Yu-Gi-Oh Card Rarities Explained

Yu-Gi-Oh has noticeably more rarity tiers than other card games, and the easiest way to tell them apart is the card name text at the top: its colour and how it catches light.

Common is the base tier, with plain black name text. Rare has silver reflective name text.

Super Rare adds foil to the artwork, while Ultra Rare uses gold reflective name text. These two cover most of the cards that carry real value.

Secret Rare uses a rainbow-reflective treatment on the name and sits high in almost every set, and Prismatic Secret Rare is a further step above that.

Starlight Rare is the scarcest tier in modern sets, pulled at very low rates, and is usually the most valuable card in its set.

You will also see Short Print, which is not a rarity as such but means a card was printed in smaller numbers than others at the same tier, pushing its price above what the rarity suggests.

The same caveat applies as in every game: rarity is not price. A Common that a competitive deck needs can be expensive, and a high-rarity card nobody plays goes nowhere. Open the page for the exact version you hold and read the market price.