A few days later, Mokuba Kaiba sent over the Rare Card list that had originally been scheduled to go to Duel Academy. Just as Yugen had expected, his eyes went straight to the "VWXYZ" LV Series that took up the main spot on the list. He did not hesitate and intercepted that LV Series first.
Since the shipment had been planned to go through Duel Academy's internal sales channels, the prices were ones you would never see on the open market. On top of that, the bonus Yugen had received earlier from Kaiba Corporation was still mostly untouched, so his budget was more than enough. With money not being a concern, he felt free to pick calmly.
Next, he noticed the card that Manjoume had used in the anime, "Magical Mallet." In the animated version, it could shuffle any number of cards from the hand, including itself, back into the Deck, then draw the same number of cards. It was a card meant to fix bad opening hands.
In the real version, it had been nerfed into shuffling and replacing all hand cards except itself. That change made it a straight loss of one card, and its usefulness dropped sharply. Yugen thought about it and decided that even with the anime effect, a free hand swap was not that impressive in a world driven by fate, where even Deck search effects were not especially valued.
Besides, he already had a large stock of anime limited filtering and draw cards, so under normal circumstances he did not need Magical Mallet at all. Still, after checking the prices, he saw that Magical Mallet was among the cheapest cards in the whole set. It might also have uses in certain niche trick Deck, so he picked up three copies anyway.
After that, he saw the key plot card, "Evolutionary Wings." By discarding two cards from the hand, it could evolve Winged Kuriboh into an LV10 Rare Card. In the entire Duel Academy, only one person even owned Winged Kuriboh, so the card might as well have had "exclusive to Jellyfish Hair" printed on it.
What Yugen had was Kuriboh, not Winged Kuriboh, so the card was completely useless to him. In the end, he decided to pass it on to Judai Yuki. After making his picks, there really was not much left that clearly suited Manjoume.
"Don't worry. Before it gets sent to Duel Academy, we'll adjust things and add other Rare Card as compensation," Mokuba Kaiba said to him. Yugen thought about it and figured that if those good cards ended up in Manjoume's hands, they might just get ruined sooner or later anyway, so accepting them now was better than letting them go to waste.
There were only two days left before the term at Duel Academy began. On the day before leaving for the island, he went to Duel Dojo one last time to say goodbye to the master and the other students. As soon as he stepped inside, he saw the students kneeling on the floor with their heads lowered, while Hall Master Takeuchi stood in front, loudly scolding them.
Out of curiosity, Yugen walked closer and listened for a while, gradually piecing together what had happened. In short, the master was unhappy that Duel Dojo had become a place where gloomy behavior spread everywhere, and the students had started to take pleasure in dragging others down with them. At first that was all, but soon they realized that when everyone around them was the same, the fun dropped fast.
Because of that, they shifted their targets to the nearby Duel arenas. Rumors began spreading through several surrounding arenas about the silent school of Duel Dojo. People said that every Duelist from there was a messenger from hell, taking joy in pulling all opponents they faced into the abyss, win or lose, as long as the other side could not play like Yugi Muto.
Even worse, this trend spread like a sickness wherever they went. Hall Master Takeuchi probably never imagined that one day the silent style would truly flourish, but not in the way he had hoped. Instead, it was "using Duel to beat the other side into silence."
By now, the build Yugen had used in the Moonlight Cup had been fully analyzed by the students of Duel Dojo. At this point, nearly everyone there had stuffed their Deck with cards like Solemn Judgment, Bottomless Trap Hole, Torrential Tribute, and the three hand destruction staples. It was pure homework copying.
Of course, Yugen had expected this sooner or later. Right now he was still a nobody, at most someone who had caused a small upset by beating Rex Raptor in a local amateur cup, so only people around him bothered to study his build. If one day he became famous like Yugi Muto or Seto Kaiba, countless people would dissect his Deck, with some looking for counters and others copying it outright.
After so many recent Duel and research sessions, and with a deeper understanding of the anime environment, Yugen had started to realize something. In this world, a Duelist's Deck was not strong just because its construction was strong on paper. The early GX example made this clear.
Back then, a Slifer Red student stole Yugi Muto's Deck and dueled Judai Yuki, only to be completely crushed. Later, both Judai Yuki and Kaiser Ryo explained the reason in their own ways. According to Kaiser, a Duelist must use a Deck built by their own hands and filled with their feelings, or it would not respond to them with its full power.
Using someone else's Deck in a Duel meant that no matter how closely you copied the tactics, it was never truly yours. Because of that, you could not win important duels. Yugen understood this as copying homework lowering a Duelist's own "fate power."
You might copy a stronger Deck, but your bricks would increase and your miracle draws would drop. In the end, it might not improve your true strength at all. That was why anime duels often chased "soul," not just for style, but because lacking it made you more likely to lose against experts.
These thoughts had been on Yugen's mind for the past two days. Ideally, he wanted to keep a competitive mindset, using pressure tactics and even mental disruption, while also finding ways to bring out the advantages of Spirit. In other words, he wanted a balance between competition and soul.
That balance mattered in fights between top players. For the level of the students at Duel Dojo, though, he felt that copying homework and winning duels was not such a bad thing. From his observation, their fate power was average at best, and most of them lacked the talent to make big progress over a lifetime.
Switching to a stronger build, however, really did raise their win rates in a visible way. Over the last couple of days, the brothers who copied the build had decent results in the arenas. The only downside was that it hurt Duel Dojo's reputation.
"All of us Duelist should believe in our own Deck!" Hall Master Takeuchi shouted as he scolded the students. "A Deck built with your own heart is unique to each person."
Even though he spoke with righteous force, one student could not help but whisper while poking his head up. "But Master, I saw you accept a 'Confiscation' the other day, and three days ago you took a 'Prankish Twin Demons.'"