LogFAQs > #968353019

refmon posted...

Why does yugioh not have any keywords? Every card is just full of text

They have a few for gameplay mechanics ("banish" for removing from play, "piercing damage" for dealing battle damage when attacking a defense position monster, "excavate" for looking at the top cards of your deck) but not many. There are far too many different kinds of effects to be reasonably covered with keywords. For example:

"Destroy 1 monster."
"Target 1 monster; destroy it."
"Send 1 monster to the graveyard."
"Target 1 monster; send it to the graveyard."

All four of these wordings do completely different things and the difference between them can mean the difference between winning a game or losing. It's this kind of insane level of nuance that makes keywords not really work in Yu-Gi-Oh.