If you’re one of those who have scratched your head in confusion over the banishment zone in Yu-Gi-Oh, there’s some good news along your way.
While the zone has technically always existed, it has never had an official name. At least, until now.
Highlighted by the text for the XYZ Force card from Phantom Nightmare, the place where your banished cards go now bears the name “Your Banishment".
Banishment in Yu-Gi-Oh has always been thought of as a state of being in the graveyard without being in the graveyard. Whenever your card is banished, it is removed from the play pile and into an area that’s placed outside of established areas in the playmat.
This area is not referred to by name in official literature and was created in games due to necessity, as some cards have attributes that specifically mention banishing affected cards from the play area.
Considering that a lot of powerful Yu-Gi-Oh! archetypes now directly interact with the Banishment zone, it's already surprising that this change was not made years ago.
When Yu-Gi-Oh! first introduced the idea of a Banished area, cards simply referred to the effect as 'removing cards from play.' These early cards did exactly that - removed cards from the game completely. It wouldn't take long for cards to start interacting with what is now the Banishment zone, but the mechanic has gone through a lot of changes.
In addition, the fact that some cards target those that have been banished from the player’s pile further aggravated matters.