Deck Out
Deck Out is one of the victory conditions in the Yu-Gi-Oh! OCG. When a player has no more cards in their deck and is required to draw card(s), then that player has decked out and is deemed to have lost the duel.
Ito Akira is a mangaka who had worked as an assistant to Takahashi Kazuki on the Yu-Gi-Oh! manga, illustrator of the Yu-Gi-Oh! R manga, and writer/illustrator of the Cardfight!! Vanguard manga. In a recent tweet (@Vg_akira), he recalled an old story while working on the Yu-Gi-Oh! manga.
When Studio Dice members were discussing on how to defeat Slifer the Sky Dragon, Takahashi-san came up with the idea of “using an infinite loop to deck out and achieve victory”. However, the OCG rule at that time was if the deck ran out of cards, the game is voided and is considered as a draw. “Eh, it’s not a defeat?” “I wasn’t prepared with my cards, so shouldn’t it be my loss?” “I know, right!” So we proceeded with the serialization with this idea, and it was later decided that the OCG rule would be changed.
The duel between Yami Yugi and Pantomimer started in “Duel 171: Fight of the Millennium!” was first published in Weekly Jump 2000 No.20 which went on sale on 17 April 2000.
The OCG changed from “Expert Rule” to “New Expert Rule” (which introduced the new Deck Out rule) with the release of Magic Ruler on 20 April 2000.
Interesting.
Is the comment about “Deck out originally resulted in a draw” true? Several Japanese sources, such the Japanese Yu-Gi-Oh wiki and the yugioh-history.com blog, claim that under the original OCG rules, the player with higher LP would win at the time of a Deck Out.
It is likely they had the details mixed up.
From the Starter Box rulebook:
2. If each player’s Life Points reach 0 at the same time, the Duel is considered a draw.
In addition, if either player’s Deck is emptied and said player cannot draw anymore, the outcome of the Duel is decided by the remaining Life Points. In that case, the player with more Life Points at the moment said player’s Deck is emptied wins the Duel.
very cool, I remember it from the anime
Deck out is my favourite alternative win condition. Great article!