The Game Mat

Every card you play or discard will be placed on the Game Mat. Every card has a specific type and can only be placed on its corresponding zone on the Game Mat.

Each Duelist needs their own Game Mat; place them together while Dueling.

Since some cards require you to place cards in zones that do not correspond to their specific type, and because the rules for target selection have changed, you cannot Duel in the tournament without using the Game Mat.

This is where you put your monsters when they're played. Up to 5 Monster cards can be played here at a time. There are 3 main ways to position your Monster Cards: face-up Attack Position, face-up Defense Position, and face-down Defense Position. Place the card vertically for Attack Position and horizontally for Defense Position.

This is where you put Magic and Trap Cards when they're activated. You can also place them face-down here. You can have up to 5 cards in this zone. Because a Magic card is placed in this zone when it is activated, no further Magic cards can be used if all 5 spaces are occupied already.

When Monster cards are destroyed, and when Magic & Trap Cards are used, they're sent face-down to this space. The contents of both Graveyards are not public knowledge; you cannot look through them at any time during the Duel; both you and your opponent must remember the cards sent to your Graveyard. If a card targets a card in a Graveyard, you must either remember what is in the Graveyard, guess, choose a random target, or specify "the top monster" or something similar. The Impartial Judge will verify the existence of a target and go through the Graveyard to retrieve cards when necessary. The order of cards in the Graveyard should not be changed.

Your Deck is placed face-down in this space. Players draw cards from here to their hands. Normally, if the contents of the Deck are revealed by a card effect, shuffle the Deck and put it back in this space after resolving the effect.

Special cards called "Field Cards" are played here and are NOT counted towards the 5-card limit of either the Monster Card Zone or the Magic & Trap Card Zone. Normally, only 1 Field Card can be active at a time, and whenever a new Field Card is activated, the previous active one is automatically destroyed.

All of your "Fusion Monsters" go in a separate Fusion Deck. Put it face-down in this space. You can only have up to 3 copies of the same card in your Fusion Deck, but there is no limit to the size of your Fusion Deck, and the cards in your Fusion Deck are NOT counted in the 40 card minimum limit of your Main Deck.