Deckbuilding Guide, Tips & More!

Overview

New to the game? Not sure what to spend your duel points on, or how to start building a deck? All your questions answered in this handy guide for new and old players alike!

Table of Contents

I’ll be adding more to this guide in the future. Was considering doing a section on ‘known bugs & fixes’. If you have any other ideas, or would like to see something included; feel free to message me!

• 1. Introduction & “Looking for a card?”
• 2. Terminology & Important Rulings
• 3. Deckbuilding Tips & “Picking the good cards from the bad”
• 4. Dueling Tips & Phases Explained! (Part-1)
• 5. Dueling Tips & Phases Explained! (Part-2)
• 6. Campaign Walkthrough, Card “Farming” & Optimal Progression
• 7. Achievement Guide & “Battle Pack” Mode!
• 8. Sources, Links & References!

You can navigate to the section you wish to read about using the guide index. (below and to the right.)

1. Introduction & “Looking for a card?”

When this game was released, the game was operating on the January 2015 banlist, which can be found here: [link]

This guide will teach you tricks to improve your deckbuilding, dueling, get past the Story mode with ease and finally an Achievement Guide for any perfectionists and master duelists out there. Note that this game does have a Tutorial so this guide will assume that you have played the tutorial and know the basic rules of the game.

We’ll only be using User decks for this since, after you already know how to duel, the story mode decks’ success are essentially dice rolls since you have to get lucky to win some duels..

Visit this site; [link] ,not made by me, credits are on the site, for a (close to) completed list of all the cards in the game and where you can find them.

Alternatively, this guide on steam also does the same thing; [link]

2. Terminology and Important Rulings

IMPORTANT FOR RETURNING PLAYERS: The game’s rules have changed, and the player who goes first no longer draws a card on their first turn because of this they start with 5 cards in hand instead of 6. THIS IS NOT A BUG.

Here’s some common slang I’ll be using throughout the guide. Be warned, this section is quite lengthy and goes into a few advanced rulings, so I’d recommend skipping over what you’re not interested in.

Bold Words;These will be card names.
Bold, under-lined words; These are Trophy/Achievement Names
Italicized Words; These will be excerpts from card effects.

Bounce; Return a card to the hand
Pop; To destroy a card
Spin; Return a card to the deck
Mill; Sending the top card of your deck to the graveyard
Scoop; Surrendering
Resolve; To apply a card’s effect after activating it
Recur/Recycle; To be able to re-use a card or its effect repeatedly after being used already (usually this means getting back a card that was banished or sent to your grave)

Burn; Damage with card effects
OTK; Being able to win in 1 turn
FTK; Being able to win in the first turn of the duel
OP or Broken; Overpowered

OPT; You can only use the effect of that specific card on the field once per turn, but if you summon another copy, or if that copy leaves the field and returns on the same turn, you can use the effect again.

Hard OPT; You can only use the effect of a card with that name once per turn.

Contact Fusion; Fusing without the need of a fusion card like Polymerization, usually by spinning or banishing the materials needed for the summon.

Floater; A card that replaces itself with another card (usually when its summoned or destroyed)
Beater; A card with no (useful) effect and is only valued for its high ATK points
Stun Lock; Not letting your opponent do something/anything
Tutor; A card that searches for another card
Floodgate; A card, usually in the form of a Continuous Monster Effect or Continuous Trap Card, that limits the actions of the opponent or both players.

Staple; Cards that almost every deck uses and that players should see very often. When hearing the name of these cards, like Dark Hole and Mystical Space Typhoon, players should know off the top of their head what they do.

Piercing; If a monster attacks a Defence Position monster with lower DEF points than the attacking monster’s ATK points, then the controller of the Defence Position monster will take damage equal to the attacking monster’s ATK minus the Defending Monster’s defence.

Excavate; Reveal x number of card(s) from the top of your deck to both players.

CL# (Chain Link #); In Yu-gi-oh, effects can activate in response to each other. In this case, the effects build a chain, where each effect is a Chain Link, starting with 1 then 2, then 3, etc., and no effects will resolve until both players agree to stop adding new effects to the chain, nor can new effects activate while a chain resolves. These resolve backwards so the last activated effect will get its effect first, so CL3 will get its effect, then CL2, then CL1. New cards and effects cannot activate while the current chain resolves. NOTE: All effects within a card are separated by a “.” so anything after a “.” is a separate effect.

Missing the Timing; If a card effect has the text “When (Blank) You can:” written on it, then it MUST activate immediately after the trigger is met, or the effect cannot activate, or what’s called, Missing the Timing. This is commonly caused by Soul Taker since it destroys a monster then increases a player’s lifepoints by 1000 immediately after, or by having an effect that destroys a card, like Torrential Tribute, as CL2 or higher.

Notice that Soul Taker‘s effect says “then”, which is what causes a destroyed monster to Miss the Timing. If it instead said “and” or “and if you do”, then the actions would take place simultaneously and the destroyed monster would not Miss the Timing.

Trigger Effect; Effects that are activated in response to an action, cards and effects that are Trigger Effects will have one of these in their card text: “When:”, “If:”, “When (Blank) you can:”,”If (Blank) you can:”

Ignition Effect; Effects that are manually activated by the player. Almost every card who’s text has a “:” or “;” is an ignition effect.

Quick Effect; Effects that can be activated during either player’s turn. Cards that can do this will specifically say “During either player’s turn”, but all Trigger effects can be used during either player’s turn, and all Trap card effects, Continuous Trap Cards included, are Quick Effects even if they only say Once per turn unless otherwise specified.

Continuous Effect; These are effects that do not start Chain Links and will be applied the moment they enter the field.

Unclassified Effect; Unclassified effects are the most tricky. Like continuous effects, they do not have identifying card text, they’re almost always worded similarly to conditions and, they can sometimes be negated (for example, Skill Drain can stop Archlord Kristya‘s unclassified effect to return to the deck, but will not negate Evilswarm Castor‘s effect to place an extra summoning condition when it is summoned.) To be safe, search up the rulings for your individual cards with this effect on the Yugioh Wiki.

Costs; Must be paid to activate a card. This part of the card’s effect cannot be negated even if the rest of the effect is negated. In addition, this will happen before the chain resolves, so any “When (Blank) you can:” effects will Miss the Timing, otherwise they will activate in a new chain after the current chain resolves.

Inherent Summon; These are not effects and do not start chain links. All inherent summons can be identified by their summoning location in brackets, “(from your hand)” or “(from your graveyard)” for example. All Synchro, XYZ, and Contact Fusion Summons are Inherent. These summons are the only summons that can be negated by cards like Black Horn of Heaven or Thunder King Rai-Oh, otherwise, card effect summons like Polymerization, Macro Cosmos, Starlight Road, and Monster Reborn, must be negated by a card that can negate card effects like Solemn Warning or Royal Oppression.

3. Deck Building Tips & “Picking the good from the bad!”

The number 1 rule is to go as close to 40 as possible. There are some exceptions, but this is the limit that Yugioh players generally follow. The reasoning for this is because you want your deck to follow a theme, an overall goal for you to achieve with your deck, and there’s a limit to how many cards will help you achieve that goal in a timely matter. If your deck is focused on getting combo pieces as soon as possible, then of course you’re going to run 40 cards to increase your odds of getting those cards.

Many people will use Upstart Goblin to lower their deck size down to 37, since drawing an Upstart Goblin means you’re just going to be replacing it with the next card in your deck. However, its important to note that some decks, while having a theme, do not have an overall goal to reach.

A common characteristic of Stun Lock Decks who do not have a specific boss monster they want to summon or combo to pull off, but just a bunch of cards (usually traps) aimed at stopping the opponent’s plays and responding to any plays they do make. Decks of this fashion typically run 41-44 cards since they want all their options, but have a lot to choose from. Although they have been shown to run up to 60 cards with some success, simply due to the high amount of tutors like Traptrix Myrmeleo and Artifact Ignition these decks can use.

Now, lets get into the meat of deck building discussion, “What cards should I be using?”
The thing I notice about new players is that they tend to put too much of an emphasis on lifepoints. They treat as some holy thing that’s incredibly important, and yes, you lose the duel if it hits 0, but if 0 is the only number that matters, why care if its reduced to anything more? Why would you protect your lifepoints with a card like Magic Cylinder when you could be using a card to setup your gamewinning combo like Soul Charge or help create an unbreakable field with Traptrix Myrmeleo instead? That’s the thing, if you’re trying to protect your lifepoints, you’re playing to survive, not to win, and the key to winning is in your cards. For this reason, the answer to the question I posed earlier actually has multiple answers listed in importance.

Cards you use should further your state in the game. These are the cards that will advance your progression towards your victory combo, examples include Soul Charge for gathering monsters to create powerful boss monsters like Shooting Quasar Dragon and Obelisk the Tormentor or even cards that help you search your combo pieces like Hieratic Seal of Convocation and Manju of the Ten Thousand Hands. Of course, your power play boss monsters like Judgment Dragon fall under this category too since you’ll want them as soon as possible. However, note that sometimes these boss monsters are VERY easily searched or summoned from the deck and aren’t very useful to draw so you may only need to use 1 to avoid risk of drawing it.

Cards you use should create advantages. Cards create options for you, even within your power play combos. They’re the key to winning, or coming back after having your power play stopped. Floaters are a key point for this since it means that no matter what, it’ll replace itself and you’ll be going even when you play the card since it’ll replace itself or at the very least, cost your opponent a card in exchange to stop it from floating. Try not to use cards that cost too much to use. Generally speaking, Magical Stone Excavation is a bad card because you’re trading 3 cards (itself, and the two you discard) for just 1 card back, costing you 2 cards in the process, although this isn’t true for all cards since the card One for One (quite ironically, a 2 for 1) will always generate advantage, despite technically always costing you a card since you could potentially summon something like Glow-Up Bulb which can recur from the grave at no cost too your hand or field, effectively replacing the card you discarded for One for One while also, (going back to point 1), progressing your gamestate by helping you make easy Synchros.

Consistency and Versatility; This is the one thing I hate most about the anime and the habits they teach beginning players. They ALWAYS have the perfect card for a situation, but that card only works in that ONE EXACT SITUATION and as a result, new players (like myself once) would always load up on cards with undeniably good effects, but so situational, so hard to setup or summon, that they were functionally useless in a real duel. So try and remember this one very important fact, a card isn’t good just because it has a good effect, it also has to be easy enough to have some kind of use every duel by the 3rd or 4th turn at the very latest.

Definitely good cards, hindered by taking too long or too many resources to summon.

• 40 cards is definitely the most optimal for most decks, but it isn’t the end of the world if you go over by a few cards.
• Cards you use should win you the game outright without being too outlandishly crazy to achieve a combo that will actually win you the game (I’m looking at you Vennominaga and Destiny Leo)

OR If they don’t win you the game, they should either help you get to your cards that will.

OR Protect your lead.

OR At the very least, have some kind of utility against your opponent that will result in you gaining as much or more cards than your opponent does or losing as little or less cards than your opponent does.

The very best tip I can give you, is any time you draw a card that’s useless (actually useless, not you’d rather save it or its too risky or costly to use, but you actually can’t play the card at that moment due to its cost being impossible to fulfill), think about how many times you’ve used that card, versus how many times you didn’t want to draw it. Chances are you’ll want to take out a couple copies, or maybe all copies of it. Then, when you draw that useless card you’re taking out, think about one card you’d much rather have in that situation. Replace the card you took out, with the card you thought of most when you thought about cards you’d rather draw.

4. Dueling Tips & Phases Explained! (Part-1)

Now that you’ve got a deck, let’s go over some basic dueling tips!

Not too much goes on here normally, since generally only Quick and Trigger Effects activate here, so I’ve just brought these two together. My only recommendation is that if you have any floodgates to activate against your opponent, use them now unless you have something specific you want to negate, as at the start of every phase, the turn player has priority, meaning that they will always get to activate their effects first and you have to respond to their activations. So if they activate a card in Main Phase 1 specifically targeting set cards, your floodgate will (usually) be destroyed, even if the floodgate is chained, whereas your floodgate would’ve been just fine in the Draw Phase. Other risks are that your opponent might perform a non-chainable action that could’ve been stopped by a floodgate, this is most common with Vanity’s Emptiness and Inherent Special Summons.

This one is hard to explain, because its where most actions take place and its what really separates the good duelists from the bad duelists. Only experience through a wide variety of situations will help you here. But just follow the same advice from the previous Deckbuilding Section. Actions you take and the combinations of cards you play should always be one of the following:

• Further your gamestate (setting up the cards you need to perform your gamewinning combo)
• Protect your gamestate (after performing your combination and reaching the deck’s goal, prevent your opponent from breaking your field, this is the purpose of floodgates)
• Punish your opponent for advancing their gamestate (Usually through the use of cards like Raigeki to break their fields)
• Generate card advantage over your opponent (Through the use of cards like Pot of Greed, Raigeki, and floaters like Reborn Tengu and Junk Synchron)

Also, I cannot stress how important it is to READ YOUR CARDS. I don’t know how many times I’ve seen someone try to use a Hard OPT effect more than once per turn, or how many times they tried to Raigeki a monster that couldn’t be targeted, used Safe Zone on an opponent’s monster or played something like Snatch Steal or Mage Power while Cairngorgon was on the field. Make sure you don’t gloss over any conditions like Tour Guide from the Underworld‘s no-Synchro clause, or any mandatory effects, otherwise you’ll end up negating your own stuff with Light and Darkness Dragon and Doomcaliber Knight or destroying your own cards with Harpie Hunting Ground.

In the Battle Phase, Ignition effects can no longer be activated (unless they specifically specify the Battle Phase, Damage Step, etc.). This makes it the optimal time to use cards like Threatening Roar and Waboku since your opponent set up their field in Main Phase 1 under the assumption that they were going to be able to attack, and will likely overextend, leading them to be punished by you in your following turn.

When you declare an attack, you enter Attack Declaration, this precedes the Damage Step, and if the monsters on your opponent’s side of the field change, for example by the effect of Call of the Haunted or by attacking a Number 39: Utopia with no XYZ materials, a replay occurs, allowing that monster to change its attack target, but if you choose not to attack anymore with that monster, you cannot attack with that monster again in that Battle Phase, nor can you change it to DEF position in Main Phase 2. Note, a replay does not occur when the monsters on your side of the field change.

Many card effects will activate in response to an attack declaration and negate the attack, followed by another effect being applied, commonly used cards of this nature are Nekroz of Valkyrus and Magic Cylinder. Chaining a card to change battle positions like Book of Moon will instantly cancel an attack since a Defence Position monster cannot attack, so none of the effects of Nekroz of Valkyrus and Magic Cylinder will not apply since they cannot negate an attack that doesn’t happen.

In terms of what to attack with, if the opponent has a monster, I’ll always attack the highest ATK monster with my highest ATK monster in case they have a set Forbidden Lance and if they don’t, I guarantee the highest amount of damage possible from that battle. If I notice my opponent doesn’t use any trap cards and has no cards on the field, I’ll always attack with my lowest ATK monsters first in case the opponent has Gorz in their hand. But if I notice my opponent is using a higher level deck like Trains or Galaxy, I’ll attack with my highest ATK monster first, so I can destroy any Swordsman of Revealing Light or Hustle Rustles my opponent may have.

Note that because of the way effect timing works, after you resolve a chain declared in response to an attack, you can create a new chain, but that new chain can no longer respond to the attack (so cards like Swift Scarecrow and Magic Cylinder) can no longer be used, since the last thing that happened was the resolution of the chain, not the attack declaration. If both players are done using card effects, then we can proceed to what is arguably the most complicated part of Yugioh..

Something to note is that the Damage Step has very specific restrictions on which cards you can use:

• Flip effects and other card effects that specifically state Damage Step or any of the sub-steps like Damage Calculation
• Quick effects that negate the activation of a card or effect (Note that there are ruling discrepancies and outside of Asia, the quick effect not only has to negate the activation of a card or effect, but must also specifically state that it is activated in response to the card or effect it will negate, so Horus Lv8 will always activate regardless of the ruling however, Abyss Dweller, will not activate if you’re playing outside of Asia)
• Cards with effects that activate when their battle position is changed or when they are moved from one zone to another zone (for example Monster Zone to Graveyard) mandatory effects that have to activate when triggered, even if they don’t mention the damage step
• Counter Trap Cards
• Cards that modify the ATK/DEF of a specific target

Now that we know what we can and can’t do; here is a detailed breakdown of how the Damage Step works. Official chart made for real-life use, but the same rules apply to any Yu-Gi-Oh! game; [link]

Finally after all this, you can proceed back to the Battle Phase and repeat the process until you no longer wish to attack with a monster anymore.

5. Dueling Tips & Phases Explained! (Part-2)

This phase follows the Battle Phase, so keep in mind that there are effects that only activate in the Main Phase 2, and you won’t be able to use them the first turn of the duel since there’s no Battle Phase. My biggest advice to give you is to not set any spells or traps until this phase, there’s various reasons for this but the most obvious would be something like Malevolent Catastrophe. Many players will also tunnel-vision their boss monster, but ignore the monsters they use to summon him even though the monsters used have more total ATK than the boss monster being summoned, in this scenario you’d want to keep your monsters on the field, attack, then summon your boss monster in Main Phase 2 because you’ll deal more damage this way.

Additionally, your opponent might have something like Bottomless Trap Hole set for your boss monster, so summoning your boss monster in Main Phase 1 would lose you all the damage. The only time I sacrifice the extra damage for summoning my boss monster in Main Phase 1 is if its safer to do so since my boss monster has a way to protect itself that the monsters I use to summon it lack, like Apoqlihport Towers who’s immune to Spells and Traps making him safer to attack with than the 3 monsters you use to tribute, in case you run into Mirror Force.

Downerd Magician is the greatest way to see if a Burning Abyss player reads their cards.

Not much to say here, but this is when you want to use Mystical Space Typhoon on your opponent’s cards. This is because set cards can’t be activated the turn they’re set, and your opponent has no opportunity to play around the fact that you just destroyed one of their important cards to protect themselves.

6. Campaign Walkthrough, Card “Farming” & Optimal Progression

First, I’ll start by saying, the hardest portion of the game is the start of the game because of how little options you have when you’re building a User Deck. Personally, I found the easiest way to beat the early campaign was to use the Fusion Structure Deck as a base and combine the Extra Deck of all the Campaigns, because Castel, The Skyblaster Musketeer and Number 101: Silent Honor ARK are such important cards to have.

My first recommendation to you is, don’t bother with the packs yet until you know exactly what you want. I HIGHLY recommend you buy the Battle Packs for Draft Play early game. The reason I say this is because booster packs are highly inefficient ways to build decks. They’re only for cards you can’t find anywhere else or if you’re trying to build a specific deck; spamming the pack containing the deck’s cards using spare Duel Points.

To farm a card that you know is attainable from a Duelist Challenge or Story Mode mission. You have to progress in the story until you unlock every duel where you play as or against the duelist with the card you want (You can usually tell this from the silhouettes). You’ll have to beat the duelist in ALL of these duels to unlock their Duelist Challenge if its their Duelist Challenge deck that contains the card you want. Regardless of whether the duelist has the card you want in one of their Story Mode missions or Duelist Challenge, the method you farm with is the same.

• Check the pre-made deck recipes you’re given from beating a duelist for the card you want.
• Play against the duelist in the Duelist Challenge or specific Story Mode Mission where the duelist uses that deck.
• Go first if possible.
• Surrender as fast as you can by putting your cursor over the deck.

The result should give you about 500 DP to spend on packs, along with a card from their recipe as a consolation prize. Repeat this until you get all copies of the card you want. As a general rule of thumb, if you want a card, the fastest way goes:

• Duelist Challenge or Story Mode Farming
• Draft Battle Pack Farming
• Card Shop

Note: Draft Battle Packs will unlock as you proceed through the story mode and Card Shop Packs will unlock as you proceed through the story mode for that pack’s TV series.

Start off by doing the first mission for each TV series, Yu-Gi-Oh, GX, 5D’s, ZeXal, and Arc-V. This will give you an idea on how to play with the summoning methods of each show and a free win in each. Don’t worry about reverse duels, just worry about unlocking more Duelist Challenges and packs. After you’re comfortable with the summoning methods, your best bet for clearing single-player duels with the least amount of effort would be a classic Exodia deck.

Farming the story mode duel for Seeker should give you the main cards you need;

3 each of Pot of Greed, Graceful Charity, Upstart Goblin, Swords of Revealing Light, Reckless Greed, and Pot of Duality, along with a copy of Raigeki and at least 1 of each Exodia Piece (you only need 1 anyways).

The rest of the cards are Hope for Escape, Zero Gardna, Swift Scarecrow, Threatening Roar, Waboku, and One Day of Peace, all attainable from repeatedly surrendering to the Seeker Duelist Challenge. This deck should easily unlock the trophy Forbidden One for you.

Note that from now on, all single-player duels become ridiculously easy as long as you use this deck.

If you ever need more DP to buy packs, just progress with any story in the campaign to unlock more packs and earn some DP while you’re at it. If that’s not an option for you, just keep doing reverse duels until you’ve done all those too. After that, just win Duelist Challenges instead of surrendering them to farm. The only Duel Challenge you have to worry about is Ray Shadows (in Zexal) because of his ability to summon Naturia Beast and Naturia Barkion, completely disabling your strategy. Wait until you can improve your deck to take him on.

7. Achievement Guide & “Battle Pack” Mode!

This is for the completionists out there who strive for perfection. This game will take a fairly long time to platinum, at least 20 hours if you’re going the fastest you could possibly play, simply because of the amount of duels you need to unlock all the Duelist Challenges, then all the Duelist Challenges you need to do for the trophy.

• King of Games, Valedictorian, Duel Runner, and High Five the Sky are all progression trophies you’ll get for beating the story mode.
• Sacrifice, Coalesce,Ultimate Form,Tuned In, and Chronomancer are all trophies for summoning methods.

The first mission of each of the different TV show story modes gives you a tutorial on that show’s focused summoning method. These trophies (except Chronomancer) can all be easily obtained by just doing the following mission, choosing the prebuilt User Deck the game gave you for that show’s tutorial, and replicating what the tutorial taught you. The only exception is Chronomancer, because Arc-V has no other missions (without dlc), and you can just get that by using the prebuilt Pendulum Deck and replicating what the Arc-V tutorial taught you on any other mission from any other TV series’ story mode.

• Casual Duelist – Go to Multiplayer and win a Player Match. Keep in mind my tips from deckbuilding in mind and you should be fine.
• Playing for Real – Go to Multiplayer and win a Ranked Match.

Note that because you can select your opponent for both Player and Ranked matches, you could easily get these trophies by trading wins with a friend if you’re desperate. (You surrender a player match, then they surrender a player match, then same for a ranked match, and you’ll both get the trophy)

• Battle Tested – Win in Battle Pack modes. I created a special section just for this mode, see below.

• Master Collector and Master Duelist – Will both be achieved once you’ve completed every duel and reverse in the campaign in order to unlock all the Duelist Challenges, which you’ll have to beat to unlock Master Duelist.

• Damage Dealer – Simple enough trophy, just attack directly while your opponent has no monsters to make progress.

• Effect Elitist – Once again fairly simple, just use cards that deal effect damage like Magic Cylinder, Just Desserts or Barrel Behind The Door.

• Reflect Rager– Reflected damage is damage your opponent takes when they declare an attack, so if their lower ATK monster attacks your higher ATK or DEF monster (depending on position). I found this one really tedious to get so I created a deck for the sole purpose of getting it;

Monsters (22):

3x Stronghold Guardian
3x Stone Statue of the Aztecs
3x Big Shield Gardna
3x Gear Golem the Moving Fortress
3x Cyber Dragon
3x Alexandrite Dragon
3x Honest
1x Sangan

Spells (18):

3x Limiter Removal
3x Pot of Greed
3x Upstart Goblin
3x Graceful Charity
3x Monster Reborn
3x Book of Moon

The goal of the deck is to either bait the AI into attacking my high attack but easy to summon Alexandrite Dragon and Cyber Dragon, then use Honest‘s effect and Limiter Removal to boost my monsters’ ATK points and deal massive reflected damage back to the opponent. A secondary way to deal reflected damage would be to set one of my high DEF monsters like Big Shield Gardna or Stone Statue of the Aztecs, and use Stronghold Guardian to further increase the reflected damage dealt.

• Chain Champion – Chain 100 times, simple enough. For all intents and purposes, this is a trophy that you’ll get as you progress and you shouldn’t worry about it.

• The Duelist Begins and Curator – Two simple, self-explanatory trophies. Just go to Deck Editor, click on an empty slot, then make a new deck. Whether or not you choose a preset build or start from scratch is up to you, just do this 5 times and you’ll have the trophies.

• Forbidden One – Use an Exodia deck and win by collecting all the pieces in your hand. Cards you need are detailed above in this guide. (Optimal progression)

Battle Packs are massive packs containing a large variety of cards, including a lot of staples, designed so that you can build a functional deck using just cards you get from the packs, and duel other players doing the same thing.To farm Battle Pack cards, just do standard method of surrendering every duel, then it’ll ask you to add the cards to your trunk, which you should, of course, say YES to. To get the best chance of getting the cards you want and winning the match, you should ALWAYS choose Draft Play, no exceptions, so you can take turns with the AI picking the best cards (although the AI will rarely take any cards you’ll want to take).

For winning the match, while your dueling strategy might not change, the available card pool does. As a result of there being random cards to build a deck out of, your deck may no longer have any coherent goal or strategy other than to beat the other player to death so your deck-building strategy needs to change too. It doesn’t matter which Battle Pack you take as long as you follow these revised deck-building tips for the importance of the cards you choose:

• Cards with removal effects like Sniper Hunter, Raigeki, and Dark Hole. It doesn’t matter how strong your opponent’s monsters are if you can just get rid of them straight-up.
• Cards to give you card advantage and setup your field with strong monsters. In Battle Packs, this is pretty much exclusively Pot of Greed, Graceful Charity, and Call of the Haunted, among others.
• Cards with high ATK that are easy to summon like Alexandrite Dragon, bonus points for floaters like Card Trooper.
• Cards to increase your ATK points in battle like Axe of Despair, Rush Recklessly, and Fabled Ashenveil. This way you can just beat your opponent to death until they find a way to remove your monsters or their attack.

As a general rule, if a card is banned, its banned for a reason, so add it to your deck (Unless its something that needs a combo like Makyura).

The following table is a list of all the most important cards you want to farm from each Battle Pack, so ignore the list if all you’re looking for is the trophy for winning the match. I’ve based them on the cards you need to farm to build the decks I recommended, along with staple cards that are generally good to have. Bolded are the especially important ones you should always go for until you have 3 copies;

8. Sources, Links & References

Thanks for taking the time to read through this guide. If it helped you out; please be sure to rate it up and add it to your favorites for quick reference in future.

2015 Banlist; [link]
TheCardHub; [link]

Full Card Pack Breakdown by Joel; [link]

Konami Damage Step Chart; [link]

All card images were taken from their associated yugioh.wikia pages.
Castel, The Skyblaster Musketeer; [link]

This guide was originally made for PS4.

Special thanks to; C.C Click here for their Steam profile! for helping with formatting and spell-check.

Thanks to; Kuro Helheim Click here for their Steam profile! for helping proof-read and confirm a few things listed in the guide.