Yu-Gi-Oh!

I’ve played Yu-Gi-Oh! since childhood. You don’t understand how much I love this card game. No seriously. I’ve browsed Yugipedia^↗ extensively in my free time, read the translations of the lore books, started writing my own lore book – and above all, I absolutely cannot stop creating custom cards.

Portal

folder	notes
decks	The canon decks I play with
archetypes	All my custom archetypes
cards	My noteworthy custom cards
lore	My lore-related content (currently only the Stranded Saga)
thoughts	Various pieces of writing relating to Yu-Gi-Oh

Overview

I play Yu-Gi-Oh for fun.[^play-for-fun] I love just the experience of dueling – that strategising, the back-and-forth, those twists, manoeuvres and comebacks. I don’t really derive my pleasure from winning, but rather just having a good duel. It’s why I play (and try to make) decks that are fun rather than good.[^fun-good] In other words, I’m an anime enjoyer.

[^play-fun-fun]: Well, obviously? You’d think, but from the way some people playing this game act you wouldn’t be able to tell. [^fun-good]: Not that these are mutually exclusive!

History

[!Note] Long section of personal stories ahead!

I’ve had several ‘phases’ (hah) of Yu-Gi-Oh, to be honest.

Main Phase 1

I was introduced to Yu-Gi-Oh by some friends in primary school, who were kind enough to give me some cards for free(!). I still remember those cards to this day. Dragonpulse Magician ^↗, Gagaga Child ^↗, Goblindbergh^↗, The A Forces^↗… I used to lie in bed and admire them under the summer evening light.[^admiring-cards] Such different times :’) I managed to pull off procuring some pretty cool cards purely from trading with (read: scamming[^scamming]) other people. Unfortunately some numpties were stealing other people’s cards[^stealing], the teachers decided to impose a limit on the number of cards we could bring to school. This fluctuated between 15, 18, and 21.[^limit]

[^admiring-cards]: Yes, this is why I’m intimately familiar with the colours, shapes and layouts of Pendulum Monsters ;P [^scamming]: I’m only joking! I never purposefully scammed or tricked or manipulated people. Most trades were a (small) net gain, so y’know – with time, I managed to build up a pretty nice collection. [^stealing]: Primary school children, honestly. [^limit]: Looking back on this, this was hella funny and arbitrary.

That meant we couldn’t play actual Yu-Gi-Oh with 40-60 card-decks – so naturally, we had our own “playground rules” 🔥

Draw Phase

At some point the stealing issue at school became so severe that Yu-Gi-Oh cards were banned entirely. Yeup.

So naturally, we started making our own! 2 of my friends and I came together to build our own version of Yu-Gi-Oh. We came up with cards, made them with pen and paper, and distributed them to everyone. The paper was cut from A4 sheets folded thrice (giving A7), and we’d draw the art and write the effects between us. Good times.

[^pens]: Pilot V5 Tecpoint pens, my beloved ^v^

Of course, we were immature and barely conscious kids, so we had not an inkling of an idea what ‘balanced’ meant. Literally every single card was overpowered asf, and maybe half of them had “unaffected”. Flicking through the cards I created tho, it was kinda cool to see how my designs matured over the years, and how my effects became more niche and interesting.

Standby Phase

I stopped playing after primary school for a couple years. Then came summer of 2022, where I think I was just really bored one day. I thought I’d search up Yu-Gi-Oh to see where the game was at. I can’t really remember what I even found (first) at this point, but it was some order of a random custom card creator, DuelingNexus^↗, and DuelingBook^↗.

The custom card creator was pretty insignificant,[^insignificant] but DuelingNexus started to draw me back into the game. I tried building my old physical full 60-card deck (which I never properly played with), and immediately realised how many better Monsters there were. I proceeded to fill my deck with all the beatsticks I could fine, and headed into a duel where I got destroyed by Cyber Dragon. That was something.

[^insignificant]: I made a Galactron STAR Legend, which I laugh to see now.

The catalyst for sure tho, was DuelingBook. I think I asked an online friend about Yu-Gi-Oh and he told me of its existence, but anyhow – damn. I was utterly blown away that I could not only create my own custom cards (which actually looked accurate), but also DUEL WITH THEM. Like, that is dream come true, holy mackerel. I started making some, and built a small deck to battle with said friend.

Around this time I also started watching ARC-V^↗ (the English dub on YouTube), and this actually gave me a really good feel for how much Yu-Gi-Oh had evolved from the classical Duel Monsters that was all I had to go off.

Damage Step

I decided to craft a Raidraptor^↗ deck. I loved Kurosaki Shun^↗ from the anime, and after watching him duel a few times thought “yo, I actually really want to play that deck.” I just threw in all the archetypal cards on DuelingNexus, practiced a bit against AI, and then went into actual online duels. I’ve gotta say, I picked up the hang of things really quickly. Ofc, I was plenty familiar with Yu-Gi-Oh already, and the anime did help explain some mechanics too. But in no time at all, I’d become accustomed to the much faster pace of modern Yu-Gi-Oh.

Main Phase 2

My adventures in custom card development really kicked off after that. I started creating more and more cards and archetypes on DuelingBook, and dueling other people with them. It was so much fun. I created my dream archetypes, parodied existing archetypes for laughs, remade my own archetypes, and did it over and over.

Battle Phase

Towards the start of 2024, I decided I really wanted to build my Drytron deck irl, so that I could play physically with friends or at locals. Turned out the quickest and easiest way to build the deck was to just buy the singles on Cardmarket, so that’s what we started doing.

We’re still missing a couple of cards (including Drytron Nova^↗, which is one of the most important 💀), but the deck is pretty much complete.

Damage Calculation

Nowadays, I really don’t have time to create custom cards – or play Yu-Gi-Oh – but I still keep coming back to make some more every now and then. Inspiration keeps hitting, what can I say.