New player guide: What packs to buy first? [Apr 2021]

• Recommended Pull's Card List Section is Updated.

• Mini Box Cards Investigation Section is Updated.

• Harpie Deck is added as the Other Interesting Option

• Evil Eye Section is added.

• Fire King Section is removed.

If you have just started playing Duel Links or you simply haven’t opened the game in a while, you are probably looking at the Shop, wondering where to start. After all, this game has been out for over two years, and the amount of options available at this point is quite overwhelming. You do, however, have a limited amount of resources, so I am going to try and direct you towards what’s relevant at the moment.

For starters, let’s talk about some of the most popular cards in the game like right now—mostly Spell and Trap Cards that can fit in pretty much any deck. These cards have proven to be a great investment for many players by remaining relevant for a very long time and should be one of your primary foci, if you have just started playing the game.

Another amazing low-Level monster that can allow you to survive an OTK. Kiteroid has been Semi-Limited pretty much right after its release.

To any Deck that can make Level-7 Synchros on demand, Black Rose Dragon is a great addition to your toolbox. Summon it when you want to get rid of the opponent's entire board. And if you can follow up with summoning a powerful monster, you can hit the opponent with a huge direct attack.

Abyss Dweller is used like a monster version of Necrovalley that's accessible to any Rank-4 spam Deck. Another benefit of running Abyss Dweller is, unlike Necrovalley, it does not affect your own graveyard so you're still able to activate graveyard effects.

Make sure to toggle your chain from "Auto" to "On" so you can use Abyss Dweller at the start of the opponent's turn where it is most effective. Chaining Abyss Dweller to an effect activation would not negate that effect.

Malevolent Sin is a great anti-Xyz tech. Xyz monsters temporarily banished by Malevolent Sin come back with no materials, so they become unable to use their effects.

Highly versatile for defense and control purposes. For example, you can flip a newly summoned monster face-down so that your opponent can't follow up with a Synchro or Xyz play.

Can be used offensively or defensively depending on whose monster you target. Firstly, you can use Forbidden Lance to protect a monster from removal and other harmful effects. Alternatively, you can use it as a significant 800 ATK debuff on an opponent's monster.

This is mainly used when going on the offensive especially OTK turns, to attack safely without worrying about enemy backrow.

Versatile Quick-Play Spell that can be used to protect your monsters and/or your Life Points, or to take control of an opponent’s monster. Enemy Controller is currently Semi-Limited.

Quick monster effect negation is extremely useful in a monster-heavy meta; useful for shutting down searchers and combo starting effects.

Trap Card that’s generally used to slow down the opponent by locking a monster that has just been Summoned in face-down Defense Position.

Similar to Floodgate Trap Hole, Paleozoic Canadia can flip monsters face-down, but it’s more versatile and it has an additional effect that allows you to Special Summon it from the Graveyard as Level 2 monster.

Banishing is a great form of removal since it's usually harder to recover banished cards. Also, the added effect of banishing similar copies from the graveyard can occasionally be useful to disrupt graveyard setup. The discard effect can actually be helpful in some Decks that need the graveyard setup.

A Trap Card with a minor activation requirement and the ability to destroy two monsters on the field. Treacherous Trap Hole is currently Semi-Limited.

Here are the decks that we recommend to invest.

Evil Eye

• The Deck's core cards all come from a single Main Box, so you can easily build it by running through the box twice. Additionally, the box contains the essentials of the Witchcrafter Deck so you can build that alongside your Evil Eye Deck. And the box also has the core cards of the Predaplant Engine.
  
  
• Firstly you'll need the searchers. Basilius mills Gorgoneio to the graveyard where Gorgoneio can activate its effect to fetch Selene. Alternatively you can mill Selene then retreive it when you summon Medusa.
  
  
• To get Evil Eye monsters in your hand, their archetype Field Spell Pareidola works well.
  
  
• All this build up is ultimately to get Medusa on the field equipped with Selene. Selene protects Medusa from destruction and targeting effects. Medusa's effect can be activated anytime to disrupt the enemy graveyard, and this same effect triggers Selene to increase Medusa's ATK.
  
  
• Gorgoneio can also be equipped to Medusa for another huge ATK boost if your opponent's LP is significantly higher than yours. Easy to accomplish since Selene will constantly be draining your LP.
  
  
• Evil Eye Defeat is a powerful removal card, effectively letting you get rid of two enemy monsters for free if you got your ideal setup on board. Follow this up by a direct attack from a boosted Medusa and this could easily result in an OTK.
  
  
• Overall your win condition is to get Medusa equipped with Selene to a high ATK, then keep beating down the opponent while preventing them from recycling the graveyard.

• Catoblepas is another possible target for Selene. Catoblepas is able to activate its effect every turn without condition so this lets you easily accumulate ATK with Selene. Catoblepas will also protect Selene from destruction once every two turns. However, the most optimal use is to just let Catoblepas sit in defense position, protecting Selene equipped to Medusa. The inherent Special Summoning effect makes Catoblepas a good Xyz material to use alongside Basilius.
  
  
• Evil Eye Awakening is a great field extender. You can use this to bring out Medusa, getting you closer to your ideal setup. If you already have Medusa onboard, you can instead use this as a field extender resulting in an Xyz play.
  
  
• Self destructing your backrow with cards like Storm helps you trigger the effect of Pareidola. This also gets Gorgoneia in the graveyard where you can use its search effect.
  
  
• Evil Eye Defeat is a powerful removal card but the conditions to it mean it may not always be at full power, so other removal options like Treacherous Trap Hole are welcome. Medusa banishing from your graveyard gets rid of any Traps that would hinder Treacherous Trap Hole's activation.

Triamid

• You should have at least 1 copy of Sphinx as the deck's boss monster. Special Summon Sphinx with its own effect or when Kingolem is swapped out. While on the field Sphinx offers powerful damage output and essentially prevents the opponent from attacking.
  
  
• All the low-level Triamid monsters share the effect of letting you cycle your Field Spell. This is highly useful in protecting your monsters from effect destruction by fetching Triamid Fortress.
  
  
• Hunter is essential to your field Swarming ability, so summon him first when possible. Remember, more Triamid monsters on the field means more opportunities to cycle through your Field Spells.
  
  
• Dancer gives a permanent stat boost and also recovers your Triamid Field Spells and sometimes monsters. Her presence on the field is also important to your beatdown potential.
  
  
• You can have two Dancers on the field for double the boost every turn.
  
  
• Get Cruiser out during the start of your turn for draw power. This helps you get Sphinx onhand quicker incase you don't have it yet. Don't worry about decking out as long as you have Dancer.
  
  
• Kingolem is the Field Spell you want present most of the time because ATK boost is generally useful. However, you also want to cycle it out for its swarming effect. The solution is to use search effects twice to go from Kingolem>Fortress>Kingolem again.
  
  
• The in-archetype Quick Effect of Triamid monsters lets you pull Fortress out of the deck in response to your opponent's destruction removal.

• In terms of removal, there really isn't much for Triamid Decks. Because of this, it is a good idea to tech on-demand removal effects such as Treacherour Trap Hole and Karma Cut.
  
  
• Battle protection is also an issue without Sphinx or without a significant boost from Dancer.
  
  
• Triamids have good swarming potential but no in-archetype Xyz monster. Because of this the Extra Deck often goes unused so you can fill it with generic Rank-3 and 4 toolboxes. With more Rank-3's because they are easier to make in this Deck.
  
  
• Soul of Silvermountain is a particularly good toolbox option with its second effect letting you revive any Triamid monster. And Dancer allows Soul of Silvermountain to effectively run things over.

The Weather

• Max out on Painter Snow and Snowy Canvas for consistent searching, resource gain, and combo extending.
  
  
• On your first turn, Normal Summon Snow and search Snowy Canvas. Use Snowy Canvas' effect to fetch Thundery Canvas.
  
  
• If you don't have Snow onhand, you can Summon Thunder then activate Snowy Canvas to still search Thundery Canvas. Alternatively, you can activate Cloudy Canvas then use Thunder's effect to search Snowy Canvas, using Cloudy Canvas as cost.
  
  
• Basically your board setup should consist of Snowy Canvas, Thundery Canvas, and a Painter monster.
  
  
• Cloudy Canvas is can be used to halve the opponent's ATK for a quick debuff, or give one of your monsters a direct attack opportunity.
  
  
• Cloud helps maintain your board setup. Just use his effect to immediately recover a Weather Spell/Trap was removed.

• The filler cards for this deck are mostly defensive to match its control playstyle.
  
  
• You already have enough removal power with Thundery Canvas, the problem is you need a full field of Weather monsters to maximize it while this deck isn't really good at swarming. The stall cards are present to keep you alive while you slowly Normal Summon into a full field of monsters.
  
  
• Valhalla can be tech may be teched in to hasten your swarming. It can later be used as cost for Thunder's search to prevent backrow clogging.
  
  
• Aside from Cloud, The Weather Decks don't really have any graveyard recursion. This means you can tech in Necrovalley to disrupt the opponent's graveyard plays without affecting your plays.

Gouki

Gouki is a beater deck you can build by pulling from Flames of the Heart. If you want an effective deck that requires minimal combos, this deck is for you. The floating effect inherent to all Goukis, allows you to maintain resources and keep up with more combo-oriented decks.

• The current Gouki playstyle is beatdown. However, they distinguish themselves by having an archetype-wide search effect on all their monsters. This not only makes them quite consistent, but also allows them to be cost effective tribute engines.
  
  
• Normal Summon Gouki Suprex for field presence. His effect lets you Special Summon any Gouki from your hand so use this to Special Summon Riscopio as a beater or Twistcobra for a potential ATK boost and search effect trigger.
  
  
• Gouki Riscorpio is a beater, not much to be said about him. He has his own effect that eases his Normal Summoning, but you usually want to Special Summon him with Suprex. He also provides the largest boost when tributed by Twistcobra.
  
  
• Gouki Twistcobra can be a beater like your other Gouki monsters, but his effect does have some nuance to its use. You will need 2 Gouki on the field to use Twistcobra's effect, one to tribute and one to receive the ATK boost, so it is ideal to Special Summon him with Suprex. Twistcobra can even tribute himself to give another Gouki monster an ATK boost, this means no matter what your opponent targets for removal, you can make use of it for Twistcobra's effect. Lastly, Twistcobra is the easiest in-archetype way of triggering search effects in a Gouki deck.
  
  
• Keep Gouki Iron Claw in your hand to respond to your opponent's battle traps while also giving your Gouki a slight ATK boost. If you brick and Iron Claw is the only monster in your hand, you can set it and get a search when it gets destroyed.

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KC GT Tournament 2021

Mini Event: Mission Circuit

KC Cup: 1st Stage [April 2021]

KC Cup: 2nd Stage [April 2021]

Sign of Harpies

4th Anniversary Campaign

Blue-Eyes Evolution

FAQ

Facilities in Duel World

Cards you should trade

How to beat the Vegabond

How to solve Duel Quizes

How to get/collect items

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