Yugi's Deck in Duelist Kingdom - EXPLAINED! | Yu-Gi-Oh!

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Yugi didn't really have a "theme" for his deck in season 1- Duelist Kingdom, did he?...Actually he did! So let's break it down and explain what it is!!
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[@JanjoZone]

What's YOUR favorite monster in Yugi's Duelist Kingdom deck?

[@JanjoZone]

And consider subbing & dropping a like if you enjoy videos like this one!!

[@matthewwelch5966]

Dark Magician. Dark Magician is my favorite card in the entire game.

[@pedrorocha3674]

Love Gaia The Fierce Knight and Curse of Dragon.

[@pharaohatem6962]

@@matthewwelch5966 Same here

[@Ricky_Evans1611]

Celtic Guardian

[@UrLeingod]

I think an important thing to keep in mind is that, back in Duelist Kingdom, Duel Monsters was basically half card game, half tabletop RPG (which is why the rules are basically "anything you can explain in a way that sounds like it could logically occur is legal"). And the latter is basically Yugi's "theme;" his deck is mostly all tabletop RPG stuff. He's got wizards, demons, elves, mythical beasts, a big stone golem, a few dragons, some knights, etc. And even before that, the game was essentially presented as being "you're two powerful sorcerers battling by summoning monsters to fight for you," essentially. Yugi's deck is the one that best plays into this idea; his monsters aren't very strong, but he proves himself the better sorcerer by powering them up or using spells and magic-themed traps to overcome the gap in strength. Note just how many of his spells and traps are basically things that could be a wizard's spell (which is why so many of them are used in tandem with Dark Magician and it looks like he's casting them on the field; this is also why DM is his boss monster).

[@duane_313]

"The game was essentially presented as being "you're two powerful sorcerers battling by summoning monsters to fight for you" The ironic part, is that that theme is lost in the real life card game of yugioh. Even though we're casting spells and summoning monsters, most kids that grew up playing were imaging themselves as duelist like on the show, not actual wizards. A lot of the modern yugioh spell cards don't even feel like "spells" anymore, more like action cards.

[@SuperGamefreak18]

Actually the oringal ocg and bandai rules were what duelist kingdom were working on (hell the very first duel and 3d duel were references to that early game, with the yugi v kaiba duel basically referencing the slow build of power level in the old ocg days.) Though by the time WE got duelist kingdom we were using modern rules...stuff they wouldn't use until duelist kingdom

[@glitchedoom]

Never thought of it that way, but it makes perfect sense. His family runs a game shop, and before finishing the Puzzle he was a shy, game obsessed kid. Hell, the manga itself was born out of Takahashi's love of tabletop games and the like.

[@unkown34x33]

couldn't say it better myself :)

[@bluebearie7230]

exactly bro you can't just assume things based on 4kids dub the game was originally called Magic and Wizards or something iirc and you're basically playing similarly to D&D, that's why cards with "Horn" theme were never equipped to warrior types - they just didn't fit (even if it works irl) they were also weakness that you could exploit back in that "era". for example "Illusion" beats "Magician". or "Flying creatures" beat "Warrior" etc. You can also summon as many monsters as you want in a turn, but you lose a duel if you can't summon any monster (you can't attack LP directly) The rules were just too different from irl card game that it's not a good idea to compare them and judge the characters

[@squalace_]

His duelist kingdom deck is actually fitting for a king of games, because for the rules at the time, it was actually pretty busted. It was basically a stall deck whose win condition was either Exodia, or a game-winning combo between a made-up spell effect plus one of his monsters; we see this with cards like Burning Land, Mystic Moon, Living Arrow, and Multiply. In a format with no direct attacks, where you only lose if you run out of monsters, and where spells can pretty much do whatever you want, his deck was unbeatable.

[@mrflores6327]

The thing about Yugi's deck is that it was based on DnD and Magic the gathering from Wizards of the Coast. Summon skull is the best example. Watch the toei adaptation of Yugioh. It was based on the first 50 chapters of the manga.

[@dannylopez5976]

Yeah definitly a light fantasy motif going through his deck.

[@salem6310]

my man Sugoroku really said "I put my soul into this deck" and gave his grandson the most 10 year-old-at-playground deck imaginable

[@glitchedoom]

To be fair, it did contain the unstoppable Exodia.

[@bluebearie7230]

in his defense, his deck won him duels back in his days but i guess he never got upgrades from "modern" cards that's why his deck got power-crept massively, just like how a 2008 meta deck would get absolutely crushed by a simple structure deck in 2023

[@number16kelbax]

Dude. Variety IS his theme.

[@HarunoSoul]

Yugi's deck was always an anomaly. It was also low key used to advertise new cards. His deck also had ALOT of potential bricks.

[@phorchybug3286]

And for only a teeny couple of cents, you can get your very own Torike.

[@CharlieZColt]

Most of the cards Yugi uses in Duelest Kingdom predate the OCG. Later on cards he uses wouldn’t be available for sale until a year to 6 months later. Not exactly an efficient way to advertise cards

[@theentity5201]

No wander Rafael clapped him like an annoying bug, inconsistent AF brick Didn't even prioritise destroying guarded treasure which allowed Rafael to draw 2 every turn, King of games NOT Rafaels slave moreso

[@HoveringAboveMyself]

Many of those bricks aren't so in the manga though, Konami was just too chicken to implement their mechanics accurately at the time like Rituals being some sort of alt-fusion where you have a spell that materializes a monster from outside of your deck by using materials on the field, or monsters like Valkyrion being a contact fusion before contact fusions.

[@bassgx1459]

Black Luster Soldier didn't came out of nowhere. The reason why he runs a lot of weak monsters in his deck is because they're mean to be used as fodder for the ritual cards. The Black Luster and Dark Magic Ritual work differently in the original source than in real life, the requiment is two monster with 1500atk or less so basically Atem builds his deck around ritual summoning, buffing weak monster with equip cards and some other shenanigans like Exodia.

[@JanjoZone]

He only used Rituals in thr last two duels and even Luster was used in part with Gaia. But I like the thought!

[@inconemay1441]

Sounds like a precursor to Synchro summoning pretty much

[@sardinee4564]

@@JanjoZone No it was not used with gaia, it was the "soul of gaia" that was used to summon him, the monsters tributed were kuriboh and griffore, ritual monsters are also stated to be non-physical cards and appear out of nowhere as long as you have the spell to summon them. Monsters with 1500 or less attack are needed to summon his stronger rituals which is why he plays them, he didn't ritual summon earlier because he just didn't draw the spells required to or couldn't meet the requirements. This is different in the anime, however the anime is retarded so I think its better to look at the manga since it is the original source afterall.

[@HoveringAboveMyself]

@@sardinee4564 I think the anime made rituals work better than the early card game or the manga, in the manga you did need 3 materials on the field, the 2 tributes and the monster that is going to be powered up, the anime kept the monster being summoned from outside of the deck like the manga but used the simplified requirements of just matching levels of the card game.

[@felix4now948]

Originally in Manga the stars/level ment rarity. Most players played the cards they can get.

[@weelzneal4768]

Dark magician & sage were doing black luster ritual along with black magic ritual, sacrificing beaver warrior, feral imp, gazelle (or whatever) + chimera. Gaia & curse of dragon watch over them while celtic guardian & soldier of stone are front line. May seem like kuriboh is just doing whatever dogs do but hes actually making a perimeter, ready to sacrifice himself at a moments notice. Oh mystical elf & summoned skull are off bangin

[@NitroNEXT]

Obviously in reality it's just a way to show off a large variety of cards as a form of advertisement. But for a more in-story answer... I feel Yami's signiture monsters are more or less reincarnations (or retrains) of monsters that he used in ancient games. In the tablet of lost memories you can obviously see the Dark Magician, as well as a horseman which presumably was some sort of prototype that would eventually become Gaia the Fierce Knight in 'modern' Duel Monsters. Since They didn't have knights in ancient Egypt it makes sense that the monsters would take on different forms based on the context of the time but their 'spirit' remained the same throughout history. It's similar to Yami himself inhabiting in a similar yet different body in Yugi, or Dark Magician and DMG being the spirit of Mahad and Mana etc. Another explanation is that the modern cards seem familiar to him for reasons he can't explain, but in actuality it's because they simply remind him of his ancient monsters, so he instinctively picks those that are similar. I'm more partial to the former explanation though. Also, about Black Luster Soldier... It's less that it "came out of nowhere" and is more to do with the fact that it's another form of his horseman from ancient times (Gaia). In the manga it's heavily implied that Gaia is the same warrior as BLS, only transformed by chaos. But the question is then; how is the Pharoah able to retain the spirits of his ancient monsters throughout time? Well, it most likely has something to do with the magic of the Millenium puzzle and whatever allows him to manipulate chance to his own will (Destiny draw ability) but on a grand scale and having minor influence over thousands of years. That's my theory at least, another explanation is just predetermined destiny but that's a little boring. One other detail I've always taken note of is that Yami seems to have more of an inclination for Darker monsters wheras Yugi seems to be the source of a lot of the lighter and more innocent cards put in the deck. My headcannon is that this has something to do with Yami being dead as well as it being a remnant of his dark personality from the early manga (before Yugi's influence lightened his personality). I suspect if Yami was building a deck initially without Yugi's influence it would be mostly dark spellcasters and fiends but due to Yugi and Grandpa's cards, along with modern additions from booster packs like the magnet warriors, Buster Blader etc, it becomes this mish mash of seemingly random cards, which is somewhat fitting considering his memories are also a mess, but with Yami's destiny draw and skill at all games, he manages to make the deck work regardless.

[@iBenjamin1000]

love love love love summoned skull. basically the archfiend aesthetic of huge muscles meeting with huge skeletal structures mkae them look scary and demon-y but also very imposing and powerful.

[@DragonmasterSK]

Loved the video. The only thing I'd recommend is matching the cards you mention.with the ones that show up so it's not distracting. I have a hard time trying to picture Gaia while a center HD pic of great white pops up LOL I think you nailed it while talking about the deck representing the 2 faces of Yugi. The Dark Magicians are Atem cards alongside with all the Royal themed cards. (Gaia, The Knights, The tricky (joker) and of course the Chaos cards. While Yugi uses the Magnet warriors, Curse of Dragon, Marshmallon, Silent Magician (Which is probably the best way to represent him). It stars like a nimble wizard, just like how Yugi was before, and will eventually surpass the Dark Magicians or "Atem". That's a very good analogy they placed on their Duel

[@jakeproven256]

Rex's deck was kinda weird, he had Dinosaur cards, but he also had dragons and stuff that had nothing to do with Dinosaurs, which is why I always liked Hassleberrys deck more because that was strictly a Dinosaur deck.

[@JanjoZone]

That's probably due to historic accounts of people believing fossils to be dragon bones. Just my guess.

[@jackcarraway4707]

@@JanjoZone That and Dinosaurs had very little to no support during the Duelist Kingdom arc.

[@Zeradias090]

​@@jackcarraway4707 well that might be true, but Rex battle city deck has tyrant dragon as his boss monster sooo

[@HoveringAboveMyself]

@@Zeradias090 That was during the filler grand prix tournament arc, in battle city we only see him summon an unamed dinosaur in the manga and serpent night dragon in the anime

[@MrShinori]

His final deck are actually really strong. Dark magician and supports, gaia, good traps and spells, a lot of seachers.

[@JanjoZone]

He IS the king of games!

[@Zeradias090]

The best deck he ever had , was the upgraded version they gave him in GX

[@ellietincan6756]

Blackland Fire Dragon 😍

[@PrimordialNightmare]

Yugis Deck is pretty eclectic because he isn't supposed to be as single minded as the others - as an actual TCG thing his Deck kinda sucked, but the variety speaks to the adaptability of the character. Obviously, the Boss Monsters, if you can call them that way, were very important and kidna character defining or mirroring, but apart from that, most characters are kinda two dimensional for playing very focused deck builds. And it's true, Yugis Geck relies much more on interactions and Kombos as for example Kaibas Deck, maybe that ties into the series friendship themes.

[@JanjoZone]

Yeah I like to think Beaver Warrior and Griffore are pals! But that's a great point!

[@herohut725]

I like the idea that Yugi's cards went their own ways and that most cards got support to make their own archetypes.

[@matthewkuscienko4616]

I feel like they kinda had to in Yugi's case, since his deck had such a wide variety of different cards. On the other hand, they MAYBE could've found some way to make cards that support multiple different cards in his deck, kind of like what they did with the Red-Eyes archetype being based around monsters that Joey played and it's fusions, or how they made some Ojama cards that were intended to be used together with Armed Dragon and XYZ union monsters because Chazz played all 3 in his deck; I'm just not sure it would've been particularly cohesive if they tried to do something similar for Yugi

[@Lord_D._Radiant]

something about his deck is also that it's like a counterpart to kaiba. where kaiba wants absolute power like being able to bring out obelisk with stuff like soul exchange. yugioh's is more about utility where monsters will combine to power up like the magnet warriors or gaia the dragon champion

[@guyperson7930]

Gotta love Mushroom Man

[@con1302]

I always figured it a fantasy themed deck

[@HistoryandReviews]

“My grandfathers deck has no pathetic cards, Kaiba”

[@minicle426]

"Except for Kuriboh"

[@darthjoe91]

Yugi's deck in duelist kingdom was more of a fantasy deck. Elf and beast knights and mages, undead beasts, imps, a white wolf, his dragons, even a mounted knight that becomes a dragon knight that becomes his ultimate knight of light and darkness. Then there's his favorite/ace Dark Magician and a few cards thst revolve around it.

[@achimsinn6189]

His deck is almost what a deck of somebody starting the game would evolve like. At the beginning you have to use the cards you get from the few packs you bought and that includes some weak cards because you don't really have better options. Then over time you get more packs and replace your bad options with better cards, but still you are forced to play random cards in your deck because you don't own all the cards you need to build a deck where every card is fitting in. And then at last you dinally got all the cards - and skills - to actually build the deck you want to play competetively with the best cards and combinations of cards you can come up with which in his case is the egyptian god monsters theme - and I know that is no good IRL, but it works fine in the anime due to how much of bossmonsters they are in the anime.

[@mn_seahawk25thehawk64]

Seems like all his Weak monsters are Earth and that all represents Yugi. All his powerful monsters are dark and that represents Yami. Just a guess lol.

[@HistoryandReviews]

Giant Soldier of Stone is not weak

[@darthjoe91]

You're on to something, and he also has his two ritual monsters that combine the darkness of Yami with the light in Yugi.

[@tobigrantlbart]

I find the idea interesting that Grandpa Muto's deck basically was a stall deck to bring out Exodia. Which I think could have been a way to kinda surprise your opponent. But I probably read to much into it.

[@nathanholbrook1693]

Your feeling that it was a trickery-based deck is as close to a coherent theme as we'll ever find. Deep down, we know the monsters are just cute and easily popularized like pokemon.

[@LordGrim1313]

that's what deflates the whole thing though, it was really his grandpa's deck. He modified it sure, but at it's core a lot of the cards came from grandpa moto. To see Yugi's deck, you have to watch season 0 and the 'movie' that goes with it. Blackland fire dragon, Mystical Elf, monster reborn, skull servant, silver fang, Meteor Dragon, Feral Imp, and maybe biggest of all, Summoned Skull. Unfortunately a lot of the original cards didn't make it into the main series or the actual OCG/TCG. He was able to add Dark Magician later and that seems to be when he shifted focus to that. He only borrowed Red Eyes for a duel but he was the first in the series to use fusion, being able to combine red eyes with summoned skull and meteor dragon as well as Gaia and Curse of Dragon could have meant fusion was Yugi's early 'theme'. Dark Magician of Chaos was most certainly a card Yugi added to his grandfather's deck. Also at one point he was planning to use Time Wizard, likely also to combo with dark magician before he gave it to joey. Kuriboh is also one of Yugi's favorites so it and it's applications likely came from his own deck. Black Luster Soldier was probably one of Grandpa's since he was seen putting up a poster of it in his shop, likely a backup while stalling for Exodia. Gaia the Fierce Knight and Curse of Dragon might have been Grandpa's originally and were either gifted to Yugi or he managed to get his own.

[@minicle426]

I really dislike how Summoned Skull got shafted after Duelist Kingdom. It was actually Yugi's original Ace.

[@cmrobbins88]

Yeah I am reading the manga again and this was Yugi’s original powerful monster in the actual first duel with Kaiba before the “Death T” arc where he summons Exodia and Dark Magician.

[@matthewkuscienko4616]

I think that the reason why they pushed Summoned Skull aside was because in the episode that introduced Bakura in Duelist Kingdom, Yugi said that Dark Magician was his favorite card, so they started to focus more on that monster instead. You can even kind of see it beginning to take more of a prominent role during his duels with Joey and Pegasus, in which Dark Magician was transformed into Dark Sage and the Magician of Black Chaos, respectively, to win his duels

[@sardinee4564]

​@@matthewkuscienko4616 but you're talking about the anime here, whilst they're talking about the manga. The reason why he never plays summoned skull again is because its a level 7 monster and Dm synergises much better with his spell-caster support whilst having the same attack, in the anime however summoned skull is a level 6 monster so he continues to use it in battle city and afterwards once tribute summoning rules were added.

[@kskda64]

Toolbox is the description of yugi's deck

[@DensetsuDBL]

He read too much into this. Atem didn’t have any effect on yugis deck at the time. They only really started to work together during the duel with Pegasus

[@cmrobbins88]

Kaiba didn’t have much of a theme either. Yeah he had his Blue-Eyes and Crush Card stratagems, but he also had a mish-mash of Dark and Earth Monsters like Swordstalker, Battle Ox, Hitotsoumei Giant, Judge Man, and Rude Kaiser. And good ol’ Saggi the Dark Clown lol.

[@JanjoZone]

It was mostly big, strong monsters

[@cmrobbins88]

@@JanjoZone yeah true it was “Beatdown” theme in terms of the balance. So Yugi’s would be more like a “Counter-Strategy” theme using comparatively weaker monsters as bait and counter attacking with Spells and Traps until he had an opening with a boss monster. That’s kind of how he won most of his duels.

[@JanjoZone]

@@cmrobbins88 He HAS THE OUT

[@cmrobbins88]

@@JanjoZone and the out is Mushroom Man.

[@HyruleLegend2]

I feel it was nice to have different monsters all the time to mix it up. Gets boring watching jaiden slap 3 dudes in a row with flame wingman or yusei with junk then stardust. Like yeah yugi is Normally always the dark magician but he also pulls alot of wins with random cards and ad the main character dueling the most it's nice to have more variety

[@johnsmith5922]

It's because it was his deck. It was his Grandpa's deck. He was playing with someone else's cards and slowly building his own deck around it.

[@Dreday-dp1jp]

He didn't say goodbye to exodia 😡😡😡

[@generalred6260]

Take a shot every time you hear the word "Deck"

[@unkown34x33]

well it's kinda obvious lol Yugi/atem deck is part dark magic part earth warriors. after the first season he changed a lot of cards on his deck to be better and more effective. not gonna lie lol first season deck is not my fav but I have it

[@waynepayne864]

its a magic the gathering parody deck yugioh started off as a magic the gathering parody, european folkore deck. and yugi and kaiba were kind of the guinea pigs for this concept: wizards, dragons, elfs. a lot of these monsters in season 1 were leftovers from season 0 episode 3 and like 25

[@ChuuniKaede]

The poor pronunciation of Muto is painful.

[@mothman2514]

I assumed Yugi's cards were vaguely based on DnD/fantasy tropes?

[@AquariusLeviathanProphecy]

Actually yugi deck was passed down from he's grandpa on Too him in duelist kingdom

[@inconemay1441]

Chimera is so frustrating because it's so bad even by contemporary standards and doesnt even win him in story duels or anything Ofc Black Luster Soldier is barely even seen aside from fillers despite how cool it is. And because Yugi is the main character he needs to have a lot of duels and which means he needs to advertise the randomest of cards as well, synergy/theme be damned

[@gundamdragon]

Atem is Yami real name

[@chimeratcg07]

It is basically an Earth and Dark deck, with a few miscellaneous cards like Mystical Elf, Catapult Turtle to name a few.

[@number16kelbax]

According to Google Translate "Atem" Is German for "Breath"

[@daraghokane4236]

He's God the pharo so that fits breath could mean soul

[@lspoulin]

it's Deus Machina deck

[@JanjoZone]

Yugi runs Machina confirmed? 🤔

[@lspoulin]

in DnD I always use the effect spells because of Yugi's deck, how it can throw people off their game

[@Pen_Slinger]

I think it was just a budget deck, and as the series went on he gradually got better cards and it slowly became a Dark Magician deck more and more. Something that a lot of players can relates too, whether we're Meta or Casual players we all have that one card favorite or 1st card we started from and slowly built our deck better and better over time as we collected and discovered more cards.

[@JanjoZone]

The owner of a card shop played a budget deck? 🤔

[@Pen_Slinger]

@@JanjoZone Well he is a Senior Citizen.

[@OREOstyle1]

I think his deck was considered above average, because e.g. in the manga it was mentioned that for example Gaia, dark magician and summoned skull are super rare card/ strongest of its type in that timeline

[@austingomez9630]

❤🤔

[@pharaohatem6962]

It was so unbalanced I hate it

[@CptManboobs]

My headcanon is that Yugi is switching out cards from his deck in between games.

[@realsetokaibaja5111]

Yugi's deck is NPC STYLE