリスト)) released on December 7, 2000. The second version was released by Konami on April 17, 2003 as special pack-in cards in the GBA game Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters International — Worldwide Edition (遊戯王デュエルモンスターズインターナショナル～ワールドワイドエディション～), the Japanese version of the English GBA game Yu-Gi-Oh! Worldwide Edition: Stairway to the Destined Duel.

Unlike the previous versions, the third version of the God Cards was not released in one time. One of them, "The Winged Dragon of Ra", was included as a limited edition card in the XBox game Yu-Gi-Oh! The Dawn of Destiny, released on March 23, 2004 by Konami. Another one, "Slifer the Sky Dragon", was released as a special pack-in card for the first 100,000 copies of the ani-manga of Yu-Gi-Oh! The Movie: Pyramid of Light published on November 23, 2004 by VIZ Media. The last one, "Obelisk the Tormentor", is currently being released (as of May 2005) as a free gift given to the subscribers of Shonen Jump.

The real God Cards, regardless of which version, are ILLEGAL in all official tournaments. This is mainly due to the following reasons:

Their backs are different from that of other cards. In Duel Monsters, all cards have brown edges on their backs. However, for God Cards, the colors of their edges are the same as that of their front backgroundsTemplate:Ref. Also, all real English Version Duel Monsters cards have the YU-GI-OH! TRADING CARD GAME logos at the bottom right-hand corners on their backs. However, God Cards do not have this logo.
They have text at the bottom left-hand corners that clearly states that they cannot be used in official duels. (For the first and second versions, the text reads "公式デュエルには使用できません"Template:Ref, lit. "it cannot be used in official Duels"; for the third version, it reads "this card cannot be used in a Duel".) For this reason, the effects of the God Cards are not written on them (it's just background info in the Card Description boxes), and Konami doesn't even bother to list them on the Forbidden Card List, as they are released simply for collection and trading purposes only.

Notes

Template:Note Dark Necrofear is known as "Dark Necrophilia" (ダーク・ネクロフィリア/ダーク・ネクロフィア) in the Japanese Yu-Gi-Oh! anime and manga.
Template:Note Spellbinding Circle is known as "Spellbinding of Hexagram" (六芒星の呪縛) in the Japanese Yu-Gi-Oh! anime and manga.
Template:Note Although the picture on the "Release Spell" card is almost the same as that of another Spell Card "De-Spell" (魔法除去), these two cards have different names and effects. While "De-Spell" is a card in the real Yu-Gi-Oh! card game, "Release Spell" exists only in manga.
Template:Note In the real Yu-Gi-Oh! card game, Ritual Monster Cards are color-coded "blue", Effect Monster Cards are color-coded "orange", while Normal Monster Cards are color-coded "yellow". The Obelisk card has a blue background, but this "blue" is deeper than that of Ritual Monster Cards; the Slifer card has an orange background, but this "orange" is deeper than that of Effect Monster Cards; the Ra card has a yellow background, but this "yellow" is fresher than that of Normal Monster Cards.
Template:Note These are the only words written in Japanese on the second version of the God Cards. All other text are written in English.