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Advanced Guide in Dueling

Here are a few more things you need to know to become a better duelist.
update 07/03/2017

This is the part 2 of the guide/tips for newer players, check the starter guide if you want to see the first part.

Have a better dueling experience

When you are in a duel, check the settings to see the available options which can help you with your duel.

Increase Power Usage

By increasing your power usage, your game's frames per second (FPS) will be higher and more stable. While this will quickly drain your battery, it also helps to speed up duels.

Enable Self-Chain during a duel

Self-chaining is important in some aspects of this game. You can build up chains to conveniently activate cards such as - Chain Healing, Vanity's Call, Accumulated Fortune and Trap Reclamation.

You can also activate multiple cards in one swoop. Let's say, we have 3 Enchanted Javelins set on the field and your opponent controls 2 monsters, monster A having 2200 ATK and monster B having 1700 ATK. When he attacks you with monster A, you can activate all 3 Enchanted Javelins you control to restore 2700 LP overall. If Self-Chain is not switched on, you can only activate the second Enchanted Javelin when your opponent starts attacking with monster B. This also means that you cannot activate your third Enchanted Javelin on the same turn, thus not gaining nor losing any LP.

Set your Activation Confirmation to 'Toggle Button' or 'Tap'

Have you ever been in a situation where you were annoyed by the constant activation confirmation messages and accidentally activated something that was not meant to be activated in that particular situation? We have been there, and we have good news for you! By setting your activation confirmation to the following, you will be able to activate effects at the right time, whether it be during the Standby Phase or during damage calculation. However, this setting is risky for some players as the game might skip every activation confirmation if you do not toggle it on or constantly tapping.

Using the Toggle Button allows you to switch it to off, which can hide your cards whenever you have something that you can activate. Example: If your opponent attacks your monster and you have no set spell/trap card on your field but you have a Kuriboh in hand, there is a pause where the game asks you if you want to use it. This will essentially tell your opponent that you have a Kuriboh in your hand, which will make them play more carefully. By turning it to off, you can use it as a surprise for later in the duel.

Disable character dialogue and 3D animations

This setting depends on your own preference(s). By disabling character dialogue and 3D animations, your duels will run quickly and smoothly. This saves your time when you are farming Legendary Duelists and Standard Duelists. If you plan on farming for a while, you can turn them off and set power usage to max so that it will go much faster than usual.

Card Catalog

If you want to check for certain cards in the game, you can use the "Card Catalog" available in the game, in the card studio building. Expand the menu by tapping on the arrow button on the top left to show filtering options. Make sure that you don't have "your cards" highlighted so you can search all the currently available cards in the game. The "text search" function can search for names or words that are in the card's description, so you can use this to find certain cards with specific effects that you are looking for.

1 hand challenge for most exp

Upon reaching a certain stage, you will start to encounter Vagabond. After the duel against him, you are sometimes given the option to send him to the people on your friend list, along with being able to choose what challenge to send it with. While there are many challenges, the "Opening Hand: 1 Card" is the most ideal one to give. This is because even if they lose, they will still earn 2250 character exp, which is higher than winning the duel in another challenge.
Read More about the Vagabond

Character Skills

Characters can only use a certain set of skill. And while some skills are shared by many characters, only Restart and Balance are the common skills you should watch out for. It is usually Character exclusive skills that are used as core strategies in the deck. This makes them easier to predict because for example, a player that uses Kaiba will most often have "Beatdown" as their skill, excluding common skills. With this knowledge we can narrow down the strategy their deck, a person using Beatdown can quickly summon high-leveled monsters to make use of the skill. We can narrow this down further to what decks in the current meta can special summon high-leveled monsters quickly (e.g. Nephthys Fire Kings). The best thing to do is to know what exclusive skills every character has, and which ones are relevant in the current meta.

Timing the activation of your cards.

It's important to know which cards can be activated during which phase. The most notable example is when people use the card Mirror Wall. During Damage Step, only cards that can increase or decrease a monster's attack/def can be activated. This means that Mirror Wall can be used during the damage step and can't be countered by spell cards like Twister.

Quick-Play spells

Quick-Play spells are spells with a thunder-like icon on the top right of the spell cards. These spell cards can be activated from your hand during your turn, or activated during both you and your opponent's turn if they are set, but they can't be activated the turn it is set.

Example: You have a monster with 1500 attack and attacks a 1400 monster your opponent controls and they have a face down spell/trap card. If your opponent activates cards like Metalmorph or Mirror Wall before damage step, you can still use Twister or Order to Charge from your hand as a chain to retaliate, but you can't use them if you set the cards on that turn.

Checking and Bypassing Sphere Kuriboh

Since Sphere Kuriboh's effect is really good, most people usually have at least 1 or 2 in their decks, especially in high rank PvP duels. In PvP, there's a way to check if your opponent has a sphere kuriboh in their hand or not, other than to use spell/trap cards that allows you to look, of course.

Checking

If you use a monster to attack your opponent's monster, and they don't have any spell/trap card on their field, if there is a delay when you try to attack your opponent's monster, it means that they are prompted with the decision to use a card. Since Sphere Kuriboh is the only card activateable from the hand (in this scenario), this can only mean that they have a sphere in hand. This is why it's important to use the toggle button for the activation confirmation. You can set it to "off" to hide the fact that you have a sphere. Just don't forget to turn it back on/auto when you want to stop lethal attacks.

Bypassing

Since Sphere Kuriboh can only be used when a monster declares an attack, you can still use quick-play spell/trap cards during battle step (which is the turn before damage step).

Example: You use Jerry Beans Man to try and attack a face-up Big Shield Gardna in defense position that your opponent uses. If there is a delay when they don't have a spell/trap, then it means that they have a sphere, but most people will not use it in this situation since it won't destroy Gardna. If you have a Enemy Controller in your hand, then you can set the confirmation activation to "on", which will prompt you the option to use your enemy controller during battle step. You can use the e.con to either switch Gardna's position, or tribute your other monster to take control of Gardna, allowing your Jerry to attack directly since your opponent can't activate their sphere anymore.

Special summoning during the Battle Phase

If you want to special summon a monster during the battle phase to deal extra damage (e.g. reviving a monster with Powerful Rebirth), it is best to do it after you have already attacked with another monster. This helps you dodge area effect cards like Windstorm of Etaqua, Curse of Anubis, and Wall of Disruption.

Comments

Hot New Top
Anonymous
is the vagabond challenge only for pc?dont find it on my tablet.
Anonymous
good guide
Anonymous
power usage is not doing much for me.leave it on middle or lower
Nick
In PvP when you lost vs a char.
Next duel will be almost vs the same char.
Anonymous
does anyone know how to use character taunts ?
<< Anonymous
Anonymous Reply
On Steam version, you click the character's face in the bottom right. Not sure about the mobile version.
<< Anonymous
Anonymous Reply
Same with steam
Daniel
Thanks for this nice tutorial!
Malefic
Great and helpful guide for beginner. Thanks for the write-up, admin
Anonymous
In order to locate the toggle / self chain settings you need to go into the settings while you are in a duel.
Anonymous
Self chain on/off is gone from my settings. As well as diologe and annimations. Did they update the settings?
<< Anonymous
yungchri$t Reply
yeah dude mines are also missing... I wanted to put on the auto toggle and it's also gone, wtf...
<< Anonymous
Anonymous Reply
I hope you guys dont use cheat apk...
<< Anonymous
Anonymous Reply
You should check your settings during a duel, or from the main screen. I don't remember which one is that, but you can find it if you check.
<< Anonymous
Mario Reply
Those settings only appear in a duel
Anonymous
why i cant use econ when i activate Cyber-Stein effect? cause i want to chain it before the effect of cyber stein to take control opponent monster???
Anonymous
Does anyone know how to make them 🔥??
<< Anonymous
Anonyboy Reply
If you're referring to the characters, there's an option in settings to turn character lines off.
Anonymous
Hi I'm a new player I got a pack from the store to use with yugi's skill set and have accidentally set it to be used in duels. I can't set another deck for him,is there a way I can change it?
<< Anonymous
Anonymous Reply
Sorry if I wrong use deck slot in level up .then u can set new deck to he

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