DARK

DARK
Dark Icon
Japanese	闇 (やみ)
Japanese (ruby)	やみ
Japanese (base text)	闇
Japanese (romanized)	Yami
Japanese (translated)	Darkness
English	DARK
Other names French: TÉNÈBRES German: FINSTERNIS Italian: OSCURITÀ Portuguese: TREVAS Spanish: OSCURIDAD Korean: 어둠 Eodum Traditional Chinese: 闇 Àn / Am3 Arabic: ظلام
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DARK (闇 (やみ) Yami "Darkness"), monsters are perhaps the most favored of all monsters. Many well-known monsters are of the DARK attribute, such as "Dark Armed Dragon", "Jinzo" and most of the "Red-Eyes" series. Fiends and Zombies are usually of the DARK Attribute, and so are many Spellcasters such as "Reaper of Prophecy", "Dark Magician", and "Endymion, the Master Magician". Although LIGHT is the polar opposite of DARK, neither side has a true advantage over the other in general, although there are cards such as "Luminous Soldier", "Penumbral Soldier Lady", "Hoshiningen" and "Witch's Apprentice" which lower the stats of the opposing Attribute. The "Ally of Justice" archetype focuses heavily on DARK monsters that power up by destroying LIGHT monsters. DARK monsters have their own Structure Deck in the OCG, Structure Deck 12: Curse of Darkness. "Consecrated Light" also plays against the DARK Attribute by preventing them from being summoned or attacking at all while it is face up, as well as being unable to be destroyed by battle by any DARK monster.

Being one of the most versatile and common Attributes, DARK monsters and the cards akin to them can work with many different Deck Types, and rarely does a typical deck lack at least one. Because they are so widespread, DARK monsters have themes comparable to many other Attributes (for example, there are enough burn-damage DARK monsters to rival FIRE monsters). However, the one thing that DARK monsters specialize in more than any other Attribute are card effects relating to the Graveyard, often by using it as a resource in some way (though the predominately-DARK "Gravekeeper's" Archetype notably prevents the use of the Graveyard as a resource). Most other DARK monsters like "Blackwing" monsters have swarming abilities that allow you to summon monsters to your field to overwhelm your opponent by numbers in battle.

It should be noted that Monster's Attributes do not necessarily indicate any sense of morality, and DARK doesn't necessarily symbolizes evil, unholiness and vileness. This can be seen in monsters as Zure and the Dark Magician family that possess heroic and altruisic personality. Main characters such as Yugi, Joey, Kaiba, Jaden etc frequently use DARK monsters, and Yugi's and Joey's most favored monsters are DARK such as Dark Magician and Red-Eyes Black Dragon, respectively. Dark Magician Girl for example have positive personality despite being DARK monster. The "Ally of Justice" and "Destiny HERO archetypes are in fact good monsters that dedicate to fighting evil. Further, the "Blackwing" archetype, a DARK archetype, is used by one of the heroes in Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's, Crow Hogan. Most of the protagonists whether in the anime and manga use at least some DARK monsters. This is not necessarily true of all DARK monsters, however, as some DARK archetypes such as "lswarm" (which actually a majority of them are called "Evilswarm", further indicating they are evil) and "Dark World" clearly closer represent evil or immorality.

DARK-based archetypes include: "Archfiend", "Ally of Justice", "Blackwing", "Dark Magician", "Dark Scorpion", "Destiny HERO","Dark World", "Gagaga", "Ghostrick", "Gravekeeper's", "Infernity", "Inzektor", "lswarm", "Reptilianne" "Shaddoll", "Umbral Horror", "Vampire", "Burning Abyss" and "Raidraptor".

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