Yugen logged into the card query websites of Kaiba Corporation and Industrial Illusions Company, searching for the current card pool available for direct purchase.
First and foremost, it was likely that any card player who transmigrated here, as long as they were of sound mind, would undoubtedly and absolutely search for "that card"—
—Pot of Greed.
The representative of the unique and overwhelmingly powerful draw engines exclusive to the early anime world.
Pot of Greed allows the player to draw two cards from their deck without any conditions. This simple yet brutal effect has made it a perennial forbidden card in the real card game environment, doomed to remain banned for the foreseeable future.
Its fellow sufferer was "Graceful Charity," which not only let the player draw three cards from their deck but also discard two cards from the hand to the graveyard. As Yu-Gi-Oh! evolved into an era where graveyard and hand resources were nearly interchangeable, this card's ability to draw three and facilitate graveyard setup has made it even more terrifying than Pot of Greed.
However, in the DM anime, these cards weren't highly regarded by duelists. By the GX era, it seemed that duelists in the anime world began to recognize their strength. After all, in GX, you can see the main characters each having at least one Pot of Greed and one Graceful Charity. In Asuka's duels, you even see scenarios where Pot of Greed was drawn into another Pot of Greed, creating a brutal scene.
When it came to monster cards, Yugen started to have a bit of choice paralysis.
Because after looking through the entire card pool, he couldn't find a single card that caught his eye. As a transmigrated card player, he really couldn't bring himself to use those cards that required tributing for a Normal Summon and only had around 2000 ATK with no effects.
There were some relatively decent monsters, but many were priceless and unavailable for purchase.
For example, the first one he thought of was "Jinzo," one of the signature monsters of the previous protagonist, Joey Wheeler. It was a Level 6 monster that only required one tribute to summon, had a respectable 2400 ATK, and possessed the overpowered "trap lockdown ability" for the early environment—as long as it was on the field, trap cards couldn't be used.
Yugen remembered that in the real card game environment of this era, this was also a very high-quality single card, frequently seen in top-tier deck builds.
However, upon searching, it was out of stock.
"Jinzo" was an extremely rare card, perpetually out of stock, and simply unavailable for purchase.
This made Yugen a bit frustrated. He quickly realized that another significant difference between the anime environment and the real card game was the difficulty in acquiring cards.
In reality, they could always check the entire card pool of the current version and use almost any card to build any deck. But duelists in the Yu-Gi-Oh! world didn't have this convenience.
There were other cards he wanted, but just a glance at their prices made him gasp in shock.
'Farewell.'
Yugen clearly understood that cards in this world were almost directly equivalent to weapons and strength, so he had long been prepared to spare no expense to acquire the necessary cards.
But even so, looking at the sky-high prices of some rare cards, he figured that even if he sold himself, he probably couldn't afford them.
This wasn't an exaggeration; it was literal.
Indeed, in this world, the price difference between common cards and rare cards was staggering. The prices of regular cards and booster packs were similar to those in his previous life's reality, affordable for everyone. But the value of some rare cards was such that saying one card equaled a house was no exaggeration.
And those were just the generally available rare cards. As for the "Blue-Eyes White Dragon," of which there are only three in the world, all held by Seto Kaiba, they were completely out of the question.
Upon further investigation, he discovered that in this world, besides car loans and mortgages, there was even something called "card loans." As the name suggested, one could take out a loan to buy cards.
"So this is how painful it is to have no cards," Yugen grimaced.
Fortunately, even under such constraints, he managed to design a deck build using the cards he could acquire.
The prototype of this build was the historically significant first-ever World Championship-winning deck in the real Yu-Gi-Oh! card game.
Hand Destruction.
Perhaps every novice duelist who got into the game through the anime has unrealistic fantasies about dueling, such as epic clashes of high-ATK monsters, intense exchanges of offense and defense, and straightforward confrontations, culminating in a satisfying "GG" after a thrilling battle.
However, that was the false Yu-Gi-Oh!.
The real Yu-Gi-Oh! was that at the table, only one of the two players gets to play Yu-Gi-Oh!.
The most reliable way to win has always been to eliminate all possibilities of your opponent's strategy, preventing them from playing any cards at all. This philosophy has persisted from the early days of the game to the present.
[Hand Destruction] was a deck built precisely on this idea. True to its name, its tactic was to destroy the opponent's hand, leaving them with no cards to play, forcing them to sit idly from the start, making it the ancestor of the "shady" realm.
Opponents facing this deck would have their understanding of dueling completely overturned. That poor soul would experience a rapid sequence of "blood pressure spiking," "I'm going to hit you," and "summoning my fist in attack position" within just a few minutes.
So, if one were to point out the biggest flaw of such decks, it might be that the user's personal safety was hard to guarantee.
Of course, Yugen couldn't remember the entire build of such an ancient championship deck, and some rare cards were beyond his reach. So, he just borrowed the concept and created a new build himself.
As for the vacant spots in the deck, he decided to fill them with some decent-quality trap cards for now.
In fact, some traps, from Yugen's card player perspective, weren't necessarily advantageous and might not be that useful. The main point was that having many traps could easily break the opponent's mentality.
He wasn't some devil, nor did he take pleasure in messing with others' mentality. The main reason was that psychological warfare was also part of dueling; sometimes, breaking the opponent's mentality before depleting their LP can be a very effective tactic.
Yes, that's it.
Continuing to browse the web aimlessly, his eyes suddenly lit up as he glanced over a particular page.
"Jinzo," stock quantity: 1.
Yugen immediately scrolled back to the page and clicked to inquire, but was promptly denied by the website.
"No access permission."
"Exclusive to the Academy Department."
Yugen was stunned.
Academy Department? What's that?
After another round of internet surfing and searching, he suddenly realized.
The so-called Academy Department refers to the Duel Academy, personally established by Seto Kaiba as the world's largest duel academy. He specifically purchased an entire island to serve as its headquarters and fully funded it with resources.
Students on the island have the opportunity to access newly released card packs first and have channels to purchase rare cards that are otherwise unobtainable outside, and they can enjoy significant discounts when purchasing.
Even disregarding the academy's hardware facilities and teaching staff, the rare cards and discounts alone were enough to make anyone envious.
Moreover, for students with sufficiently excellent grades, their scores and credits could be exchanged for cards. In a world where a single card can sell for a fortune, this could save students a considerable amount on deck-building costs.
Not to mention, graduates from the Duel Academy would have the most solid diploma in the dueling world, giving them priority recommendations whether they wanted to go professional, work at Kaiba Corporation, or join the Industrial Illusions Company.
Scrolling down casually, Yugen even caught a glimpse of "Chaos Sorcerer"!
"Chaos Sorcerer," a Level 6 monster with 2300 ATK. It could be Special Summoned by banishing one LIGHT and one DARK monster from the graveyard and had a once-per-turn effect to banish one monster on the opponent's field.
Because it has similar summoning conditions and effects to the more famous "Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning," after the latter was banned, it became a substitute, jokingly called "Mini Envoy" by the players, and was considered top-tier in the current meta.
In this world, "Black Luster Soldier" was an ultra-rare card. In the anime, it was known that only the Duel King, Yugi Muto, has one, and there was another in the replica deck displayed in GX, but beyond that, it remained unseen.
So, getting "Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning" was nearly impossible, but acquiring a "Chaos Sorcerer" would be excellent.
Besides that, there were other decent rare cards, all of which were hard to come by in the outside market, and their prices were indeed a fraction of the market value.
Seeing this, Yugen took a deep breath.
He made up his mind.
He would take the entrance exam for the Duel Academy first.
If he didn't pass, he would try again.