Help: Xyz Monsters

This is part of a series of articles on the Yu-Gi-Oh! Trading Card Game, written to assist players participating in the Cup of Greed tournament, hosted by Pod of Greed (the only podcast officially sponsored by KaibaCorp).

 

Welcome to Zexal, nerds! The tyranny of WHITE is over: you can now summon the servants of the BLACK ORB. We call them Xyz Monsters.

Xyz Summoning isn't hard - in fact it's much simpler than Synchro Summoning - but Xyz Monsters do have a few quirks.

Summoning an Xyz Monster

An Xyz Summon requires two or more face-up monsters, all with the same Level. These monsters are stacked on top of each other, and the Xyz Monster is placed on top of the stack.

Let's take Leviair the Sea Dragon from the top of the page as an example. The first line of text in the effect box describes how to summon it: "2 Level 3 monsters". So you would need two (and only two) face-up monsters that are Level 3. The Level requirement for an Xyz Monster always matches the Rank (number of stars) the Xyz Monster has.

There's no need for Tuners, making Xyz overall more flexible than Synchro. However, you cannot use Tokens for an Xyz Summon. There's some gameplay justification for this, which I'll explain shortly, but for the most part I think it was an arbitrary stab at 'balance' by Konami.

Properties of Xyz Monsters

An Xyz Monster has a Rank (black star orbs) rather than a Level (red star orbs). This means that anything that makes reference to a Level does not work on and does not apply to Xyz Monsters. For example, Gravity Bind does not prevent Xyz Monsters from attacking, and Magical Exemplar can't Special Summon back a Spellcaster-Type Xyz Monster.

More important are the Xyz Materials. I've said that you stack the monsters used for an Xyz Summon on top of each other, but I haven't explained why. These monsters become "Xyz Materials" (just called "materials" on more modern printings, and called "Overlay Units" in the anime), and are attached to the Xyz Monster as long as it's on the field (even if it's flipped face-down). These Xyz Materials are then detached (sent to the Graveyard) to activate the Xyz Monster's effects. This puts a limit on how many times an Xyz Monster can use its effects, and also makes an Xyz Monster unable to use its effects if it's been revived from the Graveyard as opposed to having been newly Xyz Summoned.

Xyz Materials

Xyz Materials behave strangely. They exist in a nebulous state where they are not on the field, but are not seen as having left the field despite not being on it. This means that effects that activate when a monster "leaves the field" (like Reborn Tengu, released in Extreme Victory) do not activate when a monster is used for an Xyz Summon. And since an Xyz Material isn't on the field, detaching an Xyz Material doesn't count as sending the monster from the field to the Graveyard, so the effect of a monster like Sangan also doesn't activate. By contrast, Dandylion, which activates when sent to the Graveyard without specifying a previous location, activates as normal.

The fact that an Xyz Material isn't on the field is probably the justification for why Tokens can't be used for an Xyz Summon, since Tokens disappear when they leave the field.

Another interesting quirk about Xyz Materials is that, since at no point in its life as an Xyz Material does it ever "leave the field", becoming an Xyz Material circumvents the clauses of monsters that "banish this card when it leaves the field", like Plaguespreader Zombie and Genex Ally Birdman, letting you put them back in the Graveyard and use them again.

So there you go. More than you probably needed to know about Xyz Monsters. You may have noticed I never explained what "Xyz" is means. The truth is...it's a secret to everyone. If anyone at Konami knows, they're taking the secret to the grave.