Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel Is Sending Everyone Else On The Steam Charts To The Shadow Realm

I personally haven’t played Yu-Gi-Oh! since middle school. And if you’ve asked me in 2021 what I’d be playing nonstop in the next year, you bet your ass I wouldn’t have been caught dead saying Yu-Gi-Oh!.

I have been stuck on this game all week building decks, browsing other people’s decks, playing ranked and solo battles, enjoying the in-game music, etc. Just all around absorbing the game. The card animations are smooth, it feels good to place down big monsters and cards, counter other cards, and overall literally smash through someone’s life points.

Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel is the first official Yu-Gi-Oh! battle simulator since Legacy of the Duelist in 2015. While nobody expected it to succeed, it’s timing during the outbreak of Omicron and a shortage of good online TCG games has brought it an impressive 200,000+ players at launch on Steam alone.

Although this game’s version of the battle pass is pretty lackluster, the “Duel Pass” does offer some meager rewards. There is a sort of challenge system as well. Things like summoning monsters different ways, playing duels, and ranking up in ranked mode will complete missions that will reward you progressively over time.

Unlike other Yu-Gi-Oh! games, this one ditches the anime and manga aspects of the series, making it feel fresh. The game gives you enough free “gems”, (the premium currency of this free-to-play game) to build up enough cards to build whatever deck you may so desire. Whatever cards you don’t get, you can craft by dismantling cards you don’t need and generating them into ones you want.

At the end of the day, Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel has become a staple in my Steam library. I hope Konami keeps updating it, because it’s too damn good to just let it collect dust.

Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel is out now for Steam, PS4/PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and Nintendo Switch.