Basics of Spell Cards

Every Deck is made by Monster, Spell and Trap cards. While Monsters have the task of attacking your opponent and defending you from their attacks, Spells are used to strengthen your field and/or weaken the opponent's one. They are powerful cards that can alter the outcome of a duel at any time (Snatch Steal; Raigeki). Some duels can even be won with the use of a single Spell card. Spells usually take less than half of the Deck (around 10-15 cards), unless the strategy requires more than that (for example the Magical Explosion FTK Deck).



Layout
Spell cards differ from Monsters, the most notable difference being the green backing of the card. Let's examine the layout of the card to the left - Monster Reborn. This is one of the classical Spell Cards and is used in almost all kinds of decks.

Card Name
This part of the card contains only one significal change - the Attribute symbol is replaced by a Spell symbol, due to the fact that Spell and Trap cards do not have attributes.

Card Type
The Card Type is located where the Level could be found in Monster Cards - below the name. This piece of text signifies that the card is a Spell Card. Spell and Trap cards have different types which are indicated by an icon next to the "Spell Card" text, but they will be explained later on.

Card Artwork
The card artwork is also present here and shows the player a visual interpretation of the used card. Card Artworks can be changed due to a number of reasons. In Monster Reborn's case it's original artwork was that of an "Ankh" symbol, but was remade in order to avoid religious connotations and is currently only used only in the Japanese OCG.

Card Text box
Unlike the Monster card text box which provides the Type of the card in question Spell cards do not have Types and their text boxes serve only one purpose - providing the card effect.

Other elements
All basic card elements can also be seen in Spells. These include the Edition text, Set Number, Card Number, Copyright text and the Eye of Anubis Hologram.