Duel Links Best Cheap Decks

The best Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Links decks for PvP

Complimentary-to-play mobile spinoff Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Links recently made its manner to Steam, and while I don't love information technology like I practice the standard Yu-Gi-Oh card game, its authentic presentation and snappy interface are enough to give fans of the series hours of nostalgic fun. Of course, PvP is at the heart of all card games, and Duel Links is no exception.

Every bit I detailed in my impressions piece, Duel Links uses speed duel rules. This rule set essentially cuts standard Yu-Gi-Oh in one-half: 4,000 life points instead of 8,000, six board spaces instead of 10, ane main phase instead of two, 20 card decks instead of 40, and a smaller starting hand. Duel Links likewise lacks extra deck tools similar Synchro, XYZ and Pendulum cards, too every bit several archetype-specific finishers and support cards.

As a effect, the best decks in Duel Links are very dissimilar from their TCG counterparts. Some strategies and themes conduct over, but everything plays out on a smaller, more express scale. Compared to the TCG, this limits Duel Links' competitive depth, though its duelist-specific skills help make upward the divergence. Notwithstanding, the emergence of stiff decks in card games is as sure equally death and taxes, and Duel Links does accept a roughly divers meta. Hither are five competitive decks from the upper echelons of that meta which illustrate different playstyles.

(Annotation: In light of the about recent ban listing update, Cyber Angels were not included in this list, as semi-limiting both Cyber Angel Dakini and Machine Angel Ritual severely weakened the deck and their postal service-nerf power level is all the same unclear.)

Ninjas

Black Dragon Ninja

Skill:

Three-Star Demotion (Paradox Brothers): Pay 3,000 life points to reduce the level of all monsters in your hand by three until the end phase. Yous tin only utilise this once per plow.

Fundamental cards:

Blackness Dragon Ninja: Your main finisher. This monster is capable of dodging enemy cards, triggering other Ninja effects and sneaking in multiple attacks past blinking (i.east. banishing so resummoning) monsters.

Ninjitsu Fine art of Transformation: Tribute a Ninja monster to special summon another Ninja monster from your paw or deck, often Black Dragon Ninja.

Ninjitsu Art of Duplication: Tribute a Ninja to special summon multiple lower-star Ninjas which can wreak havoc on your opponent's board.

Best Ninja deck: Duel Links GameA's 3SD Ninja list

I wanted to brainstorm with Ninjas because it'due south arguably the closest thing to a 'normal' Yu-Gi-Oh deck that yous'll find in Duel Links: information technology'due south filled with unique cards, it has loftier one-turn-kill potential, and it has a tool box of support cards to help articulate the way for an OTK.

Black Dragon Ninja is the core of this deck. Yous desire to employ his effect to remove monsters from play at the right time, oft during the battle phase. The obvious implication is removing defending enemy monsters, only yous can also blink Black Dragon Ninja himself to protect him from enemy effects (he won't exist targetable when the chain resolves) or to let him to set on repeatedly in the same battle stage. You tin can echo this procedure as long as y'all have Ninja and Ninjitsu cards to tribute.

Ninjitsu Art of Transformation and Duplication ensure you ever accept immediate access to the Ninjas you lot demand, and support spells like Ninjitsu Art Notebook and Armor Ninjitsu Art of Abracadabra help thin your deck. An added bonus is that you don't need multiple copies of Black Dragon Ninja if yous don't have them, since you can consistently summon him from anywhere. Together with 3-Star Demotion, which allows you to normal summon Black Dragon Ninja or Red Dragon Ninja from your mitt for 1 turn, this makes for incredibly consequent OTKs, ofttimes as early as turn two.

Gladiator Beasts

Gladiator Beast Murmillo

Skill:

Holy Guard (Tea Gardner): Yous don't have battle harm during your turn.

Key cards:

Gladiator Beast Bestiari: When special summoned past another Gladiator Beast'southward effect, Bestiari can destroy a spell or trap.

Gladiator Fauna Murmillo: When special summoned by some other Gladiator Fauna'southward effect, Murmillo can destroy a monster.

Gladiator Creature Laquari: When special summoned by another Gladiator Beast's effect, Laquari's attack is boosted to 2,100.

Best Gladiator Creature deck: Duel Links GameA's Gladiator Brute list

Gladiator Beasts are the picture of a tool box deck. Their unique effect allows them to 'tag out' whenever they assail or are attacked, letting yous special summon another Gladiator Animal from your deck and activate their effect. So, to play them correctly, you demand to decide when to tag out and who to summon based on the situation.

In full general, you'll focus on decision-making the board by tagging betwixt Bestiari and Murmillo while Laquari, your strongest normal attacker, holds the line. To ensure your monsters survive the battle phase, employ cards similar Enemy Controller and Impenetrable Attack to manipulate enemy monsters and protect your own. The Holy Guard skill works specially well with Impenetrable Attack because you never have to worry about taking harm on your turn. This allows you to freely assault into stronger monsters in guild to tag out.

When you see an opening, you can use finishers like Gladiator Beast Dimacari (a strong one-of) or Gladiator Beast Fusion monsters like Nerokius and Heraklinos to close out the game.

Red-Eyes Zombies

Red-Eyes Zombie Dragon

Skill:

Beatdown (Seto Kaiba): Boost the attack points of your face up-upwardly attack position monsters past 300 points for every level five-or-higher monster you control. You lot tin can only use this in one case per turn.

Key cards:

Red-Eyes Zombie Dragon: Your main finisher which tin be tribute summoned with only one zombie and easily special summoned in several ways.

Red-Eyes Spirit: An like shooting fish in a barrel way to get Red-Optics Zombie Dragon onto the board from your graveyard.

Gozuki: The best manner to put Red-Optics Zombie Dragon into your graveyard to set up for Red-Eyes Spirit, non to mention a built-in way to special summon it from your manus.

Best Cerise-Eyes Zombie deck: Kaito's Red-Optics Beatdown list

As you may have guessed from its recommended skill, Cerise-Optics Zombies is a beatdown deck. That is to say, information technology hits things really difficult. But it'south particularly powerful and interesting because information technology focuses on playing from your graveyard. It also received a significant boost with the addition of the Zombie World field spell, which makes Red-Eyes Zombie Dragon's secondary effect far more than relevant.

Gozuki is your bread and butter. He can pull Reddish-Eyes Zombie Dragon from your paw or dump him into your graveyard from your deck—any you lot demand to fix a special summon. From at that place, yous can employ Scarlet-Eyes Spirit, Reddish-Eyes Insight and Red-Eyes Wyvern to make full your board with Zombie Dragons, utilize Beatdown to pump them upwardly, and go in for the kill.

This deck's main weakness is its, well, weakness. Red-Optics Zombie Dragon has a powerful engine but its attack isn't actually that high, which is why we rely on Beatdown to requite united states an border in the battle phase. However, to help become over huge enemy monsters, you'll also want to run cards like Wall of Disruption and Enemy Controller. Mirror Wall is another power tool for shrinking enemy monsters.

Bamboo Burn

Woodland Sprite

Skill:

Duel, standby (opens in new tab) (Tea Gardner): Both players start the duel with one more than card in their paw.

Key cards:

Woodland Sprite: The core of the deck. Use its effect to send equip spells to the graveyard and damage your opponent.

Cursed Bamboo Sword: This equip spell nets y'all another Bamboo Sword menu when tributed by Woodland Sprite, which keeps your engine running.

Gilt Bamboo Sword: A powerful source of card draw which is virtually always agile.

Best Bamboo Burn deck: Role player One's Bamboo FTK listing

Bamboo Burn is new to the Duel Links meta and isn't exactly beloved due to its uninteractive nature. After all, the focus of the deck is exploiting Duel Links' lowered deck size and life bespeak total, ignoring the board and killing your opponent with direct impairment—ideally in one plough and oft on plough one.

It's similar to Exodia decks, and consequently, many people consider it to be a inexpensive deck—even Konami said they're considering nerfing it. I'm inclined to hold, but in that location'due south no denying its effectiveness and elegance. It's also fairly inexpensive to build and a cracking example of how burn works in Yu-Gi-Oh.

Bamboo Burn's forcefulness is its simplicity: y'all depict lots of cards, equip cards similar Broken Bamboo Sword and Black Pendant to Woodland Sprite, and then send them to the graveyard for 500 damage apiece. Repeat until expressionless. This strategy lets yous get away with helter-skelter cards like Into the Void and Cup of Ace: yous don't have to worry about their potential downsides considering you planning on winning the turn y'all play them. Magical Mallet is another great style to improve your opening hands, and extra burn like Restructer Revolution won't get awry.

Massive Amazoness

Amazoness Swords Adult female

Skill:

Residuum (available to multiple duelists): Your opening paw is dictated by your deck limerick. So, if yous run five monsters, 10 spells and five traps, you lot'll always open with one monster, two spells and 1 trap. The same formula holds true for other combinations, and then aim to build your deck in increments of five.

Key cards:

Amazoness Swords Woman: Your opponent takes all battle damage you would take from battles involving this card, meaning you lot can run it into big monsters to burn your opponent out.

Amazoness Willpower: This trap special summons your Amazoness Swords Adult female from the graveyard and forces information technology to attack, which is exactly what we desire.

Massivemorph: Doubles the assail of an enemy monster and prevents it from attacking you directly.

All-time Massive Amazoness deck: JayDizzle's Mighty Morphing Amazoness list

While arguably a burn deck, Massive Amazoness is more of a combo deck than anything. It pairs Amazoness Swords Adult female'south unique issue with Massivemorph to deal huge damage to the opponent using their own monsters. It too uses Residual to ensure consequent opening easily, which demonstrates how powerful Duel Links' skills can exist.

This is a very simple deck, so apart from your few key cards, just focus on playing up your strengths and minimizing your weaknesses. Use Enemy Controller to force enemy monsters into attack position, increase your damage output with Half-Shut, or protect your Amazoness Swords Adult female with cards like Dimensional Gate. As thespian JayDizzle's list demonstrates, you can also add in alternate win conditions with cards similar Lava Golem, and stall for time with Draining Shield or Enchanted Javelin.

Austin freelanced for PC Gamer, Eurogamer, IGN, Sports Illustrated, and more while finishing his journalism caste, and has been a full-time author at PC Gamer's sister publication GamesRadar+ since 2019. They've nonetheless to realize that his position as a staff writer is only a camouflage for his career-spanning Destiny column, and he's kept the ruse going with a focus on news, the occasional characteristic, and as much Genshin Bear upon as he can get away with.