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In the anime and manga Yu-Gi-Oh!, God Cards, a.k.a. Egyptian God Cards, are three all-powerful Duel Monsters cards created by Pegasus J. Crawford (Maximillion Pegasus) after the mysterious Shadi showed him an ancient stone carving of three ancient creatures, the Divine Beasts (幻神獣 Genshinjū, lit. Phantom God-Beasts), surrounding the Millennium Puzzle.
The three Divine Beasts (and thus, the three God Cards) are Obelisk the Tormentor, Slifer the Sky Dragon, and The Winged Dragon of Ra. Each of these Divine Beasts represents two poles in the universe: Obelisk represents light and darkness, Slifer represents goodness and evil, and Ra represents heaven and earth.
According to legend, those who own all three God Cards shall acquire the title of the "Duel King". The God Cards are also the key to the nameless Pharaoh (Dark Yugi)'s lost memories.
Although the God Cards seems to be normal pieces of cardstock, in the anime and manga they possess the actual powers of the Divine Beasts they represent. Furthermore, the nature of the God cards is based upon the heart of its controller: Should one with an evil heart use them in a duel, they may capable of taking their opponent's life. For this reason, they are described as the "ultimate weapons" in duels. God Cards become a focal point later in the series.
Abilities shared by all three God Cards
N.B.: The effects explained in this section are only inferences based on what is seen or heard in the various versions of Yu-Gi-Oh!; other interpretations of the cards may be possible. No version of any of the God Cards, whether anime, manga, or physical trading card, has any effects printed on it. (See also the Obelisk, Slifer, and Ra pages for details on their individual effects.)
In the card game, the three God Cards have the following effects in common:
- Attribute(real card only): God(神); Level: 10; Type(real card only): Divine Beast (In the manga, the Attribute of all three God Cards, and the Monster Type of Obelisk and Ra are not stated; the Monster Type of Osiris is "Dragon".)
- All God Cards must be Normal Summoned by sacrificing three monsters as Tributes.
- God Cards are unaffected by Trap effects. (See note below)
- The control of the God Cards cannot be shifted by Spell effects. i.e., cards like "Change of Heart" (effect: receive control of 1 of your opponent's monster on the field till the End Phase of the turn) are useless against God Cards.
- God Cards cannot be possessed by Monster or Spell effects. This was shown in the manga when the effect of the Monster Card "Dark Necrophilia" (ダーク・ネクロフィリア/ ネクロフィア; a.k.a. "Dark Necrofear") was proved useless against Osiris. (Main effect of "Dark Necrophilia"(in manga only): when Dark Necrophilia is sent to the Graveyard, its soul will possess on 1 monster on your opponent's side of the field (chosen by the owner of the Necrophilia card). This owner can change the target of possession in each of his/her turn. Your opponent is not allowed to know the target of possession. When a possessed monster attacks, negate the attack and inflict damage equal to half the ATK (ATtacK points) of that monster on your opponent's Life Points. Also recover your Life Points by the same points.) Note that in the anime, this effect was carried out by the Field Spell Card "Dark Sanctuary" instead, and the soul possessing other monsters was considered an Equip (Spell) Card.
The above two abilities are preferential to the one below.
- Monster or Spell effects can only affect God Cards for 1 turn. e.g., if you use the Spell Card "Monster Reborn" (effect: Special Summon from either player's Graveyard 1 monster into your side of the field) to resurrect Ra, it will be sent back to the Graveyard at the end of the turn that you use "Monster Reborn".
A note on Spellbinding Hexagram
In both the manga and anime of Yu-Gi-Oh!, during the duel between Yugi Mutou (Yugi Moto) and Malik Ishtar's (Marik Ishtar) "mind slave" - the "Pantomime" (パントマイマー; a.k.a. Strings), Yugi used the Trap Card "Spellbinding Hexagram" (六芒星の呪縛, a.k.a. "Spellbinding Circle". Effect(in anime/manga only): a chosen monster on the field cannot attack; its ATK is lowered by 700 points.) to stop Osiris's attack. Although "Hexagram"'s effect was negated after 1 turn, it did affected Osiris. One may then conclude that the ability stated above is wrong. However, this is not true.
In fact, the reason behind this "contradiction" is that the author of Yu-Gi-Oh!, Kazuki Takahashi, somewhat considers "Hexagram" as a Spell Card in the card game. Although the phrase "Trap Card" did appeared on the "Hexagram" card in the manga, and all characters referred to it as a "Trap Card", it was still considered a Spell Card in terms of gameplay. Whether this contradiction is caused by that miswritten phrase, or that Mr. Takahashi forgets about what was indicated on the "Hexagram" card, or even that "Hexagram" is in fact a Spell Card with Trap properties(!) is unknown.
In fact, similar problems have appeared before in Yu-Gi-Oh! manga. In the double duel between Yugi-Jonouchi team and the Paradox Brothers, the big brother of the brothers (the one with the Chinese word "迷" on his forehead) used "Release Spell" (魔法解除. Effect: negate all Spell effects received from your opponent. Note: the picture on this card is almost the same as that of "De-Spell" (魔法除去), but these two cards have different names and effects.) to destroy Yugi's "Hexagram" card (still indicated as "Trap Card"). However, unlike the previous case, this time the "contradiction" did not appear in the anime, as what was used there was the card "Remove Trap" (effect: destroy 1 face-up Trap Card on the field.) instead.
The real God Cards
The God Cards were first released by Konami as special pack-in Japanese cards in the first version of the Japanese GBC game "Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters 4: Battle Record of the Strongest Duelists (最強決闘者戦記) Yugi/Kaiba/Jonouchi Version" in December 2000. They were released again by Konami in March 2003 as special pack-in cards in the Japanese GBA game "Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters International - Worldwide Edition" (Japanese version of another GBA game "Yu-Gi-Oh! Worldwide Edition - Stairway to the Destined Duel"), this time with both Japanese and English text printed on them.
The real God Cards, regardless of which version, are ILLEGAL in all official tournaments. This is mainly due to the following reasons:
- The background colors on their fronts are different from that of other Monster Cards. In the Duel Monsters card game, Ritual Monster Cards are color-coded blue, Effect Monster Cards are color-coded orange, while Normal Monster Cards are color-coded yellow. The Obelisk card has a blue background, but this "blue" is slightly deeper than that of Ritual Monster Cards; the Osiris card has an orange background, but this "orange" is slightly deeper than that of Effect Monster Cards; the Ra card has a yellow background, but this "yellow" is fresher than that of Normal Monster Cards.
- Their backs are different from that of other cards. In Duel Monsters, all cards have brown edges on their backs. However, for God Cards, the colors of their edges are the same as that of their backgrounds. Also, all real English Version Duel Monsters cards have the YU-GI-OH! TRADING CARD GAME logos in the right bottom corners on their backs. However, God Cards do not have this logo.
- They have the texts "公式デュエルには使用できません" (It cannot be used in official duels) printed in the bottom left corners on their fronts. For this reason, the effects of the God Cards are not written on them (it's just background info in the Card Description boxes), and Konami dosen't even bother to list them on the Forbidden Card List, as they are released simply for collection and trading purposes only.
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