Winning the Game

Strategy: Making the moves to win the game

Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you thought you had good control of a duel, but your opponent used Heavy Storm, Dark Hole, or Black Rose Dragon on you and completely turned the duel around and you end up losing for it? We all have. This is always frustrating and most people just throw their hands up and say "I had him beat, but he did ____ move. What can I do?" Well, that's where strategy comes into play. Knowing how to use your cards is something that every duelist knows. However, knowing WHEN to use your cards and what cards to use can be a bit trickier.

Duel Monsters can be a tricky game to play. We have all sorts of different cards with different effects and it's almost impossible to memorize them all. So, all we can do is properly prepare to play against our opponent's cards.

The first and most important step for preparing yourself in a duel is to moderate your moves. A basic principle is to use your cards in a manner that will cost you nothing more than a -1 (Your opponent uses one card and you lose two, he/she uses two for you to lose three, etc) at most when the duel is starting out. Obviously, it's best if you don't lose anything, but if you try to make your opponent make a mistake first you'll end up in a tough situation. If you go first, don't set three cards face-down and a monster card face-down, because you're leaving yourself open to a Heavy Storm or Black Rose Dragon. Use your combos sparingly as well. If you have a combo to get your best monster out and it costs you four cards, but your opponent has two face-downs, deal with those before you use it. The hardest scenario for you in a duel is giving your opponent card advantage for free. If this happens, you'll lose many more duels than you should have in the first place. If you know how to moderate your card usage, you'll be able to stay even with your opponent until you see an opening that you can exploit. Basically, you must play safe without letting your opponent do whatever he/she pleases.


The second step for giving yourself a better chance to win your duels is to pay attention to cards with extremely versatile uses to add to your deck. Cards like Book of Moon serve many purposes. You can use it to give yourself a second use of a flip effect, protect your monster from certain effects that target face-up monsters, stop your opponent's attack, detach XYZ materials, prevent your opponent from using some monster effects, and set your opponent's monsters up for destruction. Best of all, you can chain it to a card like Mystical Space Typhoon to make your opponent waste it. Other examples of versatile cards that can fit into most decks: Mystical Space Typhoon, Monster Reborn, Dark Hole, and Effect Veiler. There are many others, but these are just a few examples. The less you have to rely on your opponent to do something, the more control over the duel you have. This doesn't mean cards like Mirror Force or Dark Bribe are bad, it just means that you shouldn't only have cards that function off of plays your opponent makes. In the same regard, monsters with effects that can trigger to destroy something on the field are also effective, such as Breaker the Magical Warrior or Lyla, Lightsworn Sorceress. When you build a deck, try to include cards that have multiple functions like these (or counterparts from your archetype) and you'll have more success in your duels.

The third and final step is to master your deck and learn all of its combos. Look up guides, look up cards, and make sure you're not missing anything that would be really helpful to you. Always try to improve your deck; it's never going to be perfect. When your opponent makes a move you should be able to think what cards in your deck will be able to counter it the best, and how you can make that move happen easiest. Since every deck is different, there is no way for anyone but the duelist themselves to know their deck. Know your limits, knows your strengths, know your weaknesses. If you know these things, you can stop moves that you'll have trouble with and let ones through you'll have no trouble with.

Like I said, Duel Monsters is a tricky game. 90% of your ability to succeed in this game is being prepared for anything. If you're dueling and something happens that you have no way to stop, then you need to edit your deck to make space for a way to stop such a strategy. This is where side-decks help out. The other 10% is simply planning out your moves most effectively by not giving your opponent advantages you shouldn't give them.

These three steps are not all you need to know to improve your chances of winning. There's other things like reading into your opponent's strategy and understanding what they're trying to do, but that comes with dueling experience. These steps are things you can do right this second to improve your gameplay and win more duels.

Practice these steps, put them to use, and go out there and win some duels!

10/10 I like how you mention that certain cards are needing in a deck. People must also understand, that all staples arent needed in a deck. For instance Tour-Guide isnt good in all decks, even though its considered a staple. If you run many cards that have s/t destruction, such as lyla, and breaker, its better to leave out mst, and save them in the side, if your opponent runs skill-drain, or Beatdown decks running Necrovalley, and Thunderking.

8/10. very well written and thought out, but ssly needs to mention win conditions. give an example of a win condition and talk about what it is, as the title is called "winning the game"