Yu-Gi-Oh! Cards
Konami's trading card game swept US schoolyards in the early 2000s, rivaling Pokémon for card-game dominance. Players dueled with powerful monsters — Blue-Eyes White Dragon, Dark Magician, and the feared five-piece Exodia combo — and the phrase "It's time to duel!" echoed through lunch periods. Teachers confiscated decks, and schools debated bans.
Yu-Gi-Oh! originated as a manga series and spawned Konami's collectible card game, which hit US schoolyards in 2002 — distributed stateside under license by the Upper Deck Company. The game centered on dueling with Monster, Spell, and Trap cards — strategic depth with high-impact cards that became iconic among kids: Blue-Eyes White Dragon, Dark Magician, and the Exodia instant-win combo.
The game became a schoolyard institution, with kids trading cards between classes and dueling during lunch and recess. Like Pokémon before it, Yu-Gi-Oh! spread through schools like wildfire, leading some institutions to restrict or ban cards from campus — a badge of honor in early-2000s schoolyard culture.
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