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Gem spending guide

Duel Links how to use Gems, the best packs to buy, cards you should get by spending gems, duel links meta decks.
update 23/04/2018

Gem guide & Easily Accessible decks

Currently there are 10 main boxes (200 packs/box), 10 mini boxes (80 packs/box) and 5 structure decks available in the game, which could seem pretty overwhelming when you first start out. If you feel kind of lost this guide might help you get a sense of direction on what to go for first.

The most important question you first have to ask yourself is what do you want to play. In the end it’s just a game and you should try to get the most enjoyment out of it. If you enjoy being competitive then you should focus on making one of the meta deck first. If you enjoy the nostalgia this game has to offer and just want to play with your favorite cards like Dark Magician of Chaos there is nothing wrong with that. Just look through ea ch of the boxes for the cards that you loved when playing with friends or in the TCG and go for them.

If you’ve never played Yu-Gi-Oh! before or don’t have any preference for certain cards or decks, but want to enjoy the PvP aspect this game has to offer you should first check out what decks are relevant in the meta.

Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Links is in a great state right now because there are countless decks that are relevant in the META and able to hit KoG (King of Games, the highest rank on the PvP ladder).

Not only are there a lot of decks viable right now, but a lot of the core of these decks can be made by just buying packs from one box instead of having to dig through multiple decks.

If you just started playing you might first want to check out our guide on what packs a new player should buy; http://duellinks.gamea.co/c/f3w62204?tpage=2 . This guide will get you started when you acquire your first gems without the need to farm for cards or get ranked rewards.

In this guide we’ll advise you what decks to invest in when you receive more gems through events and levelling up characters, and when you start picking up cards from the Card Trader and Ranked Rewards.

Current meta decks

DeckCostTier

Cyber Angel
Expensive1

Sylvan
Budget - Expensive1

Masked HERO
Expensive1

Geargia
Budget-Expensive1

Spellbook
Expensive1

Amazoness
Budget1

Alien
Budget2

Archfiend Emperor
Expensive2

Sea Stealth Attack
Expensive2

red eyes zombie
Expensive2

Golden Flying Fish
F2P - Budget2

Gaia Plate
Budget - Expensive2

Hazy Flame
Budget2

Sea Stealth Attack, Aliens and Abyssal Encounters

If you followed our guide when first starting out, you might have invested in the main box Abyssal Encounters to make an Alien deck. This deck is without a doubt the strongest F2P friendly deck right now because the core cards are Normals or Rares , on average the core of this deck can be assembled after buying just 100 packs.

EXAMPLE DECK - CORE

The remaining slots are best filled with Powerful Rebirth and Wall of Disruption, or other defensive cards.

Alien OverlordAlien TelepathAlien TelepathAlien TelepathAlien WarriorAlien Warrior
Alien WarriorAlien Grey"A" Cell Recomposition Device"A" Cell Recomposition Device"A" Cell Recomposition DeviceEnemy Controller
Enemy ControllerEnemy ControllerBrainwashing BeamBrainwashing Beam

Since you already bought packs from this main box, you could continue to invest to create a very powerful water deck revolving around arguably the strongest card in Duel Links “Sea Stealth Attack”.

Below we will show you an example deck if you bought out this box just once , and also an optimal build which requires you to reset that box.

EXAMPLE DECK

Citadel WhaleCitadel WhaleThe Legendary Fisherman IIAbyss SoldierGishki ChainHammer Shark
Hammer SharkHammer SharkFishborg PlanterFishborg PlanterFishborg PlanterOyster Meister
Beautunaful PrincessWarrior of AtlantisWarrior of AtlantisA Legendary OceanEnemy ControllerEnemy Controller
Sea Stealth AttackSea Stealth Attack
[Skill] descriptionUser
Mythic Depths
Begins Duel with the Field Spell "Umi" activated.
Mako Tsunami
Mako Tsunami

EXAMPLE DECK - OPTIMAL BUILD

Citadel WhaleCitadel WhaleCitadel WhaleAbyss SoldierAbyss SoldierAbyss Soldier
Gishki ChainGishki ChainHammer SharkHammer SharkHammer SharkFishborg Planter
Fishborg PlanterFishborg PlanterOyster MeisterBeautunaful PrincessEnemy ControllerEnemy Controller
Enemy ControllerSea Stealth Attack
[Skill] descriptionUser
Mythic Depths
Begins Duel with the Field Spell "Umi" activated.
Mako Tsunami
Mako Tsunami

When you bought packs from Abyssal Encounters, you’ll also pick up the monster card Golden Flying Fish, which a whole deck can be made around of as well, but to run that deck you’ll need to pick up some spells/traps from other boxes like Powerful Rebirth. A guide on this deck can be found here: http://duellinks.gamea.co/c/47cwi97h .

Sylvans and Rampage of the Forest

Another new powerful deck that can be made by just investing in the mini box Rampage of The Forest is a Sylvan deck. You will need to pick up Rose Lover from the Card Trader but beside that, most cards (which are monster cards) can be obtained from this mini box. You’ll need to reset this box though because you’ll want at least 2 copies of Sylvan Komushroomo (optimally 3).

Example Deck

Sylvan KomushroomoSylvan KomushroomoSylvan KomushroomoSylvan MarshalleafSylvan MarshalleafSylvan Marshalleaf
Sylvan HermitreeSylvan HermitreeSylvan HermitreeSylvan FlowerknightSylvan FlowerknightSylvan Flowerknight
Sylvan GuardioakRose LoverRose LoverRose LoverWorld Carrotweight ChampionEnemy Controller
Hey, Trunade!Dark Core
[Skill] descriptionUser
Restart
Can be used only once after starting hands are dealt. Reveal and redraw your starting hand.
Yugi Muto
Yugi Muto

Gladiator Beasts & Cosmic Origins

If you invest in the main box Cosmic Origins you’ll pick up the core monsters needed for a Gladiator Beast deck, which although has lost some momentum, is still a very powerful deck in the right hands. Below we’ll show the core of the deck if you would buy out this main box just once without resetting.

Example Deck Core

But just like some other decks you’ll have to fill up those remaining slots with strong defensive cards from other boxes, most notable wall of disruption.

Gladiator Beast LaquariGladiator Beast LaquariGladiator Beast BestiariGladiator Beast BestiariGladiator Beast MurmilloGladiator Beast Murmillo
Gladiator Beast DimacariImpenetrable AttackImpenetrable AttackEnemy ControllerEnemy ControllerEnemy Controller
------
--

Aromages

Some archetypes are locked behind the Card Trader or Farm Events and not packs.
One of those archetypes, Aromages, can be made almost entirely by obtaining cards from the Card Trader and ranked rewards, which require no gem investment.

Example Deck Core

this build leaves room for 6 cards, those slots can be filled with cards such as The Spell Absorbing Life, which is a Rare card from Ultimate Rising. But if you don’t want to invest in that box you could just use good spell/traps you picked up while going through other boxes, like Wall of Disruption, Super Rush Headlong, Floodgate Trap Hole, … Or even Inverse Universe, a card that dropped during the Syrus event, which has proven itself to have great synergy with this deck.

Aromage JasmineAromage JasmineAromage JasmineAromage RosemaryAromage RosemaryAromage Rosemary
Aromage BergamotAromage BergamotRose LoverRose LoverRose ArcherAroma Garden
Aroma GardenAroma Garden----
--

Dinos

Another archetype that has proven itself to be very resilient are dinosaurs. Although you will need to pick up some good spells/traps to support your high attack dinosaurs (thanks to the field spell with Rex Raptor), the core of this deck can be acquired by exchanging tickets and levelling up Bastion. If you missed out on Evilswarm Salamandra you’ll unfortunately have to wait until he becomes available again.

Example Deck Core

Some good cards to fill up the remaining slots are; Super Rush Headlong, Mirror Wall, Wall of Disruption, Fire Formation - Gyokkou, Xing Zheng Hu, Cosmic Cyclone, Powerful Rebirth. As you can see there are a lot of options so as soon as you start investing in some boxes for other decks, you will automatically pick up good cards for this deck as well.

Evilswarm SalamandraEvilswarm SalamandraEvilswarm SalamandraBlack BrachiosBlack BrachiosBlack Brachios
HydrogeddonHydrogeddonHydrogeddonEnemy ControllerEnemy ControllerEnemy Controller
------
--
[Skill] descriptionUser
Dinosaur Kingdom (skill)
Begin duel with the field spell "Jurassic World" activated.
Rex Raptor
Rex Raptor

Boxes not worth investing in

Currently these are the boxes we would NOT advise you to spend gems on if you want to focus on being competitive first;

Age of Discovery, Wonders of the Sky, Chaotic Compliance, Land of the Titans, Echoes of Silence, Resonance of Contrast

Although these boxes have cards that might see use again in the future they currently don’t hold many (or any) UR/SRs that are viable in this meta or hold an archetype around which a META deck can be made.

Valkyrie’s Rage isn’t a great box ether currently, it holds some good cards like Soul Exchange and Nobleman of Extermination, but no cards that are actually needed right now in meta decks. So for now you might want to skip it and maybe buy from it in the future when the cards in that box become more relevant.

We also do not recommend buying any of the structure decks as they simply are not good, except for the latest structure deck, Destiny Rulers which does hold a lot of potential however you’ll have to buy it multiple times, which isn’t possible which just gems.

Cards to consider getting before resetting

If you are very new to the game, you might not know this but every card you see on the summary screen of a box with a number written on top of it, is the amount of times that card is in that box, meaning if you buy every last pack from a box you will get every card that you saw, this is a great system because it means that you will get the cards you want at some point, yes there is still a bit of luck involved, but you won’t be that unlucky that you never would get the card (which is the case for other games). Because of this system you can actually decide when to reset a box and put in all the cards again to try and get multiple copies.

If you are going to go multiple times through a box (for example Neo-Impact to build a Cyber angels deck) I’ll provide a list of cards for each box that you maybe should consider going for in case you are already deep into the box. If you are only 20 packs into a box and got the card you want you should of course reset, but if there are only 50 cards remaining in a box after you have gotten the card you want, you should carefully consider if it’s worth it to continue for a card you might need in the future. I’ll only include URs for the main boxes as you’ll probably get every SR 3 times when going through a box more than once. However since mini boxes only contain the SRs once I’ll also include those in the list.

Additional Notes

As you can see there are a lot of cards spread out that have a lot of potential, but like I said, focus on one deck first, don’t try to get everything all at once.

Just remember, a new player can currently unlock 25 playable characters, and each character alone gives about 2300 gems just by getting to max level. That’s a total of 1150 packs just by leveling up everyone to lvl 40. If you don’t care for current cards available through level up, focus on getting all characters to lvl 30 first to get the most gems in the shortest amount of time.

If you first buy a box (when all the packs are still in the box) don’t immediately buy 10 at a time, buy them one at a time, that way if you open a good card in the first few packs it might already be worth it to reset the box.

At the bottom of the screen when looking at a box, there is an option called “bulk settings” , it is best not to tinker with this too much if you don’t buy 30 packs at a time, only use it when buying in bulk like it says.

When a new event is added to the game, people will always try and “farm” that character. When doing such a farm, people try to acquire the most points (Duel Assessment) at the end of the duel to get as much rewards as possible (8 being the maximum). To do so people build special decks that counter the cards used by that NPC and stall until the very last card before doing a combo. These decks often use cards that normally don’t see any competitive play and require you to buy packs for them. However, because the droprate of cards from NPCs seems to have been increased, and Konami has added special missions during these events to gain these cards anyway, I do not think it is worth it to spend thousands of gems just to be able to farm one event. GameA will always try and provide the most optimal farm decks and also cheap farm decks, however if you are not able to make such a deck, just try and aim for a duel assessment of 3-4k and in the end you will get the cards as well , but it’ll take a bit more duels than the average player.

Comments

Hot New Top
ThatGuyVapes
Yeah, i'm sorry, but Gladiator Beast should definitely be Tier 1. I've smashed half of these decks pretty hard, Sylvan has been the only issue i've faced aside from annoying Stall/Mill decks.
Anonymous
humm, so i found this site after spending total 10k gems on some random packs , half of which included the above-mentioned packs not to buy. Thanks to Konami's simple and convenient in-game guide.
Anonymous
For any new users, I would strongly recommend just going for Galactic Origin and building a Gladiator Beast deck. The pack has their most important rotation monsters which are easy to get (besides Laquari). Best part is, you get a strong/competitive archetype from a single box (saves you gems). You'll still need to get a strong set of backrow cards for support, but those will come with time and character lvl up rewards.
<< Anonymous(Anonymous)
Anonymous Reply
Additionally to whoever wrote this guide, while it offers great advice, you should correct the cost of Gladiator Beasts to budget-mid. 12 of the cards on your "example deck" all come from the Galactic Origin pack. Another 4 (Anubis, Etaqua, 2 E-con) you get from tickets/char lvl up rewards. Only 4 cards in your example build cannot easily be acquired (AMA, Mirror Wall, Half).
<< Anonymous(Anonymous)
Anonymouse Reply
Agreed on all point except for AMA, its easily obtainable for new player from GX world free ticket. Btw Half Shut, Floodgate, and MW can be replaced by 3rd Econ, and 2 Rush Recklessly to make it even more budget friendly. Moreover, Cosmic Cyclone and Bottomless Shifting Sand can also be used for substitute cards beside being a generally nice tech card for other deck
<< Anonymous(Anonymous)
SevenKing Reply
GB is overrated like CA most of you guy's don't have creativity so you depend on cheap decks in order to win.
<< Anonymous(Anonymous)
Anonymous Reply
And inpentratable attack is SR
Anonymous
Missing blade of spirits box
Anonymous
Love how the first add is a credit card. So true
KREYGASM
Thanks this was very helpful
Anonymous
To CA players: go worship her boobs.
<< Anonymous
Anonymous Reply
are we talking about alexis or dakini?
<< Anonymous
Anonymous Reply
Both of 'em would be gr8 tho ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
<< Anonymous
Anonymous Reply
Very clear to most that anyone that fantasizes over video game snizz..has never ever gotten some outside of their virtual fantasies
<< Anonymous
Anonymous Reply
why ppl still hate CA even now. CA this CA that.... I never lose to one.
bamers
this is so helpful. but, kinda confusing. since it guides differently than the other New Player Guide article. for someone really new, it can really misguiding.

and also, the last tips on bottom of this article are doubled.

other than that, this is awesome guide.
Anonymous
I have been grinding gems and I now have 9000 gems. I don't have any good competitive cards (except 3x enemy controller and riryoku) what should I spend my gems on? I would like to have a deck ready with the gems I got.
I was thinking about getting a karate man otk deck for the bants, but idk.
<< Anonymous
Anonymous Reply
Karate Man? Of course not. Try a GB deck, with 3 enemy controlers, 1 Etaqua (with Mai), 1 Anubis, you can build a competitive GB deck by spending gem in only one box.
<< Anonymous
Anonymous Reply
Thank you for your suggestion, I've been playing for 6 days on my new account and I just reached platinum 1 without spending any money. the deck is also really fun to play with.
It is also really good vs Dr. Crowler at lvl 40.
<< Anonymous
Anonymous Reply
I'd open for the newest pack.
You'd only need to open once for a competitive alien deck. It's very free to play friendly.
You can probably get all the alien cards from the first 100 packs and then you can use the rest of your gems to open for good on any deck cards such as wall of disruption and for aliens powerful rebirth can be good.
Anonymous
It's stupid to show AG deck because the new player who came to Steam will get AG cards in a long time (when they bring back the event)
<< Anonymous
Anonymous Reply
“The new player who came to Steam will get AG cards in a long time” ....WHAT!? LMFAO
<< Anonymous
Anonymous Reply
you're stupid, learn how to write, and while you are at it learn how to read, they mention it in the guide...
<< Anonymous
Anonymous Reply
Omg they hired talented kids
<< Anonymous
Anonymous Reply
Hes probably not an american, u douche which means his english typing is probably much better than your spanish typing..so youre dumb
Anonymous
Disagree with Compliance and Echoes! Furst of all, HORUS IS KEY WORD! Second: FUSION is another key word.
<< Anonymous
Anonymous Reply
Tell that to Horus with Mirage Dragon/Seargent Electro standing next to him on the field.
<< Anonymous
Ahlix the Unbeatable Reply
EXACTLY! Silent Decks are still decent...BTW I am truly am...Ahlix
<< Anonymous
Anonymous Reply
My Gale Lizard in my Phoenix deck pooped over Horus all season long
<< Anonymous(Ahlix the Unbeatable)
Anonymous Reply
🔥 dork. Wow...easily dorkiest thing ive ever seen..u can play this game and still have a gf ya know
Anonymous
Any deck can be f2p, you just need time and patience.
<< Anonymous
indognesial Reply
🔥
<< Anonymous
Anonymous Reply
the thing is every season the meta changes a bit cause they keep releasing new box thats why its hard to keep up with p2w players

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