Why Yugi's Deck Makes No Sense.

[@Monoanalysis]

Also if you feel like it or think the content is good enough, feel free to subscribe, as currently I am trying to reach 1000 subscribers! So I have been seeing a lot of comments about this video and many of them are valid so I’ll go over them here. 1. “It doesn’t make sense to judge the duelist kingdom deck by battle city rules” This is somewhat valid, as the rules used in duelist kingdom were VERY different from later in the series. Unfortunately when I am giving an objective analysis of the deck, it is extremely difficult to rank how good a card like “burning land” is when the rules are basically just role playing. So to make the review of each deck fair, I ultimately had to choose to use the TCG version of cards, and go by battle city rules. This would have been clearer, as in the initial cut of the video, I had listed all these rules for the analysis, (rules are battle city, effects will be used from the anime, unless it is literally untranslatable like burning land, even some card effects in the anime have different effects so personal discretion is used), but I took this section out as it took 3 minutes, and so people were just clicking off the video as the explanation of this video took too long. 2. Yugi has heart of the cards, so that’s why his deck can be as inconsistent as it is. This is also true, but again due to bad foresight and planning, in the intro I had made, (which was cut out) the idea of the video was to see how good yugis deck was if it was wielded by any other person who didn’t have the power of plot armour, to see how good yugis deck is objectively on its own merits. Whilst you could say that this doesn’t matter as yugis deck played to his strength of MC hacks, yugi/atem himself was not aware of Destiny draw until the ceremonial duel, and was not confirmed before then. So it wasn’t a factor for how yugi built his decks. 3. Yugi could change his cards in battle city It’s not exactly defined if yugi could only change his deck for only quarter finals, or if it was for the entirety of battle city, meaning he could change them duel to duel, but there is literally no way to keep track of this unless we are explicitly shown this, (which I attempted to keep track of in the video), so I had to ignore this potentiality. It does maybe make the review itself weaker, but it still is something that I really just cannot actually track. 4. Ritual monsters aren’t shown to be in the hand. This is 100% an error, this slipped through my mind. 5. Yugis deck cannot be compared to other old decks, even by goat standards as they were new. I would argue yes they can, as yugi also has many cards that are broken even to this day, (card of sanctity, the gods). I also mention how he runs a lot of cards that are literally one ofs for other cards in the deck. Examples include ragnarok, where it only works if he gets a DMG and a DM on the field. This card is just plain useless no matter the era of the game, and it’s not the only example. TLDR: making any sort of objective analysis on Yugis deck is kind of hard when there is no official decklist dropped for the arcs, rules change episode to episode, card effects can change episode to episode, and a variety of other factors I can’t really accurately account for when I compile a singular decklist, I am going to have to make personal choices on the review of a deck, as I cannot account for something like “yugi changes his deck between each duel”.

[@alibaghdady9710]

The gods are absolutely not broken

[@ZETA14.88]

I am sorry but this video's analysis is really flawed from the start You mentioned how gaia was bad requiring 2 tributes however, even in the earliest OCG rule, there was no tribute summon, you could just normal summon whatever monster without any tribute And in the context of duelist kingdom, star level was actually used to determine how fast your movement are moving in labyrinth map. It would make sense for any other game mode to actually uses star level for something else as well You need to look at yugi's deck from the context of story in the manga, not from real life's availability And have you wondered why they placed magic card on the field? Because there was a rule that mentioned you can only use 1 spell per turn and the rules existed in the early OCG ruleset I had to pause and dislike this video, better try next time

[@ashleyblack7419]

tbh, slifer kind of is broken but the other 2 are kinda bad ngl.gaining 1k per card in hand and the fact it reduces any summoned monsters attack and even kills them if they have less than 2k atk is kind of broken at the very least for the time it released Ra kinda isn't it's attack could be 0 or like 9k, depending on what you sacrifice but why'd you sacrifice 3 3k beatsticks that can wipe the board quickly for 1 massive beatstick that could be stalled with defense position monsters, there's also that anime lifepoint thing where you transfer all but one lifepoint to ra, but that would make it possible to kill you with certain spells or direct attacking monsters. Obelisk also is tricky, you need to sac 3 monsters already and then it demands another sacrifice for it's effect. Out of the 3 Slifer certainly has the least drawbacks and even dead cards become somewhat useful with it.

[@DarthMizaru]

Well Duelist Kingdom was actually kids pretending to be playing the game like when Mystical Elf had to cast a spell for a certain amount of time (in seconds not in turns may I add) to buff another monster or how Mammoth Graveyard and be fusioned to any other monster but since it is dead it cant fussion right and start rotting making the monster to lose life every second. You could use Joey The Passion rules but the only difference I see time brought is more meta and archetypes instead of using the best cards for a certain strategy.

[@anthonybrewer2769]

Yugi cheats all the time his millennium puzzle has the power of luck

[@fennecwolfox]

"My grandpa's deck HAS no pathetic cards, Kaiba!" "Actually, Yugi, your grandpa's deck is fairly inconsistent and relies too much on the hopes of getting a specific win condition while also being overstocked on middling-to-weak monsters without enough practical effect monsters, magic cards, or traps to-" "Exodia."

[@alphonsobrooks1771]

🤣🤣

[@Retro_Red]

"Noooo!!!!! Exodia?!?! That's not possible! No one's been able to summon him!" Also, Kaiba is one to talk, his only plans are higher attack monsters and get Sagi and Crush on the field and hope someone attacks a facedown. And when that doesn't work, threaten to jump off a castle.

[@pinstripecool34]

🤓👆

[@mattshepherd3667]

I mean a beat down virus deck wasn’t actually a bad strategy, especially with cards like shrink. It could work as either stall or removal if not used for crush card virus directly. Most of kaiba’s cards could beat over the opponents monsters post-virus. And Joey using swordsman of landstar and assume samurai with cards like graceful and skull dice also isn’t a bad strategy, if way more inconsistent. With fairy box and nutrient z It makes for good stalling until he can get jinzo, gilford, or red-eyes. As far as I remember yugi doesn’t really use cards to make good use of his weaker monsters except multiply + detonate for kuriboh, and he has other removal/stall cards that don’t require them, like magic cylinder, swords of revealing light, and mirror force. His poker knights work well for tribute summons and his magnet warriors can summon another decent boss monster, so in terms of the anime it’s got decent ideas at least (though none would be great irl if 1:1 with the anime)

[@schlockbustervideoreviews5911]

Effect Monsters were incredibly rare in the early game, especially the OCG.

[@dahuterschuter]

Anyone who's tried to recreate and play with Yugi's decks IRL quickly finds out he's only the best because of his in-universe canon ability to draw any card he wants or needs at any time.

[@AnEnemySpy456]

As the main character you can't make his deck have a consistent winning strategy because seeing him win the same way every duel would quickly get boring and for dramatic purposes he has to be on the ropes before he pulls off his miraculous winning strategy. Really it's all his opponents that actually have a reliable win condition in their deck and the tension comes from seeing how Yugi is going to turn it around on them.

[@rampagephoenix1735]

In other words, the scumbag cheats like there's no tomorrow.

[@hexi9595]

His millennium puzzle has the ability to guarantee the best possible outcome for the whielder. Basically if there is only a 1/100 or 1/1000 chance to win the puzzle makes it guaranteed every time.

[@Envy_May]

i've tried it in the most holistic way possible (recreating the actual rules of kazuki takahashi's original game and remaking all the cards to be canon-compliant to function within that) and i find yugi's deck to actually be pretty decent (particularly if you make the reasonable presumption that rarity is a huge factor in what kinds of decks are even possible to make, so you're never up against an _absurdly_ high-powered deck in comparison) but that's only with a limited amount of testing with that

[@DaRkLoRdZoRc]

@@Envy_May I'd like to know more about your tests.

[@digzgwentplayer4159]

The reason why it doesn't make sense is because you forgot to calculate the heart of the cards.

[@GrizzyKanglive]

Exactly!! Dude totally forgot to add in the most important element to Yugi’s Deck 😂😂😂😂

[@FinalSeraphLeo]

or just having bullshit main character powers

[@redtube8667]

Yugi just be using magic to stack

[@marquisnash7960]

😂😂😂

[@Black_Revue]

That and Yugi wouldn't have more than 1 of most of his iconic cards

[@spartanq7781]

No one in this series had any deck that made sense. It wasn't until GX when they somewhat came together. 5ds onwards were when decks finally started making sense.

[@swagondisdick]

Yami mariks was decent

[@LilGian1]

I feel like in duel monsters the only person who’s deck sort of made sense was Mai Valentine. She made a deck around Harpie’s.

[@RayRMT]

@@LilGian1 Ah yes archetype decks, the salvation and bane of card games

[@engagex1]

Just like forbidden memories lol, i always thought that's the rule of Yu-Gi-Oh, until i play NDS version years later

[@DrDrao]

​@@LilGian1Not really, the actual harpie cards she plays are really bad. I'd say kaiba, cuz he plays a bunch of power spells and has some decent haymaker monsters like la djinn.

[@BirdTalkSg]

It's because you didn't believe in the hearts of the cards.

[@Winklarson420]

Its all about the heart of the cards Kaiba!

[@KYMan678]

I think the heart of the cards in real life is money. Kaiba had it right. They just want rich kids to be on their toes

[@Winklarson420]

@@KYMan678 Its more like luck when we are honest since Atem is a hella gambler in season zero

[@KYMan678]

@Winklarson420 true. But I was jk around

[@quintonglencamp4115]

Exactly😂 the heart of cards give your win probability an extra 1000% amp so unless you winning by 1001% already u not leaving the victor and getting sent to the shadow realm 😂

[@BushidoRoad]

To be fair, archetypes weren’t that common in the original series. Most characters would often use cards focused around a particular type or would use several types at once to fill a specific role, either as muscle, protection, or support.

[@OlgaZuccati]

If you look at competitive decklists back then, they also didn't have archetypes, with them playing a nearly fixed set of staple cards, but even then, decks were made with synergy and versatility in mind, for example: goat control had a lot of level 1 monsters you could tribute to make your metamorphosis live and cards like tsukuyomi who could flip the thousand eyes restrict face down so you could use its effect again in the same turn, turn off the attack restriction on restrict to swing for damage, or also you could also use it as generic removal for your opponent's monsters. Yugi's cards barely have any synergy with each other.

[@BushidoRoad]

@@OlgaZuccati This is referring his deck in the anime though. Also, Yugi’s deck does have some synergy to it.

[@animegod9585]

In battle City they were quite literally building decks as they were going along the tournament

[@SashaTheQwaser]

@@animegod9585 In Duelist Kingdom they literally did not have set rules for the IRL game at the time. Which is why tribute summoning didn't exist until Battle City, among other things like Yugi attacking the ring around the Castle against Panik, or the Mystic Elf chanting spells.

[@jawstrock2215]

They also appear to have a limit of 1 per card also, so they used a lot of filler in their decks...

[@MrSour1]

99% of people using Yugi's deck fail because they don't believe in the heart of the cards

[@Msg_Soy]

Are you saying yugi's grandpa didn't believe in the heart of the cards???

[@MrSour1]

@@Msg_Soy not enough to win lol

[@bergkatze3186]

Nahhh

[@mrmatt1331]

Yugi’s deck does make sense. It’s a jack of all trades deck for someone who can will any card he needs to the top of his deck.

[@anthonygordon-e4x]

yeah sure, and magically he chnages his deck hundred times knowing which exact cards are required for each battle.

[@mrmatt1331]

@ yes he does. He’s the protagonist…

[@uuh4yj43]

i mean if i could do that i wouldnt play beaver warrior, i would just make it so crush card virus was always in my opening hand with a monster to tribute, with raigeki and spirit reaper.

[@mrmatt1331]

@@uuh4yj43 then the show wouldn’t be very exciting would it

[@Gift_Of_Victory]

Or, more precisely, he likely has the ability to draw any card he wants about two or three times per duel.

[@therealsilverking4802]

In Duellist Kingdom Exodia would've been nearly unbeatable: The opponent can't attack directly and all you have to do to avoid losing is have 1 monster on the field at the end of your turn... that being said all you'd have to do is set monsters in defence mode until you inevitably draw it. Only one card in Duellist Kingdom could combat this (Pegasus's Prophecy Trap). Combine this with Dark Magician and Summoned Skull which were hard to beat for duellists of the time and the deck was extremely oppressive. Battle City: There was a limit placed in this tournament of just 40 cards (since Yugi shows 60 cards this means he'd have to side cards in and out... we see him doing this on screen multiple times in the Blimp). It's likely that he changes the focus of his deck depending on who he is duelling. Although he seems to have a preference for weird gimmicks over consistency... He also for some reason has a preference towards Alpha The Magnet Warrior, the weakest of the three Magnets... siding Beta or Gamma in would work better for an offensive/defensive role. Same for Gazelle The King Of Mythical Beasts who shows up way more than he should. (Yugi is also shown to have Cyber Jar which he never once plays). He also seems to take out Dark Magician and Summoned Skull for a lot of the tournament, since he doesn't play it against seeker, Lumis/Umbra, Possessed Joey or Bakura (Summoned Skull makes 1 appearance against Seeker). He seems to purposely brick his deck (even in the Kaiba duel) by siding in Chain Destruction and Collected Power. Both of which successfully brick his hand in that duel. He does seem to switch between the Magnet and Poker Knight engines and has for the most part removed his bricks like Dark Magician, Red-Eyes, Slifer (For most of the Tournament), Valkyrion and Archfiend Of Gilfer.

[@williamdrum9899]

Maybe he just didn't draw DM or summoned skull that game

[@blazewolf321]

we said the pharaoh was the king of games not the king of deck building

[@ShanaReviews]

cyber jar was actually Kaiba's card, when we see Yugi use it it's because he added Kaiba's cards to his deck which REALLY would have messed up the consistency since we saw Yugi was mostly drawing into his cards during the duel and rarely drew into cards that probably would have bricked his hand. you also have to take into account the anime offered WAY more means to draw cards. Pot of greed, graceful charity, and card of sanctity, as well as card of demise were all legal and playable and were able to vastly help with drawing into resources. hell Yugi had access to the anime verion of monster recovery which was ideal for resource replenishment since if yugi had 1 card in hand, he could used recovery, return a monster to his hand then deck, and redraw 5 cards.

[@therealsilverking4802]

@@ShanaReviews I was referring to certain scenes in the anime where he is seen Deckbuilding in the Blimp. It is implied to be an option for him by this. maybe it was just a background card with a random picture and no distinct identity (like Arkana having Obelisk The Tormentor in his hand in the 4Kids Dub) but he is never seen using it outside of The Virtual World. Best Yugi Deck is: Monsters: Dark Magician Summoned Skull Dark Magician Girl (Gorz The Emisary Of Darkness: Manga) Slifer The Sky Dragon (Substitute Obelisk Or Ra depending on preference). Buster Blader Curse Of Dragon Mystical Elf The Tricky Swift Gaia The Fierce Knight Watapon Kuriboh Kuribandit Sangan Witch Of The Black Forrest Black Luster Soldier-Envoy Of The Beginning (seen in GX) (Marshmallon: Little Yugi's card but I don't want to add to many of those) Spells: Monster Recovery Monster Reborn Brain Control Change Of Heart Pot Of Greed Graceful Charity Card Of Sanctity Mystical Refpannel Dark Magic Curtain Soul Taker Dark Hole Card Destruction Emblem Of Dragon Destroyer Magic Cylinder (Spell in Anime) Polymerization x2 De-fusion (Which just defuses things, not necessarily just Fusion Monsters) Swords Of Revealing Light Fiend Sanctuary Multiply Negate Attack (Manga) Monster Replace (This Places a monster on the field (Not summoning... placing... he can Place Obelisk or Slifer on the Field and it wouldn't return to its previous location) (Timaeus: Optional) Traps: Lifeshaver Mirror Force Spellbinding Circle Mystical Refpannel Disgraceful Charity Regulation Of Tribe Natural Selection Extra Deck: (Cards he is known to play by Anime, Manga and WCS Events) Dark Paladin Ebon High Magician Quintet Magician Arcana Knight Joker (Side Deck option) Gaia The Dragon Champion (Sie Deck Option) Chimaera The Flying Mythical Beast (Side Deck Option) Dark Flare Knight (Because Why Not) Black Skull Dragon (Because Why Not) Meteor Black Dragon (Because Why not) Dragon Master Knight (Because why not) Side: Kings, Queens and Jacks Knight Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Valkyrion The Magnet Warriors Gazelle and Berfomet Mystical Space Typhoon Mage Power (Movie) Magicalised Fusion Premature Burial Mystic Box Dust Tornado Maybe Gaia The Fierce Knight Criticism: He needs more Light monsters for the chaos strategy and he needs more fusion substitutes like King Of The Swamp (this will allow him to cut a lot of his bricks like Buster Blader and will allow him to more easily reach Dragon Master Knight, Black Skull Dragon and Gaia The Dragon Champion (Without having to run Gaia The Fierce Knight) and will allow him to reach monsters like Dark Flare Knight). He also needs more XYZ, Links and Synchros. He could also make use of modern support like the Gaia, Buster Blader, Dark Magician cards, (Red Eyes Dark Dragoon, BLS Chaos Soldier). Pros: His Deck has stupid Draw Power, excellent field disruption, The Ability to easily reach any card in his deck, at least 1 god card (borderline unbeatable) and a decent Fusion line up... with the right additions he could be a big threat threat to a real life opponent with his broken anime cards.

[@ShanaReviews]

@@therealsilverking4802 this also begs the question as to the rarity and printings of each card because Yugi having a game shop that sells the cards should have had access to some of the substitutes, among others. we know blue eyes has only 4 printings, the god cards are at 1 and even raigeki (which btw in the manga and anime was said to be banned along with LP burners like Hinotama and meteor of destruction). one wonders how the scarcity of these cards is and how easy or hard is it to obtain them if you're not pegasus

[@hughakston3518]

Unforgivable Continuity Error #72 S4 E32: Rafael digs up a duel disk years before Kaiba Corp even considered development on them.

[@cariopuppetmaster]

Magic

[@eljoel89]

That's the powah of tha Orichacamalos mayn.

[@retrovortex624]

Yugis destiny draw makes his deck composition meaninless because he can draw the exact card he needs when he needs it so all he needs it ways to stall and get the most out of his broken cards he can reuse. You could argue his fodder is just there to make people underestimate him and set up a board he can wipe/steal

[@ur.kr.2814]

He's basically a cheater

[@legendarylancers7446]

That's not how his destiny draw works, his "destiny draw" only works if he is losing and it doesn't give him a card to win it give him a card to survive

[@costelinha1867]

"He can draw the exact card he needs when he needs it" In other words, he's using Forbidden Memories' final six AI.

[@unbekant585]

@@costelinha1867 Meteor B Dragon and Blue eyes ultimate dragons for days

[@cloudkitt]

In a tv show, a deck's consistency is kind of a detriment. Its more interesting to watch Yugi employ different strategies episode to episode than just running the same engine multiple times per duel for 200-some episodes.

[@theodorejenkins6066]

It doesnt really make sense to judge yugis first couple decks by the later games standards. Obviously theyre not going to be good like duh...even judging them with GOAT standards is too unfair because its literally the very first couple releases fo cards. Of course they get beat by later cards. Really a waste of time to analyze them like this sorry to say. I like your channel but...this is just naaaaa

[@aliesterus1.023]

There's also the fact that the early ruleset in the OCG was much different than the even _the first Advanced format,_ let alone the fact that the ruleset for the _anime/manga_ during the Duelist Kingdom Saga was far different than even the first OCG ruleset. Hell, the Battle City rules had some clear differences from the Advanced Format too! Example: Direct Attacking was not allowed during the Duelist Kingdom Arc, and you get one attack per turn. EDIT: On top of all of this, the Millenium items in the classic show, and then the Duel Spirits introduced in GX implying the cards in Yugioh are all sentient, actually throws regular card math into disarray, because how often you draw a card _might have more to do with how much that card likes you,_ rather than standard ratios.

[@zeroflame33]

Yugi's deck was bad for that era as well though. The best decks had 1900 ATK beaters and battle trap cards and spells.

[@crusixangel9513]

Not to mention picking dark magician over summoned skull every time. Even times when skull would have been more useful ​@zeroflame33

[@aliesterus1.023]

@@zeroflame33 That was in the TCG. In the OCG, _Celtic Guardian was actually considered a meta card for awhile._

[@The_shadow_who_laughs]

​@aliesterus1.023 wait, what? When was Celtic guardian meta?

[@elijahpadilla5083]

As far as Grandpa Mutou's Deck and Duelist Kingdom, there's a few points I want to bring up. First, as far as the anime is concerned, Ritual monsters are not Summoned from the hand; Yugi never actually draws into BLS or Magician of Black Chaos, instead gaining the ability to use them by drawing into their specific Spell Cards; this would imply that anime/manga Ritual monsters sat in the Extra Deck, helping with SOME (not all) of the consistency issues. Worth noting is that anime/manga Thousand-Eyes Restrict has the real game's prevention of attacks, which was stopped by Black Chaos "putting enemy monsters to sleep" on Summon, implying some degree of effect negation, and the Rituals were pretty severely nerfed for real play. Second, Battle City introduces the Advance Rules, as the OCG called them even they debuted for the real game; Advance Summons, or Tribute Summons in the TCG, did not exist until Battle City in the anime/manga, and the first few episodes of that arc are used to show off and explain the new rules for anyone who didn't have an official rulebook. By that metric, Summoned Skull and Dark Magician are, by all accounts, equivalent in power. Add in the high rarity of strong low-Level monsters (Kaiba's Battle Ox and La Jinn were drawn with gold text in a few scenes, implying that they were Ultra Rares, and everyone was canonically surprised by the likes of Gemini Elf), Effect monsters barely being a thing, and the vanillas with low stats make a lot more sense.

[@DaviHorner]

Also, the grandpa deck had blue eyes, for like 10 minutes

[@jawstrock2215]

They also implies that anything that have somewhat High atk on the card were SUPER rare.(only 4 blues eyes in the world?!)

[@felinaotsu3161]

I don't think the idea of a extra deck existed back in Duelist Kingdom. Considering how RPG-esqe the duels were, it looked more like the system for the duel arenas had a means of transforming and merging speficic monsters. What kind of logic being used I can't say

[@elijahpadilla5083]

@@felinaotsu3161 In terms of what was in the game, no, the Ritual Spell basically just Summons the Ritual monster from the ether. But, as far as mechanics for a functional game, as this video tries to describe, the Extra Deck is probably the best fit.

[@baddrtraybot4992]

What’s more confusing is bro had 3 gods a bunch of high level monsters how the bell did he never brick

[@Monoanalysis]

H E A R T O F T H E C A R D S

[@ZydelyonairCayne]

Yugi is from an Era where 3000 beat sticks ruled. His deck makes alot of sense

[@kikook222]

Yugi's first deck in the anime is close to unbeatable in the rule set. If he made a deck of only monsters, he'd win every duel because you cannot attack directly and could only declare one attack a turn. A deck of only monsters means every turn Yugi can put a creature down to not lose the duel while eventually drawing into Exodia guaranteed. Yugi's first deck is damn near impossible to beat by the duel monsters S1 rules.

[@mastermace7770]

Which is why it's sucks in today game.

[@bobjones4469]

ANYTHING makes sense when you have the Heart of the Cards.

[@soulsnatchingbandit5472]

There you go

[@robertmcginty4146]

Or the power of friendship! 😃

[@bbro43]

I mean in the context of season q anime, no sacrafices and direct attacks, even though it is a requirement to play a monster every turn, it makes sense why the deck is full of monsters, but also vanilla monsters like Dark Magician and Summon Skull are actually good

[@Shootingfoul]

Duelist Kingdom doesn't require tributes, you can't judge it based on battle city rules

[@robertparkhurst4034]

In fairness, the video was about being able to play a version of Yugi’s deck in real life. As fun as it would be to just assume Duelist Kingdom Rules, you aren’t going to be challenging your friend to a Duelist Kingdom, no Tributes needed game rather than a standard match

[@costelinha1867]

This whole video is about analysing how viable these decks would be ON THE ACTUAL TCG! Not even in battle city. Also, what rules? There weren't really well established rules in DK, they just made shit up on the fly.

[@handgun559]

You can totally judge it by battle city rules. I don't see why we couldn't. It's *very* easy to do.

[@MotherLover1984]

​@@costelinha1867 there where rules in DK The anime just fucked it up and ignored them

[@douglasmims5090]

​@@robertparkhurst4034jokes on you we play how we want 🤣

[@Aurelyn]

23 minutes to not realize the card game rules didn't even exist when this came out

[@nicolasarroyo1746]

Rules existed, but in the manga, Grandpa says that the game is so popular because new expansions and new rules, so the game never gets old In Duelist kingdom there are new rules, and in Battle City Kaiba use the Super Expert Rules. For example, the rule of waiting one turn for fusioned monsters or the ban rule for cards like Hinotama

[@ChaffyExpert]

​@@nicolasarroyo1746not when the manga was released.

[@OlgaZuccati]

things like card advantage and dead draws are still applicable to whatever the fuck they played in the show

[@ChaffyExpert]

@@OlgaZuccati less cards to draw back then though. And they did run pots of greed Also while not a stated rule, aside from Kaiba's three blue eyes, everyone seems to run one copy of cards.

[@imrichziska6112]

It was that time when yugi fusion sumoned joys firewarior with dark magician. New monster was created just for the plot.

[@RUN11690]

For duelist kingdom, Yugi originally had Time Wizard so he also has Dark Sage.

[@RedOphiuchus]

@RUN11690 for Duelist Kingdom, it's implied that polymerization, time wizard, toon world, and metalmorph somewhat, all generate new cards that you don't have to own in order to utilize. Polymerization can fuse any two monsters in the game together, time wizard can age any monsters to varying degrees of usefulness, toon world can turn any monster into a toon and so on. These effects are possible in a fictional story and maybe a video game if you really wanted to expend an extreme amount of development resources, but were obviously impossible in a physical card game and had to be severely altered. So I don't think Yugi ever actually had a copy of Dark Sage. But since he originally owned time wizard he probably researched how his effect could impact every card in his deck before including it.

[@EmpireGamingWynter]

Yugi's deck perfectly represents all of our decks back in 2002 though 😂 I remember feeling so cool with my Dark Magician, Red Eyes, Blue Eyes, Exodia deck

[@AntiSora2]

Let's be honest, Yugi's deck was 40 blank cards and they filled in as he drew them to be whatever he wanted them to be

[@WhiteRaven696]

Honestly, Yugi’s decks may not be very competitive in the real world, especially by 2024 standards, but they actually synergize among themselves really well. You can craft a really versatile deck from the pool of cards he’s used across the years.

[@rohantherevolution]

Yugi’s deck isn’t supposed to “make sense.” The whole thing was about being somewhat clever and having more faith than your opponent. People in this world play duel monsters backwards and basically only pick cards they’ve seen others use or what they think will win, but the game was initially supposed to be about picking what you felt connected to and what you thought was cool, and finding a way to make it work, using creativity. If you’re analyzing Yugi’s deck using generic analytics, then you’ll never understand it. People joke about the “Heart of the Cards,” but it’s just intelligence mixed with faith, that’s a real thing, people use it in sports all the time. It’s a shame that the franchise that coined the phrase has so many participants who miss the point. Idk why some people play the game, they don’t even enjoy it, really. 😂

[@heltongomez8865]

I also think the same bro. People became way too serious with this and it ruined the game. This game was all about summoning your fav monster and winning the duel. Now is extremely convoluted.

[@DrewskiTheLegend]

You don’t generally win tournaments with originality, and people like to win. If you want to be original and win, you need to be extremely well versed in the rest of the game and build within the realm of what is powerful.

[@billykepner4938]

I get into that debate with some of my buds, they build their deck to be tournament level but thats not fun for me, id rather play bullshit character decks because thats fun for me 🙂

[@SOLDIER1st_Class]

Real world Yu-Gi-Oh and Anime Yu-Gi-Oh are two completely different things and it's getting really annoying having people try to use constructive criticism while comparing the two as if they're both to share the same rules regulations and expectations of each. The statement that's not what that card does no that's not what that card does anymore. The anime and the manga were the first to do it so for all intents and purposes that's not what it does anymore.. big difference

[@aceofspadesklan8737]

That was the best explanation about yugioh and overall deckbuilding.

[@N0Lif3]

I like to think that Yami Yugi is just way ahead of our collective understanding of the game's meta. He intuitively comes up with stuff that beats out the top tier decks he goes up against, using cards that the community at large has overlooked.

[@finmat95]

Just because you don't believe in the heart of cards and you're incapable of drawing the card you want in each turn doesn't mean the Yugi's Deck sucks, ok?

[@pinstripecool34]

Growing up is realizing that almost every deck in the anime is pretty much completely useless competitively and complete trash.

[@Agravain-7]

Well, at least in Vrains some of the archtype and cards have record in competitive game

[@ViroVeteruscy]

Aside from the final decks used in the ceremonial battle and in The Dark Side of Dimensions, Yugi/Atem's deck(s) barely had any symmetry and relied heavily on the Millennium Puzzle's probability manipulation. Was basically a rogue deck with a bit more spellcaster support.

[@Monoanalysis]

True, I have already written the script for the entirety of yugis decks in the anime, and the funny thing is that yugis deck in the cerimonial duel is actually the closest thing to a competent deck that has synergy in the anime.

[@gustavolopes5094]

It's more like a toolbox deck. You gotta consider the state of the game on the very first cards, like a comment above suggested.

[@MegaMachiOnline]

It's a nice video, but anime-cheese aside (basically pseudo-filler not accounting for battle city rules at times) it's made pretty clear the characters ran 40-card decks when it came to the battle royal so while synergy and consistency can be issues when it comes to these anime decks (i've bricked as soulburner before like 3 matches not duels but matches in a row) their qualities goes up a fair bit i think the big thing about the anime world is that a 4000 life point format favors control decks (and generic burn decks but battle city forced a change there) more than ftk/otk decks, makes it so that clearing your opponent's board even once is a very likely win (i was also trying out "progression duels and "draft duels" to cop a feel for how the 4000 LP format felt for some months now) like, as far as GX era goes, the value of Doble Passe goes up wildly if you're willing to take a direct hit to damage your foe, since your next attack will be a direct one as well, and weaker monsters like Gray Wing are just waiting for a single opening to go crazy when having 8000 life points won't do much but dent/chip your foe down instead I'd personally say, once we hit late ARC-V & VRAINS, ftk/otk decks do catch up with control decks there, since their damage output from a singular attack and ability to negate effects are more live, making the need to dance around traps not as necessary

[@williamdrum9899]

To be fair, in the game's early years it was much harder to make a comeback after a board wipe. Most of the good board clears and comeback cards were Forbidden early on for this reason. In the current day, many of the power cards that were purely "comeback cards" like Change of Heart, Monster Reborn etc, are going back to 1 copy, meanwhile the card advantage power spells are not.

[@JW-dp4we]

Grandpa’s deck isn’t actually too bad when compared to the cards that were actually available when the game came out. Vanilla monsters were everywhere and effect monsters were rare when the initial decks came out, literally in the single digits

[@VinTheDirector]

Yeah, and if even Kaiba, who loves high ATK monsters, had friggin Hitotsu-Me Giant in his deck, imagine how rare the strong level 4 monsters were back then lol

[@silvertongue.242_99]

Yeah there is progression in the series as effect monsters becomes more things changes. That beginning of Yu-Gi-Oh grandpa deck isn't bad

[@JW-dp4we]

@@VinTheDirector I still remember when Panther Warrior was considered cool because it had 2000 atk at level 4, even though it needed a tribute to attack lol. The power creep is real.

[@TheShadowOfHumanity]

Panther warrior was never good. Even my favorite card Neo The Magic Swordsman who is 4star with 1700 atk wasnt even considered good. Or my later favorite Dark Blade who had 1800 atk and was 4 stars was also a rather bad card compared to all the 1900 atk beatsticks that existed since duelist kingdom era of the card game.

[@JW-dp4we]

Yeah but you could combo him w/scapegoats to allow him an attack and protect your board. Stuff like Gemini Elf though kinda made it pointless. And I think LaJinn was also one of the best lvl beaters early on.

[@kevinbueno5175]

I think people spend too much time analyzing the cards instructions based on the show and real life. You are all forgetting the meaning of the show. FRIENDSHIP! HEART OF THE CARDS!

[@RedEyeStorm7]

A lot of these can be explained simply by side decking, which the anime shows the characters side decking their decks multiple times throughout the show, which is why some of the more specific cards might be there Edit: Also where are the rest of yugi's decks? The video just ends after battle city.

[@pk5727]

5:32 with no tribute rules, why wouldn’t you play all level 8 monster?

[@RottingCorpseBehindMcDonalds]

Level 8s are rare in the anime I think

[@jobhunter5090]

Their unreasonably rare, to the point in which millionaires can only afford like 6 of them.

[@OfficialRedTeamReview]

@@jobhunter5090 I actually didn't know this haha. makes more sense, now

[@RedOphiuchus]

@OfficialRedTeamReview yeah, it was the original vision for Magic when Richard Garfield designed it in 1992. The thought was that rare cards could be incredibly overpowered because people would only be able to find 1 or 2 for their collections. The game became way more popular than expected, and he wasn't able to predict that the secondary market would appear. The first iteration of Magic rules was 40 card decks with no limit on the number of copies of any cards you could put in the deck. To this day, I believe the creator thinks the best way to play Magic is limited (sealed, where you only get 6 packs to make a deck with, or draft, where a pod of 8 players have 3 boosters each and draft them together). In those environments, decks really do have limited access to rare cards and can practically never have access to run more than one copy of a given rare. When Kazuki Takahashi based a game on Magic in the manga he probably wanted to recreate the experience of limited or being a casual player with a very tiny budget and the exciting, and significantly varied games that came from that.

[@calemr]

He runs a toolbox deck with a handful of gimmicks, with no searches and little cohesion, held up by the millenium puzzle's magic deck stacking powers. Great for a story where big flashy counterplays and hard to prep boss monsters with no protection looks cool. Terrible for any real game.

[@wingedhussar1453]

Actually tht kind of deck is what made yugi fun to watch you didnt know what he haf because there was no synergy

[@GustavJensen30]

That math is definitely wrong lmao

[@eaglest0554]

Counterpoint: heart of the cards baby

[@yachiyofast3244]

the fact that he used this deck and still mostly wins means he is truly the KING OF GAMES.

[@PricefieldPunk]

Yugi’s duelist kingdom deck had the Living Arrow. That card did whatever you needed it to do lmao

[@magickmynd1296]

The original game wasn't that consistent to begin with. There were lots of non effect really trash monsters with really only a handful of good ones, which is why kaiba went so far to collect all the really good base stat line ones and spent all that money putting his deck together. The other duelists in the show didn't really have super consistent decks either except for the theme decks, and even then they had some duds as well. The show was built around only showing 1 specific strategy to win per duel and it's specific counter. It wasn't made to win the same way every time, it was supposed to be a chaotic mess of cards that could pull off near any "strategy" with the "heart of the cards" to give you exactly what you need when you need it to pull off the combo that in real life almost never happens.

[@ryanthecringeanimator9541]

10:29 "Alpha with the highest ATK" bro the cards are right there

[@Monoanalysis]

That was a brain fart moment I can’t lie 😬

[@Chief-Remeldian-Olympus]

Hello Duelist Kingdom Era had no scarifies nor where the rules back then the same as modern times. Don't talk tribute summon when there was no tribute summon in Duelist Kingdom Era.

[@Monoanalysis]

This was cut out of the video, however initially I had it set that all decks were applied to the same battle city rules, as trying to analyse one decks power with another set of rules would have been tricky to do, whilst holding the rest of the decks under a different set of rules.

[@danielramsey6141]

I Really Don’t Care about the Anime Duelist KINGDOM Era Rules! Those rules only apply to that Focus point in the series, especially when you remember the Field Mechanics were Very different and Better Explained in the SUB! Battle CITY is the Definitive Yugioh! And Even then, Yugi’s Deck Still doesn’t mAke any sense due to the Hodgepodge Nature of All the Cards at the time!

[@HexManiac-nf1yg]

@@Monoanalysis why would cut it out if it gave important context?

[@Monoanalysis]

Because I uploaded it initially, but realised that the retention was bad as it took 3 minutes to even explain the rules, (which set of rules I was using), how sometimes anime effects were different even in the same arc, how I can’t use duelist kingdoms ruleset because some of them are essentially just “do whatever you want within reason”, where most people just want to get ahead to the actual content of the video, which is looking at yugis decks. I would have added a tiny disclaimer instead, but as KZbin only allows cutting and not adding content I had no choice but to cut it.

[@russiansanes2530]

The decks porpuse wasnt necessarily meant to be support or anything based via chemistry relation, since the milllenium puzzle has probability manipulation its good for consistent wins through outs and massive plays via specific win conditions, The millenium puzzles prob manipulation activates only when yugi is about to lose or has a critical situation needed to be surpassed.

[@kieranharwood7186]

I love the idea that the deck is DESIGNED to almost immediately be on the cusp of losing because of how bad it is, so that you can then top-deck your hyper-specific answer and win. Every card in the deck is part of a build-around, and you're not building around a combo or a specific card, you're building around a magic artefact that you own.

[@JohnTalbane87]

Grandpas deck feels like it’s the definition of casual play. Does it always win? No. Is he a tournament grinder? No. Is it fun and easy to use while teaching new players how to play the game? Yes.

[@brennantmi5063]

Hey, put some respect on Grandpa's deck. Not only were 1500 attack point monsters rare, thus he has a powerful beat down gameplan, but you were not allowed to make direct attacks if your opponent summoned a monster on their last turn so by forgoing spells and traps that meant you could stall out indefinitely until Exodia won the game, a tactic no one else could attempt as Exodia was so rare only an archeologist like Grampa had all five. Really, I don't think it would be possible to build a better deck than Grampa's deck.

[@ladyriethegoldendelmo5441]

@@brennantmi5063 that does makes sense the fact rex is a runner up with a two headed king rex. so I guess this means most enemy players have like 1000 atk or less

[@zay-lias]

One thing you forgot… believing in the heart of the cards which give you plot armor… L essay for not thinking about this 😂😂😂 (great video bro)

[@hikarimemeirooficial]

We all know Rebeca had the best Deck in the series.

[@spoiler919]

I wonder why people pretend to forget that tcg rules didn’t exist when manga came out. Duelist kingdom arc was like D&D with cards. Also everyone forget yugi in Duelist Kingdom arc was forced to replace the five exodia pieces with 5 weak monsters he was siding on the ship

[@rwberger6]

Pretty much. In the original series it showed up only twice as a game and wasn't intended to be a full series. So its rules were left vague and unbalanced so that the writer could do whatever he wanted that he thought would be cool in that moment. Since the game rules weren't formalized yet this carried over to duelist kingdom which then affected the anime despite it airing when the game was finally released. Battle city was an attempt to fix this and bring the manga (and thus the anime) more in line with the official rules, albeit with a few minor tweaks to help with pacing and to give the writer a bit of flexibility in the writing.

[@MrEffectfilms]

12:10 yeah I can't really argue with this, this is how I'd fix it. Gazelle Retrain : When this card is Normal or Special Summoned you can add 1 "Berformet" from your deck to your hand. While you control a face up "Berformet" you can Special Summon this card from your hand and if you do add 1 "Polymerization" from your deck to your hand. Berformet Retrain: (lvl 4 not 5) When this card is Normal or Special Summoned you can add 1 "Gazelle the King of Mythical Beasts" from your deck to your hand. While you control a face up "Gazelle the King of Mythical Beasts" you can Special Summon this card from your hand and if you do you can add 1 "Polymerization" from your deck to your hand. Chimera Retrain: (Atk is 2300) Must first be Fusion Summoned. Your opponent cannot activate Spells or Traps during the Battle Phase. When this card is sent from the field to the GY you can Special Summon 1 "Gazelle the King of Mythical Beasts" or "Berformet" from your GY in face up defense position. This not only makes Chimera much better since he freezes Spells and Traps but it turns Gazelle and Berformet into 1 card combos to summon him, making this strategy very consistent.

[@platinumnovawarriorrx20-en57]

this video reminds me of when I was figuring out the best way to build Yugis deck from his card pool from the anime. Great video!

[@newufl]

You should rate them based on the era and rules of the anime at the time

[@th3ra83]

*Weevil throws Exodia* Yugi: WHY TF YOU DO THAT? Weevil: YOUR DECK IS F**KING SUCKS WITH THAT EXODIA WHY U USE THAT IF YOU ARE NOT GONNA SUPPORT THAT CONSISTENCY??

[@spookyspookat5038]

Wtf is wrong with your grammar son?

[@bigjohnsbreakfastlog5819]

The early game wasn't around archetype, so it was mostly "what is cool and what fits the character". I know that the side manga Yu-Gi-Oh R tried to do something where he would exclusively use Dark attribute monsters.

[@FelipeVillegasuy]

It doesn't matter, because he can summon pot of greed and draw three additional cards

[@Laverty-Bg3]

Thanks to algorithm that I found your channel! I hope to see more of these videos from you.

[@Rachel-ti3of]

Yeah right? I’m so glad I stumbled across this. I can’t wait for further uploads!

[@MrEffectfilms]

As for the Magnet Warriors this is how I'd fix those: Alpha Retrain. When this card is Normal or Special Summoned you can add 1 "Beta the Magnet Warrior" from your deck to your hand. While you control a face up "Gamma the Magnet Warrior" you can Special Summon this card from your hand. Beta Retrain. When this card is Normal or Special Summoned you can add 1 "Gamma the Magnet Warrior" from your deck to your hand. While you control a face up "Alpha the Magnet Warrior" you can Special Summon this card from your hand. Gamma Retrain. When this card is Normal or Special Summoned you can add 1 "Alpha the Magnet Warrior" from your deck to your hand. While you control a face up "Beta the Magnet Warrior" you can Special Summon this card from your hand. Valkyrion Retrain. Cannot be Normal Summoned or Set. Must first be Special Summoned by tributing 1 "Alpha the Magnet Warrior", "Beta the Magnet Warrior", and "Gamma the Magnet Warrior" from your hand or face up on the field. Once per turn you can send this card from the field to the GY, Special Summon the monsters that were tributed to summon this card from your GY. The Knights cards could be done more or less the same way, Queens Knight searches and summons Kings Knight, Kings Knight searches and summons Jacks Knight, Jacks Knight searches and summons Queens Knight.

[@loganbreau882]

His deck only works because of the Millennium Puzzle. Basically for those who don’t know, the MP can tell who’s winning a match and knows every card in the game, what they do, and where they are. If it senses its user is losing it will give it a card to change the tides. The more desperate the situation, the stronger counter you draw. Basically the Puzzle rigs RNG in its user favour whenever they are put on the back foot. So basically it’s impossible to win against anyone using the puzzle unless there’s literally no guarantied win con. Basically you need to start on equal footing, and draw a card that counters literally anything Yugi can throw at you in one go. If you can’t do that, then you just lose, as winning doesn’t become a possibility, but only a matter of time.

[@JeffreyMontero-wv7bi]

0:19 that's what protagonists are their always powerful no matter what that the artist/creators, make their attitude kind of dumb/clueless at some point most of them are like that. They made all main characters in anime like that even if yugi don't have strong cards, he can still manage to get out in a tight situation win his battles to opponents have strong decks. They won't be considered as the main character of that anime series, if they can't beat their opponent have strong advantage, from the start a good example of mc that is like that is Son Goku.

[@prvdntus]

Plot armor is powerful when you have the creators crafting it on you...hell they also have it where it can possibly protect you from immorality when things get tough 😂

[@TheFoxClaws]

Yugi rebuilds his deck in preparation for each opponent with the exception of the initial battle city duels since he could be dueling anyone. Hence, his deck that he uses against Kaiba that included Dark Paladin and Slifer is not the same as the deck he plays vs Arkana and also different from the deck his uses vs Marik

[@satanos6]

Would love to see you analyse more anime decks such as Joey's or Kaiba's! This was a great watch!

[@ashleyblack7419]

Imagine exodia's final part being face down at the bottom of the deck, you'd win if you draw it but 35 ish turns is quite a long duel

[@kyogresurfs3825]

Since Yugi has Dark Magician, the magician would give Yugi the right cards he needs at the right time.

[@_durant]

9:49 it took me till now to realise that Buster Blader is 90% legs

[@KnightCrown]

Weevil literally increased Yugi's winrate when he threw the 5 pieces of exodia off the ship.

[@chrismendez8752]

His deck isnt supposed to make sense his power is he pulls the exact card he needs when he believes. He wills his deck to exist as he needs it

[@tientruong7205]

That is why he is the king of game. I mean, have you seen him destroy the moon, Peak.

[@StrangeNames]

To be fair, the Millennium Puzzle of Unity seems to have the ability to manipulate the odds of allies and friends to being in the right place/getting a perfect chance to help Yugi and Yami Yugi in times when they need help. This is significant because we have been shown that some cards have souls or partially contain the soul of their original owner. This ability tends to make the normally inconsistent decks brokenly powerful.

[@QDavis44]

They don’t need to make sense when you can draw whatever you want at will

[@Shin_FTW]

To be fair to Ragnarok, it actually says it removes from play all *cards* your opponent controls. Not just monsters. But yeah, it's super situational.

[@kriddius]

When you can literally decide which card you draw next with mumbo jumbo egyptian magic, deck composition goes out the window

[@radandpaisley]

Good ol' topdecking- i mean, heart of the cards

[@starblastpro2959]

This was a great video I love the visual kf showing all the cards in the deck that we see throughout the series

[@robertmcginty4146]

Really interesting analysis, thank you.

[@patlmalon]

This was an enjoyable watch. I’d be interested to see if a similar analysis could be done with other characters like Joey or Kaiba, or even other protagonists like Jaden

[@cyruscesar2818]

Love the video. Younger me thought Yugi's deck was OP, so I went out to get (mostly) every card to play against my friends. Older me can't believe I didn't play something else lol. I thought Dark Magician was the shit...It's shit alright lol

[@BussiDestroyer]

At least Summoned Skull was good for its time for the stats

[@bradleyhendricks8606]

Imagine a modern Yugioh show where each player just spends 10 min special summoning monsters

[@Zeronigel332]

I feel this is a good video of showing how much the anime screwed up Yugi deck by either adding random nonsense or just trying to make the deck more legit. I do want to clear up something though, Yugi changes his deck up during the battle city semi finals adding in the poker knights as he needed a way to summon slifer quickly. The other thing which is I feel you should also mention the original manga situation of cards to show how it was much more viable like for example Valykion was supposed to be a fusion monster similar to xyz dragon cannon but for some reason they didn’t do that.

[@KYMan678]

I think that the older original yugioh is better than later yugioh tcg

[@Devontae7894]

Back when the series started he didn’t really need a theme but after the game advanced they started giving him a more complete deck in the movies

[@LowtherR]

Great vid, Would love to see more protag deck breakdowns like this,

[@caliithildae8500]

It should be considered that his Grandpa's deck was very good by most standards. Remember it had the win condition of drawing into a Blue-eyes, one of only four copies in existence, and given the rules at that point could be summoned without tribute. The way they spoke about it if you draw Blue-Eyes, you win. The deck also ran Dark Magician at the time and Gaia the Fierce Knight, the the former the strongest Spellcaster and the latter the strongest Warrior monster. The rules stated that you could not attack life points directly and had to end your turn with a monster on the field. Given that we know traps and spells existed that could prevent a guaranteed Blue-Eyes win condition having Exodia as a last back-up makes sense. If you consider rarities and what we see the few normal people playing with, having a deck with most monsters being 1400 atk and up would be a beatdown deck that most players would struggle to keep up with. Kaiba just happens to have access to all the rarest cards so the monsters Yugi draws seem average by comparison. Also, while never shown, it can be assumed that the deck included Monster Reborn since just about every duelist in the series has that card. So the purpose of Grandpa's deck is to use decently rare and strong monsters to keep the opponent off balance while trying to draw into one of your three boss monsters in Dark Magician, Gaia, and Blue-Eyes. Meanwhile you are drawing cards and should have a decent reserve of monsters and spells should your opponent draw something really strong, and if the opponent is formidable and you aren't drawing Blue-Eyes, you have cards like Swords of Revealing Light to stall for time to draw the cards you need and put up a bit of a wall. Should the opponent find a way to kill your Blue-Eyes by some trap or other combo you have Monster Reborn to bring it back. Exodia was just a bonus win condition if all else failed, the real win condition was drawing Blue-Eyes since the odds of anyone else having another was so rare.

[@TechnomageParagon]

Mystical Refpanel is also so situational that it's got a specific list of card that it can be used on, and there were not many back then,

[@tylerantony7399]

My dumb ass as a kid: "Man these green cards are boring and suck, I'm not playing them, I want to play with this Blue Eyes, Red Eyes, Dark Magician, and this super high star creature called Gate Guardian! 11 stars and 3750 attack! So powerful and cool!" The "boring green cards" in question: Pot of Greed, Change of Heart, Delinquent Duo, Monster Reborn, Painful Choice, Forceful Sentry, Graceful Charity, Heavy Storm

[@paintedpig3021]

I remember there actually was a episode of GX where a student tried using Yugi's deck and still lost with the main lesson being it's more about the duelist themselves

[@jpollo5]

Funny that if you take all the pull of available cards from Atem/Yugi, you can build a pretty good and consistent spellcaster beatdown/control deck, only focusing on DM, DMG, DMOC and BLS Envoy (thanks to a powerful chaos engine) the majority of the spells and traps are the ones that were forbidden in the goat era, and he has a lot of draw power, usually you are not gonna be without monsters thanks to have a lot of cards to special summon magicians like crazy. Even compared to later character decks (also some from Vrains), Atem can stand very well againt them. If you just try to use the most iconic monsters like the Gods, Gaia, Buster blader, the magnets, then yeah the deck is trash unplayable, but playing it with head, it would surprise you how good it is

[@terakhanthis]

Don't forget, anime cards did different things. Especially that elf, that I swear had at least three different abilities through the show. Also, Yugi was a freaking cheater, using his puzzle to draw what he needed.

[@GabrielAraujo-qm3hc]

Yugi's deck makes PERFECT sense if you consider the guy could magically draw any card he needed any moment

[@JNx5n]

I think what the Anime doesn't convey is that cards were hard to obtain. It was a deck filled with a lot of one offs.

[@PolishSasquatch]

I'll defend some of Yugi's card from Battle City and beyond. Chimera is actually the very beginning of a case study into what Yu-Gi-Oh! had to do to make fusion summoning a competent mechanic. Because right out of the gate, between the materials and the Polymerization card, fusion summoning effectively threw half of your opening hand into the garbage for a beatstick that didn't even equal the sum of its parts. Berfomet could technically search the other fusion material (if you could get around the damn tribute summon), and Chimera revives one of the materials if it dies. There was an attempt here to compensate for the loss of card advantage that's inherent to fusion summoning, and for Caveman Yu-Gi-Oh! standards, it wasn't terrible. There was a similar situation with Kaiba's Twin Headed Thunder Dragon, where the fusion material can discard itself for two extra copies of itself to facilitate the fusion summoning. It wasn't that good, but as far as turning fusion summoning into a competent mechanic, it was at least a start. Also, I'll defend Buster Blader. Yugi's Battle City deck had next to no synergy, but Buster Blader was at least a meta tech choice given the circumstances. We're talking about a level 7 tribute summon whose stats and effect are specifically designed to get over Kaiba's Blue-Eyes. In fact, if the manga (and the portion of the anime that was adapting the manga) copied the TCG effect of Buster Blader, this guy would counter Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon ON IT'S OWN. 500 extra ATK for every Dragon on field and in grave means 500 for the Ultimate Dragon itself, plus 1500 for the fusion materials in grave. That would've been 4600, JUST ENOUGH to get over the 4500 fusion beatstick.

[@FreehhZe]

I always think of it that way that the series played in our past and thats why the competition back then wasn't as optimized as today's decks

[@kitsuaria]

Thank you for having a more grounded approach to this topic. However, I do think this raises the question of how much better or worse everyone's elses decks were in comparison. As awful as Yugi's decks might be, they only have to be better than his opponents'.

[@anthonybrewer2769]

The millennium items all had different powers yugi had the most powerful one the puzzle had the power of probability like domino from x-men basically the power of luck

[@trunkafunk2010]

to be fair during the 1st season there were not many 4 star monsters that had more than 1500... matter of fact quite a few 5 star monsters had around 1500 lol so the low atk is viable during the time

[@Whoknows11112]

Yugi doesn’t need a good deck. He has the power of friendship. If he had a good deck, he would be taking it too seriously and everyone would think he was lame

[@steveshin820]

Yugi's deck makes perfect sense since he can draw whatever he wants. The best way to build a deck with that power is just add a whole.bunch of "what-if" cards like Berserker Soul or Lightforce Sword specifically to counter Exodia that one time.

[@kingpowellii6004]

I didn't think people would be so sensitive over this subject. Today i learned never to mention Yugi's deck.

[@emblemblade9245]

I think the only thing we should be doing is asking ourselves what is the minimum standard deck that can beat every opponent Yugi faces, and then compare his deck to that.

[@NothingAfter]

Man, I wanted to have some friends get into YuGiOh Master Duel by getting them into the anime first, but there's a lot to explain regarding how the real game shit starts on the Battle City arc. GX and 5Ds seem to be the better recommendation for gameplay. Great video btw!

[@XxbelligerentxX]

Going off the title, I was hoping this was a video answering that question. Like any lore or reason he uses certain cards and how he’d strategize using the cards he does use. Still a nice video tho!