Yu-Gi-Oh!Master Duel Review
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need to know
What is it? A competitive simulation game officially recognized by Yu-Gi-Oh! Trading card game.
Expected payment: Free to play, may require at least $30-60 microtransactions to build multiple competitive decks
Developer: Konami
Publisher: Konami
Comment on: Nvidia GTX 1060, AMD Ryzen 7 3700X, 32GB RAM
multiplayer game: Online 1v1, Ranked and Casual Modes
Association: steam
Yu-Gi-Oh! (Yes, the exclamation point is part of the name, you never forget it) Used to be almost as ubiquitous as Pokémon, and has grown and evolved for over 20 years. What used to be a simple collectible card game where you could summon a monster and set up a few traps, now usually takes ten minute rounds, during which you summon as many monsters as you want, set up unbreakable negation boards, just to Watch your opponent break them. It’s complicated, but doesn’t lose any of the card game’s fundamental appeal: pain and ecstasy at the intersection of skill and luck.
After years of exploiting Yu-Gi-Oh! Gacha games, buggies in multiplayer, and a fun but more kid-focused anime tie-in, Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel has finally dragged this card game into the free-to-play PvP era, and it’s done so much more elegantly than anyone could have imagined. Featuring the best production values of any digital card game, Master Duel embodies the spirit of Kazuki Takahashi’s iconic manga, his beloved anime and physical card games.
The learning curve for newbies will be steep, and the original 1.0 version of Master Duel didn’t include a lot beyond competitive ladder mode (this seems to be changing in the near future), but it’s still one of the best digital cards available today game. The good sleep I sacrificed proves it.
penultimate duel
As long as you have at least one life and one card left to keep your combo going, you’re still in the game.
Consider a recent experience: it’s 2:33 AM and I’m on the brink of failure. After reaching Platinum IV on the Master Duel ladder with relative ease, I got cocky and ditched the competitive deck I’d built to try one of my dumber, less practical 60 cards (the typical Competitive decks are 40 cards). I was in deep trouble and after paying half my health my last 800 health was stopped by my opponent duly negating the effect, leaving my board almost empty.
If I lose, I’m down to gold. That means winning four or five games just to get back to where I am now, and my nights have been full of this cycle since Master Duel dropped unexpectedly one night in January.
After a slightly painful wait while my opponents set their backline spells and traps, with multiple pauses and flashing Wi-Fi icons indicating their connection problems, this was my last chance to save myself. I channel my inner anime protagonist and rely on the core of the card to get the top deck I need. The smooth draw animation unfolds, and my entire deck revolves around this card: the grass looks greener.
(Image credit: Konami)
Essentially, it’s the same Yu-Gi-Oh! A card game you probably played in 2004 or 2019: You summon monsters, activate spells and spring traps to clear your opponent’s board (or stop them from building it in the first place), then attack them until they run out of life points. What makes Yu-Gi-Oh! Uniquely, there are no mana, skill points, or any other resources other than your health and the cards in your hand – the cards themselves are the primary resource. This means that as long as you have at least one life and one card left to keep your combo going, you’re still in the game.
This is also what makes cards like that greener looking grass absolutely broken. So much has changed in the card game’s 20-plus years of development that graveyards are now largely second-hand. Grass looks greener and will send cards from your deck to your graveyard until you and your opponent have the same number of cards left in your deck, which has degenerated to the point where the US has been banned from playing for years Athletics. But it’s legal in Japan, and it’s legal in the banlist of this game, so I’m running it.
(Image credit: Konami)
Every time I connect to a new match, my inner anime protagonist comes to life.
I threw the cards down, 20 cards fell from my deck into a hole that represented a graveyard, and the smooth animation was interrupted every now and then by the sound of a shuffle. I proceeded to use one of the 20 cards I discarded to summon a monster of my choice directly from my deck, and I did this again with another card, brought back from my graveyard a monster. Soon I was swarming, and Link summoned a massive 5300 attack boss monster called the Accesscode Talker, which allowed me to wipe their board with impunity. I live to fight again tomorrow, cheering to the joyous trumpet that greets every victory. Or should I have another fight now?
I have now logged over 100 hours in Master Duel. At this point, the initial intoxication had worn off, so I became more suspicious of my motives after 2am. Do I always have fun, or do I succumb to the psychological manipulation of gashapon games? The audiovisual brilliance of the dueling master is hard to tell apart. Every time I connect to a new match, my inner anime protagonist comes to life. An animated gamepad full of spinning gears, my mascot cheering me on the sidelines, a detailed rendering of the iconic Yu-Gi-Oh! Card art, and intense, dramatic orchestral scores all mean one thing: Time for a ddd duel!
(Image credit: Konami)
feel the flow
For new or old players, Master Duel’s single-player mode is an effective tutorial on game mechanics, albeit a little laissez-faire, as feature after feature unfolds on a path that largely reflects the progression of the game over the past 20 years. Not afraid to make you lose. For current players, it provides a cheesy but fun lore dump about the cards, as well as a place to practice some of your new builds without risking your ladder ranking. In both cases, expect to spend about 4-5 hours on the base and another 2-3 hours with custom decks for additional challenges and replays. Not trivial, but if you’re just looking for a solo, this probably won’t scratch the itch.
For PvP duels, there are casual rooms and a grey campaign mode that comes later, but the core of the game is the competitive ladder. Unlike traditional best-of-three in-person and remote tournament matches, Master Duels are settled in a single match. This is nice because it simplifies the game and eliminates the deck (changing your main deck between matches), but it does mean that you could get a kill deck, troll deck or bad luck in one turn blinded. So a lot of deck builds these days tend to use game-breaking tech cards that are difficult to deal with unless you’re building your deck specifically around them.
(Image credit: Konami)
Another problem is that while the Master Duel feels incredibly fast compared to fan-run emulators like EDOPro and Dueling Book – they used to be what we had – Yu-Gi-Oh! Still a slow game that is slowed down by the online experience. You have 400+ seconds per player’s turn initially, and you get most of that time back with each new turn. This is something unique to Yu-Gi-Oh!’s complex card game.
The actual competitive metagame experience is too much to describe here, but what’s most interesting is that it combines ban lists from the US/EU and Japan. This means that some strategies that American players can’t really use are now possible, which is interesting — especially what led to my 60-card Autograph Deck — but there are also some when it comes to expensive ultra-rare staples Inequality or break the deck.
Beyond the highs and lows of Yu-Gi-Oh! In the card game itself, small touches make the duel master shine. The sound effects and animations are endless, from the steel forge slam heard when the card hits, to the slightly animated portraits of the boss monsters, to the dynamic visualization of the effect chain as a counter-attack in Yu-Gi-Oh! The animations can slow down already slow turns a bit, but they’re so much fun I haven’t turned them off. Special praise must also be given to the spectacular orchestral soundtrack, which makes every action feel tense.
Kettle of Greed
The limited cosmetic customization available in game mats, card sleeves, and mascots doesn’t feel overwhelming, but it’s varied to give you some actual personalization, and you’ll get a lot from the single-player mode for free.
This of course presents us with the problem with any competitive free-to-play card game: at best, it’s an exercise in friendly blackmail.
(Image credit: Konami)
Duel Masters, at least in the early game, is surprisingly generous: between the bonuses allotted to early players, completing the single-player mode without replays, and your first level up, you’ll quickly hit a max of 10,000 gems in your inventory . Each pack is worth 100 gems and gives you eight cards per pack. There are also some cheaper prefab structural decks that are fun but not particularly competitive.
…yes, all 10,000+ cards, one pack at a time, 100 gems at a time.
Those starting gems may dry up quicker than you expect, and if you cave in and decide to buy gems, 2,000 of them will cost you around $12, which is what’s on sale right now. Often, 50 gems, not even a pack, will cost you a dollar. It’s certainly possible to build competitive decks for free, but it takes planning and patience.
As for the actual process of unlocking the cards, the system of the duel master is… well, let’s be polite and call it Qihua. Confusing at first, for a card game marked by dozens of archetype-specific booster releases, there were initially only three booster types available for purchase: two special packs with modern staples and nostalgic options, respectively, And the main pack contains…actually every card in the game. Yes, all 10,000+ cards, one pack at a time, 100 gems at a time.
What Master Duel doesn’t explain well is that every time you open a pack that contains super or ultra-rare cards, you unlock a “secret pack” that contains all the cards in its archetype. From there, you can then open the pack to build a deck focused on your strategy, but the secret pack is only available for 24 hours. While being able to focus on the cards you want to unlock is great, the time limit seems like an unnecessary constraint that forces players to shell out real-world money.
(Image credit: Konami)
The good news is that Master Duel has a player-friendly crafting system. You can accumulate the card portion of each rare item by leveling up, completing single-player modes, and dismantling cards you don’t want, for about one-third of its crafting cost. Making super or super rare cards also unlocks a secret pack, just like putting it in a booster pack, giving you more control over how your deck is built once you learn the rhythm. Crafting helps offset the annoying packaging system, and it’s legal to build a deck or two that will get you platinum tier without spending a dime, if you’re willing to grind it out.
After redeeming the initial single player rewards, your gem income will drop significantly. After a week and a half, I could get up to a few hundred gems in a day-plus of hours of gameplay, and usually less. I spent most of my gaming time without spending any money, but ended up buying a pack of 2,000 gems for $12 to complete my Thunder Dragon deck.
Oh boy, did Konami try to keep you hooked: there’s the same level of duel when unpacking, with over-the-top animations and sparkly…
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