Greetings!
During these recent months, I just started back playing the infamous card game; YuGiOh!, which is developed by KONAMI. If you're from 90's and your at the slightest, an ordinary geek, then you must've at least heard about this game. Originally it came out from a manga series in 1999, and further growing to anime and sequels with developed gameplay (broken gameplay) which surprisingly still stands firm until today. I used to play the game (real card) back then when I was at JHS, and recently the mobile game version was released so I tried to hop back to the game, hoping to gain some nostalgic retro gaming experience.
The original game is simple; you have 8000 life points (LP) and a pile of deck which may consist of 3 types of cards, monster, spell, and trap cards. the USUAL gameplay would be like summoning your monster, dealing damage by attacking your opponents monster OR a direct attack and you win as your opponents LP is decreased to 0. But as the game develop through time, there are many insane cards been added to play, which for instance made the gameplay more complicated than people thought when the game was initally released. Due to this date, there are 6 types of summoning (tribute, ritual, special summon, fusion, synchro, xyz, pendulum) which comes out from each original sequel of anime series.
This review would be focusing more on the mobile game, YuGiOh Duel Links! which I played recently. The gameplay is similar with the original version, but it comes up with 3 monster zone and 3 spell/trap card zone, and 4000 LP, thus an independant ruling based on the released cards (correlated to the ban, limited, and semi-limited cards). With this in hand, the game is expected to be twice faster and less complicated than the original version. Since the game is in a mobile game platform, one good thing is that KONAMI hasn't released all cards as the original version does. But don't worry since the game itself has released pretty much decent cards to enjoy the gameplay whihch comes up in packs that we can buy with gems obtainable through the game (even though you can also buy it).
There are many events throughout the game (usually each event updated each 2 weeks or so), which also releases super rare or even ultra rare cards and tickets that you can trade with a card of your favor from an available list. But, as almost every online game does; the ultimate goal of playing the game is winning the ladderboard and reach a seasonal title; King of Games (KOG). Anyone can reach KOG through each season which is updated each month. In order to reach KOG, you have to win numerous time against players with the same rank (platinum, gold, legend, etc). Each ranks comes with 7 sub-ranks, except legend which has only 5 (for example, platinum 1, platinum 2, until platinum 7), and as you win, you can go to the next rank. As far as I remember, the KOG ruling applied now (Nov 2020) is that you won't lose rank as you lose until you reach legend (so just keep playing and win effortlesly). But from legend to KOG is when the real game starts.
To promote from sub-ranks in legend (for example, legend 1 to legend 2), you will need a 3 win-streak. Thus if you have a 3 lose-streak you are automatically demoted. For legend 5 to KOG, you will need 8 win-streak. Think of this ruling as you win you get +1, and lose would be -1. So, the total winnings I menitoned before means you have to get a point of +5 for legend 5 to KOG, and +3 for the sub-ranks in the legend rank. For me personally, reaching legend is easy enough (total less than 25 games, if playing on mid-season ranked duels), but to reach KOG, I have to play around 250 games if I use a decent mid-tier deck (This ruling is based on what I remember, if you have any more updated or correct rulings, please kindly comment here below).
The real problem in almost every online game, including Duel Links comes here. When people are actually climbing the ladder, they need better cards. So most people with high-tier decks actually buys crazy amount of gems, then they buy card boxes and packs, and get the ultra and super rare cards which comes with insane effects. Here is where the game becomes broken. Cards with effect to special summon many monsters in one turn, removing cards from play, and so on are labeled with a high rarity for a reason. It's obviously expensive, but when people have the cash, then the rarity issue becomes a joke. Ironically, the game becomes more like a paying to win rather than a playing to win game.
This is seriously not cheap. As you climb throughout the ladder in ranked duels, you will likely face high-tier decks, for example 'control shiranui' decks. It is a fast paced zombie-synchro deck whith the ability to synchro summon from the graveyard, triigering effect when the monster are banished, and also it has decent strong backrows to support it. In my personal opinion, it is the strongest versatile synchro deck ever released in duel links (compare to infernity, dragunity, cryston, or karakuri which mostly focuses on one turn kill (OTK)).
For the control shiranui deck, as I cited from duellinks.meta website, it costs 67.000 gems to build up a balanced-full set shiranui decks. This 67.000 gems comes from buying the packs or boxes which contains the core cards needed. How much does a gem cost in real life? In my experience, I bought my gems usually from google play cards. For example if I buy 1500 japanese yen google play card, then I get 1500 gems too. So you can think 15 gems would cost around 1 USD. So, to get the full set shiranui deck from just buying gems, it would cost around 4500 USD. I don't know other people, but for me personally, spending that much amount of money for an in app-purchase is just too much.
One more thing to underline is that this is not cheating, and as it is actually a bussiness for KONAMI, I quiet understand that they want a good marketing by releasing these expensive-crazy effect cards. For the sake of the game itself, KONAMI also updates the ruling so these cards aren't abused too much. Even though most changes usually affects high tier decks, it is good to keep in mind that the game is still playable and enjoyable, in case you aren't running for the KOG or KC Cup (world-wide league based ladderboard, playable 4 times in a year or so).
Is it possible to reach KOG without spending real-money on gems?
Well it is, but you still need to at least buy several packs to get a well-balanced playable deck using gems that you obtain through the game (level up character, missions, events, etc). These decks are usually noted as free to play decks (F2P). As you buy boxes of cards, you will get the cards as listed what's inside by a random chance. For example the box contain 200 cards, and 10 cards from it costs 100 gems, so if you buy all the cards from the box it would cost 2000 gems and you will definitely get all the cards inside.
You can also reset the box as soon you get the card that you've been searching for. In that way, the listed cards in the box would be refreshed. My F2P version would be a full set of box with at least one time reset. Usually the total would cost around 10000 gems (at the highest, twice reset of minibox). As it sounds a bit expensive, don't worry because there's a lot of ways to get gems especially if you are still a new player in the game. For reference, I personally can get 500 gems (to open 10 packs) in at least 3 days while doing my workdays during off-season at my laziest pace (no event timing). So the good news is that if you focus on one deck, it would take you at least 2 months to get a full F2P deck which can compete with high tier decks.
In case you are really looking to start the game with an F2P deck then I recommend you to open duelinkmeta website. Just google it and it will show you the cards you need, in what boxes, and the cost also. They recommend the Aromage archtype deck, Lunalight, and also ritual beast. I never play ritual beast, but all these decks are decently common to find on high tier rank duels with good gameplay (as long as you can master the combo). For my personal experience, if you want another option than these decks but still are affordable and good as heck, you can try out desperado barrel deck or dragunity - ascalon deck. You can get all the main cards from a structural deck that you can buy in the game. Usually people will buy a total of 3 copies of the deck to formulize the best-lethal way to play the deck. There are also some better cards to replace or play along with the structural decks which you can find in the boxes too to gradually build your deck stronger.
So, thats my review point about this game. Yes it is abused in many ways, but still enjoyable and competable (since its a strategic game, not an RPG). Best of luck for your game, adios~
Amen broo
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