Before you go any further, the majority of what I'm going to say applies if you have any intention of dueling other people. If you just want to play Master Duel for the single player content (and there IS single player content), it's good enough to install it for that and just play that. You might get something out of the lore. The gameplay is snappy, looks great, everything you might want out of a Yu-Gi-Oh dueling simulator. Do NOT confuse the single player experience for the multiplayer one.

I wish I could play this game on release again. When just about everyone on the internet picked it up for a month or two and played the decks they actually wanted to play.

This is not that game anymore. If you didn't play this game on release, you've missed the golden age. If you try to play now, either fully commit to making the flavor meta deck of the week, every week, every time new cards are released, or don't play at all. This is not the game where you can challenge your buddies that also happen to play yugioh and have a fun time, this is the game where you "play" a game of yugioh which involves you sitting and watching your opponent play solitaire for a couple minutes, and once your turn comes around it is a miracle if you can play a single one of your cards without your opponent having a handtrap or an effect on field that outright says you can't play the game.

I'm getting ahead of myself, though. I'm not the person that takes Kaiba's blue eyes deck into a tournament at ye olde comic shop and expecting a good time. I used to breathe the same poisonous cancer that pervades this game today; carefully waiting to drop Ash Blossom or Nibiru at specific choke points during my opponent's plays to completely disrupt their plays, ending a turn on I:P Masquerena and a few other links to make a nigh invincible Avramax or Underworld Goddess of the Closed World to just eat the big wall that my opponent spent their whole turn making. I saw the game rise and fall throughout the years, and happily played it when they introduced synchros, back when Black Rose Dragon was considered good enough as a board wipe and summoning Shooting Quasar Dragon, or hell, two or three of them was a dream, and to see it in action was truly a blessing for everyone involved (I will forever miss you, Yugioh4realmen). Xyz came and went, I remember going through so many decks and cards like Geargia karakuri, or sitting on Evilswarm Ophion on turn 1 when it came out while the guy across from me just started playing dustons of all things, and I think I speak for everyone when we collectively groaned when Atlantean Mermails became a thing and then didn't stop being a thing for what felt like an eternity (I jest, I liked the deck too). E-drags also wrecked all of our collective behinds (Or not, if you were among the few with the disposable income to afford a deck that costed nearly four digits), Pendulums happened, D/D/D reigned supreme, blah blah blah you don't need to keep listening to me reminisce, you get the picture.

I used to live and breathe this game. I was on board playing against meta decks, dismantling them with rogue decks or playing something meta adjacent. I am not unfamiliar with the game at all. So why did I stop?
At some point, the juice just isn't worth the squeeze anymore. You could say I just got tired of it, and you might be right. Maybe I didn't want to run on Konami's meta treadmill anymore. Or my old and busted that I liked to play can't keep up with the new hotness, no matter how hard I tried. Rogue decks as a concept no longer exists unless the deck in question was released in the last couple months and Konami has deigned to give you support. Or you've been spared the banlist hammer.
You can say I grew out of it, and you're probably right. Even now I yearn for the games I played back then.

"But that's regular yugioh old man. Tell me about Master Duel"

Exact same problems. You might be able to eke out a few games where you don't get flattened, rolled up, and tossed aside in a dominating performance in the low ranks. These are merely the same poor souls as you, in your same position. They were sold a dream and expect to take Kaiba's deck in a tournament and have a fun time. Go anywhere near an upwards trajectory in rank and you cannot escape the madness that awaits you. There's no respite. There's no fun to be had. The restrictions and staples that you used half the deck to run back in yesteryear used to allow for some self expression in deck design and gave you mechanics with your cards that fueled your interactions with your opponent and their cards? That does not exist at all anymore. You play Konami's intended deck design, you play the same mitigation and disruption as everyone else, you cannibalize three fourths of your deck to play the eight to ten cards you think might perform this week, or you don't play at all.

By the way, this isn't even a good way to play your fun pet decks against your friends. Suppose you want to build Arcana Force; absolutely terrible deck, don't even entertain it in any competitive or semi competitive setting, but it's great for a couple laughs, or maybe you want to try the unorthodox World Lock. Well, Arcana Force XXI - The World is an Ultra Rare, and you want at least one of those. A big bulky monster that needs two tributes is an Ultra Rare, a rarity that, on the tin, should be as valuable as Mekk-Knight Crusadia Avramax. You and I both know it's not, nowhere close. Light Barrier, their field spell, which half the time negates itself because of coin flips, is a super rare, and only works for Arcana Force cards. That's worth the same as Twin Twisters, right? Right? Of course not.

For these decks that Konami has left behind in the dust, and has no intent of picking back up, you would expect them to at least make the majority of them no rarer than Rare, with Super Rare reserved for the one card among them that makes the deck work. So even if you aren't trying to climb ladders, you could at least still use Master Duel as one of the nicer simulators (which will go unnamed in this review, you know exactly what I'm talking about) and make a buncha pet decks to play with your friends whom also probably have an assortment of pet decks. But even here, even here, your decks from yesteryear have Konami with an outstretched hand demanding you pay up, either directly through boosters or indirectly through crafting (do NOT tell me crafting solves this, as a free player, you get at most three decks starting out with the crafting system. Maybe four if you really stretch your resources. Either that, or you get one "good" deck that won't last beyond a month of power creep). You can make the argument that Konami will eventually get around to these decks and make support to warrant this, but please actually sound like you mean it when you do make the argument. Take lswarm for example. Lswarm hasn't been supported since Extreme Force with a Link card in 2018. Before that? 2013, in Lords of Tachyon, also with just one card, smack dab in the middle of the Dragon Rulers format as pack filler. Before that? When they were introduced in Hidden Arsenal. Arcana Force earlier? Introduced in 2008 in Light of Destruction. One card since then for Duel Links, and a newer one very recently that does absolutely nothing for the deck other than a field spell search.

If you truly want to play Yugioh, especially in its modern state, Master Duel is indeed the way to do it. Albeit missing several cards that are, uh, available elsewhere. Don't worry, they'll get patched in. They always get patched in. Be prepared to breathe madness in a way only HP Lovecraft could truly express in his works.

You won't have any problems with Master Duel itself. The simulator works as you'd expect with almost no problems. If only the game it was based around wasn't as utterly ruined as it is.

[b]Before you go any further, the majority of what I'm going to say applies if you have any intention of dueling other people. If you just want to play Master Duel for the single player content (and there IS single player content), it's good enough to install it for that and just play that. You might get something out of the lore. The gameplay is snappy, looks great, everything you might want out of a Yu-Gi-Oh dueling simulator. Do NOT confuse the single player experience for the multiplayer one.[/b] I wish I could play this game on release again. When just about everyone on the internet picked it up for a month or two and played the decks they actually wanted to play. This is not that game anymore. If you didn't play this game on release, you've missed the golden age. If you try to play now, either fully commit to making the flavor meta deck of the week, every week, every time new cards are released, or don't play at all. This is not the game where you can challenge your buddies that also happen to play yugioh and have a fun time, this is the game where you "play" a game of yugioh which involves you sitting and watching your opponent play solitaire for a couple minutes, and once your turn comes around it is a miracle if you can play a single one of your cards without your opponent having a handtrap or an effect on field that outright says you can't play the game. I'm getting ahead of myself, though. I'm not the person that takes Kaiba's blue eyes deck into a tournament at ye olde comic shop and expecting a good time. I used to breathe the same poisonous cancer that pervades this game today; carefully waiting to drop Ash Blossom or Nibiru at specific choke points during my opponent's plays to completely disrupt their plays, ending a turn on I:P Masquerena and a few other links to make a nigh invincible Avramax or Underworld Goddess of the Closed World to just eat the big wall that my opponent spent their whole turn making. I saw the game rise and fall throughout the years, and happily played it when they introduced synchros, back when Black Rose Dragon was considered good enough as a board wipe and summoning Shooting Quasar Dragon, or hell, two or three of them was a dream, and to see it in action was truly a blessing for everyone involved (I will forever miss you, Yugioh4realmen). Xyz came and went, I remember going through so many decks and cards like Geargia karakuri, or sitting on Evilswarm Ophion on turn 1 when it came out while the guy across from me just started playing [i]dustons[/i] of all things, and I think I speak for everyone when we collectively groaned when Atlantean Mermails became a thing and then [i]didn't stop being a thing[/i] for what felt like an eternity (I jest, I liked the deck too). E-drags also wrecked all of our collective behinds (Or not, if you were among the few with the disposable income to afford a deck that costed nearly four digits), Pendulums happened, D/D/D reigned supreme, blah blah blah you don't need to keep listening to me reminisce, you get the picture. I used to live and breathe this game. I was on board playing against meta decks, dismantling them with rogue decks or playing something meta adjacent. I am not unfamiliar with the game at all. So why did I stop? At some point, the juice just isn't worth the squeeze anymore. You could say I just got tired of it, and you might be right. Maybe I didn't want to run on Konami's meta treadmill anymore. Or my old and busted that I liked to play can't keep up with the new hotness, no matter how hard I tried. Rogue decks as a concept no longer exists unless the deck in question was released in the last couple months and Konami has deigned to give you support. Or you've been spared the banlist hammer. You can say I grew out of it, and you're probably right. Even now I yearn for the games I played back then. "But that's regular yugioh old man. Tell me about Master Duel" Exact same problems. You might be able to eke out a few games where you don't get flattened, rolled up, and tossed aside in a dominating performance in the low ranks. These are merely the same poor souls as you, in your same position. They were sold a dream and expect to take Kaiba's deck in a tournament and have a fun time. Go anywhere near an upwards trajectory in rank and you cannot escape the madness that awaits you. There's no respite. There's no fun to be had. The restrictions and staples that you used half the deck to run back in yesteryear used to allow for some self expression in deck design and gave you mechanics with your cards that fueled your interactions with your opponent and their cards? That does not exist at all anymore. You play Konami's intended deck design, you play the same mitigation and disruption as everyone else, you cannibalize three fourths of your deck to play the eight to ten cards you [i]think[/i] might perform this week, or you don't play at all. By the way, this isn't even a good way to play your fun pet decks against your friends. Suppose you want to build Arcana Force; absolutely terrible deck, don't even entertain it in any competitive or semi competitive setting, but it's great for a couple laughs, or maybe you want to try the unorthodox World Lock. Well, Arcana Force XXI - The World is an Ultra Rare, and you want [i]at least[/i] one of those. A big bulky monster that needs two tributes is an Ultra Rare, a rarity that, on the tin, should be as valuable as Mekk-Knight Crusadia Avramax. You and I both know it's not, nowhere close. Light Barrier, their field spell, which half the time negates itself because of coin flips, is a super rare, and only works for Arcana Force cards. That's worth the same as Twin Twisters, right? [b][i]Right?[/i][/b] Of course not. For these decks that Konami has left behind in the dust, and has no intent of picking back up, you would expect them to at least make the majority of them no rarer than Rare, with Super Rare reserved for the one card among them that makes the deck work. So even if you aren't trying to climb ladders, you could at least still use Master Duel as one of the nicer simulators (which will go unnamed in this review, you know exactly what I'm talking about) and make a buncha pet decks to play with your friends whom also probably have an assortment of pet decks. But even here, even here, your decks from yesteryear have Konami with an outstretched hand demanding you pay up, either directly through boosters or indirectly through crafting (do NOT tell me crafting solves this, as a free player, you get at most three decks starting out with the crafting system. Maybe four if you [i]really[/i] stretch your resources. Either that, or you get one "good" deck that won't last beyond a month of power creep). You can make the argument that Konami will eventually get around to these decks and make support to warrant this, but please actually sound like you mean it when you do make the argument. Take lswarm for example. Lswarm hasn't been supported since Extreme Force with a Link card in 2018. Before that? 2013, in Lords of Tachyon, also with just one card, smack dab in the middle of the Dragon Rulers format as pack filler. Before that? When they were introduced in Hidden Arsenal. Arcana Force earlier? Introduced in 2008 in Light of Destruction. One card since then for Duel Links, and a newer one very recently that does absolutely nothing for the deck other than a field spell search. If you truly want to play Yugioh, especially in its modern state, Master Duel is indeed the way to do it. Albeit missing several cards that are, uh, [i]available elsewhere[/i]. Don't worry, they'll get patched in. They always get patched in. Be prepared to breathe madness in a way only HP Lovecraft could truly express in his works. You won't have any problems with Master Duel itself. The simulator works as you'd expect with almost no problems. If only the game it was based around wasn't as utterly ruined as it is.