New player guide: What packs to buy first? [Mar 2020 Updated]

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 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.

Quick-Play Spell used for backrow removal; Cosmic Cyclone’s activation cost gives it synergy with a lot of Skills (like Sorcery Conduit).

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.

Another Quick-Play Spell that is currently Semi-Limited; World Legacy Clash is used to decrease the stats of the opponent’s monsters, stall, or to trigger certain 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.

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.

Lunalight

Superheavy Samurai Synchro

Shiranui Synchro

Not long after its debut in the 24th Mini Box Soul of Resurrection, the “Shiranui” archetype has proven itself to be an extremely strong contender in the current meta, being able to compete with both Invoked Elementsabers and Blackwings. Shiranui Synchro is an extremely solid deck that can be built with a relatively small investment of resources, it’s not particularly difficult to pilot, and it still has the potential to grow.

• Shiranui Solitaire can Special Summon any Zombie Tuner with 0 DEF directly from your Deck, but most importantly, if it’s banished, it allows you to Special Summon 1 of your other banished “Shiranui” monsters, including Shiranui Samuraisaga, Shiranui Squiresaga, Shiranui Shogunsaga, and Shiranui Sunsaga.
  
  
• Upon being Normal Summoned, Shiranui Squire allows you to Special Summon Shiranui Spectralsword Shade or Spectralsword directly from your Deck. With the Skill Level Augmentation and another Level 4 monster in your hand, Squire becomes a one card Shiranui Sunsaga, which is possibly your best Turn 1 play. If you have enough resources to invest, I would advise getting multiple copies of this card.
  
  
• Another Level 4 monster that is used primarily for Synchro Summoning. When Normal Summoned, Shiranui Spiritmaster allows you to Special Summon another “Shiranui” monster from your hand or Graveyard.
  
  
• Your Level 3 Tuner. Shiranui Spectralsword Shade can be Tributed to Special Summon 2 of your banished Zombie monsters.
  
  
• Shiranui Spectralsword is a Level 2 Tuner that allows you Summon Synchro Monsters that you otherwise would not be able to, like Archfiend Zombie-Skull and Revived King Ha Des.
  
  
• A Level 10 Synchro with 3500 ATK that can prevent Zombie monsters you control from being destroyed.
  
  
• Shiranui Shogunsaga, upon being Special Summoned, is able to drastically increase its ATK, giving itself the ability to get over pretty much any other monster.
  
  
• Shiranui Squiresaga is extremely easy to Summon and it can provide both backrow and monster removal.

• Shiranui Samurai provides a way of removing problematic monsters such as Invoked Cocytus from the board. I would advise always running at least one copy of Samurai.
  
  
• Gold Sarcophagus allows you to banish Squire, Solitaire, or Spiritmaster from your Deck, but, unlike Aloof Lupine, it doesn’t take up your Normal Summon. If you have picked up this Spell Card with your UR Dream Ticket or you simply have purchased the Spellbound Silence Structure Deck EX, I have good news for you: it’s a fantastic addition to this deck.
  
  
• Both of these cards are featured in Soul of Resurrection and can be really good inclusions in a Shiranui Synchro deck. Dragonecro Nethersoul Dragon represents an alternative win con that is fairly easy to bring out.
  
  
• World Legacy Clash has great synergy with the archetype. The Quick-Play Spell is currently Semi-Limited, but it’s also the only card on the Forbidden/Limited List, aside from Enemy Controller, that I would consider running. Yes, Treacherous Trap Hole would be another good inclusion, but it’s an SR from a relatively old Mini Box, so it’s not going to be mentioned in this section.
  
  
• The fact that Cross Breed has seen pretty much no play up to this point probably has a lot to do with the fact that it takes a lot of resources in a format in which they are particularly limited, but I still want to mention this Spell Card because it’s cheap and it has good synergy with the “Shiranui” archetype. You can use Cross Breed to search Squire and then if you are on the draw, you might have another Level 4 in your hand to reveal for Level Augmentation. Cross Breed does force you to run a lot of monsters, but the payoff, especially if you don’t have multiple copies of Squire, is admittedly there.
  
  
• Sealing Ceremony of Katon provides interaction with your opponent during their turn, which is invaluable, and it also sets up for Shiranui Spectral Sword Shade’s effect. Banish Spiritmaster from your Graveyard, destroy a face-up card on your opponent’s side of the field, and maybe remove Aleister the Invoker, Invocation, or Kiteroid from their Graveyard.

Darklord

How much of an impact can the release of a single Spell Card have? Well, if said Spell Card gives you direct access to an entire archetype, enough to bring it back to relevance apparently. To be fair, it’s not the first time this happens, and it’s likely not going to be the last one.

We have already experienced this exact situation when Diamond Core of Koa'ki Meiru was released back in Revolution Beginning, and it’s fair to assume that Banishment of the Darklords will maintain Darklords competitively viable for as long as its predecessor did with Koa'ki Meiru. If you have resources to invest, then why not going for what’s hot right now?

• Banishment of the Darklords significantly increases the consistency of the Deck, allowing you to search Ixchel, Nasten, Tezcatlipoca for protection, Contact, or even The Sanctified Darklord.
• Darklord Superbia and Darklord Contact are pretty much mandatory: they allow you to swarm the field without necessarily taking up your Normal Summon, which you can then use for Darklord Desire or Darklord Morningstar.
• Darklord Nasten can be Special Summoned from your hand with relative ease. Send Superbia to the GY and then activate Contact. Never apply Contact’s effect via Nasten, Ixchel, or Darklord Tezcatlipoca’s effect.

• Darklord Morningstar is a powerful monster that can instantly replenish the resources you used in order to bring it out. A 3000 ATK monster that cannot be targeted by your opponent’s card effects as long as you control another “Darklord” monster, and the ability to gain you a few Life Points while also setting up your Graveyard.
• Artifact Lancea gives Darklords the upper hand against a lot of popular decks. Darklords can easily take advantage of this card because of their incredible draw power.
• Darklord Ukoback can send Superbia directly from your Deck to the Graveyard, setting up for Darklord Contact. Since you are able to apply the effects of any “Darklord” Spell/Trap Cards in your Graveyard, you can use Ukoback to send Banishment, Contact, or The Sanctified Darklord to the Graveyard.

Which packs should a new player open first? This is the question I want to answer in this section.

While there are certainly a lot of great cards in almost every single one of these BOXes, not all of them are currently relevant: a certain card or even a whole archetype might become very good in the future, but what I will mention here are mostly the ones that are staples in current meta decks and cards that are extremely versatile in general.

In order to properly understand how important these cards are, I will assign each one of them a number that represents the priority a player should give to them from 1 to 3 (1 being high priority and likely relevant in the current meta and 3 low priority and not currently relevant, but worth mentioning because of its versatility).

SD: (Standard Duelist) Generic duelists that spawn in both Duel World and Duel World GX; you beat them to obtain mainly Gold, Jewels, some low rarity cards and Gate Keys.

LD: (Legendary Duelist) Duelists you can face at the Gate using Gate Keys that can also spawn randomly in Duel World one at a time; you beat them to obtain their unique cards.

Farm(ing): The act of repeatedly beating a Legendary Duelist with a specific deck aimed towards achieving higher scores in order to obtain more and better drops.

PvE: (Player vs Environment) Any type of content in which the player faces an AI.

PvP: (Player vs Player) Any type of content in which the player has to face another player.

KoG: (King of Games) The highest rank you can obtain in PvP.

Card Trader: The character that stands in front of the shop: you can interact with him to exchange materials (Gold, Jewels) for the cards he offers. The cards change every 8 hours, but some of them are always available.

UR: An Ultra Rare card, the highest rarity currently in Duel Links. In each box only one copy of each UR is included.

SR: A Super Rare card. In a main box (180 packs), each SR will have 2 copies included, while in a mini box (100 packs) there will only be one copy of each SR in that box.

Resetting a box: If you are looking to get multiple copies of a UR/SR card from a box, you might want to reset the box when you get it in the first couple of packs, which will put the amount of packs back at 180 or 100 (depending on the box) so you can pull it again.

Skill: In Duel Links you can link a skill to a deck, which will add some sort of advantage. Each character has their own unique exclusive skills that they can learn from levelling up, but they can also obtain skills through a random drop when you duel against Legendary Duelists or PvP.

Legendary Duelist: A legendary duelist is a character from the TV show, these duelists can drop more precious rewards than standard duelists.

Backrow: Term that refers to defensive Spell and Traps.

Backrow removal: Cards that can destroy or banish your opponent’s backrow; an example of a backrow removal card is Cosmic Cyclone.

Beatdown Deck: A deck that focuses on applying pressure with high ATK monsters.

Beatstick: A monster likely used just for its ATK value and not for its effect.

Brick: A card that you essentially do not want to draw (but seemingly love to be in your starting hand); examples are Bacon Saver in a Red-Eyes Zombie deck and Wulf, Lightsworn Beast in a Lightsworn deck.

Burn: A strategy centered around repeatedly damaging your opponent with cards’ effects.

Burn Deck: A deck that focuses on burning the opponent.

Deck out: When you run out of cards in your deck and can’t conduct your Draw Phase.

Deck thinning: Generic term that refers in general to decreasing the number of cards in your main deck by adding a card(s) to your hand, sending card(s) from the deck to the Graveyard, Special Summoning a monster(s) from the deck or placing a card(s) in your Spell/Trap Zone from the deck.

Engine: A minimum of two cards in a deck that have good synergy.

Floater: A card that is able to replace itself; an example can be Crystal Seersince the card adds a card to your hand when flipped face-up, essentially replacing itself in your hand.

Handtrap: A card that can be activate from your hand in response to a specific action by your opponent; an example is Sphere Kuriboh, a monster that can be discarded in order to avoid an attack and switch the attacking monster into Defense position.

META: (Most Effective Tactic Available) A term that refers to the current situation in PvP; a META deck is a deck that is a deck that is successful at the current moment.

Mill: Terms that refers to lowering the number of cards in the deck by sending a card(s) from the deck to the Graveyard or banishing a card(s) from the deck.

Mill Deck: A type of deck that focuses on decking out the opponent.

Nerf: Nerfing a card means altering its effect or ruling or limiting its usage.

Recycling: A term that usually refers to utilizing cards that were sent to the Graveyard again; an example can be Sphere Kuriboh since, after being discarded by its effect, it can still be used as tribute for a Ritual monster.

Scoop: Forfeiting a match.

Searcher: A card that can add a specific card or type of cards from your deck to your hand; an example is Gravekeeper's Recruiter, a monster that can add another Gravekeeper’s monster from your deck to your hand when sent from the field to the Graveyard.

Stall: A strategy usually centered around avoiding damage from the opponent.

Stall Deck: A deck that focuses on avoiding damage from the opponent, likely utilizing cards that can slow them down like Floodgate Trap Hole, Paleozoic Canadia or Massivemorph.

Splashable Card: A splashable card is a card that can be used in different decks and boost their consistency; an example is Enemy Controller.

Swarm: A strategy centered around summoning multiple monsters on the field at once; a “Swarm Deck” that’s currently very relevant is Fur Hire.

Tech: Normally refers to cards put in the Side Deck in order to have a better matchup against a certain type of deck, but in Duel Links this use doesn’t exist so it usually refers to single cards placed in a deck to face a certain deck. Example sentence:“Paleozoic Canadia is a good tech against Fur Hire”.

Top-decking: In a very critical situation, drawing the exact you needed is referred to as “top-decking”.

KC Cup: 1st Stage [March 2020]

Professional Aster Roaming Event

Fortress of Gears

Selection Box Vol. 02 Mini

Gladiator Storm

3rd Anniversary Campaign

Train Your Kuriboh! Campaign