Duel: Standby!

With my recent sequence of posts about gaming, my wife has recently joked that my website is slowly transforming into a gaming blog. Well, here goes another: over the last two months, our time has been absolutely consumed playing card games. Really this post is about Yu-Gi-Oh!, but bear with me a moment here.

It started when my wife got me into playing The Witcher 3. Anybody familiar with the life and adventures of Geralt of Rivia would know that the third game in the franchise is famous for introducing one of the best mini-games in RPG history: Gwent. For Christmas last year, I got her the complete box set, featuring all five decks seen in the game, and as the new year rolled in, we spent nearly every night of January trying to one-up each other in round after round, seeing who could summon the best hero cards, and foiling each other’s plans with surprise weather and scorch effects. It could have come and gone as just a one-off discovery of a new hobby for both of us, just a little something to get us off the screens every now and then, but as February rolled in, I felt a familiar itch in the back of my mind, an old feeling that I thought I’d grown out of from my high school days.

The timing couldn’t have been better. The first week of February coincided with my final defense. I told myself if I came out of it with a passing mark, I’ll reward myself with a proper gift. So on the morning just before I walked into the room where my doctoral committee sat waiting, I added two things to my cart on Amazon (I know, but choices were limited): the Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds Legendary Collection, featuring three decks used by the main characters in the anime, buffed up with some (at the time of release) new support cards to make them viable for modern play, and the Magic: The Gathering Foundations beginner box set. With Magic, I thought my wife and I might have fun trying out an entirely new card game. As for Yu-Gi-Oh! though, I figured as she introduced me to her card game, I’d introduce her to one of mine from way back.

At its core, Yu-Gi-Oh! is a one-against-one duel (not unlike Gwent) where players use a mix of monsters, spells, and traps to drop the other’s life points to zero. Back in high school, it was the absolute star of recess hour. As soon as the last professor of the period left the room, we’d converge on the floor to one side of the classroom (away from the doors in case another teacher was walking by), and slapping down cards without bothering with playmats or sleeves, arguing over rulings we completely misunderstood. Back then, my absolute nemesis was the Lightsworn deck. I just couldn’t seem to beat it, no matter what I threw at it, even though I was piloting a relatively modern Blackwing deck at the time. Part of the problem was that my brain was still stubbornly stuck in the original Duel Monsters and GX anime eras that I’d grown up watching, and couldn’t quite wrap my head around the new white Synchro cards and the black Xyz cards — and boy, if only I knew just how much more complicated the summoning mechanics were going to get from then on.

I felt a rush of nostalgia upon cracking open the 5D’s set in our apartment and seeing that one of the three included decks was, in fact, a Blackwing deck. It was like running into an old friend, only to immediately realize something completely embarrassing: I was an absolutely terrible deck builder back then.

To be fair to my teenage self, my budget was extremely limited. I could really only afford to buy exactly one structure deck with whatever was left of my daily allowance. Even beginning Yu-Gi-Oh players know that Konami’s formula requires you to combine at least three to get all the staples down. The rest of my deck was a Frankenstein monster patched together from random card pulls out of booster packs and aggressive trading with my classmates. I don’t really remember the exact cards I had in my deck back then, but going through the modern Crow deck list included in the box, it hit me just how much I’ve grown. Looking through the cards now, I immediately started seeing things like card synergy, engine consistency, and draw advantage: concepts that my younger self, who mostly just wanted to summon the monster with the coolest artwork, never seemed to ever figure out.

Our first few duels were hilarious at best. While the fundamentals came back to me like riding a bicycle — remembering the nuanced difference between quick-play and regular spell cards, the timing of traps and counter traps, and the simple economy of normal and special summons — so much of the modern deck felt completely alien to me. What exactly was this new blue monster card? And why in the world is the text so long? Don’t get me wrong, I like reading, but when did the card text become full-fledged short stories? My wife, meanwhile, let out an exasperated groan when she played an effect that instructed her to look for cards in her deck that “mentions” the name of another specific card. We both just stared at the table for a second as the reality set in: did she really have to pick up her deck and read through the microscopic text of every single card just to resolve one move?

Despite the steep learning curve and the impromptu reading comprehension tests, the outcome was entirely predictable. Just like with our marathon Gwent sessions, she absolutely ran me over through all but one game. She’s ridiculously good at games, even the ones she barely knows how to play. Though, looking back at those first messy matches, neither of us were entirely sure if our rulings were exactly right anyway.

Anyway, all of this got me thinking. I have a Switch, and Gwent feel pretty great on a handheld (it carried us through the fourteen-hour flight between Osaka and London just recently). Was there a Yu-Gi-Oh! game on the eShop? As it turns out, there was. I downloaded Master Duel and immediately fell down a YouTube rabbit hole of deck-building tutorials. I wanted something moderately competitive for ranked matches, but I also wanted it to be built around one of my absolute favorite cards from the original Duel Monsters era: Seiyaryu! To my absolute delight, I learned that during my long absence from the game, Konami had actually shown this legendary beast some love, releasing modern retrains and support cards under the “Starry Knight” archetype, complete with shiny new beaters like Starry Knight, Starry Dragon and utility cards like Starry Knight Balefire.

There was just one major hurdle I had to overcome. I am, fundamentally, not a very competitive person. The mere idea of facing off against a nameless, faceless stranger somewhere in the world — who, for all I know, has spent hundreds of hours meticulously optimizing their combo deck — filled me with a very specific kind of dread. I just wanted to have fun like I used to back in high school. Back then, it was easy because the setup wasn’t the least bit competitive. Playing with friends between classes, or sitting across the dining table from my wife, you get to humor each other. You can banter, groan at a bad draw, and laugh. That is so much different from the silent, antagonistic feel of an online match where you’re just forced to sit there and watch your opponent combo away for ten minutes straight.

But go to battle I did. I decided to fight that hesitation by setting a strict limit for myself: a maximum of four ranked duels a day. I’m surprised by how well it went. Armed with my Starry Knight deck built with nothing but nostalgia, a dream (lol), and hours upon hours of grinding solo mode for gems and crafting points, I actually managed to hold my own. I threw in a few modern necessities like Ash Blossom and Maxx “C” to keep things fair, and suddenly, I was feeling the rush of actual interaction. I even managed to climb to Silver! I’ve faced down modern competitive staples, completely shutting down a Raidraptor combo with my Starry Dragon, and even securing wins against Blue-Eyes and Vanquish Soul decks.

I think I’ll play through just one season of my Duel Pass to see how far I can get before checking out of ranked for a while. I want to step back, just chill with solo mode, and save up enough gems to build my next-gen deck. And in a twist of beautiful irony, I think I know exactly what I’m going to build: my old high school nemesis, a Lightsworn deck.