This is a vaguely coherent set of thoughts on various aspects of Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel.
Microtransactions
First off, the elephant in the room. I’ve seen a lot of complaints about the “microtransactions” in the game, but the fact that these people are calling them “microtransactions” instead of what it really is (gacha) tells me that this is their first rodeo. In all honesty, the streamers and youtubers saying that the game is free-to-play-friendly are correct (about this, at least).
Rates
A 2.5% UR rate is really not that bad. Most other gacha games have their highest rarities available at around 1-3%, so 2.5% is actually on the high end. Not to mention Master Duel has dusting, and at a very respectable 3:1 rate to boot. For comparison, Hearthstone’s dust rate is 4:1 and Shadowverse’s is 3.5:1. I had no trouble putting together a tier 1 deck and skeletons for 4 others after completing story mode and getting about a hundred packs worth of pulls & dust.
Gem Income
The free gem income is very good too. Story mode alone gives about 10k gems, which is enough to set you up with a solid deck for ranked if you know what you’re doing. Then getting to Platinum I will net you another 10k or so gems, allowing you to diversify into other archetypes. Granted these are one-time rewards, although ranked seasons appear to reset very frequently, so the rewards should also become available often.
As far as dailies go, it’s looking like the odd tasks can get you around 75 gems (3/4 a pack) each day. Again, this is on par with competitors, so this doesn’t strike me as concerning. Something that does get my attention though, is that you can get packs and gems from duel score rewards in ranked. Granted you only get around 5-10 gems or a couple of legacy packs at a time, it’s still “free” gems and dust. I don’t know of any other gacha game that allows you to farm premium currency and actually rewards you to this degree just for playing.
I don’t think I’ve made it clear how huge this is. This means that there is effectively no paywall in the game, because you can just play more to get more gems. In other games, there is a hard limit to the freebies, and you must swipe the credit card if you want more—but not in Master Duel. As far as gacha goes, this game easily takes the cake as the most generous gacha system I’ve seen to date.
Transparency
The lack of smoke and mirrors in the gem shop earns points for Master Duel in my book as well. It’s very obvious what you should buy (bundle deals, duel pass, secret packs) and what you should avoid (everything else).
The only inventory that might be considered “traps” to trick unsuspecting beginners into wasting their gems are Stalwart Force and the structure decks, though it’s pretty clear that both of those are pretty undesirable and not worth purchasing, so I’m not sure I’d even call them traps.
As an added bonus, the game also shows the probabilities to pull each rarity. This is required by law so it’s not exactly praiseworthy, but it’s nice that they put it front and center so that you know exactly what you’re getting into.
Business Model
I suspect the reason many people are unhappy with the system is because they’re coming from Yu-Gi-Oh and not from gacha, so they’re not familiar with the business model. Though as far as this monetisation method goes, this is the best implementation I’ve experienced.
There’s an argument to be made around letting players have all the cards, and limit real-world payments to just cosmetics, which is a fair stance to take. However in terms of revenue, it’s definitely in Konami’s best interests to go down the gacha route, and they’re definitely doing it better than everyone else on the market.
Also just anecdotally, playing around a limited card pool is actually part of what makes the game interesting at this stage. It means you need some semblance of deck building skill, or at least a large credit line. And if you’d rather lose a coin flip and watch SPYRALs play Solitaire for 30 minutes to end on a mediocre board, then you can always hop back to YGOPro.
Content
The game is actually a bit lacking in this department. I’m 40 hours in and I’ve basically completed all of the content the game has to offer. If you’re here to play Yu-Gi-Oh, then this isn’t really a problem. The “content” and replay value comes from just dueling people. But if you’re here to play Master Duel, then things look a little bleak, even considering that the game just came out.
Solo
The story mode is nothing to write home about, though I doubt anyone is coming to Master Duel to play in solo. It’s mostly just there so you can collect your gems and cosmetics and then be done with it. There are a few visual novel-style stories you can read through if that’s your thing. I don’t know how long they are because I skipped them all like I imagine most people would.
I guess the main sell is that it pits you against a dozen or so different archetypes and variants on those archetypes, some of which are meta and many of which are not. This might be somewhat helpful for returning players (whom there seem to be several of) trying to learn the current state of the game, but you’re probably better off just watching streamers for this.
One minor complaint, if I had to raise one, is that the loaner decks they make you play with for a few of the duels are pretty garbage, so it’s a bit of a pain in the ass to beat some of the AIs in later chapters. But it really is just a minor complaint.
Ranked
This is a weird one. I reached Platinum Tier I (the highest rank) in 57 duels (going 47-10). This took me the better part of two days, before I even completed my battle pass. For comparison, it took me around 700 wins (not duels) to get from Beginner to Master in Shadowverse, and then another 150 games every season to maintain Grand Master. This is a pretty huge disparity.
I want to say it was intentionally balanced to be quick because the seasons are shorter. The game released on the 19th of Jan, and the season resets on the 1st of Feb, so the seasons are probably 2 weeks to a month long, compared than the 3-month seasons in Shadowverse. But even then, it still feels insanely fast, so maybe the intention is for Plat I to be a goal for everyone to achieve each season rather than for ranks being a reflection of player skill.
One interesting point to note is that ranks in Master Duel don’t use any points or Elo rating system. It appears to be purely based off wins, so a single win is +1 and a loss is -1. In theory this should mean that you need a win rate higher than 50% to climb ranks, but I’m led to believe it’s more lenient than that given all the reports I’ve seen of low-tier and hobby decks reaching Plat I.
It’s probably still too early to say anything conclusive about Ranked at this stage. I didn’t start running into meta decks frequently until hitting high Platinum, but I suspect as the game gets older and players start to accrue more cards and dust, and the nostalgia seekers have had their fill and left, ranked duels will probably settle to a stable handful of meta archetypes.
That said, I’m actually quite liking the variety of deck types I’ve been seeing and I’m hoping that this can be maintained somehow. It’s also pretty cool to play with the hybrid TCG/OCG ban list and slightly dated card pool. I think Master Duel has its place as its own format, and it would really kill my motivation to play if they introduced TCG/OCG as separate rank ladders and I’d have to climb all three.
Other
Contrary to the section title, there is actually no other playable content in the game (yet?). Since I’ve finished the story mode and achieved the highest rank, there isn’t really anything else for me to do. Just so we’re clear, this is a good thing. Limited content means limited fear of missing out, which means I can play of my own volition instead of playing as a job to collect pennies like a hobo.
The fact that so many people are still playing at Plat I despite no new ranks or rewards to achieve is actually a pretty good sign. It indicates that the game is enjoyable (at least for those people) and stands on its own without any skinner box techniques that force you to play, like the dreaded stamina bar.
Still, additional game modes probably wouldn’t hurt to add some variety. A draft/arena mode is pretty commonplace for most CCGs since it gives you something fun and different to do outside of ranked, and provides an alternative way to collect cards. It’s also a good way to level the playing field if you haven’t been playing since release and don’t have the dust to compete with longer-term players.
Closing
Everything said and done, it’s still really nice to have an official CCG for actual Yu-Gi-Oh, none of that Duel Links bullshit. If you like modern Yu-Gi-Oh then you’ll have a good time on Master Duel, and if you don’t, then that’s probably more of an issue with Yu-Gi-Oh than with Master Duel.
As mentioned earlier, it’s a new game so there are still some kinks in the client. It runs like trash for one, and some aspects of the UX are needlessly high-friction, like not being able to draw automatically during the draw phase. The slight delay before showing a boss monster animation is just long enough to notice that the game is still a bit unpolished, but hopefully these sorts of things will be ironed out over the coming patches.
All in all, this is probably the best version of Yu-Gi-Oh that Konami could have provided. It’s not a dumb cash grab like Duel Links was, and I can see competitive players sticking around if the game continues on this trajectory. I wasn’t expecting much going into it, but after experiencing what it had to offer, I’ll admit I was pleasantly surprised and will probably be hanging around for a while yet.
Edit 22/02/01:
ranked is fucking broken lmfao nice fucking game
The current ranks in Master Duel go from Rookie → Bronze → Silver → Gold → Platinum, with 5 tiers in each (except for Rookie which has 2). Every time you go up a tier, you get 100 gems. So Rookie 2 → Rookie 1 gives you 100 gems, Gold 3 → Gold 2 gives you 100 gems, etc. Around 2000 gems total if my math checks out.
When season 1 reset, the rewards reset too. Then in season 2, you started from the bottom of the previous tier you were in. So if you were in Silver 3 in season 1, you get put in Bronze 5 in season 2. If you were in Platinum 1, you get put in Gold 5. However, you don’t get the rewards for the ranks below your reset placing.
So if you start from Gold 5 in season 2, you can’t get any of the gems you could have gotten for ranking all the way up to Silver 1. On top of this, there are no end of season rewards. So as long as you’ve reached Platinum 1, it doesn’t matter if you get demoted—you can end the season at any rank and not miss out on any gems.
That means the optimal strategy is to climb to Platinum 1 to collect all the gems, and then lose on purpose to demote yourself to Gold, so that you start from Silver next season and have access to more rewards (you can’t demote from Gold to Silver).
You don’t need to be a genius to see how fucking stupid this is, but it gets even better.
In season 2, the system was updated so that you can no longer be demoted from Platinum 1. Do you see the problem here? Getting to Platinum 1, the highest rank currently in the game, which is meant to be an achievement, is actually a prison and prevents you from getting the max amount of rewards.
If you get to Platinum 1 in season 2, you can no longer demote back down to Gold. This means your season 3 will start from Gold 5. However if you stop at Platinum 2, you can demote back down to Gold and start season 3 from Silver 5. You lose 100 gems in season 2, but gain 500 gems in season 3.
Do you see the fucking problem here? When you get to Platinum 2, the meta is no longer Virtual World and Drytrons. The meta is pressing the fucking surrender button before your opponent does so you can lock them in Plat 1 and demote yourself back down to Gold to collect your rewards next season.
Nice fucking game, I love playing alt+f4 simulator.