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Armor monsters are an archetype of monsters exclusive to the Yu-Gi-Oh! second series anime. Armor monsters can be recognized by the fact that, where on a normal Effect Monster it would read "Effect", Armor monsters have "Armor".
Valon uses these cards during the Waking the Dragons story arc (Season 4). He often sacrifices parts of his armor to inflict damage to his opponent, or weaken his/her monsters.
All Armor monsters share two effects: only one Armor monster can attack per turn, and if there are two or more Armor monsters on a player's side of the field and one of them is declared as an attack target, that player can change the target to another Armor monster he/she controls.
Most Armor monsters have 0 ATK and thus are ill-suited to attacking (with the exception of "Buster Knuckle" and "Burning Knuckle" due to their ATK-boosting effects). Instead, Armor monsters focus on using effect damage and destroying the opponent's monsters with their effects. Because they are most effective when together, Armor monsters can use "Gravitation" cards to Summon themselves en masse. All Armor monsters besides "Double Cloth Armor" are Level 4 or lower. The central monster to this Deck is "Psychic Armor Head", which allows the player to add Armor monsters to their hand during their Draw Phase and is required to be on the field to active the mentioned Gravitation cards.
In the anime, they are displayed by equipping onto the Duelist who plays them, rather than by becoming monsters. The Duelist then physically attacks his opponent's monsters himself. Also, "Psychic Armor Head", while active, gives the user certain information (card's effects, success probability, suggested offense etc.); though whether the success probability information is accurate information or not is unknown (this is similar to Duel Runner's helmet's).
The cards thematically are very similar to the "Meklord Emperors", another series monsters that rely on combining different "parts" to become stronger, and represent themselves in the anime as forming one large monster when summoned together.
Also interestingly enough, the armor cards and the attaching of it do share a striking similarity to the Saint Seiya (Knights of the Zodiac) series.
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