Post by goldensandslash on Nov 16, 2021 6:40:44 GMT
So, I want to talk about Yugioh.
No, wait, come back. Don't click away to a different tab. I promise that this'll be interesting.
You see... I'm not just talking about Yugioh, the card game that has been broken basically ever since its creation. No. I'm talking about the TV show.
WOULD YOU GET BACK HERE!?
Yes, I know it's a bad show. And yes, I know that you have access to the entire internet and you'd rather look at porn or something, rather than read my thread. But trust me, I have a good reason for this.
First of all, I'm talking about the original Yugioh anime. Not GX, not 5D's, not ZEXAL, not ARC-V, not VRAINS, and not SEVENS. The original. Which is, like, the only good one.
So... let's talk about this show. It features Yugi as a main character. He goes through several duels in the show, and wins most of them. In fact, he's only ever lost six duels.
His first loss was to Pegasus in the second episode, and that was only due to the 15-minute time limit that Pegasus put on the duel. Had the duel lasted even just two seconds longer, Yugi would have won. His Summoned Skull had already declared an attack and would have wiped out Pegasus's remaining life points, but the timer ran out before the attack reached its target. Which is, frankly, bullshit. So this loss shouldn't count.
His second loss was to Kaiba atop the roof of Pegasus's castle in Duelist's Kingdom. Once again, Yugi had declared an attack that would have wiped out Kaiba's remaining life points had the attack connected. But he called off the attack because Kaiba was going to die if the attack went through (in the Japanese version, Kaiba threatens to jump off the roof; in the dub, the shockwave from the attack threatens to knock Kaiba off). Again, I call shenanigans, and Yugi should have rightfully won the duel.
His third loss was to Rebecca. In this one, Yugi had the winning card (Soul Release) in hand, and just opted not to play it, in order to teach Rebecca that winning isn't everything. But he did see the line there. He could have won. So, again, I'm calling outside shenanigans here.
His latter three losses are actual clean losses, though. However, for two of them, it was when Yugi and Yami Yugi were dueling each other. So in this context, there is no way for Yugi to avoid losing, since either outcome results in a Yugi loss. So I don't count this.
That leaves only his duel with Rafael.
Most people, on seeing this duel, think that Rafael actually became the ONLY duelist in the entire series to successfully defeat Yugi. And yeah, no outside shenanigans this time, Yugi actually lost.
But... did he have to? Or did he possibly misplay? Well, luckily, the anime gives us clean shots of each player's hands throughout the entire duel, so we can see what options they had, and whether they made the optimal plays or not. I'm gonna be looking through this duel and see if either player had any options that they didn't use that could have altered the outcome of the match.
Ready? Let's do this.
So, to begin, we're playing with anime rules, so 4000 LP per player.
Rafael goes first, and he activates Guarded Treasure (known as "Guardian Treasure" in the anime). This card lets him discard 5 cards to draw 2 cards. We don't see the rest of his hand, but since he discarded it, it probably doesn't matter. Also, as long as Guarded Treasure is in play, he draws two cards per draw phase instead of one.
The two cards that Rafael gets off of Guarded Treasure are Backup Gardna and Purity of the Cemetery. He sets Backup Gardna in Defense Position, and sets Purity of the Cemetery in his magic/trap zone.
Yugi's turn now. Yugi's hand includes Gazelle the King of Mythical Beasts, Berfomet, Polymerization, Necromancy, Pump Up, and Curse of Dragon. In the dub, this last card is replaced with Obnoxious Celtic Guard instead. I'm going to be using the original Japanese version, though, so I'll call it Curse of Dragon going forward. I don't think it matters too much, because, spoiler alert, he never summons it.
Though, given that, it probably means that Curse of Dragon makes more sense, since he can summon Obnoxious Celtic Guard any time, while Curse of Dragon requires a tribute.
Anyways, Yugi begins by playing Polymerization to fuse Gazelle (1500/1200) with Berfomet (1400/1800) to form Chimera the Flying Mythical Beast (2100/1800).
Then he attacks Rafael's set monster. Unfortunately, Backup Gardna (500/2200) has more defense points than Chimera has attack points, so Yugi loses 100 LP, going to 3900 LP.
And now that Backup Gardna is face-up, I should also explain its effect. It allows Rafael to freely move his equip cards around between his monsters. This card does not exist in real-life, but it is in the video game Yu-Gi-Oh! Destiny Board Traveler. In this game, it actually has a second effect: when it's attacked, you can discard a card to negate the attack. I'll assume that it has this effect in the anime as well.
Rafael's turn now. He draws two cards due to Guarded Treasure. He gets Gravity Axe and Guardian Grarl. Yeah... um... get used to him always getting the perfect combo. But that can happen in real life too, so I'm okay with it.
Rafael activates Gravity Axe, equipping it to Backup Gardna, which grants it an extra 500 ATK. Additionally, as long as the axe is in play, Yugi's monsters cannot change their battle position.
Now, here's the fun part. Rafael is able to summon Guardian Grarl (2500/1000) without tributing if it is the last card in his hand, and it is (also it can only be summoned if you control a Gravity Axe, but he does, so that works - like I said, he always draws the perfect combo). Then, after playing it, he uses Backup Gardna's effect to move the axe over to Guardian Grarl, giving him a 3000 attacker. He attacks Yugi's Chimera, and Yugi receives 900 battle damage, bringing him down to 3000 LP.
When Chimera is destroyed, Yugi is allowed to special summon either Gazelle or Berfomet from his graveyard, so he gets back his Berfomet (1400/1800).
Yugi's turn again, and he draws Five Star Twilight. This card is a Japan-only card for now, but it's being printed in English in the upcoming Brothers of Legend set next month. So that's pretty cool.
Yugi activates Five Star Twilight. By tributing a monster that is exactly Level 5 (and Berfomet is such a monster), he can summon the five Kuriboh Brothers from his deck. Again, these are cards that will exist in real life once Brothers of Legend comes out. But for now, anime-only.
Still, let's look at them. They are... Kuriboh, Kuribah, Kuribee, Kuribeh, and Kuriboo. Each is 300/200 and has a different effect. Let's look at each one.
Oh, and also... monsters that are summoned by Five Star Twilight cannot be tributed for a tribute summon. So do keep that in mind.
Anyways, on to their effects.
Kuriboh is the most complicated. You can discard it from your hand to prevent battle damage from an attack. It's also the only one that currently exists in real life. In the anime, Kuriboh also prevents the attacked monster from being destroyed. And it also has an additional effect where, if it is attacked, you can tribute it and pay life points equal to its attack points in order to negate the attack. Maybe. It's unclear if it STILL has this ability or not, since it only used it in very early episodes and never again. And also whenever they show the card in the Japanese anime (where cards have text), you can see that it has its OCG/TCG effect printed on it. I think I'll chalk it up to early Yugioh weirdness and move on.
Kuribah lets you remove from play itself and the four other Kuriboh Brothers to summon Kuribabylon from your hand, deck, or graveyard.
Kuribee lets you freely negate an attack any time you want, if the attack target is one of the Kuriboh Brothers.
Kuribeh lets you remove from play itself and the four other Kuriboh Brothers to summon Kuribandit from your hand or deck.
And Kuriboo lets you discard a Trap Card from your hand to make one of your opponent's monsters lose 1500 ATK until the end of the turn.
Now, the notable one here is Kuribeh. Summoning Kuribandit is pretty powerful. And yet, Yugi never does this here (he does do it in the rematch against Rafael, but I'm looking at their first duel). Kuribandit (1000/700 in real life and in the Japanese anime, 0/200 in the dub. Also the dub shows this as a Level 5 monster, the Japanese and real life show it as Level 3) lets you sacrifice it to draw five cards, though you discard all monster cards that are among the drawn cards.
Drawing five cards is a very good effect, so Yugi probably should have at least considered using this... but he doesn't. Potential misplay. Though given that his hand contains no monsters that he can summon, I can understand that he doesn't want to take the risk.
So instead, Yugi activates the effect of Kuribah to summon Kuribabylon (?/0 in real life, ?/200 in the anime). Kuribabylon's attack points are equal to the total attack of all the Kuriboh Brothers that were used in its summon, which is 1500 in this case. Also, you can remove it from play at any time to summon all of the Kuriboh Brothers from your removed-from-play pile, though they can't be tributed for a tribute summon if summoned this way. This is also done automatically if Kuribabylon ever attacks and has that attack negated.
Yugi then activates Pump Up, which... is a unique magic card. It only exists in the anime, and even there... only this once. No future episodes or future shows ever show this card at all. It doubles the ATK of one monster, until the end of the turn, so Yugi's Kuribabylon now has 3000 ATK, the same as Guardian Grarl.
Yugi attacks Guardian Grarl with Kuribabylon, which will destroy both of them. However, Rafael reveals that one of the cards he discarded when he threw out his opening hand is Rescuer from the Grave. Once again, this is a card that is anime-only and only exists in this one duel. Rafael explains that by removing from play five cards from his graveyard while Rescuer from the Grave is in the graveyard, he can use Rescuer from the Grave to end Yugi's Battle Phase. This triggers Kuribabylon's effect, removing it from play and giving Yugi back the five Kuriboh Brothers.
I admit, I was more amused than I should have been at Yugi's reaction to this. "You can't play a card from your graveyard!" "I just did."
Makes me wonder how Yugi would react to seeing modern-day Yu-Gi-Oh! and all of its graveyard shenanigans.
Also, given this play, it now makes sense that Yugi wouldn't use Kuribandit here. Because if Kuribandit is destroyed, Yugi DOESN'T get the Kuriboh Brothers back. So he'd have nothing to defend himself with, and Rafael could win the duel with a direct attack. So, okay, he didn't misplay there after all. Fair enough. (Though Kuribandit would have let him draw more cards, so potentially he could draw an answer.)
Rafael's turn, and he gets to draw two cards thanks to Guarded Treasure, drawing Exchange and Self Tribute.
He puts both of them face-down onto the field. I have no idea why he felt the need to set the Exchange. Rafael's endgame here is to use Exchange to give The Seal of Orichalcos to Yugi and force him to use it. Putting it on the field is a huge risk, as it is now vulnerable to magic/trap removal. And yeah, leaving it in your hand leaves it vulnerable to discard effects, but I imagine that that's the smaller risk. Probably a misplay on Rafael's part, but it's no big deal in the long run.
Rafael activates his set Purity of the Cemetery. Now, during each of Yugi's Standby Phases, Yugi will take 100 damage for each monster that he has in his graveyard, but Purity of the Cemetery will only remain in play as long as Rafael's graveyard has no monsters in it.
Rafael attacks Kuriboh with Guardian Grarl, but Yugi uses Kuribee's effect to negate the attack. Rafael's turn ends, and Yugi's turn begins.
Yugi draws Pot of Greed. Then his Standby Phase happens and he loses 300 LP, due to having three monsters in his graveyard (Gazelle, Berfomet, and Chimera). He goes down to 2700 LP.
Yugi then activates Pot of Greed... which... um... what does that do?
"Pot of Greed lets me draw two cards from my deck."
Oh, thanks Yugi. Glad you cleared that up.
Yugi draws Dark Magician Girl and The Eye of Timaeus.
Yugi activates Kuribah's effect to remove from play the five Kuriboh Brothers to summon Kuribabylon back to the field.
JUDGE!
This is an illegal move. Kuribah's effect lets you summon a Kuribabylon from your HAND, your DECK, or your GRAVEYARD. Kuribabylon is currently in Yugi's REMOVED-FROM-PLAY PILE. This is not a valid summon.
So yeah, Yugi just cheated here. Right? Well... maybe. Probably though. There is a possible explanation here, though it's a bit of a stretch. You could argue that Yugi has a second copy of Kuribabylon in his deck, and so he's summoning the second one. But given that he talks about summoning "back" his Kuribabylon... I think it's more likely that he made an illegal play.
Anyways, Yugi was unable to tribute the Kuriboh Brothers, but with Kuribabylon instead, he can tribute it, so he does so, summoning Dark Magician Girl (2000/1700).
Now, Yugi plays The Eye of Timaeus, fusing it with Dark Magician Girl to form Dark Magician Girl the Dragon Knight (2600/1700).
And now here's where things get incredibly weird. Dark Magician Girl, at this point, should be in Yugi's graveyard, since it was just used as a fusion material. But... it isn't. Purity of the Cemetery isn't going to count it. It's as though Dark Magician Girl the Dragon Knight isn't actually a separate card, but is instead just a transformation of the Dark Magician Girl, which is still in play. It's... weird. But it's the anime, so who cares?
Anyways, Yugi attacks Guardian Grarl with his Dark Magician Girl the Dragon Knight... which seems stupid, since Guardian Grarl has more attack points, but Yugi reveals that when Dark Magician Girl the Dragon Knight battles a monster, he can immediately destroy that monster with its effect, without applying any damage calculation. The cost to use this ability is simply discarding one card from his hand.
Yugi discards Curse of Dragon (Obnoxious Celtic Guard in the dub) to use this effect. This will destroy Guardian Grarl. But Rafael activates his Self Tribute. By paying 1000 LP, he can prevent the destruction of any monster. Rafael goes down to 3000 LP. And also he makes a face that looks like he came from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure.
Anyways, Rafael's turn again. He draws two cards, as per Guarded Treasure: The Seal of Orichalcos and Crystal Seal.
Rafael sets his Crystal Seal face down and then reveals his face-down Exchange, causing each player to take a card from the other's hand. Normally, they get to choose, but since each has only a single card in hand, they just swap cards. Rafael gets Yugi's Necromancy, and Yugi receives The Seal of Orichalcos.
Rafael ends his turn here. You may think that this is a misplay, due to the fact that Guardian Grarl can attack Dark Magician Girl the Dragon Knight, but remember that Yugi can discard The Seal of Orichalcos to use Dark Magician Girl the Dragon Knight's effect, which would destroy Guardian Grarl. So Rafael is smart to not attack here.
Yugi's turn, and he draws Big Shield Gardna. Then, in his Standby Phase, Purity of the Cemetery goes off again. Yugi loses 500 LP, due to having five monsters in his graveyard (Gazelle, Berfomet, Chimera, Kuribabylon, and Curse of Dragon). He goes to 2200 LP.
Yugi attacks Guardian Grarl with Dark Magician Girl the Dragon Knight, but Rafael responds by activating Crystal Seal on it. As long as Dark Magician Girl the Dragon Knight is trapped by the Crystal Seal, it cannot attack, be tributed, change its battle position, use its effect, or even defend Yugi's life points (meaning that if it is his only monster, Rafael can attack directly). Additionally, Crystal Seal cannot be destroyed by card effects. That's quite overpowered, even for an anime-only card, but there is a downside: if the ATK of Dark Magician Girl the Dragon Knight ever changes, then Crystal Seal will automatically be destroyed.
Of course, Yugi CAN change Dark Magician Girl the Dragon Knight's ATK, by simply activating The Seal of Orichalcos. But because this is a bad idea for very obvious reasons, he doesn't. I'm not considering that to be a misplay.
Yugi sets his Big Shield Gardna in face-down defense mode, and then ends his turn.
Rafael draws two cards (thanks to Guarded Treasure): Rod of Silence and Guardian Kay'est.
Rafael equips Backup Gardna with Rod of Silence, which grants it an extra 500 DEF, and makes it immune to the effects of all magic cards other than the Rod of Silence itself.
Then Rafael summons Guardian Kay'est (1000/1800), which can only be summoned if he has Rod of Silence in play, but he does, so that's taken care of. See what I mean about him always having the perfect draw combo?
Anyways, Guardian Kay'est is immune to magic cards and cannot be attacked (if it's the only attack target, the opponent gets to attack directly).
Rafael attacks with Guardian Grarl, destroying Big Shield Gardna. Then Guardian Kay'est attacks directly, and Yugi drops to 1200 LP.
Yugi's turn, and he draws Card of Sanctity. During the Standby Phase, he takes 600 damage from Purity of the Cemetery, due to having six monsters in his graveyard (Gazelle, Berfomet, Chimera, Kuribabylon, Curse of Dragon, and Big Shield Gardna). He drops to a mere 600 LP, and will lose the duel on his next Standby Phase if he cannot destroy Purity of the Cemetery.
Yugi activates Card of Sanctity, which causes both players to draw until they have six cards in their hands.
Yugi draws Hand Control, Dark Magician, Sangan, Magical Hats, and De-Fusion. (His last card is The Seal of Orichalcos that he already had.) Note that the dub got Yugi's hand wrong when they showed it. I'm going based on the original Japanese version, since that actually represents the cards that Yugi will use for the remainder of the duel.
Rafael draws Wicked-Breaking Flamberge, Kishido Spirit, Aid to the Doomed, Rod of the Mind's Eye, and Monster Rebirth. (His last card is Yugi's Necromancy card.)
Now, at this point, nothing Yugi does can get Purity of the Cemetery off the field, so he will lose as soon as the next Standby Phase rolls around. Nothing, that is, except for using The Seal of Orichalcos to free Dark Magician Girl the Dragon Knight and using it to destroy Guardian Grarl.
So... the correct play here is to scoop. Just put your hand on your deck, surrender the duel, and admit defeat. Even when I was a little kid watching this episode for the first time, I was screaming into my TV for Yugi to do this. And why? Well, let me to allow LittleKuriboh to explain through Yugioh Abridged:
"Pharaoh, no matter what, you mustn't use that card! It takes people's souls!" "Don't worry, Yugi. There's absolutely no reason to even use it." "That's right. There are no stakes involved in this Duel. Even if you lost this card game, nothing would change at all." "Wait, what's that now? I could lose?" "Well yeah, I mean your dragon Timaeus is frozen in place and you really don't have that many Life Points left. But again, there's literally nothing at stake here and a single loss wouldn't really hurt--" "Curse you, Rafael! You've given me no choice!" "Wait, what?" "I have to activate The Seal of Orichalcos!" "No! No, you don't!" "Too late, it's activated! (the Seal appears on Yami's forehead) I hope you're happy, Rafael! The guy who totally made me do this against my will!"
So yeah, Yugi should forfeit the game, and then nothing happens. No one's life is on the line, no one is kidnapped. This is just a card game. But, of course, Yugi activates The Seal of Orichalcos.
Now, all of Yugi's monsters gain 500 ATK, and his Magic/Trap Zones can be used as Monster Zones, and monsters in his Magic/Trap Zones can't be attacked unless his Monster Zone is empty, and, of course, whoever loses this duel will lose their soul.
First of all, because Dark Magician Girl the Dragon Knight had its ATK increased, Crystal Seal is destroyed. But... the legendary dragons and The Seal of Orichalcos cannot coexist together, so Timaeus abandons Yugi. This undoes the transformation and Dark Magician Girl the Dragon Knight reverts back to just being Dark Magician Girl (2000/1700, boosted to 2500 ATK due to The Seal of Orichalcos).
Yugi activates Hand Control. This lets Yugi guess the name of a card in Rafael's hand, and if he guesses correctly, Rafael must use that card immediately. Since Yugi gave Rafael his Necromancy card, he knows Rafael is still holding it, so he "guesses" Necromancy.
So Rafael uses Necromancy. This forces the opponent (Yugi in this case) to summon four monsters, chosen randomly, from their graveyard, in defense mode. Each time a monster summoned by Necromancy is destroyed, all monsters that Yugi controls will lose 600 ATK.
The monsters that Yugi summons are Big Shield Gardna (100/2600), Berfomet (1400/1800), Gazelle the King of Mythical Beasts (1500/1200), and Kuribabylon (?/0, becomes 0/0 because it wasn't summoned by Kuribah's effect).
Yugi sacrifices Gazelle and Berfomet (reminder: tributing is not destroying, so Necromancy does not trigger here) to summon Dark Magician (2500/2100). He also moves Dark Magician Girl to the Magic/Trap Zone, so that Kuribabylon is all that remains in his Monster Zone. This allows him to use Kuribabylon's effect, removing itself from play to bring back the five Kuriboh Brothers (300/200 each).
Then Yugi uses Kuribah's effect, removing them all from play again to re-summon Kuribabylon. Except that The Seal of Orichalcos increased each Kuriboh's ATK to 800, meaning that Kuribabylon's new total ATK is 4000, but it also gets boosted by The Seal of Orichalcos, making it 4500 in total.
Kuribabylon attacks Guardian Grarl, destroying it and inflicting 1500 damage to Rafael, lowering his life points to 1500. More importantly, there is now a monster in Rafael's graveyard, so Purity of the Cemetery is destroyed.
Yugi then intends to attack Backup Gardna with Dark Magician. Rod of Silence is boosting Backup Gardna to 2700 DEF, but The Seal of Orichalcos is boosting Dark Magician to 3000 ATK, so this is a good attack. Unfortunately for Yugi, Rafael activates Aid to the Doomed from his hand. Normally, you have to set a Quick-Play card to use it, but Aid to the Doomed lets you use it from your hand if you discard two cards. He discards Kishido Spirit and Wicked-Breaking Flamberge.
Aid to the Doomed is activated when one of your monsters is destroyed in battle. It automatically ends Yugi's Battle Phase. Yugi ends his turn.
But...
Yugi actually COULD HAVE WON the duel on this turn, if he played optimally. Can you see his mistake?
When he activated Card of Sanctity, he was able to draw five cards. But if he instead set The Seal of Orichalcos first, then he would have been able to draw an additional card off of Card of Sanctity.
This gives him the top card of his deck into his hand, which, spoiler-alert, is Catapult Turtle. From here, he could use Hand Control to force Rafael to use Necromancy. The four monsters come back. He tributes the weakest monster (Big Shield Gardna) to summon Catapult Turtle, and then launches all his monsters at Rafael with the Catapult Turtle.
Does this win him the game? No. Rafael would survive with 1050 LP. Remember, Yugi can't tribute Dark Magician Girl the Dragon Knight, due to it being affected by Crystal Seal, and remember that Kuribabylon has 0 ATK, so tributing it will do no damage. He can only tribute Gazelle, Berfomet, and the Catapult Turtle itself.
But what Yugi could have done here instead is, after summoning Catapult Turtle, activate The Seal of Orichalcos. Now that everything is boosted, they'll do more damage when they hit. This would cause Rafael to drop to 0 LP, losing the duel and his soul.
However, there is one issue with this. Yugi has a second, equally-valid path to victory here. And that is just by attacking. If the Dark Magician's attack on the Backup Gardna had been successful, then Yugi could attack directly with Dark Magician Girl to win the duel. No doubt, this was his plan. And it would have worked too, if not for the fact that Rafael had Aid to the Doomed in his hand.
And, of course, there's no way Yugi could have foreseen that. And, of course, by summoning the Dark Magician, Yugi cannot summon Catapult Turtle on the same turn. Essentially, in this hypothetical where Yugi set The Seal of Orichalcos to get an extra draw, he would have had a choice to make: win by attacking, or win by Catapult Turtle. He had no way of knowing that Rafael could counter the first play, and thus that the second play is the optimal one. He would have probably made the wrong choice (as he did when he didn't set The Seal of Orichalcos, i.e. in the actual show).
Now, there is one other argument that you could make here: Yugi COULDN'T have set The Seal of Orichalcos. It's a field card. And although setting field cards is totally a legal move in real life, this NEVER happens in the Yugioh anime, suggesting that in the anime, it's not a thing that you can do.
And to that... I say... you're wrong. Mako Tsunami did set Umi in his duel against Joey in Battle City. Albeit in a strange way. He set the Umi in his magic/trap zone, and then, upon activating it, he moved it to the field zone. If this had been real life, he would have just set it in the field zone.
But still, you can set field cards in the anime. So this works.
The other argument that you could make is that doing this would be pointless. Even if you accept that Yugi misplayed and could have won the duel, he could NOT have won the duel without using The Seal of Orichalcos, and avoiding using the seal is the whole point!
And to that... I say... yeah, okay. Fair enough. It would have drastically changed the show to have the protagonist make such a dark move, especially if he then kept the card and used it against the rest of Dartz's organization. And also he wouldn't have learned any lessons, and the entire arc would have been thrown off the rails.
But still, if we ignore the fact that this is a TV show, and look at it purely from a perspective of dueling, Yugi did misplay. Setting the seal would let him draw an extra card. And he did not do this.
Back to reality.
It's Rafael's turn, and thanks to Guarded Treasure, he draws two cards. Swords of Revealing Light, and Limit Tribute.
He activates Monster Rebirth... kind of. So, this is a bit of a weird card. In real life, there's a card called Monster Reincarnation. It lets you discard a card from your hand to put a monster from your graveyard back into your hand. In the Japanese version of the anime, this is the card that Rafael uses. But its effect works differently in the anime. In the anime, it has no cost, but rather than putting the card into your hand, it instead shuffles it into your deck. Because this is a different card, the dub changed its name to Monster Rebirth... for now. Because in the next season, Yugi will use this card in his duel with Vivian, except that there, the dub calls it Monster Reincarnation, though it still has its anime effect. Weirder still, in future Yugioh shows (GX and ZEXAL), we get to see Monster Reincarnation again, and now it has its real-life effect.
Anyways, he uses this to shuffle his Guardian Grarl back into his deck. Rafael then sets his Limit Tribute face-down and activates Swords of Revealing Light. Now, Yugi cannot attack for three turns.
Yugi draws a card to start his turn, and as I already spoiled for you, it's Catapult Turtle (1000/2000). He sacrifices Big Shield Gardna to summon it. Now, by sacrificing a monster, he can inflict damage to Rafael equal to half of that monster's ATK. But Rafael activates Limit Tribute, an anime-only card. As long as this remains in play, each player can only sacrifice one monster per turn. And Yugi has already sacrificed Big Shield Gardna. So now he can't use Catapult Turtle's effect.
Wow.
Rafael seems to always have the exact card to counter Yugi's plays. And these are awfully specific. Like... seriously. Why include Limit Tribute in your deck for any reason other than to counter Catapult Turtle? It seems like he always has the right card to deal with the situation.
Oh right, it's the Yugioh anime.
Moving on...
Rafael's turn, and he draws two cards: Morale Boost and Nightmare Binding.
Rafael activates Nightmare Binding on Kuribabylon. Now, Kuribabylon loses 800 ATK (it drops to 3700) and Rafael gains 800 LP (bringing him up to 2300). Also, as long as Nightmare Binding is in play, Kuribabylon cannot be sacrificed or use any of its effects. Rafael ends his turn.
Yugi draws Beast of Gilfer (2200/2500).
Yugi sacrifices his Dark Magician to use the effect of Catapult Turtle. Due to The Seal of Orichalcos, Dark Magician's ATK is at 3000, so Catapult Turtle will inflict 1500 damage to Rafael. Rafael goes down to 800 LP.
Now that there is a Dark Magician in the graveyard, Dark Magician Girl gains 300 ATK from her effect, bringing her up to 2800 (when you include the boost from The Seal of Orichalcos).
Yugi ends his turn, so Rafael's turn begins.
Rafael draws two cards. One of them is Shrink, but we never see what the other one is. Rafael sets Shrink and ends his turn.
Yugi draws a card that is never revealed to us either. Yugi sacrifices Dark Magician Girl to the Catapult Turtle. Because her ATK is 2800, this will do 1400 damage to Rafael, winning Yugi the duel. But Rafael activates Shrink, to cut the ATK of any monster in half. This means Dark Magician Girl actually has 1400 ATK and thus will only do 700 damage. Rafael goes to 100 LP.
JUDGE!
This is an illegal play.
When Yugi activates Catapult Turtle, Dark Magician Girl is tributed. If Rafael chains Shrink, then Dark Magician Girl is no longer on the field, so it is no longer a valid target for Shrink.
But this is the anime, so I guess that's allowed.
Yugi ends his turn, and Swords of Revealing Light expires. On his next turn, Yugi can attack for lethal damage.
Rafael's turn. He draws Celestial Sword and Guardian Eatos.
Rafael activates Celestial Sword, equipping it to Backup Gardna. It gains 300 ATK. Then he summons Guardian Eatos (2500/2000). Guardian Eatos can only be summoned if Rafael controls Celestial Sword, but he does, so we're good there. Guardian Eatos normally requires two tributes to summon, but if you have no monsters in your graveyard, then you can summon it without a sacrifice, so we're also good there.
Backup Gardna now uses its effect to move Celestial Sword onto Guardian Eatos. And then Guardian Eatos uses its effect. By sacrificing a Celestial Sword that's equipped to it, it can remove from play monster cards from the top of Yugi's graveyard until it hits a non-monster card. Then it gains ATK equal to the total ATK of all the cards removed this way. (Note that the real-life Guardian Eatos has a different effect.)
So Guardian Eatos removes from play Dark Magician Girl, Dark Magician, Big Shield Gardna, Gazelle the King of Mythical Beasts, and Berfomet. Guardian Eatos's ATK rises to 10000. Guardian Eatos attacks Kuribabylon and destroys it, along with the rest of Yugi's life points (for dramatic effect, the attack also destroys Yugi's Catapult Turtle).
Then The Seal of Orichalcos takes Yugi's soul.
So, did Yugi misplay this duel? Well, yes. Obviously what he should have done was surrendered the duel rather than play The Seal of Orichalcos. But instead he continued to duel. And, of course, there is no way for him to win without the seal. But he could have won WITH the seal. But he misplayed, by not setting the seal.
So is this Yugi's one clean loss? Or does the fact that Yugi could have won had he played properly put this in the same category as the rest of the duels that Yugi lost? Well, I think there's an argument to be made either way. On one hand, yes, the misplay cost him the duel, just as it did if he had attacked Kaiba in Duelist Kingdom, or if he had not surrendered to Rebecca.
However, in those cases, the path to victory is way more obvious and Yugi intentionally chose to not go down that path. Here, it was an honest-to-god misplay. So you could make the argument that Yugi DOES lose this duel, and Rafael gets to be the only person who truly pulled off a clean victory over Yugi.
I think both arguments hold water, and so whether this is a true loss for Yugi or not, is ultimately up to interpretation. What do you think? Given what you now know, that Yugi could have won the duel... does that make this a win for Yugi? Or did he still lose? And if so, is the loss a clean loss? The answer... is up to you.
Cheers.
No, wait, come back. Don't click away to a different tab. I promise that this'll be interesting.
You see... I'm not just talking about Yugioh, the card game that has been broken basically ever since its creation. No. I'm talking about the TV show.
WOULD YOU GET BACK HERE!?
Yes, I know it's a bad show. And yes, I know that you have access to the entire internet and you'd rather look at porn or something, rather than read my thread. But trust me, I have a good reason for this.
First of all, I'm talking about the original Yugioh anime. Not GX, not 5D's, not ZEXAL, not ARC-V, not VRAINS, and not SEVENS. The original. Which is, like, the only good one.
So... let's talk about this show. It features Yugi as a main character. He goes through several duels in the show, and wins most of them. In fact, he's only ever lost six duels.
His first loss was to Pegasus in the second episode, and that was only due to the 15-minute time limit that Pegasus put on the duel. Had the duel lasted even just two seconds longer, Yugi would have won. His Summoned Skull had already declared an attack and would have wiped out Pegasus's remaining life points, but the timer ran out before the attack reached its target. Which is, frankly, bullshit. So this loss shouldn't count.
His second loss was to Kaiba atop the roof of Pegasus's castle in Duelist's Kingdom. Once again, Yugi had declared an attack that would have wiped out Kaiba's remaining life points had the attack connected. But he called off the attack because Kaiba was going to die if the attack went through (in the Japanese version, Kaiba threatens to jump off the roof; in the dub, the shockwave from the attack threatens to knock Kaiba off). Again, I call shenanigans, and Yugi should have rightfully won the duel.
His third loss was to Rebecca. In this one, Yugi had the winning card (Soul Release) in hand, and just opted not to play it, in order to teach Rebecca that winning isn't everything. But he did see the line there. He could have won. So, again, I'm calling outside shenanigans here.
His latter three losses are actual clean losses, though. However, for two of them, it was when Yugi and Yami Yugi were dueling each other. So in this context, there is no way for Yugi to avoid losing, since either outcome results in a Yugi loss. So I don't count this.
That leaves only his duel with Rafael.
Most people, on seeing this duel, think that Rafael actually became the ONLY duelist in the entire series to successfully defeat Yugi. And yeah, no outside shenanigans this time, Yugi actually lost.
But... did he have to? Or did he possibly misplay? Well, luckily, the anime gives us clean shots of each player's hands throughout the entire duel, so we can see what options they had, and whether they made the optimal plays or not. I'm gonna be looking through this duel and see if either player had any options that they didn't use that could have altered the outcome of the match.
Ready? Let's do this.
So, to begin, we're playing with anime rules, so 4000 LP per player.
Rafael goes first, and he activates Guarded Treasure (known as "Guardian Treasure" in the anime). This card lets him discard 5 cards to draw 2 cards. We don't see the rest of his hand, but since he discarded it, it probably doesn't matter. Also, as long as Guarded Treasure is in play, he draws two cards per draw phase instead of one.
The two cards that Rafael gets off of Guarded Treasure are Backup Gardna and Purity of the Cemetery. He sets Backup Gardna in Defense Position, and sets Purity of the Cemetery in his magic/trap zone.
Yugi's turn now. Yugi's hand includes Gazelle the King of Mythical Beasts, Berfomet, Polymerization, Necromancy, Pump Up, and Curse of Dragon. In the dub, this last card is replaced with Obnoxious Celtic Guard instead. I'm going to be using the original Japanese version, though, so I'll call it Curse of Dragon going forward. I don't think it matters too much, because, spoiler alert, he never summons it.
Though, given that, it probably means that Curse of Dragon makes more sense, since he can summon Obnoxious Celtic Guard any time, while Curse of Dragon requires a tribute.
Anyways, Yugi begins by playing Polymerization to fuse Gazelle (1500/1200) with Berfomet (1400/1800) to form Chimera the Flying Mythical Beast (2100/1800).
Then he attacks Rafael's set monster. Unfortunately, Backup Gardna (500/2200) has more defense points than Chimera has attack points, so Yugi loses 100 LP, going to 3900 LP.
And now that Backup Gardna is face-up, I should also explain its effect. It allows Rafael to freely move his equip cards around between his monsters. This card does not exist in real-life, but it is in the video game Yu-Gi-Oh! Destiny Board Traveler. In this game, it actually has a second effect: when it's attacked, you can discard a card to negate the attack. I'll assume that it has this effect in the anime as well.
Rafael's turn now. He draws two cards due to Guarded Treasure. He gets Gravity Axe and Guardian Grarl. Yeah... um... get used to him always getting the perfect combo. But that can happen in real life too, so I'm okay with it.
Rafael activates Gravity Axe, equipping it to Backup Gardna, which grants it an extra 500 ATK. Additionally, as long as the axe is in play, Yugi's monsters cannot change their battle position.
Now, here's the fun part. Rafael is able to summon Guardian Grarl (2500/1000) without tributing if it is the last card in his hand, and it is (also it can only be summoned if you control a Gravity Axe, but he does, so that works - like I said, he always draws the perfect combo). Then, after playing it, he uses Backup Gardna's effect to move the axe over to Guardian Grarl, giving him a 3000 attacker. He attacks Yugi's Chimera, and Yugi receives 900 battle damage, bringing him down to 3000 LP.
When Chimera is destroyed, Yugi is allowed to special summon either Gazelle or Berfomet from his graveyard, so he gets back his Berfomet (1400/1800).
Yugi's turn again, and he draws Five Star Twilight. This card is a Japan-only card for now, but it's being printed in English in the upcoming Brothers of Legend set next month. So that's pretty cool.
Yugi activates Five Star Twilight. By tributing a monster that is exactly Level 5 (and Berfomet is such a monster), he can summon the five Kuriboh Brothers from his deck. Again, these are cards that will exist in real life once Brothers of Legend comes out. But for now, anime-only.
Still, let's look at them. They are... Kuriboh, Kuribah, Kuribee, Kuribeh, and Kuriboo. Each is 300/200 and has a different effect. Let's look at each one.
Oh, and also... monsters that are summoned by Five Star Twilight cannot be tributed for a tribute summon. So do keep that in mind.
Anyways, on to their effects.
Kuriboh is the most complicated. You can discard it from your hand to prevent battle damage from an attack. It's also the only one that currently exists in real life. In the anime, Kuriboh also prevents the attacked monster from being destroyed. And it also has an additional effect where, if it is attacked, you can tribute it and pay life points equal to its attack points in order to negate the attack. Maybe. It's unclear if it STILL has this ability or not, since it only used it in very early episodes and never again. And also whenever they show the card in the Japanese anime (where cards have text), you can see that it has its OCG/TCG effect printed on it. I think I'll chalk it up to early Yugioh weirdness and move on.
Kuribah lets you remove from play itself and the four other Kuriboh Brothers to summon Kuribabylon from your hand, deck, or graveyard.
Kuribee lets you freely negate an attack any time you want, if the attack target is one of the Kuriboh Brothers.
Kuribeh lets you remove from play itself and the four other Kuriboh Brothers to summon Kuribandit from your hand or deck.
And Kuriboo lets you discard a Trap Card from your hand to make one of your opponent's monsters lose 1500 ATK until the end of the turn.
Now, the notable one here is Kuribeh. Summoning Kuribandit is pretty powerful. And yet, Yugi never does this here (he does do it in the rematch against Rafael, but I'm looking at their first duel). Kuribandit (1000/700 in real life and in the Japanese anime, 0/200 in the dub. Also the dub shows this as a Level 5 monster, the Japanese and real life show it as Level 3) lets you sacrifice it to draw five cards, though you discard all monster cards that are among the drawn cards.
Drawing five cards is a very good effect, so Yugi probably should have at least considered using this... but he doesn't. Potential misplay. Though given that his hand contains no monsters that he can summon, I can understand that he doesn't want to take the risk.
So instead, Yugi activates the effect of Kuribah to summon Kuribabylon (?/0 in real life, ?/200 in the anime). Kuribabylon's attack points are equal to the total attack of all the Kuriboh Brothers that were used in its summon, which is 1500 in this case. Also, you can remove it from play at any time to summon all of the Kuriboh Brothers from your removed-from-play pile, though they can't be tributed for a tribute summon if summoned this way. This is also done automatically if Kuribabylon ever attacks and has that attack negated.
Yugi then activates Pump Up, which... is a unique magic card. It only exists in the anime, and even there... only this once. No future episodes or future shows ever show this card at all. It doubles the ATK of one monster, until the end of the turn, so Yugi's Kuribabylon now has 3000 ATK, the same as Guardian Grarl.
Yugi attacks Guardian Grarl with Kuribabylon, which will destroy both of them. However, Rafael reveals that one of the cards he discarded when he threw out his opening hand is Rescuer from the Grave. Once again, this is a card that is anime-only and only exists in this one duel. Rafael explains that by removing from play five cards from his graveyard while Rescuer from the Grave is in the graveyard, he can use Rescuer from the Grave to end Yugi's Battle Phase. This triggers Kuribabylon's effect, removing it from play and giving Yugi back the five Kuriboh Brothers.
I admit, I was more amused than I should have been at Yugi's reaction to this. "You can't play a card from your graveyard!" "I just did."
Makes me wonder how Yugi would react to seeing modern-day Yu-Gi-Oh! and all of its graveyard shenanigans.
Also, given this play, it now makes sense that Yugi wouldn't use Kuribandit here. Because if Kuribandit is destroyed, Yugi DOESN'T get the Kuriboh Brothers back. So he'd have nothing to defend himself with, and Rafael could win the duel with a direct attack. So, okay, he didn't misplay there after all. Fair enough. (Though Kuribandit would have let him draw more cards, so potentially he could draw an answer.)
Rafael's turn, and he gets to draw two cards thanks to Guarded Treasure, drawing Exchange and Self Tribute.
He puts both of them face-down onto the field. I have no idea why he felt the need to set the Exchange. Rafael's endgame here is to use Exchange to give The Seal of Orichalcos to Yugi and force him to use it. Putting it on the field is a huge risk, as it is now vulnerable to magic/trap removal. And yeah, leaving it in your hand leaves it vulnerable to discard effects, but I imagine that that's the smaller risk. Probably a misplay on Rafael's part, but it's no big deal in the long run.
Rafael activates his set Purity of the Cemetery. Now, during each of Yugi's Standby Phases, Yugi will take 100 damage for each monster that he has in his graveyard, but Purity of the Cemetery will only remain in play as long as Rafael's graveyard has no monsters in it.
Rafael attacks Kuriboh with Guardian Grarl, but Yugi uses Kuribee's effect to negate the attack. Rafael's turn ends, and Yugi's turn begins.
Yugi draws Pot of Greed. Then his Standby Phase happens and he loses 300 LP, due to having three monsters in his graveyard (Gazelle, Berfomet, and Chimera). He goes down to 2700 LP.
Yugi then activates Pot of Greed... which... um... what does that do?
"Pot of Greed lets me draw two cards from my deck."
Oh, thanks Yugi. Glad you cleared that up.
Yugi draws Dark Magician Girl and The Eye of Timaeus.
Yugi activates Kuribah's effect to remove from play the five Kuriboh Brothers to summon Kuribabylon back to the field.
JUDGE!
This is an illegal move. Kuribah's effect lets you summon a Kuribabylon from your HAND, your DECK, or your GRAVEYARD. Kuribabylon is currently in Yugi's REMOVED-FROM-PLAY PILE. This is not a valid summon.
So yeah, Yugi just cheated here. Right? Well... maybe. Probably though. There is a possible explanation here, though it's a bit of a stretch. You could argue that Yugi has a second copy of Kuribabylon in his deck, and so he's summoning the second one. But given that he talks about summoning "back" his Kuribabylon... I think it's more likely that he made an illegal play.
Anyways, Yugi was unable to tribute the Kuriboh Brothers, but with Kuribabylon instead, he can tribute it, so he does so, summoning Dark Magician Girl (2000/1700).
Now, Yugi plays The Eye of Timaeus, fusing it with Dark Magician Girl to form Dark Magician Girl the Dragon Knight (2600/1700).
And now here's where things get incredibly weird. Dark Magician Girl, at this point, should be in Yugi's graveyard, since it was just used as a fusion material. But... it isn't. Purity of the Cemetery isn't going to count it. It's as though Dark Magician Girl the Dragon Knight isn't actually a separate card, but is instead just a transformation of the Dark Magician Girl, which is still in play. It's... weird. But it's the anime, so who cares?
Anyways, Yugi attacks Guardian Grarl with his Dark Magician Girl the Dragon Knight... which seems stupid, since Guardian Grarl has more attack points, but Yugi reveals that when Dark Magician Girl the Dragon Knight battles a monster, he can immediately destroy that monster with its effect, without applying any damage calculation. The cost to use this ability is simply discarding one card from his hand.
Yugi discards Curse of Dragon (Obnoxious Celtic Guard in the dub) to use this effect. This will destroy Guardian Grarl. But Rafael activates his Self Tribute. By paying 1000 LP, he can prevent the destruction of any monster. Rafael goes down to 3000 LP. And also he makes a face that looks like he came from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure.
Anyways, Rafael's turn again. He draws two cards, as per Guarded Treasure: The Seal of Orichalcos and Crystal Seal.
Rafael sets his Crystal Seal face down and then reveals his face-down Exchange, causing each player to take a card from the other's hand. Normally, they get to choose, but since each has only a single card in hand, they just swap cards. Rafael gets Yugi's Necromancy, and Yugi receives The Seal of Orichalcos.
Rafael ends his turn here. You may think that this is a misplay, due to the fact that Guardian Grarl can attack Dark Magician Girl the Dragon Knight, but remember that Yugi can discard The Seal of Orichalcos to use Dark Magician Girl the Dragon Knight's effect, which would destroy Guardian Grarl. So Rafael is smart to not attack here.
Yugi's turn, and he draws Big Shield Gardna. Then, in his Standby Phase, Purity of the Cemetery goes off again. Yugi loses 500 LP, due to having five monsters in his graveyard (Gazelle, Berfomet, Chimera, Kuribabylon, and Curse of Dragon). He goes to 2200 LP.
Yugi attacks Guardian Grarl with Dark Magician Girl the Dragon Knight, but Rafael responds by activating Crystal Seal on it. As long as Dark Magician Girl the Dragon Knight is trapped by the Crystal Seal, it cannot attack, be tributed, change its battle position, use its effect, or even defend Yugi's life points (meaning that if it is his only monster, Rafael can attack directly). Additionally, Crystal Seal cannot be destroyed by card effects. That's quite overpowered, even for an anime-only card, but there is a downside: if the ATK of Dark Magician Girl the Dragon Knight ever changes, then Crystal Seal will automatically be destroyed.
Of course, Yugi CAN change Dark Magician Girl the Dragon Knight's ATK, by simply activating The Seal of Orichalcos. But because this is a bad idea for very obvious reasons, he doesn't. I'm not considering that to be a misplay.
Yugi sets his Big Shield Gardna in face-down defense mode, and then ends his turn.
Rafael draws two cards (thanks to Guarded Treasure): Rod of Silence and Guardian Kay'est.
Rafael equips Backup Gardna with Rod of Silence, which grants it an extra 500 DEF, and makes it immune to the effects of all magic cards other than the Rod of Silence itself.
Then Rafael summons Guardian Kay'est (1000/1800), which can only be summoned if he has Rod of Silence in play, but he does, so that's taken care of. See what I mean about him always having the perfect draw combo?
Anyways, Guardian Kay'est is immune to magic cards and cannot be attacked (if it's the only attack target, the opponent gets to attack directly).
Rafael attacks with Guardian Grarl, destroying Big Shield Gardna. Then Guardian Kay'est attacks directly, and Yugi drops to 1200 LP.
Yugi's turn, and he draws Card of Sanctity. During the Standby Phase, he takes 600 damage from Purity of the Cemetery, due to having six monsters in his graveyard (Gazelle, Berfomet, Chimera, Kuribabylon, Curse of Dragon, and Big Shield Gardna). He drops to a mere 600 LP, and will lose the duel on his next Standby Phase if he cannot destroy Purity of the Cemetery.
Yugi activates Card of Sanctity, which causes both players to draw until they have six cards in their hands.
Yugi draws Hand Control, Dark Magician, Sangan, Magical Hats, and De-Fusion. (His last card is The Seal of Orichalcos that he already had.) Note that the dub got Yugi's hand wrong when they showed it. I'm going based on the original Japanese version, since that actually represents the cards that Yugi will use for the remainder of the duel.
Rafael draws Wicked-Breaking Flamberge, Kishido Spirit, Aid to the Doomed, Rod of the Mind's Eye, and Monster Rebirth. (His last card is Yugi's Necromancy card.)
Now, at this point, nothing Yugi does can get Purity of the Cemetery off the field, so he will lose as soon as the next Standby Phase rolls around. Nothing, that is, except for using The Seal of Orichalcos to free Dark Magician Girl the Dragon Knight and using it to destroy Guardian Grarl.
So... the correct play here is to scoop. Just put your hand on your deck, surrender the duel, and admit defeat. Even when I was a little kid watching this episode for the first time, I was screaming into my TV for Yugi to do this. And why? Well, let me to allow LittleKuriboh to explain through Yugioh Abridged:
"Pharaoh, no matter what, you mustn't use that card! It takes people's souls!" "Don't worry, Yugi. There's absolutely no reason to even use it." "That's right. There are no stakes involved in this Duel. Even if you lost this card game, nothing would change at all." "Wait, what's that now? I could lose?" "Well yeah, I mean your dragon Timaeus is frozen in place and you really don't have that many Life Points left. But again, there's literally nothing at stake here and a single loss wouldn't really hurt--" "Curse you, Rafael! You've given me no choice!" "Wait, what?" "I have to activate The Seal of Orichalcos!" "No! No, you don't!" "Too late, it's activated! (the Seal appears on Yami's forehead) I hope you're happy, Rafael! The guy who totally made me do this against my will!"
So yeah, Yugi should forfeit the game, and then nothing happens. No one's life is on the line, no one is kidnapped. This is just a card game. But, of course, Yugi activates The Seal of Orichalcos.
Now, all of Yugi's monsters gain 500 ATK, and his Magic/Trap Zones can be used as Monster Zones, and monsters in his Magic/Trap Zones can't be attacked unless his Monster Zone is empty, and, of course, whoever loses this duel will lose their soul.
First of all, because Dark Magician Girl the Dragon Knight had its ATK increased, Crystal Seal is destroyed. But... the legendary dragons and The Seal of Orichalcos cannot coexist together, so Timaeus abandons Yugi. This undoes the transformation and Dark Magician Girl the Dragon Knight reverts back to just being Dark Magician Girl (2000/1700, boosted to 2500 ATK due to The Seal of Orichalcos).
Yugi activates Hand Control. This lets Yugi guess the name of a card in Rafael's hand, and if he guesses correctly, Rafael must use that card immediately. Since Yugi gave Rafael his Necromancy card, he knows Rafael is still holding it, so he "guesses" Necromancy.
So Rafael uses Necromancy. This forces the opponent (Yugi in this case) to summon four monsters, chosen randomly, from their graveyard, in defense mode. Each time a monster summoned by Necromancy is destroyed, all monsters that Yugi controls will lose 600 ATK.
The monsters that Yugi summons are Big Shield Gardna (100/2600), Berfomet (1400/1800), Gazelle the King of Mythical Beasts (1500/1200), and Kuribabylon (?/0, becomes 0/0 because it wasn't summoned by Kuribah's effect).
Yugi sacrifices Gazelle and Berfomet (reminder: tributing is not destroying, so Necromancy does not trigger here) to summon Dark Magician (2500/2100). He also moves Dark Magician Girl to the Magic/Trap Zone, so that Kuribabylon is all that remains in his Monster Zone. This allows him to use Kuribabylon's effect, removing itself from play to bring back the five Kuriboh Brothers (300/200 each).
Then Yugi uses Kuribah's effect, removing them all from play again to re-summon Kuribabylon. Except that The Seal of Orichalcos increased each Kuriboh's ATK to 800, meaning that Kuribabylon's new total ATK is 4000, but it also gets boosted by The Seal of Orichalcos, making it 4500 in total.
Kuribabylon attacks Guardian Grarl, destroying it and inflicting 1500 damage to Rafael, lowering his life points to 1500. More importantly, there is now a monster in Rafael's graveyard, so Purity of the Cemetery is destroyed.
Yugi then intends to attack Backup Gardna with Dark Magician. Rod of Silence is boosting Backup Gardna to 2700 DEF, but The Seal of Orichalcos is boosting Dark Magician to 3000 ATK, so this is a good attack. Unfortunately for Yugi, Rafael activates Aid to the Doomed from his hand. Normally, you have to set a Quick-Play card to use it, but Aid to the Doomed lets you use it from your hand if you discard two cards. He discards Kishido Spirit and Wicked-Breaking Flamberge.
Aid to the Doomed is activated when one of your monsters is destroyed in battle. It automatically ends Yugi's Battle Phase. Yugi ends his turn.
But...
Yugi actually COULD HAVE WON the duel on this turn, if he played optimally. Can you see his mistake?
When he activated Card of Sanctity, he was able to draw five cards. But if he instead set The Seal of Orichalcos first, then he would have been able to draw an additional card off of Card of Sanctity.
This gives him the top card of his deck into his hand, which, spoiler-alert, is Catapult Turtle. From here, he could use Hand Control to force Rafael to use Necromancy. The four monsters come back. He tributes the weakest monster (Big Shield Gardna) to summon Catapult Turtle, and then launches all his monsters at Rafael with the Catapult Turtle.
Does this win him the game? No. Rafael would survive with 1050 LP. Remember, Yugi can't tribute Dark Magician Girl the Dragon Knight, due to it being affected by Crystal Seal, and remember that Kuribabylon has 0 ATK, so tributing it will do no damage. He can only tribute Gazelle, Berfomet, and the Catapult Turtle itself.
But what Yugi could have done here instead is, after summoning Catapult Turtle, activate The Seal of Orichalcos. Now that everything is boosted, they'll do more damage when they hit. This would cause Rafael to drop to 0 LP, losing the duel and his soul.
However, there is one issue with this. Yugi has a second, equally-valid path to victory here. And that is just by attacking. If the Dark Magician's attack on the Backup Gardna had been successful, then Yugi could attack directly with Dark Magician Girl to win the duel. No doubt, this was his plan. And it would have worked too, if not for the fact that Rafael had Aid to the Doomed in his hand.
And, of course, there's no way Yugi could have foreseen that. And, of course, by summoning the Dark Magician, Yugi cannot summon Catapult Turtle on the same turn. Essentially, in this hypothetical where Yugi set The Seal of Orichalcos to get an extra draw, he would have had a choice to make: win by attacking, or win by Catapult Turtle. He had no way of knowing that Rafael could counter the first play, and thus that the second play is the optimal one. He would have probably made the wrong choice (as he did when he didn't set The Seal of Orichalcos, i.e. in the actual show).
Now, there is one other argument that you could make here: Yugi COULDN'T have set The Seal of Orichalcos. It's a field card. And although setting field cards is totally a legal move in real life, this NEVER happens in the Yugioh anime, suggesting that in the anime, it's not a thing that you can do.
And to that... I say... you're wrong. Mako Tsunami did set Umi in his duel against Joey in Battle City. Albeit in a strange way. He set the Umi in his magic/trap zone, and then, upon activating it, he moved it to the field zone. If this had been real life, he would have just set it in the field zone.
But still, you can set field cards in the anime. So this works.
The other argument that you could make is that doing this would be pointless. Even if you accept that Yugi misplayed and could have won the duel, he could NOT have won the duel without using The Seal of Orichalcos, and avoiding using the seal is the whole point!
And to that... I say... yeah, okay. Fair enough. It would have drastically changed the show to have the protagonist make such a dark move, especially if he then kept the card and used it against the rest of Dartz's organization. And also he wouldn't have learned any lessons, and the entire arc would have been thrown off the rails.
But still, if we ignore the fact that this is a TV show, and look at it purely from a perspective of dueling, Yugi did misplay. Setting the seal would let him draw an extra card. And he did not do this.
Back to reality.
It's Rafael's turn, and thanks to Guarded Treasure, he draws two cards. Swords of Revealing Light, and Limit Tribute.
He activates Monster Rebirth... kind of. So, this is a bit of a weird card. In real life, there's a card called Monster Reincarnation. It lets you discard a card from your hand to put a monster from your graveyard back into your hand. In the Japanese version of the anime, this is the card that Rafael uses. But its effect works differently in the anime. In the anime, it has no cost, but rather than putting the card into your hand, it instead shuffles it into your deck. Because this is a different card, the dub changed its name to Monster Rebirth... for now. Because in the next season, Yugi will use this card in his duel with Vivian, except that there, the dub calls it Monster Reincarnation, though it still has its anime effect. Weirder still, in future Yugioh shows (GX and ZEXAL), we get to see Monster Reincarnation again, and now it has its real-life effect.
Anyways, he uses this to shuffle his Guardian Grarl back into his deck. Rafael then sets his Limit Tribute face-down and activates Swords of Revealing Light. Now, Yugi cannot attack for three turns.
Yugi draws a card to start his turn, and as I already spoiled for you, it's Catapult Turtle (1000/2000). He sacrifices Big Shield Gardna to summon it. Now, by sacrificing a monster, he can inflict damage to Rafael equal to half of that monster's ATK. But Rafael activates Limit Tribute, an anime-only card. As long as this remains in play, each player can only sacrifice one monster per turn. And Yugi has already sacrificed Big Shield Gardna. So now he can't use Catapult Turtle's effect.
Wow.
Rafael seems to always have the exact card to counter Yugi's plays. And these are awfully specific. Like... seriously. Why include Limit Tribute in your deck for any reason other than to counter Catapult Turtle? It seems like he always has the right card to deal with the situation.
Oh right, it's the Yugioh anime.
Moving on...
Rafael's turn, and he draws two cards: Morale Boost and Nightmare Binding.
Rafael activates Nightmare Binding on Kuribabylon. Now, Kuribabylon loses 800 ATK (it drops to 3700) and Rafael gains 800 LP (bringing him up to 2300). Also, as long as Nightmare Binding is in play, Kuribabylon cannot be sacrificed or use any of its effects. Rafael ends his turn.
Yugi draws Beast of Gilfer (2200/2500).
Yugi sacrifices his Dark Magician to use the effect of Catapult Turtle. Due to The Seal of Orichalcos, Dark Magician's ATK is at 3000, so Catapult Turtle will inflict 1500 damage to Rafael. Rafael goes down to 800 LP.
Now that there is a Dark Magician in the graveyard, Dark Magician Girl gains 300 ATK from her effect, bringing her up to 2800 (when you include the boost from The Seal of Orichalcos).
Yugi ends his turn, so Rafael's turn begins.
Rafael draws two cards. One of them is Shrink, but we never see what the other one is. Rafael sets Shrink and ends his turn.
Yugi draws a card that is never revealed to us either. Yugi sacrifices Dark Magician Girl to the Catapult Turtle. Because her ATK is 2800, this will do 1400 damage to Rafael, winning Yugi the duel. But Rafael activates Shrink, to cut the ATK of any monster in half. This means Dark Magician Girl actually has 1400 ATK and thus will only do 700 damage. Rafael goes to 100 LP.
JUDGE!
This is an illegal play.
When Yugi activates Catapult Turtle, Dark Magician Girl is tributed. If Rafael chains Shrink, then Dark Magician Girl is no longer on the field, so it is no longer a valid target for Shrink.
But this is the anime, so I guess that's allowed.
Yugi ends his turn, and Swords of Revealing Light expires. On his next turn, Yugi can attack for lethal damage.
Rafael's turn. He draws Celestial Sword and Guardian Eatos.
Rafael activates Celestial Sword, equipping it to Backup Gardna. It gains 300 ATK. Then he summons Guardian Eatos (2500/2000). Guardian Eatos can only be summoned if Rafael controls Celestial Sword, but he does, so we're good there. Guardian Eatos normally requires two tributes to summon, but if you have no monsters in your graveyard, then you can summon it without a sacrifice, so we're also good there.
Backup Gardna now uses its effect to move Celestial Sword onto Guardian Eatos. And then Guardian Eatos uses its effect. By sacrificing a Celestial Sword that's equipped to it, it can remove from play monster cards from the top of Yugi's graveyard until it hits a non-monster card. Then it gains ATK equal to the total ATK of all the cards removed this way. (Note that the real-life Guardian Eatos has a different effect.)
So Guardian Eatos removes from play Dark Magician Girl, Dark Magician, Big Shield Gardna, Gazelle the King of Mythical Beasts, and Berfomet. Guardian Eatos's ATK rises to 10000. Guardian Eatos attacks Kuribabylon and destroys it, along with the rest of Yugi's life points (for dramatic effect, the attack also destroys Yugi's Catapult Turtle).
Then The Seal of Orichalcos takes Yugi's soul.
So, did Yugi misplay this duel? Well, yes. Obviously what he should have done was surrendered the duel rather than play The Seal of Orichalcos. But instead he continued to duel. And, of course, there is no way for him to win without the seal. But he could have won WITH the seal. But he misplayed, by not setting the seal.
So is this Yugi's one clean loss? Or does the fact that Yugi could have won had he played properly put this in the same category as the rest of the duels that Yugi lost? Well, I think there's an argument to be made either way. On one hand, yes, the misplay cost him the duel, just as it did if he had attacked Kaiba in Duelist Kingdom, or if he had not surrendered to Rebecca.
However, in those cases, the path to victory is way more obvious and Yugi intentionally chose to not go down that path. Here, it was an honest-to-god misplay. So you could make the argument that Yugi DOES lose this duel, and Rafael gets to be the only person who truly pulled off a clean victory over Yugi.
I think both arguments hold water, and so whether this is a true loss for Yugi or not, is ultimately up to interpretation. What do you think? Given what you now know, that Yugi could have won the duel... does that make this a win for Yugi? Or did he still lose? And if so, is the loss a clean loss? The answer... is up to you.
Cheers.