Yu-Gi-Oh! Glossary

A quick reference for the terms you will run into on cards and in rulings. For the bigger picture, see the Beginner's Guide, Card Types, Summoning, and Battles & Chains guides.

Attack Directly: A monster attacks the opponent's Life Points instead of a monster, dealing damage equal to its ATK. This is normally only possible when the opponent controls no monsters, though some cards allow it anyway.
Banish: A banished card is set aside, separate from the field and the Graveyard. Banished cards return to their owner between Duels. A banished card later moved to the Graveyard is not considered to have been "sent to the Graveyard".
Battle / Battled: A monster is battling from the moment it attacks or is attacked. A card that requires a monster to have "battled" needs the attack to have reached the damage calculation portion of the Damage Step.
Battle Damage: Damage inflicted by an attacking monster or by a battle between monsters. This is different from effect damage dealt by a Monster, Spell, or Trap effect.
Control / Possess: Cards you "control" are those in your Monster, Spell & Trap, Field, and Pendulum Zones. Cards in your "possession" also include your hand, Decks, Graveyard, and banished cards. When a card leaves play, it returns to its original owner.
Cost: An action required to activate a card or effect or to summon a monster, for example paying LP, discarding, banishing, or Tributing. Costs are paid before activation and are not refunded even if the activation is negated. A cost is not part of the effect.
Counter: A marker placed on a card by an effect (such as a Spell Counter or Clock Counter). Counters can only be placed when a card effect allows it. Other than their names, counters have no inherent effect.
Destroy: A card is destroyed when it is sent to the Graveyard by battle or by a destroying effect. A card returned to the hand or Deck, or sent to the Graveyard as a cost or Tribute, is not "destroyed".
Discard: To send a card from your hand to the Graveyard, whether by a card effect or when reducing your hand to 6 during the End Phase.
Excavate: To reveal cards from the top of your Deck to both players and apply the effect that excavated them. Excavated cards are still treated as being in the Deck until the effect sends them elsewhere.
Leaves the Field: Covers a monster being sent to the Graveyard, banished, or returned to the hand or Extra Deck. Note that becoming an Xyz Material or being shuffled into the Main Deck is not "leaving the field" for the purpose of those effects.
Original ATK / DEF: The ATK or DEF printed on the card, not counting increases or decreases from Equip Spells or other effects.
Piercing Battle Damage: Damage equal to the difference between the attacking monster's ATK and a Defense Position monster's DEF, dealt to the opponent even though the defender was not in Attack Position.
Public Knowledge: Hand sizes, Deck counts, Graveyard contents, and each player's LP are public. You must answer truthfully if asked, and you may inspect your opponent's Graveyard (with permission) without changing its order.
Reveal: To show a card to both players. Revealing a card does not activate it or trigger a Flip effect; revealed cards normally return to their original position afterward.
Search: When an effect adds a card from your Deck to your hand (or Special Summons from your Deck), you look through your Deck for it, then shuffle. You cannot activate a search effect if no valid card exists in your Deck.
Send to the Graveyard: Moving a card to the Graveyard by destroying, discarding, Tributing, and other means. This triggers "when this card is sent to the Graveyard" effects (but moving a banished card to the Graveyard does not count as "sent").
Set: Playing a card face-down. A monster played face-down in Defense Position is Set; any face-down card on the field is a Set card.
Shuffle: Randomizing your Deck. You cannot look at the cards while shuffling, or arrange them and then shuffle.
Token: A monster created on the field by a card effect. Tokens are not part of the Deck, take up a Monster Zone, are treated as Normal Monsters, and are simply removed from the field if they would leave it. Tokens cannot be used as Xyz Material.
Tribute: Sending a monster you control to the Graveyard, often as a cost to Tribute Summon a high-Level monster or to activate an effect. A Tributed monster is not considered "destroyed".
Xyz Material: A monster attached beneath an Xyz Monster. Xyz Materials are not treated as cards on the field. When the Xyz Monster leaves the field, its materials go to the Graveyard, but if it is flipped face-down or taken by the opponent, the materials stay attached.