Spirit monster

Spirit Monsters, originally as a rule, could not be Special Summoned, and are sent back to the owner's hand during the End Phase of the turn they are Normal Summoned, Flip Summoned, or flipped face-up. This also happens if they wound up in the opponent's hand via effects like Exchange. However, new Spirits have been released in The Duelist Genesis, one of which can be Special Summoned for a cost.

Spirit Monster Cards are designated by having "Spirit" in the place where "Effect" would be. They are also the first secondary type of Effect monsters to have this indicator (the Flip effect monsters prior to them simply had "FLIP:" at the beginning of their effects).

Many of the Spirit Monsters' designs were based on icons from Japanese mythology and they all have very similar backgrounds, supposedly of the spirit world.

One Spirit monster in particular, Yata-Garasu, is infamous for it's complete lockdown of the opponent's hand when combined with Chaos Emperor Dragon - Envoy of the End, and is believed to be the two card responsible for the forbidden list.

Play Style
Spirit monsters can only remain on the field temporarily (unless Set face-down), and thus their controllers run into a major problem of maintaining field presence, but many Spirit monsters have devastating special effects to make up for this deficiency. Mirror of Yata and Izanagi keep the spirits on the field permanently or until they are removed, making these cards a must for any spirit deck. There is a loophole with spirit monsters that let's them stay on the field regardless of their effect. Their effect states that they must return to the hand the turn that they're summoned. If they stay on the field for more than one turn (say Hino-Kagu-Tsuchi is equipped with Mirror of Yata, you end your turn, your opponent plays Heavy Storm and destroys Mirror of Yata, Hino-Kagu-Tsuchi stays on the field because it's effect saysThis card returns to the owner's hand the turn it is Normal Summoned or flipped face-up. so you don't have to worry about him returning to your hand. Two of the strongest Spirit Monsters(Hino-Kagu-Tsuchi and Yamata Dragon) focus on maintaining a significant hand advantage over the opponent, and when combined with Spiritual Energy Settle Machine or other effects like Dimensionhole that allow them to remain on the field, they can easily turn the tide of any duel in their favor. Though it wasn't an option in the past, there is currently enough Spirit support for decks entirely themed around them to be viable. Because Spirit monsters return to the player's hand, the player runs the risk of having to many cards during the End Phase, forcing a discard, so Infinite Cards is an effective way to counter this problem. Cards like Exchange, Creature Swap, and Mystic Box are staples.

A commonly used card with Spirits is Mausoleum of the Emperor, which allows users to pay a life point cost to get high-level Spirit monsters out without tribute. Trap Monsters are also often used either as tributes or as a method of maintaining a field defense when the Spirits leave the field.

Their effects range from Beatdown, direct attack, hand control, and even field control, making a dedicated spirit deck very flexible regardless of what the opponent has. However, due to their habit of returning to the hand, cards that make you discard will be a serious hamper, as Spirit Monsters in general are rather useless in the Graveyard. Cards that recover discarded cards are thus suggested, but not recommended as Spirit Monsters do not have much in the way of deck thinning. Once the problem of field presence is resolved, spirit monsters can be quite annoying as well as devastating, since it is hard for the opponent to destroy them, and even with cards that forces discards, it is hard to target a particular spirit monster (unless a card like Card Destruction is used). This is particularly true for Inaba White Rabbit, as it can attack directly while avoiding opponent's counterattacks, making it quite annoying as well as devastating (Inaba White Rabbit having one of the higher atks for a monster that can attack directly).