Chapter 2: Starting Deck

You Xuan logged into the card query websites of both Kaiba Corporation and Industrial Illusions, searching the current card pool available for direct purchase on the market.

First was "that card" which any duelists transmigrated here with functioning intelligence would undoubtedly seek above all else—

—Pot of Greed.

Or rather, the super-powered card draw engines unique to the early anime world, represented by Pot of Greed.

Pot of Greed allows one to unconditionally draw two cards from the deck. It is precisely this simple and crude effect that made the card serve a life sentence in the real-card environment as a perennial banned card, becoming the representative of indefinite bans that would almost certainly never be released within one's lifetime.

Its fellow sufferer was "Graceful Charity," which not only allowed drawing three cards from the deck but also selecting two cards from the hand to send to the Graveyard. As Yu-Gi-Oh! evolved into an era where Graveyard and hand resources became nearly indistinguishable, the terrifying power of this cheat-like card, which drew three and simultaneously stacked the Graveyard, had surpassed even Pot of Greed.

However, these cards were not yet highly valued by duelists in the DM anime; it seemed only by the GX era that duelists in the anime world had begun to notice their strength. After all, in the GX anime, one could already see the protagonists each holding at least one Pot of Greed and one Graceful Charity; in the duels of the heroine Asuka, one could even witness a Pot of Greed drawing into another Pot of Greed, a scene that was utterly brutal.

Regarding Monster Cards, You Xuan began to suffer from analysis paralysis.

Scanning the entire card pool, he simply could not find a single one that met his approval. As a transmigrated duelist, he truly had no use for those monsters that required obediently gathering Tributes for a Tribute Summon, only to emerge as blank slates with merely over 2000 Attack Points.

Relatively superior monsters were not absent, yet many were available in name only, impossible to actually purchase.

For instance, the first that came to mind was Jinzo, one of the signature monsters of Katsuya Jonouchi from the previous generation's protagonist team. A Level 6 requiring only one Tribute to Summon, it boasted a respectable 2400 Attack Points and possessed a "Trap Lockdown Ability" that was grossly overpowered for the early meta: as long as it remained on the field, Trap Cards could not be activated.

You Xuan recalled that in the real-card meta of this era, this was also an exceptionally high-quality single card, a frequent staple in top-placing tournament deck builds.

However, upon searching, he found it out of stock.

Jinzo belonged to the category of highly rare cards, perpetually out of stock and fundamentally unobtainable.

This left You Xuan somewhat depressed. He quickly realized that another crucial factor differentiating the anime environment from the real-card scene was the disparity in card acquisition difficulty.

In reality, they could check the entire current card pool at any time, using almost any card to realize any deck build. But duelists in the Yu-Gi-Oh! world did not enjoy such convenience.

There were other cards he desired, but upon merely glancing at their price tags, he immediately couldn't help but gasp in shock.

Farewell.

You Xuan knew clearly that cards in this world equated directly to weapons and power, so he had long prepared to bleed financially, paying any price necessary to acquire essential cards.

But saying so was one thing; looking at the heaven-defying price tags of certain rare cards, he reckoned that even selling himself wouldn't be enough to afford them.

This was no exaggeration, but a literal truth.

Indeed, the price gap between ordinary cards and rare cards in this world was absurd. While the prices of general cards and standard booster packs were similar to those in his past life's reality, affordable to everyone, the value of certain rare cards could truthfully be described as "one card equals one house."

And that was merely for rare cards that could actually be purchased. As for the world-famous "Blue-Eyes White Dragon," of which only three copies existed globally and all were held by Kaiba Seto, that was entirely out of the question.

Continuing his research, he discovered that besides car loans and mortgages, this world even had something called a "card loan." As the name implies, one could take out a loan to buy cards.

"So feeling card-less is this much of a pain," You Xuan curled his lip.

Fortunately, even under such restrictions, he managed to barely design a deck construction strategy using the cards he could obtain.

The prototype for this build was the first World Championship-winning deck in history, a milestone in the competitive history of real-card Yu-Gi-Oh!.

Hand Destruction.

Perhaps every novice duelist who entered the hobby through the anime harbors unrealistic fantasies about playing cards, such as high-Attack big monsters clashing, fierce exchanges of offense and defense, and head-on confrontations, delivering a GG in a satisfying and exhilarating battle.

However, that is a fake Yu-Gi-Oh!.

The real Yu-Gi-Oh! is that out of the two people at this table, only one gets to play Yu-Gi-Oh!.

The safest way to victory has always been to erase all possibilities of the opponent's tactics, preventing them from playing any cards at all. This philosophy has persisted throughout; it holds true today, and it held equally true in the early card-playing environment.

[Hand Destruction] was precisely a deck built upon this concept. As the name implies, its tactic is to destroy the opponent's hand, leaving them with no cards to play, forcing them to merely stare blankly and AFK from the moment they sit down; it could be considered the ancestor of the "netherworld" decks.

An opponent facing this deck will have their understanding of dueling completely overturned; that poor soul will, within mere minutes, experience a worker's triple combo of "blood pressure skyrocketing," "I'll hit you," to "Summon my fist in Attack Position."

So if one must state the greatest flaw of such decks, it might be that the user's personal safety is difficult to guarantee.

Of course, You Xuan could not possibly remember the entire build of such an ancient championship deck, and some rare cards were unobtainable to him anyway. Thus, he merely borrowed its core concept to create a new build of his own.

As for some empty slots in the deck, he would temporarily fill them with single Trap Cards of decent quality.

In truth, some of these Traps, viewed through You Xuan's duelist mindset, weren't particularly profitable and might not be genuinely effective. The main point was simply that having too many traps could easily break the opponent's mentality.

He was no devil, nor did he indulge in the evil pleasure of breaking others' minds. Primarily, psychological warfare is part of a duel; breaking the opponent's spirit before depleting their Life Points can sometimes be a highly effective tactic.

Yes, that was it.

Continuing to browse the webpage aimlessly, his gaze swept across a certain page when suddenly his eyes lit up.

Jinzo, stock quantity: 1.

You Xuan immediately scrolled back to the page and clicked to inquire. However, he was promptly rejected by the website.

"Access Denied."

"Academy Division Exclusive Card."

You Xuan froze.

Academy Division? What exactly was that?

After another round of internet surfing and research, he finally understood.

The so-called Academy Division referred to Duel Academy. Personally organized and established by Kaiba Seto, it was the largest duel academy in the world. He had specifically purchased an entire island to serve as the academy's headquarters and had fully equipped the institution with resources.

Students on the island had the opportunity to access newly released booster packs first, possessed channels to purchase rare cards fundamentally unavailable to the outside world, and could enjoy steep discounts when buying them.

Even setting aside the academy's hardware facilities and faculty teaching, the mere prospect of rare cards and discount rates was enough to make anyone green with envy.

Furthermore, for students with sufficiently excellent grades, academic performance and credits could be exchanged for cards. In a world where a single card could sell for an astronomical price, this could save students a tremendous amount of deck-building budget.

Not to mention that graduates of Duel Academy would hold the most solid diploma in the dueling world; whether one wished to enter the professional scene, join Kaiba Corporation, or work at Industrial Illusions, they would receive priority for internal recommendations.

Scrolling down casually, You Xuan even caught a glimpse of Chaos Sorcerer!

Chaos Sorcerer, a Level 6 with 2300 Attack Points. It could be Special Summoned directly to the field by banishing LIGHT and DARK attribute monsters from the Graveyard, and possessed a powerful effect allowing it to banish one monster on the opponent's field from the game once per turn.

Because it shared similar summoning conditions and effects with the more famous "Chaos Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning," it became its lower-tier substitute after Chaos Soldier was listed as a banned card, jokingly referred to by duelists as "Little Envoy," belonging to the tier-one combat power in the current meta environment.

In this world, Chaos Soldier was an ultra-rare card; known instances in the anime showed only the Duel King Yugi Muto holding one, with another being an exhibition card in a Yugi Muto replica deck in the GX anime, and none seen beyond that.

Therefore, obtaining Big Envoy was nearly impossible. But if he could buy a Chaos Sorcerer, that would be excellent.

Besides this, there were other decent rare cards, similarly rarely seen in the outside market, with prices that were indeed deeply discounted compared to market value.

Seeing this, You Xuan took a deep breath.

Decision made.

Take the Duel Academy entrance exam first.

If I fail, I'll try again next year.

(End of Chapter)