Excharge Monster

Excharge Monsters (Japanese: エクシチャージモンスター Ekusuchāji Monsutā) are a Type of that has a gold colored frame. They were introduced in Starter Deck 2023 in the and Starter Deck: Lightning Overcharge in the.

They start the Duel in the Extra Deck:
 * They cannot exist in the hand or the Main Deck; if an Excharge Monster would be moved to the hand or Main Deck, it is returned to the Extra Deck instead.
 * If an Excharge Monster is not properly Special Summoned by Excharge Summon before being sent to the Graveyard or banished, it cannot be Special Summoned from there (even by effects that ignore Summoning conditions).

Meter
Excharge Monsters do not have Levels. Instead, they have a “Meter”. This value represents the minimum combined Levels required to Excharge Summon a monster. Additionally, in the event that you Overclock the summon, the excess Levels will be added to that monster’s Meter. So, if you Overclock a Meter 5 monster with 2 more Levels, it becomes a Meter 7 while face-up on the field. If an Excharge Monster leaves the field and returns (going to the GY, being banished, flipping face-down, etc.), its Meter is reset to its original Meter.

Excharge Summoning
To perform an Excharge Summon, during your Main Phase 1 or 2, you may send materials listed on the monster from your face-up field to the GY whose total Levels equal or exceed the Meter of the Excharge Monster you wish to summon.

Overclock
When you Excharge Summon a monster, you are allowed to “overpay” for its Summon, up to total Level 25. After the minimum Level requirement is met, any Levels over the minimum are treated as “Overclocked Meter”. Additionally, you are allowed to add extra materials to that summon, which increases the total “Overclocked Meter” even further.

OverMAX Effect
An Excharge Monster that has been Overclocked by a certain amount also gains access to a special effect referred to as an “OverMAX Effect”, displayed in a separate box with a number denoting the minimum Overclocked Meter required to unlock it. If the Overclocked Meter of the monster becomes lower than the requirement, or returns to its original Meter by any means, the OverMAX effect is lost, along with any lingering effects it produced. For example, if an OverMAX effect negated the effect of a monster until the End Phase, but the OverMAX effect was lost, that monster’s effects are no longer negated.

Overclock Drain
The immense amount of power surging through the bodies of all Overclocked Excharge Monsters cannot be sustained forever, and so, their power wanes as they continue to stay on the field. During the End Phase of each of your turns, all Excharge Monsters you control lose all of their Overclocked Meter that they currently have. However, Once, while face-up on the field, if an Excharge Monster was Overclocked using more materials than the minimum required, the amount of Overclock drained during the End Phase is reduced by the amount of materials used, to a minimum of 1.

For example, a Meter 5 Excharge Monster that requires 2+ materials to summon, Excharge Summoned with 3 materials whose Levels total 9, will make it so that the amount of Overclocked Meter drained is only 1, down to 8. However, if it were instead Overclocked to 10, it would drain by 2, because those 3 materials only cover enough to protect 3 Overclocked Meters.

Excharge Summon with another Excharge Monster
Certain Excharge Monsters have the ability to use another Excharge Monster as their full Material Requirement, ala Xyz Change/Evolution. In this case, it will be denoted by a line of effect text specifying the procedure for the summon. Excharge Monsters summoned this way gain the difference between the Meter of the monster used for its Summon and the new monster as Overclock Meter. (A Meter 9 that used a Meter 5 as material would gain 4 Overclocked Meter as a result.)