Current Events > Was Kaiba actually good at duel monsters?

(+) Yeah! (+)

seems like he only won because he had cheap cards no one else had

3 blue eyes white dragons, and didnt need to sacrifice for them or anything. Completely unbalanced

so you have a dweeb army

Eh his deck was actually pretty good. He had really broken spell cards that had massively long legs in terms of usability, like Enemy Controller, Foolish Burial, Soul Exchange, or Card of Demise (had to be nerfed on release and was still one of the best cards in a format some time ago). Ring of Destruction had to be nerfed just to be unbanned, though it's mostly shit now. Crush Card Virus too I think had to be nerfed.

Blue Eyes was historically pretty bad, but once you got him out, and you have the types of spell/trap support Kaiba did, it would've won you the game. He also ran a ton of strong vanilla monsters, which at the time was a pretty good strat. Like he had La Jinn, who was 1800 atk normal summon monster. In IRL ygo, La Jinn beatdown was pretty iconic, and it was a reason for why when a prize card lvl 4 monster had 1850 attack, that card literally cost like a thousand dollars and gave previous winners unfair advantages.

Joey is the only character who would occasionally win based on skill. Everyone else cheated to some degree

legendarylemur posted...

Eh his deck was actually pretty good. He had really broken spell cards that had massively long legs in terms of usability, like Enemy Controller, Foolish Burial, Soul Exchange, or Card of Demise (had to be nerfed on release and was still one of the best cards in a format some time ago). Ring of Destruction had to be nerfed just to be unbanned, though it's mostly shit now. Crush Card Virus too I think had to be nerfed.

Blue Eyes was historically pretty bad, but once you got him out, and you have the types of spell/trap support Kaiba did, it would've won you the game. He also ran a ton of strong vanilla monsters, which at the time was a pretty good strat. Like he had La Jinn, who was 1800 atk normal summon monster. In IRL ygo, La Jinn beatdown was pretty iconic, and it was a reason for why when a prize card lvl 4 monster had 1850 attack, that card literally cost like a thousand dollars and gave previous winners unfair advantages.

in early yugioh, they didn't have to sacrifice. Once he drew a blue eyes it was out in attack mode. It was by far the most strongest and rigged card at the time of the series

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qqcdek9dLyM

I mean later on he added more powerful cards to his deck like Chaos Emperor Dragon. Hell in the movie he even used the Megamorph combo lol.

Plus Blue Eyes Chaos End Dragon and some of the other newer cards are not jokes either.

WalkingLobsters posted...

in early yugioh, they didn't have to sacrifice. Once he drew a blue eyes it was out in attack mode. It was by far the most strongest and rigged card at the time of the series

Yeah but early yugioh, only 1 monster can attack, and there wasn't in-series established rule about direct attacking. This meant you can just load your deck with ways to just do a one shot kill on a defense position monster. You might as well just treat the Duelist Kingdom arc to not even be the same game anyways

You have to remember that every main character in the manga and anime has infinitely good deck consistency because it's fiction. Judging them by the standards of real world play isn't going to work.

I remember old school Yu-Gi-Oh anime logic like:

*Someone summons a monster with an attack power 2000 or over and destroys the opponents monster*

Joey, Tea, Tristan or whoever: "OH MY GOD THEY'RE SUCH A POWERFUL AND SKILLED DUELIST!! D:"

If you have to threaten self-injury in order to make your enemy concede and give you the win... I'm going to say you were bad at the game.

Battle City Kaiba has some good strats.

XYZ Dragon Cannon into Obelisk and, in case that 4k beatstick is gone, you still have 3x 3k beatstick you can summon.

His other monsters are also beatstick.

Duelist Kingdom isn't exactly a good measure, though...

DnDer posted...

If you have to threaten self-injury in order to make your enemy concede and give you the win... I'm going to say you were bad at the game.

...this one is pretty cheap, yeah.

DnDer posted...

If you have to threaten self-injury in order to make your enemy concede and give you the win... I'm going to say you were bad at the game.

To be fair he only did that once, against a magical Egyptian ghost with the magical power to draw whatever card they needed by manipulating fate. >_>

lilORANG posted...

Joey is the only character who would occasionally win based on skill. Everyone else cheated to some degree

WHat, I remmeber joey;s gimmick was that his deck was a bunch of coin flispo and lucky shit.

lilORANG posted...

Joey is the only character who would occasionally win based on skill. Everyone else cheated to some degree

He got lucky most of the time with dice and coin cards I like Joey but he's over hyped

DnDer posted...

If you have to threaten self-injury in order to make your enemy concede and give you the win... I'm going to say you were bad at the game.

Tennousu posted...

...this one is pretty cheap, yeah.

I never got people criticizing this tbh. His choice was to either beat Yugi in this card game or Pegasus keeps his little brother hostage. He had no intention of being hurt because he knew Yugi would puss out. He was just not aware that the dude had been possessed by an ancient gives-no-fucks Egyptian pharaoh and I don't know if he could be blamed for that.

orcus_snake posted...

WHat, I remmeber joey;s gimmick was that his deck was a bunch of coin flispo and lucky shit.

Lord_Shadow posted...

He got lucky most of the time with dice and coin cards I like Joey but he's over hyped

And yeah, Joey's deck was pretty luck-based, especially in Duelist Kingdom.

Shame he started CCGs so early. With that luck, he'd have made fucking bank as a Hearthstone streamer.

Joey's decks used so many coins and dice I'm convinced he was a Pokemon TCG player

lilORANG posted...

Joey is the only character who would occasionally win based on skill. Everyone else cheated to some degree

He won based on luck. That was his whole thing. Dice and coin tosses all day.

In fairness, I get the impression that Joey realized he was lucky and built a deck around that. To his credit, he played to his strength.

orcus_snake posted...

WHat, I remmeber joey;s gimmick was that his deck was a bunch of coin flispo and lucky shit.

Luck is as much a part of the game as cards and skill.

Kaiba was probably the most skilled person in the series aside from actual Yugi (Not Atem). He only loses to people who cheat with magic but beats everyone else, IIRC.