Psychic

Psychic (Japanese: サイキック Sakikku) monsters had their debut in The Duelist Genesis, and they are used by Sayer in Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's. Psychic-Types often resemble cyberpunk androids, cybernetically-enhanced humans, or strange mutants, and often feature elements of cyberspace, circuit board patterns, green coloring, and yellow electricity in their art. It is worth noting that many Psychic-Type monsters resemble what in the past were Machine-Type, Fiend-Type, or Spellcaster-Type monsters (such as "Mutant Mindmaster", "Kinetic Soldier", "Mind on Air" and especially "Jinzo").

Up until Extreme Victory, the majority of their effects and Spell Cards involved paying Life Points to activate powerful effects, while the Synchro Monsters and Trap Cards focused heavily upon restoring Life Points. The tendency of a Psychic-user's Life Points to change rapidly during a Duel allow a cunning player to make the most of cards such as "Megamorph" and optional cards that require Life Point payment, like "Solemn Judgment".

From Extreme Victory onwards, Psychic-Type monsters and their support cards switched focus to manipulating banishment, through banishing Psychic-Type monsters to activate effects, Special Summoning banished Psychic-Type monsters, and returning banished Psychic-Type monsters to the hand or Graveyard.

Psychic-Type monsters also support a heavy Synchro element with cards like "Emergency Teleport", "Mind Master" and "Overdrive Teleporter". They contain many notable Synchro Monsters, including "Thought Ruler Archfiend", "Magical Android", "Hyper Psychic Blaster", and "Overmind Archfiend". Currently there is no pure Psychic archetype, though half of the "Gusto" and "Ritual Beast" archetype are composed of Psychic-type monsters.

Prominent Psychic-Type monsters include "Mind Master", "Psychic Commander", "Silent Psychic Wizard", "Thought Ruler Archfiend", "Serene Psychic Witch", "Overdrive Teleporter", "Esper Girl", "Hushed Psychic Cleric", "Psychic Jumper", "Psi-Blocker", and "Ghost Ogre & Snow Rabbit".

Life Point Manipulation
Older Psychic Decks focus on a combination of the manipulation of Life Points and swarming. When played properly, they can be one of the most versatile and unpredictable types in the game, considering their ability to summon powerful monsters in short amounts of time. While most of the Life Point payment costs (or damage in some card's case) are somewhat hefty, they're often wield powerful effects that is totally worth the payoff. For example, "Overdrive Teleporter" can Summon 2 monsters from the Deck at once, "Destructotron" can obliterate all backrow cards, "Telekinetic Power Well" can Summon multiple monsters at once from the Graveyard, and "Mind Master" (now Forbidden) enable most OTK moves and loops.

Because some of the Psychic support cards make you take Damage, ("Brain Research Lab", "Telekinetic Power Well", "Psychokinesis", etc.) "Prime Material Dragon", "Life Absorbing Machine", and "Rainbow Life" are three highly recommended cards. It can turn "Psychokinesis" into a +1, get you at least 3000 Life Points from "Brain Research Lab", and other random effects that would do damage. "Prime Material Dragon's" anti-destruction effect will prove very useful, too.

Synchrocentric Psychic
This type is the most common types of Psychic decks, utilizing cards like "Serene Psychic Witch", "Overdrive Teleporter", "Hushed Psychic Cleric" along with its numerous selection of Tuners, coupled with Spell support such as "Emergency Teleport", "Brain Research Lab" and "Telekinetic Power Well" to Synchro Summon multiple Synchro Monsters at once (both Psychic and non-Psychic).

Because of the enormous latent Synchro Summoning potential of Psychic-Types as a whole, this type of Deck can be the most powerful among the Psychic builds. This Deck type also capable of Synchro Summoning overpowered yet hard to utilize Synchro Monsters such as "Stardust Warrior", "Shooting Star Dragon", "Red Nova Dragon", or even "Shooting Quasar Dragon" (If built and played correctly).

Psychic Synchro Fusion
Now possible due to the release of Duelist Revolution, a Psychic deck that focuses on Fusion Summoning is built to bring out the only Psychic-Type Fusion Monster, "Ultimate Axon Kicker". However, in order to do this, Psychic-Type Synchro Monsters are needed because "Ultimate Axon Kicker" requires at least one of the Fusion Material Monsters to be a Psychic-Type Synchro Monster.

Also new from Duelist Revolution is a new Spell Card for Fusion Summoning with: "Miracle Synchro Fusion", which allows the user to Fusion Summon using Fusion Material Monsters from their side of the Field or their Graveyard as long as the Fusion Monster they're summoning lists a Synchro Monster as one of the Fusion Material Monsters. This makes it easy for the deck to Fusion Summon "Ultimate Axon Kicker" at almost any time, especially late in a game when the deck has Synchro Summoned multiple times already and one or more of the Psychic-Type Synchro Monsters are sitting in the Graveyard just waiting to be fused with. It also allows other Fusion Monster with the similar requirement to be utilized in this deck as well.

Interdimensional Psychic
There are various Psychic-Type monsters whose effects revolve around banishing each other and gain various effects when either banished or Special Summoned from Banished Zone.

The general goal of this variation of Psychic-types is to use "Serene Psychic Witch", "Silent Psychic Wizard" and "Hushed Psychic Cleric" to banish Tuner monsters such as "Esper Girl" and "Mental Seeker" and then Special Summon them.

This deck type has the potential to be very threatening as it allows the user to quickly swarm the field with powerful Synchro Monsters, while providing a good defensive base with cards such as "Mind Over Matter" and potentially banishing vital cards via "Mental Seeker".

A deck built to use these effects will use cards that can quickly put Psychics into the graveyard for "Silent Psychic Wizard" and "Hushed Psychic Cleric" to utilize.

Grandsoil Psychics
After the release of Return of the Duelist, Psychic Decks can now add a new powerful boss monster to their already potent arsenal, "Grandsoil the Elemental Lord". Due to most of the Psychic-Type monsters from Extreme Victory being EARTH-Attribute and the fact that these cards can control the number of monsters in the Graveyard by banishing them, getting exactly 5 monsters to summon "Grandsoil" becomes very feasible. Grandsoil's 2800 ATK straight from the the hand and his effect that basically acts as a "Monster Reborn" can quickly give you enough field presence to back your opponent into a corner or even OTK them.

To facilitate the summoning of "Grandsoil the Elemental Lord", it is recommended to use multiple EARTH monsters in the Deck like "Giant Rat" to supplement the Psychic-Type Monsters you will already be using. "Gigantes" can be especially useful as a 1900 ATK beatstick that can be instantly Special Summoned. Not only that, but he can set up the Graveyard to summon "Grandsoil" and even destroy all of your opponents Spell and Trap Cards if he is destroyed by battle. He works great in baiting out pesky traps like "Bottomless Trap Hole" or dealing with cards like "Skill Drain" or "Necrovalley".

This type of Deck will typically have a high number of Monster Cards and a very low (if non-existent) number of Trap Cards. Use of "Hand Traps" such as "Maxx "C"" (which is also Earth-attribute to help summon "Grandsoil'.) and "Tragoedia" or "Swift Scarecrow" will help disrupt your opponent and protect you from OTK moves.

Counter Strategies

 * Vanity's Emptiness: Blocks Special Summon, also disrupting key cards like "Emergency Teleport" and "Overdrive Teleporter"


 * DNA Surgery: Most Psychic-Type monsters need to be Psychic-Type monsters for their effects to work. (i.e. "Thought Ruler Archfiend" protection effect, "Magical Android" LP restoration effect).


 * Zombie World: Same as "DNA Surgery", but also prevents the Tribute Summoning of "Overdrive Teleporter".


 * Necrovalley: Negates any card effect that interacts with cards in the Graveyard, also prevents any effect that would banish cards from the Graveyard, such as "Psychic Lifetrancer", "Silent Psychic Wizard", "Hushed Psychic Cleric", along with "Miracle Synchro Fusion", "Grandsoil the Elemental Lord" and "Redox, Dragon Ruler of Boulders".


 * Imperial Iron Wall: Stops any banishment attempts, including their key searcher, "Serene Psychic Witch".

Trivia

 * Psychic-type is the only type that contains only 1 Normal Monsters, Risebell the Summoner.


 * Most universal Psychic-Type monster features is usually composed of either mutants, energy burst in electricity form, advanced technologies, etc. However, despite being Psychic-based archetype, "Gusto" and "Ritual Beast" archetype features none of those characteristics (except the green color scheme associated to most Psychics).
 * However, the two aforementioned archetype's background revolves towards "communicating with nature/spirits", which associated to more "primal" aspect of Psychics, instead of more "futuristic" aspect featured in most non-archetypal Psychic cards.


 * Most of the early Psychics are EARTH Attribute. From Generation Force onwards, especially after the release of Lord of the Tachyon Galaxy, they're leaning towards WIND Attribute instead.
 * So far, there are no FIRE attribute Psychic-Type monsters.