by Anyone familiar with Yugioh! will recognize the terms “garnet” and “brick.” Even in casual conversations these terms will often appear. Sometimes these words are even used synonymously. But, there are very important differences between these terms. Let’s take a closer look at garnet versus brick and investigate how they are different.
Stones and Stones
“Sticks and stones can break my bones…” Yes, well, garnets and bricks can break your combos, deck, and hands. “Garnets” and “bricks” are both an impediment to your game, in similar ways, but are both quite different. First: bricks. A “brick” in Yugioh! is any card that that shows up in your starting hand, or is hard drawn, that is of little to no use. It often inconvenient, but can sometimes be worked around. A brick is a a card that makes your hand heavy and hard or impossible to pull off your starting combo. It’s a card you do not want to see, or cannot use in your starting hand. The most common bricks are big monsters that you cannot summon or cards with redundant or useless effects when paired with other cards in your hand.
A good example of a brick is Blue-Eyes White Dragon. While this card is a classic, iconic, card, it can often be totally useless in your starting hand. If you have Blue-Eyes in you starting hand, but no way to get it out, it becomes a useless card in your hand. Having Blue-Eyes in your starting hand instead of your starter, it becomes a brick. Similarly, if you are playing a Blue-Eyes deck and draw into one or more copies of Trade-In but you have no access to your Dragon, Trade-In becomes a brick; a resource you cannot use. Blue-Eyes even earned the nickname “Brick-Eyes” in some circles.
HIdden Gem
Now, a “garnet” is like a “brick,” but much worse. Technically, a “garnet” is a type of “brick.” It is a brick in the sense that, you do not want to see a garnet in your starting hand. However, a garnet is much, MUCH worse than the average brick. When you “brick,” you can sometimes work around it and pull off an okay start, but not ideal. With a garnet, however, your entire game is destroyed if you draw one. But, how!? Let me explain.
In Yugioh!, the term “garnet” comes from the card Gem-Knight Garnet. You see, this card is a resourced used to bring out Gem-Knight Seraphinite using Brilliant Fusion. To use Brilliant Fusion, you must send materials from your Deck to the GY. So, if you have GK Garnet in your Hand, you cant send it to the GY for the Fusion. GK Garnet becomes a useless card in your hand that actually prevents you from activating other cards that are essential to your strategy. If you can’t get GK Seraphinite out, you can’t gain the advantage you need for the deck to get rolling. And since GK Garnet is a Normal Monster, there is little to no value in using it for anything else.
A “garnet” is a card that needs to remain in your Deck for your combos to actually work. If you have a “garnet” in your hand, your combo is dead in the water. A “brick” is card that severely slows you down and limits your options. So, the next time you see someone say, “I bricked!” you will know what they mean.
