Many of you might know Yu-Gi-Oh! from the anime on RTLZWEI. If you are as clumsy as MeinMMO editor Jasmin Beverungen, you might have thrown away your old cards with which you battled on the schoolyard. But that would be no excuse to start with the card game today.
A silly mistake I made in my youth was throwing away my collectible cards. I used to collect TCGs like Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Oh! because I was a huge fan of the associated animes. On my TV, the channel RTLZWEI played over and over, and even off the screen, I wanted to immerse myself in the animes.
It was just dumb that at some point it became “uncool” to duel each other with cards during recess. So, I threw away my entire collection – which is probably why I lost valuable cards.
That would probably be the reason why I started collecting Magic the Gathering as an adult – the mistake from my youth weighs too heavily. But recently I got the chance to take a look back into the Yu-Gi-Oh! trading card game.
Konami provided us with a total of six decks. Four of these decks are designed for beginners, two of them have more complex mechanics. I will tell you how complicated the decks have become and whether it is even possible for fans of the anime back then to get started today.
Yu-Gi-Oh! is easy to learn, but hard to master
Many of you might still remember how the duels in the anime deliver. Each round a card is drawn, monsters are summoned, and trap and spell cards are activated. Over time, however, new rules were added, for example regarding the maximum number of cards in a deck.
Moreover, the anime did not always adhere to the rules of the official card game. But that’s not a problem. Especially the starter deck, which simulates a guided duel, helped me.
Konami designed a starter deck intended for two players. It explains step by step what mechanics exist, how to calculate damage, and how to perform basic summons. The manual is designed like a comic. After the test duel, I felt extremely well prepared.
For actual dueling, the 2-player starter deck is not a good solution. Players who are already familiar with the rules and just want to quickly look up terms won’t find anything useful in the 2-player set. However, for players who haven’t had any contact with the card game for decades, this box is perfect.
For such players, the God starter decks with Obelisk the Tormentor, and Slifer the Sky Dragon are more suitable. I also remembered these two decks from the anime back then. They were among the strongest creatures in the game, alongside Exodia.
I played several matches against friends with these two decks. Although I had trouble understanding the text on some cards, the majority was understandable. At times, I really felt like Yugi, summoning Slifer the Sky Dragon. All that was missing was the Duel Disk.
However, it became clear with these starter decks that they really only serve as a foundation and need to be optimized with additional cards. With the Obelisk deck, I noticed that I had no chance if I didn’t draw the God card. The deck was completely focused on drawing that card. If the heart of the cards let me down, it looked bleak for me.
Additionally, there was a monster named “Demaskierter Drache” through which I can summon another Wyrm monster with 1,500 or less DEF upon death. After checking twice, I found out: There is no other monster that fits that description. Great.
What also stands out to me: Over the years, either my eyes have gotten worse or the card texts have gotten smaller – maybe even both. Many of the cards feature such a gigantic long text in an even smaller font than I am used to from Magic. One has to concentrate extremely hard to both understand the text and be able to read it.
Furthermore, Konami sent us two more Structure Decks for testing: One is the Blue-Eyes White Destiny Deck, where I realized how many variations of the White Dragon with the cold gaze there actually are. The other deck, Beware of Traptix, was filled with cute anime girls, which of course delighted me as an anime author.
What I also noticed is: In contrast to other trading card games like Pokémon or Magic, there are no particularly beautifully designed cards (Borderless or Full Art) that cover the entire card. Instead, nostalgia kicked in when I recognized a monster from back in the day. You can tell that Yu-Gi-Oh! is more intended for playing than for collecting.
At first, I found it significantly more difficult to understand the card texts with the Structure Decks. Because here, in addition to normal, flip, and tribute summons, synchro summons and XYZ summons are also included. The latter are my personal end boss, as it took me a long time to even understand the principle.
But with the duels and after a revelation, the duels run much more smoothly. I have yet to encounter the absolute end boss of the game, the pendulum summons, through the decks. Even the starter handbook admits that they are extremely complex.
Is it still worth starting today?
If you want to play casual matches with your friends and have some experience with other trading card games, you have the best prerequisites to get started with Yu-Gi-Oh!. It requires some time to understand the different types of summons. However, the principle of how damage is calculated is easy to grasp.
If you have no experience with collectible card games at all, you will need a bit more time to get into the card game. With the manual, it’s easy to get accustomed to the rules. However, looking up specific rules that you’ve forgotten over time is more tedious with this.
To reach tournament level, you will need to invest much more time and money than the pre-made decks offer. So if you want a full entry and to become a professional player because you loved the anime back then, then you have a long way ahead of you.
Even in the anime, Yugi and his friends started small. They had to work their way up through various tournaments to become top duelists. Who has the best statistics at the end of the original anime, MeinMMO reveals: The Top 5 duelists from Yu-Gi-Oh! show who is truly the King of Games
