Terrain is a mechanic in which gameplay on Zones of the playing field is affected by the area of land they cover, usually by granting a Field Power Bonus. In the manga and anime this concept was used during the Duelist Kingdom tournament. In is also used in some video games. This concept is not used in the OCG/TCG, although a number of Field Spell Cards are based on it.
In Yu-Gi-Oh! Forbidden Memories, Field Spell Cards create terrains that increase or decrease a monster's ATK and DEF by 500. Depending on the location, a terrain may already be in place.
Yu-Gi-Oh! The Duelists of the Roses is played on a grid and each tile has its own terrain.
List of terrains[]
| Terrain | Effect | Image |
|---|---|---|
| Normal | The default terrain. | |
| Night | In the manga and anime, this powered-up DARK monsters and made them invisible to the opponent. In video games, this powers up and weakens the same monsters as "Yami". | 
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| Mountain | This powers up and weakens the same monsters as "Mountain". | 
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| Meadow | This powers up and weakens the same monsters as "Sogen". | 
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| Forest | This powers up and weakens the same monsters as "Forest". | 
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| Desert | This powers up and weakens the same monsters as "Wasteland". | 
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| Ocean/Sea | This powers up and weakens the same monsters as "Umi". In the anime and manga, it was also uninhabitable by non-water-based monsters. | 
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| Toon | This terrain only exists in Yu-Gi-Oh! The Duelists of the Roses. It powers up Toon Monsters and weakens all other monsters. | |
| Crush | This terrain only exists in Yu-Gi-Oh! The Duelists of the Roses. It strengthens all Immortal-Type monsters. Any other monsters with 1500 or more ATK on this terrain are destroyed. | |
| Labyrinth | In the manga and anime, the Labyrinth terrain is created by playing "Labyrinth Wall". With this in play, cards are played on a grid with paths dictated by walls. Monsters can move a number of squares up to their Level once per turn, except monsters with the flying ability, which are immobile.
In Yu-Gi-Oh! The Duelists of the Roses gameplay is already like this and Labyrinth squares cannot be entered by most monsters. |
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Cards which affect terrains[]
Field Spell Cards can change the terrain in video games that use this mechanic. In the manga and anime, Field Spells had not been introduced at this point.
In the anime and manga, the following cards were shown to affect the terrain:
- The fireball attack from "Winged Dragon, Guardian of the Fortress #1" is able to light up the Night field for a second, making the opponent's DARK monsters visible.
- "Swords of Revealing Light" can completely light-up the Night terrain, revealing the opponent's monsters.
- "Burning Land" can be used in conjunction with "Curse of Dragon" to burn away certain terrains.
- "Full Moon"/"Mystical Moon" can raise tide levels, causing the Ocean terrain to spread to more Zones. Destroying "Full Moon"/"Mystical Moon" causes them to drastically drop.
- "Shadow Ghoul" could be fused with the Labyrinth terrain to create "Wall Shadow". "Wall Shadow" could move through the walls and more spaces than its Level. The Labyrinth remains intact when "Wall Shadow" is destroyed.
- "Magical Labyrinth" can be used to rearrange the walls of the Labyrinth.
- "Dungeon Worm" can tunnel under the "Labyrinth".
In Yu-Gi-Oh! The Duelists of the Roses the following cards affect terrains:
- "Labyrinth Tank" and "Dungeon Worm" can move on Labyrinth squares. "Shadow Ghoul" can also move on Labyrinth squares, and will transform into "Wall Shadow" when it does.
- "Barrel Rock" and "Dharma Cannon" can enter Labyrinth spaces and will turn that space into normal terrain when they do.
In Yu-Gi-Oh! Dark Duel Stories the following cards affect terrains:
- "Giant Soldier of Stone" can destroy any Field.
In the Toei anime[]
The first series anime uses a field similar to the Duelist Kingdom. This field has several different terrains on it such as Graveyard, Dark Forest, Lake, Desert, Wasteland, Forest, Mountains, Darkness, etc. It also has a Volcano, a Village, a Meadow and a bit of Ocean witch were not named in the anime. There are also different field mats with different terrains, so no two fields are alike.
As in the second series, different monsters gain benefits from different terrains.
- Zombies in the Graveyard
- Fiends in the Drakforest
- Dragons in the Lake
- Beasts in the Forest
Specific cards are also powered up in specific terrains, such as Neon Knight, which gets a boost from the thunder of the Mountain terrain.
There are also monsters that can alter the terrains with their effects, allowing the duelists to change the fields as they please. Such as:
- Chimera can turn a terrain into Wasteland with its fire breath.
- Shadowman can turn the terrain into Darkness with its dark sword.
