Battle City Finals: If Everyone Had Played Optimally

Recently, I was thinking back on my old threads, and whether I should update any of them. And the one that I enjoyed re-reading the most was the one where I analyzed Yugi's duel with Rafael. It was neat looking through the Yugioh anime and seeing how the duel could have gone if both players had played optimally. So I thought... maybe I should do this for every Yugioh duel.

And then... I ran into two problems. The first is obvious: there are A LOT of duels in this show. Even if we only do the original anime (by which I mean the second anime, since the Toei anime doesn't count), there's approximately 118 duels in it. I say "approximately", because there are plenty of things that are ambiguous as to whether they are duels or not, but when I personally counted them... I counted 118, though you may disagree with that count.

The second problem is... if I were to do something like this... it would start with Duelist Kingdom, where the rules of the game are... very wishy-washy. Duelist Kingdom rules feel like you're playing a tabletop RPG and trying to argue with the GM that because your move makes flavorful sense, you should be allowed to do it. It's not the type of thing that sounds fun to analyze or fun to write about or fun to read.

So I decided to scale back a bit and look at just a single arc, which would be less duels and they wouldn't have nonsensical rules. I ended up going with the Battle City Finals, since it's a nice simple tournament bracket that anyone can understand.

Just a quick reminder. In order to qualify for the Battle City Finals, you needed to win six locator cards in the Battle City tournament and then they would take you to Kaiba Corp Stadium. Once there, you were assigned an ID number. They were assigned based on the order that everyone showed up in. So the numbering is:

1) Kaiba
2) Joey
3) Yugi
4) Mai
5) Namu (Marik)
6) Bakura
7) Marik (Odion)
8) Ishizu

For the quarterfinals, pairings were chosen randomly, and you wouldn't know your opponent's identity until just before the duel began, so you couldn't make preparations or adjust your deck depending on who you were facing.

With that in mind, the first duelist chosen was... Duelist Number 6: Bakura. And his opponent is... Duelist Number 3: Yugi.

So let's take a look at their duel, and see how it would have gone if both players had played optimally.

Bakura's opening hand is The Portrait's Secret, The Gross Ghost of Fled Dreams, Headless Knight, Dark Necrofear, The Dark Door, and Dark Spirit of the Silent.

He summons The Portrait's Secret in Attack Position (1200/1500) and ends his turn.

That's... a fairly unimpressive move, given his hand. And yeah, he's gonna spend the first few turns of this duel playing stupidly in order to pull off his plan here.

Yugi's turn now. His hand is Gazelle the King of Mythical Beasts, Magic Formula, Collected Power, Card Destruction, De-Fusion, and Exile of the Wicked.

Yugi summons Gazelle (1500/1200) and attacks. The Portrait's Secret is destroyed and Bakura drops to 3700 LP. Yugi plays Magic Formula face-down and ends his turn.

Bakura draws Dark Sanctuary. Bakura summons The Gross Ghost of Fled Dreams (1300/1800) in Attack Position and ends his turn, despite the fact that it has 1800 DEF and could easily defend him here.

Dark Sanctuary is a very good card and would have greatly helped here... in real life. However, its anime effect is very different, and as such, Bakura couldn't activate it just yet. We'll get to that later.

Yugi draws Gamma the Magnet Warrior and summons it (1500/1800). He attacks The Gross Ghost of Fled Dreams, which is destroyed. Bakura drops to 3500 LP. Then Gazelle attacks directly and Bakura drops to 2000 LP.

Bakura draws Destiny Board and then, rather than doing any sensible plays, continues to be stupid and summons Headless Knight in Attack Position (1450/1700). That ends his turn.

Yugi draws Monster Reborn. Since he has no monsters in his hand, he just attacks with Gamma, destroying Headless Knight (Bakura drops to 1950 LP) and then attacks directly with Gazelle, dropping Bakura to 450 LP. Yugi ends his turn here.

But Yugi could have won here. In two different ways. First, he could use Monster Reborn to bring back one of Bakura's monsters to get another attacker. Second, he could use Exile of the Wicked, which destroys every Fiend-type monster on the field, getting rid of Bakura's only defense and letting him attack directly with both of his monsters.

Bakura draws Earthbound Spirit. Now Bakura reveals his master plan: he wanted those monsters to go to the graveyard, because when three Fiend-type monsters are in his graveyard... he can remove them from play to summon Dark Necrofear (2200/2800).

Then Bakura plays Destiny Board and Dark Spirit of the Silent face-down and ends his turn.

So... okay, let's talk about Bakura's game plan and why this is terrible. So... for starters, he could have played his monsters in Defense Position and saved himself 550 LP while still achieving the same result. In the Japanese version, he is even called out for this, but Kaiba explains that if Bakura had played his monsters in Defense Position, they would have been face-down and Yugi would have been hesitant to attack them. But... uh... is that really true?

First of all, people summon in face-up Defense Position all the time in the Yugioh anime. Secondly, has anyone ever been hesitant to attack a face-down monster, ever? I literally cannot come up with an example of that.

Secondly, why wasn't Dark Necrofear the backup plan? It should have been Plan B, not Plan A. Use your regular monsters to the best of your ability, especially since they all had high DEF, and then, if that fails, and they end up being destroyed anyways, then you can fall back on Dark Necrofear if needed.

Thirdly, if Yugi had drawn any monster with 450 ATK or more here, then Bakura would have just straight-up lost. And the odds of that are very likely. So Bakura got lucky, but it didn't need to be that way, as he could always play magic and trap cards to protect himself. But he didn't. It's... not good dueling.

Finally... you now have a Dark Necrofear, which is powerful enough to take out either one of Yugi's monsters, so why don't you? The answer is because this is part of another future plan of his which... is not a good reason. He should still attack anyways.

Oh... and on top of that... Bakura drew Destiny Board a while back. He could have used this as soon as possible and he would have won the duel a lot sooner.

Yugi draws Dark Magician Girl (2000/1700) and summons it by sacrificing Gazelle. Then he activates his face-down Magic Formula to provide an extra 500 ATK to it, so Dark Magician Girl is at 2500 ATK now. He attacks Dark Necrofear, destroying it, and Bakura drops to 150 LP.

And now Bakura reveals that when Dark Necrofear is destroyed, he can activate Dark Sanctuary from his hand, deck, or graveyard. So he activates Dark Sanctuary. This is why he couldn't have used it earlier - it requires Dark Necrofear to hit the graveyard to be activated in the anime.

Now, a ghost is in play, and it secretly equips to one of Yugi's monsters without Yugi knowing which one. Somehow the card just reads Bakura's mind and knows what he selects. When the equipped monster attacks, the attack is negated and Yugi loses LP equal to half of its ATK while Bakura gains the same amount of LP. The target of the equip can change during each of Yugi's standby phases. In addition, when Dark Sanctuary is in play, Bakura is able to use his Monster Card Zones as Magic and Trap Card Zones. However, he must sacrifice a monster each turn in order to keep Dark Sanctuary in play, and Dark Sanctuary is automatically destroyed if Bakura doesn't have a Dark Necrofear in his graveyard.

Yugi attacks with Gamma the Magnet Warrior, which would win him the duel, but Bakura equipped it with the ghost, so instead, Yugi drops to 3250 LP and Bakura goes up to 900 LP.

So yeah... that's why Bakura didn't attack with Dark Necrofear earlier - he wanted Yugi to have more monsters in play so that he wouldn't know which one was possessed. However... I think he forgot how math works. Because... that's not how math works. Think about it. If Yugi has two monsters in play, then there's a 50% chance that he attacks with the possessed monster. If he had five monsters in play, then there's a 20% chance that he attacks with the possessed monster. LESS MONSTERS IS STILL BETTER.

However... if we're going to critique misplays, as we are... Yugi could have won here. He has Exile of the Wicked in his hand. He could have used this to destroy Dark Necrofear instead of attacking it. If he did, then sure, Dark Sanctuary goes off... but... now both Dark Magician Girl and Gamma the Magnet Warrior can attack directly, and regardless of which one is possessed, it would still result in Bakura losing the rest of his life points.

Bakura draws another copy of Dark Spirit of the Silent.

Bakura activates Destiny Board, so he wins in four turns, when he spells DEATH or FINAL, depending on the language. Had he activated this when he drew it, he would already have FIN on the field and Yugi would have no way to stop it.

Bakura activates The Dark Door, so now only one monster can attack per Battle Phase.

Then he summons Earthbound Spirit (500/2000) and sacrifices it to keep Dark Sanctuary in play.

He puts one copy of Dark Spirit of the Silent face-down, and ends his turn.

Yugi draws Kuriboh. During the standby phase, the ghost equips to Dark Magician Girl.

Now, in the anime, public knowledge is just... not a thing, so Yugi doesn't fully understand how Dark Sanctuary works since Bakura hasn't fully explained it. Which... is stupid and not how a card game should work, but never mind that. Yugi believes that only Gamma is possessed.

He summons Kuriboh in Defense Position (300/200) and attacks with Dark Magician Girl, believing it to be safe. It's not, so Yugi drops to 2000 LP and Bakura goes up to 2150 LP. And because of The Dark Door, Yugi cannot declare another attack.

Yugi ends his turn, giving Bakura a Spirit Message for his Destiny Board.

But wait a minute. So... I just want to get back to what I was saying before. In real-life Yu-Gi-Oh! tournaments, if your opponent asks you what one of your cards does, you are required to fully explain it. If that's NOT how it works in the anime (as is evident here), why did Bakura even say anything at all? Just shut the hell up and leave Yugi with the impression that ALL of his monsters are possessed at this point and then he will never attack again.

Does that count as a misplay for Bakura? I dunno, maybe. It's unclear how tournament rules work.

Bakura draws Sangan and summons it (1000/600), only to immediately sacrifice it to keep Dark Sanctuary in play. When Sangan is destroyed, Bakura gets to search his deck for any monster with an ATK of up to 1500 and add it to his hand, so he gets Dark King of the Abyss. Bakura ends his turn here.

So uh... that was a bad play. Why? Because Bakura should have attacked with Sangan first, and destroyed Kuriboh. He knows that Yugi is holding an Egyptian God Card in his deck and needs three sacrifices in order to summon it. Leaving Yugi with three monsters at any point is something to be avoided if possible.

Yugi draws Big Shield Gardna. Bakura equips the ghost to Dark Magician Girl. Yugi summons Big Shield Gardna in Defense Position (100/2600) and then attacks with Gamma the Magnet Warrior. Bakura activates Dark Spirit of the Silent, which lets him change which monster attacks. He has Dark Magician Girl attack instead, and then the ghost does its thing. Yugi drops to 750 LP, and Bakura goes up to 3400 LP.

Yugi plays Collected Power and Monster Reborn face-down, then ends his turn. Bakura gets the next Spirit Message. Bakura would have won here had he played his Destiny Board at first opportunity, but oh well.

Bakura draws Souls of the Forgotten (900/200) and sacrifices it to Dark Sanctuary.

He ends his turn here. Yet again... I feel the need to point out that he should have attacked Kuriboh.

Yugi draws Berfomet and then Bakura equips the ghost to Dark Magician Girl yet again.

Yugi activates Collected Power, forcing all equip cards onto Kuriboh. This includes both Magic Formula and Dark Sanctuary's ghost. Yugi then activates Exile of the Wicked to destroy all Fiend-type monsters in play, so Kuriboh is destroyed, and the ghost of Dark Sanctuary along with it.

To prevent it from coming back later, Yugi activates Monster Reborn to bring Dark Necrofear back from Bakura's graveyard to his own side of the field, which gets rid of Dark Sanctuary. Yugi attacks Bakura directly with Dark Necrofear, so Bakura drops to 1200 LP.

Yugi ends his turn and Bakura gets another Spirit Message. However, since Dark Sanctuary is no longer in play, Bakura has now run out of Magic and Trap Zones and cannot play any further Spirit Messages after this one.

Bakura draws Jowgen the Spiritualist and then summons it (200/1300). He then uses its effect. By discarding a card (he discards Dark King of the Abyss), he can destroy all monsters that were summoned via a special summon. So Dark Necrofear is destroyed.

This causes Dark Sanctuary to activate from Bakura's graveyard, so it's back now. Bakura plays his Dark Spirit of the Silent face-down into one of his Monster Zones, then ends his turn.

Yugi draws Slifer the Sky Dragon. He sacrifices Gamma, Dark Magician Girl, and Big Shield Gardna to summon it (?/?). Yugi currently has three cards in his hand (Card Destruction, De-Fusion, and Berfomet), and Slifer gains 1000 ATK and DEF for each one, so it's 3000/3000 now.

Bakura attempts to equip the ghost to Slifer, but it fails because Egyptian God Cards are immune to magic and trap effects. This is an illegal play anyways, since Bakura can only do this during Yugi's standby phase, but since it fails regardless, it doesn't really matter.

Yugi attempts to attack Bakura with Slifer, but then Odion, Bakura, and Marik do a bunch of outside-of-duel shenanigans to get Yugi to reconsider his attack, but then Bakura abandons it and lets Yugi attack him. Bakura's LP drops to 0 and Yugi wins.

So now we go back to the randomizer and we get... Duelist Number 2, Joey. He'll be going up against... Duelist Number 7, Marik (aka Odion).

Joey goes first. His hand is Swordsman of Landstar, Hayabusa Knight, Gearfried the Iron Knight, Scapegoat, Giant Trunade, and Graverobber.

The wind blows all of his cards out of his hand... and he quickly has to catch them before they fly overboard. This is just comic relief, but theoretically, maybe Odion saw some of Joey's cards? I doubt it, but... this MIGHT be gameplay-relevant, so that's why I mention it.

It also is done to show how nervous Joey is, going up against who he believes to be Marik. But he's gonna pretend to be brave. He flexes by saying that he's gonna win in 11 turns, which is very unrealistic for how quick that would be. Which is hilarious by modern standards. Nowadays, if you go to turn 3, then that's a fairly long duel.

Also, bear in mind throughout this that Joey doesn't have Red-Eyes Black Dragon in his deck at this point in the anime.

Joey summons Gearfried the Iron Knight (1800/1600) and ends his turn.

Odion's opening hand is Temple of the Kings, two copies of Embodiment of Apophis, a mysterious card that we never see, Judgment of Anubis, and Eye of Ujat.

Odion activates Temple of the Kings. This card has a very different effect in the anime from real life. But it's anime effect is... pretty poorly defined.

So, Odion explains that as long as this card is in play, it limits the number of magic and trap cards that Joey can set each turn. By how much? It doesn't say. Throughout the duel, Joey will never do more than 2 in a turn, so I'm guessing that's the limit. Additionally, Odion never does more than 2 in a turn either, so it's possible that this applies to both players.

In real life, Temple of the Kings lets you activate trap cards on the turn they are set, but that's not a thing in the anime.

Instead, the anime version has another effect. Once, during Odion's main phase, he can remove from play a monster from his hand face-down. Then he can, on a later main phase, sacrifice a monster and pay half of his life points to summon the removed-from-play card.

And... there's one more effect that is... really vague. And only mentioned in the Japanese version of the episode. But... apparently, while a monster is removed from play in this manner, Joey is unable to attack Odion or use magic cards against Odion. But what does it mean "against Odion"? It's not clear, because Joey does use magic cards, just not ones that do anything to Odion or his field.

I don't get it.

Anyways, Odion plays Judgment of Anubis and Eye of Ujat face-down. Why not play all of his cards face-down? Because that leaves them vulnerable to removal. That's not a misplay. He can play more later once a turn passes and he's able to activate Judgment of Anubis, which can protect his magic/trap cards from removal.

Joey's turn. He draws Tiny Guardian and summons it (1400/1800). He worries that Odion may have cards that punish him for attacking. And while it is true that there are plenty of traps that do just that, neither of Odion's face-down cards are such cards. So Joey could have attacked, and Odion would be unable to counter this, and he would have dropped to 800 LP. Joey over-thought this.

What Joey's plan was is to wait until he gets a total of 4000 ATK on his side, then activate Giant Trunade to bounce all of Odion's field, and then win in one turn. It's a good plan, but it ultimately won't work. So in this case, he would have been better off had he just attacked.

Odion draws and gets Magic Jammer. He places it face-down along with one of his Embodiment of Apophis cards.

Joey draws Fairy Box. He summons Hayabusa Knight (1000/700), then activates Giant Trunade to bounce Odion's whole field. Odion responds by activating Judgment of Anubis, which negates a magic card and then destroys all monsters on the field. Then each player loses LP equal to half of the ATK of their destroyed monsters. Odion doesn't take any damage since he has no monsters, but Joey takes a huge hit and drops to 1900 LP, along with all of his monsters being destroyed. And also he takes emotional damage.

That's not a joke - in the Japanese version, Yugi explains that trap cards not only let you turn the tide of the game in an instant, but also inflict emotional damage. It's hilarious.

Joey ends his turn here. If I were him, I would have put Scapegoat face-down. And... well... you'll see.

Odion draws a third copy of Embodiment of Apophis, and plays both copies of Embodiment of Apophis face-down.

And... if Odion had been playing smart, he would have won on this turn. So... because of Judgment of Anubis, Joey only has 1900 LP left. By using Embodiment of Apophis, he could get a 1600 attacker out. That isn't enough to defeat Joey here. But what Odion could have done is set multiple copies of Embodiment of Apophis sooner in order to be able to go for the win whenever he happened to use Judgment of Anubis.

In Odion's defense here, he probably assumed Joey would have played stronger monsters than he actually ended up playing. And so he probably assumed that by the time Judgment of Anubis resolved, Joey would be left with 1600 LP or fewer, so one Embodiment of Apophis is enough.

Also, if we're considering hypotheticals where Odion plays smarter, we'd also have to consider making Joey smarter as well. And had Joey been smart enough to set his Scapegoat, he would have been able to defend himself here. But... if that's the case... Odion could have negated Scapegoat with Magic Jammer. So it's a non-issue.

However, there is one giant asterisk attached to this. When Odion later activates Embodiment of Apophis, he says the trap activates when Joey attacks. It's unclear whether that means that it can only be activated when Joey attacks, or if he's just choosing to activate it when Joey attacks. If the former interpretation, then this means that this entire hypothetical couldn't have happened, so Odion isn't misplaying here, he just can't use it. Though it is worth noting that, in real life, Embodiment of Apophis places no timing restrictions on when you can activate it.

Joey draws Alligator's Sword and summons it (1500/1200). He plays Fairy Box face-down and ends his turn.

Odion draws a mysterious card that we don't see, and then passes.

Joey draws Insect Queen and passes.

Odion draws another mysterious card and passes.

Joey draws Rocket Warrior and summons it (1500/1300) and then attacks Odion with it. Odion activates Eye of Ujat to redirect the attack to Alligator's Sword. Joey activates Fairy Box, which prevents his monsters from being destroyed this turn. So in the end, nothing happens.

Odion activates his three copies of Embodiment of Apophis, summoning them to the field as trap monsters (1600/1800) (1600/1800) (1600/1800). Now, I think it would be best if Odion used this on his own turn, but if it turns out that you can't activate this card unless the opponent attacks, then that's fine.

Joey plays Scapegoat face-down and switches Alligator's Sword to Defense Position.

Odion draws Mystical Beast of Serket.

Odion attacks, but Joey activates Scapegoat. Scapegoat, in theory, creates four Sheep Tokens (0/0), but that wouldn't work since Joey controls two monsters already, giving him a total of six. So I guess they don't take up monster slots in the anime? Weird. In any case, this means that Joey has a solid defense against Odion's attacks.

Or rather, he would, but Odion activates Magic Jammer, by discarding a card from his hand (we don't see what it is) in order to negate Scapegoat. The first Embodiment of Apophis destroys Alligator's Sword, the second destroys Rocket Warrior (Joey drops to 1800 LP) and the third attacks directly, dropping Joey to 200 LP.

Joey draws Foolish Burial, and plays both it and Graverobber face-down. Then he summons Swordsman of Landstar (500/1200) in Defense Position.

Odion draws Seal of Serket. Then he attacks Swordsman of Landstar with Embodiment of Apophis. However, Joey activates Foolish Burial, which, in the anime, lets you put a card from your deck into your opponent's graveyard. Joey sends Jinzo to Odion's graveyard.

Then Joey activates Graverobber to steal a card from Odion's graveyard, so he gets his Jinzo back, summoning it to the field (2400/1500). Jinzo's anime effect destroys all trap cards on the field, including Odion's three trap monsters. Odion ends his turn.

Joey draws Battle Warrior and summons it (700/1000). He switches Swordsman of Landstar to Attack Position and attacks directly with everything. Odion drops to 400 LP.

I just want to say... Joey has a 2400 attacker, Odion has an empty field, and it's a 4000 LP duel instead of an 8000 LP duel. And Joey has two other monsters. This SHOULD be a winning move. But it isn't, because he has a 700 ATK monster and a 500 ATK monster. WHY DOES HE PLAY SUCH WEAK CARDS!?

Swordsman of Landstar... I guess it combos well with Graceful Dice, but Battle Warrior? Pathetic. He should not have brought that card to Battle City. Ugh.

Anyways, Odion's turn. He draws Swords of Revealing Light and activates it, preventing Joey from attacking for three turns.

Joey draws The Legendary Fisherman, and sacrifices Battle Warrior to summon it (1850/1600) in Defense Position, and then he switches Swordsman of Landstar and Jinzo into Defense Position as well.

Odion draws The Winged Dragon of Ra (counterfeit copy). He puts Seal of Serket face-down and then uses the effect of Temple of the Kings to remove from play The Winged Dragon of Ra from his hand face-down. Now he can pay half his life points and sacrifice a monster to summon it.

And, again, in the Japanese version, Odion explains that as long as a card is sealed in Temple of the Kings, Joey can't attack or use magic cards against Odion. Whatever the hell that means.

Joey draws Monster Reborn, and uses it to bring back Alligator's Sword. Then he sacrifices it and Swordsman of Landstar to summon Insect Queen (2200/2400) in Defense Position.

Odion draws Cup of Sealed Soul. He activates it alongside Seal of Serket, which, together, allow him to summon Mystical Beast of Serket (2500/?), provided that he has Temple of the Kings in play, which he does.

In real life, this card has 2000 DEF, but in the anime, it's shown as a question mark. But its DEF is never explained. Without a way to calculate it, I'm guessing that means it becomes 0. That's what usually happens if, say, a ? DEF monster gets its effect negated, and its effect was what defined its DEF points. So I guess if there is no way to calculate it, it becomes 0 DEF. So... this is 2500/0. Maybe?

Mystical Beast of Serket can't attack the turn it's summoned, so Odion passes.

Joey draws Polymerization, which is useless. So he passes. Swords of Revealing Light expires, but it doesn't matter, since Joey can't attack thanks to Temple of the Kings.

Odion draws a mysterious card we don't see, and then has Mystical Beast of Serket attack Jinzo. Jinzo is destroyed, and when Mystical Beast of Serket destroys a monster in battle, it gains ATK equal to half of the ATK of the destroyed monster, so now it's at 3700 ATK.

Joey draws Salamandra. Useless. So he passes yet again.

Odion draws another mysterious card and attacks Insect Queen. Mystical Beast of Serket goes up to 4900 ATK.

Joey draws Shield & Sword, which is useless, so he passes.

Hey wait a second! If Mystical Beast of Serket has 0 DEF... then Shield & Sword isn't useless. In fact, using it would win Joey the duel right here and now. But... wait... he can't use magic cards due to Temple of the Kings, right? I DON'T KNOW! This whole duel has gone off the rails in terms of making sense out of it. I'm just gonna say he can't use it, and we can move on.

Odion draws a mysterious card and then attacks The Legendary Fisherman, destroying it and raising Mystical Beast of Serket's ATK to 5825.

Now, if Joey doesn't draw a monster, Odion can attack directly and wipe out the rest of Joey's life points.

Joey draws a mysterious card that we never get to see, but it's unhelpful to him, so he passes.

But then Joey drops a bombshell: he knows that Odion isn't Marik. Joey points out that Odion is playing the game fairly and honorably, which is something that Marik would never do.

In order to keep up the facade, Marik orders Odion to use The Winged Dragon of Ra.

Odion draws yet another mysterious card, and then attempts to attack with Mystical Beast of Serket to win the duel, but that's when Marik orders him to use Ra, so he calls off the attack. Then Odion activates the final ability of Temple of the Kings, sacrificing his Mystical Beast of Serket and half of his life points (dropping him to 200 LP) to summon the counterfeit copy of The Winged Dragon of Ra (?/?).

Normally, Egyptian God Cards require three sacrifices. Odion, however, explains that Mystical Beast of Serket counts as three monsters because it devoured three of Joey's monsters. This sounds strange, but we have seen fusion monsters count as the number of tributes as they have materials, so I'm just gonna say that's an unspoken rule in Battle City rules.

The Winged Dragon of Ra's ATK and DEF is equal to the combined ATK and DEF of all the monsters used to sacrifice to summon it, so it's a 5825 attacker.

Odion attacks with The Winged Dragon of Ra to win the game. But... the real Winged Dragon of Ra is angered by this forgery and so summons a lightning storm to strike down both duelists. Marik did mention that every single time the counterfeit card was used, this happened, but he thought Odion would be different because... um... yeah, no reason.

So... here's a question: WHY DO THIS!?

Like, if you want to convince people that Odion is Marik, he can just... show the card to Joey without actually summoning it. Just say "look, here it is" and leave it at that, and then finish him off with Mystical Beast of Serket. This was not necessary.

Anyways, Joey later stands up due to the power of friendship, and as a result, he wins the duel by default.

Yeah... that's not how this duel should have ended. Odion played a much better game here and had the stronger deck, and was a better duelist. Odion got robbed of his victory. Joey should have lost here. He stood up so he won. So... he literally just won because he was a biped. Not great writing, if I'm being completely honest. If there wasn't, you know, a plot to this show, and we just let these two duel in real life... Odion would have won for sure.

Except for two major problems: first of all, Odion was dueling under a false identity, which is illegal in real life. And second, Odion was using a counterfeit card, which is also illegal. So because of that... you could conceivably make the argument that Joey deserved the win. I would disagree with this, but it is an argument you could make. Odion had so many paths to victory in this duel, so I think he should have won.

Next duel!

Duelist Number 4, Mai... going up against... Duelist Number 5, Marik.

All right, let's see how this goes.

Mai's hand is Dunames Dark Witch, Amazon Fighter, Grave Arm, Amazon Spellcaster, Mirror Wall, and Rescue Operation.

She summons Dunames Dark Witch (1800/1050) and ends her turn. Why didn't she play any of her magic and trap cards face-down? I have no idea. Yeah, it leaves them vulnerable to removal, but it's not like she relies on them like Odion did.

Marik's hand is Revival Jam, Makyura the Destructor, Masked Beast Des Gardius, Jam Breeding Machine, Black Pendant, and Card of Last Will.

Marik summons Revival Jam in Defense Position (1500/500). In the anime, Revival Jam automatically comes back to the field immediately upon being destroyed through any means, so, it is basically unkillable. Marik then activates Jam Breeding Machine. As long as this is in play, he can summon a Slime Token (500/500) in Attack Position during each of his standby phases, but it automatically destroys itself if Marik ever summons a monster other than a Slime Token.

Mai draws The Unfriendly Amazon. She attacks Revival Jam with Dunames Dark Witch, but it reforms itself, so Mai passes.

Marik draws Pot of Greed. In the standby phase, he makes a Slime Token. Then he activates Pot of Greed to draw two cards: Jam Defender and Remove Trap. He puts Jam Defender face-down. In theory, using this will mean that he can redirect Mai's attacks to Revival Jam, thereby keeping his Slime Tokens safe.

Mai draws Harpie's Feather Duster and uses it, so it's a moot point, as Jam Defender is destroyed, alongside Jam Breeding Machine. Mai attacks the Slime Token with Dunames Dark Witch, killing it and dropping Marik to 2700 LP. Then she plays Mirror Wall face-down.

Marik draws Melchid the Four-Face Beast and summons it (1500/1200).

Then he summons Masked Beast Des Gardius, which can be special summoned by tributing two monsters, one of which must be Grand Tiki Elder or Melchid the Four-Face Beast. He meets that criteria by sacrificing Melchid and Revival Jam, so he succeeds in the summoning (3300/2500).

Masked Beast Des Gardius attacks Dunames Dark Witch. Mai activates Mirror Wall to halve Masked Beast Des Gardius's ATK, so Masked Beast Des Gardius is destroyed and Marik drops to 2550 LP. However, when it is destroyed, it lets Marik activate The Mask of Remnant from his deck. He does so, equipping it to Dunames Dark Witch. When equipped, it lets Marik take control of the equipped monster, so now he controls Dunames Dark Witch.

It's still Marik's Battle Phase, so he could attack with Dunames Dark Witch to do some direct damage, but he doesn't. Why? Well, because Mirror Wall would cut the ATK in half and leave Marik with a 900 ATK monster in play, which is quite vulnerable, so this isn't a misplay.

Marik activates Remove Trap to destroy Mirror Wall, and then ends his turn.

Then we enter the Shadow Realm. Now, whenever a monster is destroyed, its owner will lose memories of one person that they know.

Now, Mai's turn begins and she draws... twice. Except not really. So, because of this shadow game interrupting everything... the animators messed up and showed her drawing a card before the shadow game took effect, and then again afterwards. However, this is just an animation error. If you actually look at the cards in her hand and count them, she only gets one additional card here. She drew Amazon Archers.

She plays Amazon Archers face-down, and then summons The Unfriendly Amazon (2000/1000). As long as this card is in play, Mai needs to sacrifice a monster during each of her standby phases. Mai uses The Unfriendly Amazon to attack Dunames Dark Witch, dropping Marik to 2350 LP.

However, Dunames Dark Witch was Mai's monster, so it's Mai's memory that gets erased here, and she loses the memory of Téa.

Marik draws Rope of Life. He plays Card of Last Will face-down and then summons Makyura the Destructor (1600/1200). He equips it with Black Pendant to increase its ATK by 500. Now with 2100 ATK, he can attack The Unfriendly Amazon. However, Mai activates Amazon Archers to decrease the ATK of an attacking monster by 500, so Makyura drops back down to 1600 ATK, allowing The Unfriendly Amazon to destroy it, and Marik drops to 1950 LP, and wiping out his memory of Strings.

However, when Black Pendant is destroyed, the opponent loses 500 LP, so Mai drops to 3500 LP.

And when Makyura the Destructor is destroyed, Marik can immediately activate one trap card from his hand, so he activates Rope of Life. This brings back a monster that was just destroyed (Makyura the Destructor) with an extra 800 ATK. So now Makyura is big enough to attack The Unfriendly Amazon, drop Mai down to 3100 LP, and wipe out her memory of Joey.

Mai draws Amazon Chain Master and summons it (1500/1300). She also puts her Grave Arm face-down. She ends her turn.

But... she could have won this turn. Use Amazon Spellcaster to swap the ATK of Amazon Chain Master with the ATK of Makyura the Destructor, then use Grave Arm to destroy Makyura the Destructor, then attack with Amazon Chain Master to wipe out the rest of Marik's life points.

Or at least, that's what Mai should have thought. In reality, had she done this, Marik would have activated Card of Last Will, which would let him draw five new cards including Nightmare Wheel. Then when Makyura is destroyed, he would have activated Nightmare Wheel, which would have prevented Amazon Chain Master from attacking.

Marik's turn. He draws Holding Arms and summons it (500/0). What does this card do? Great question. The answer is... I have no idea.

It is incredibly vague, so I decided to check out the Japanese version of this episode. In Japanese, the anime cards are shown with actual text on them. And so what does it say? All it says is "invincible for three turns". Now, tell me, what on Earth does that mean!? I would argue that it means that it cannot be destroyed in battle or by card effects for three turns. That makes sense. However, Marik seems to imply that Mai cannot attack it for three turns... which... is completely different. But... what does "three turns" mean? Does it mean the turn Marik summoned it, then Mai's turn, then Marik's next turn? Or is it until EACH of them has taken three turns? Cause... that makes a very big difference.

And on top of that, Holding Arms also has a secret other effect that isn't written on the card. When it attacks another monster, it can cancel the damage calculation and instead make it so that the attacked monster can't declare an attack for three turns. And then... the monster is destroyed after that? Maybe? It's unclear. Depending on what language you watch the episode in... either that's how it works, or Marik is just confident that he will find some way to destroy the monster before those three turns are up. I don't know!

Now, if we look at the real-life version of this card, it only prevents the monster from attacking, it doesn't destroy it... so... I guess that's a good tiebreaker? Ugh, I hate this card.

But if we're looking at Yu-Gi-Oh! media beyond the anime, then it makes just as much sense to check the manga as it does to check real life. And in the manga, Marik instead uses Viser Des, which has the same effect. Except that the real-life version of Viser Des DOES destroy the opposing monster after three turns.

So... I have no idea how this card works! You may think that this doesn't matter, but trust me, it really does.

Anyways... Marik attacks Amazon Chain Master with Holding Arms, preventing damage calculation and stopping Amazon Chain Master from attacking for three turns. However, Mai activates Grave Arm... which... is a normal magic card, not a quick-play, so this shouldn't work. But that happens a lot in Battle City, so maybe it's another Battle City rules thing.

Anyways, Grave Arm lets her destroy any monster in play. Marik reminds her that Holding Arms is invincible, but Mai says that's not the target. She destroys Amazon Chain Master. When destroyed, Mai can pay 1000 LP (she drops to 2100 LP) in order to guess the name of a card in Marik's deck. If correct, she can add the card from his deck to her own hand. And she knows that he has The Winged Dragon of Ra, so she names that, and takes it from Marik.

And Mai points out that since she was destroying her own card, she doesn't lose any memories.

But... that's clearly not how this works! We saw when she destroyed her Dunames Dark Witch (that Marik took control of) with her own card... it still caused her to lose her memories. So this shadow game is inconsistent! She could have just... you know... lost memories of Tristan or something. It wouldn't have changed the plot at all.

And... uh... Marik has a 2400 ATK monster in play, Mai has no cards in play after she destroyed her own monster... and she's at 2100 LP. Marik can just attack and win here. If you want to forgive this, you'd rationalize it by saying that after Marik attacked with Holding Arms, he left the Battle Phase, so we're now in Main Phase 2 and it's too late for Marik to declare another attack.

But if that's the case, then Marik did his battle phase wrong. What he should have done was attack with Makyura, destroying Amazon Chain Master himself, Mai drops to 2200 LP, and then she pays 1000 LP to take The Winged Dragon of Ra, dropping her to 1200 LP, and then he attacks with Holding Arms, dropping Mai to 700 LP. That leaves Mai with barely any life points left and is a far better play than what he did.

Mai draws Cyber Harpie Lady. She plays Amazon Spellcaster and Rescue Operation face-down, then summons Amazon Fighter (1500/1200). Since she doesn't have enough ATK points to profitably attack Makyura and since Holding Arms is still invincible, she ends her turn here.

Marik draws a mysterious card that we don't get to see. Makyura attacks Amazon Fighter, but Mai activates Amazon Spellcaster, swapping the ATK of the two battling monsters. Makyura is destroyed, Marik drops to 1050 LP, and he loses his memories of Arkana.

Then Marik activates Card of Last Will. This card activates whenever a monster's ATK is altered. It lets Marik draw until he has five cards in his hand. Since he has zero cards in his hand, he draws five. He gets Nightmare Wheel, Holding Legs, and three cards that are never shown to us.

And since Makyura the Destructor was destroyed, Marik can now activate a trap from her hand, so he activates Nightmare Wheel. This attaches to Amazon Fighter, preventing it from attacking and inflicting 500 damage to Mai each turn. Or... it would, but Mai activates Rescue Operation. This bounces her Amazon Fighter back to her hand, in order to summon another monster from her hand, so she summons Cyber Harpie Lady (1800/1300). This means Nightmare Wheel lost its target, so it fizzles.

Marik ends his turn, so I'm guessing that means Holding Arms is able to be attacked now, but like I said, this card is unclear.

Mai draws Graceful Charity. She activates it to draw three cards and discard two. She draws Elegant Egotist, Gravity Bind, and a card that we don't see. She discards Amazon Fighter and the mysterious card. I should note that there is an animation error here. They show Mai discarding two of the three newly-added cards to her hand. But that's not what actually happens gameplay-wise. So... we're ignoring that.

Mai activates Elegant Egotist to triple her Cyber Harpie Lady into two others (1800/1300) (1800/1300). Then she sacrifices the three Cyber Harpie Ladies to summon The Winged Dragon of Ra (?/?, becomes 5400/3900). However, it is sealed in a sphere because Mai has not recited the summoning chant that's written on the card in ancient Egyptian. Since Mai can't do that, she just plays Gravity Bind face-down and ends her turn.

Okay, so... if Marik wants to use a foreign-language card, fine. That's allowed. However, by Yu-Gi-Oh! tournament rules, if a card is used that is not in a local language, then an accurate translation must be provided to the opponent. Meaning that Marik is legally obligated to tell Mai what the card text says, because this is a tournament duel. If an inaccurate or incorrect translation is provided, Marik can get penalized for that. So by not providing a translation, Marik is cheating. But... that's not how it works in the anime, which... fair enough.

However... here's a question: why did Mai even bother to summon Ra? She could have attacked with the three Cyber Harpie Ladies. Heck, she didn't even need Elegant Egotist. Just ONE attack from Cyber Harpie Lady at Marik's Holding Arms would have won Mai the duel. Assuming, of course, that Holding Arms could be attacked.

Could it?

Well... that's the thing. Depending on what "three turns" means, maybe it could, and maybe it couldn't. This is why that really matters and why this card being vague is bothersome. Because it drastically changes how this duel could have gone.

However, I like to think that Holding Arms is not invincible anymore, because you'll note that Mai thought she could have attacked it with The Winged Dragon of Ra.

So... again, Mai didn't need to do anything this turn other than attack with Cyber Harpie Lady, and the game is over.

But she has The Winged Dragon of Ra in her hand, and three monsters in play, and I get it. That is a tempting play, especially when it is the main villain's main big monster. But... this was not the optimal dueling play here. And Mai should have known better.

So instead, we get another turn of the duel. Marik draws a mysterious card. Then he summons Holding Legs (800/600). When summoned, it bounces all face-down cards on the field, so Mai's Gravity Bind returns to her hand, preventing her from using it.

And when Holding Arms and Holding Legs are on the field at the same time, the Tablet of Ujat appears. What's that? I don't know. I think it's just a dramatic effect to pin Mai to a wall so that it looks cool for the audience. In terms of gameplay, it doesn't affect the duel at all. It isn't given an ATK and DEF value. It doesn't appear on a duel disk. And its presence doesn't even decrease the size of Marik's hand by him playing it. So... yeah, this is just... dramatic effect.

Marik attacks directly with Holding Arms and Holding Legs. I guess The Winged Dragon of Ra doesn't count as a monster defending Mai's life points since it's still sealed in the sphere. That's... not well-explained, but okay. Mai drops to 800 LP.

Still in the battle phase, Marik recites the ancient chant to release Ra on his side, and with a 5400 attacker, he is able to attack directly to wipe out the rest of Mai's life points.

Our final duel, via process of elimination, is Kaiba vs Ishizu. Let's take a look.

Kaiba's hand is Vorse Raider, Kaiser Glider, Blue-Eyes White Dragon, Soul Exchange, Polymerization, and Crush Card Virus.

Ishizu says that Kaiba will summon Vorse Raider and play a card face-down. Kaiba summons Vorse Raider (1900/1200) and plays Crush Card Virus face-down. So... yeah... she just predicts his entire turn.

Ishizu's hand is Keldo, Mudora, Zolga, Revival Magic, Fellow Traveler to the Grave, and Monster Reborn.

Without looking at any of her cards, she says that she's summoning Keldo in Defense Position, and does so. Yeah, she's just showing off at this point.

Ishizu activates Fellow Traveler to the Grave. This causes both players to reveal their hands and then each chooses two cards for the opponent to discard, and then they each draw two cards to replace those. Without even looking at Kaiba's hand, she asks him to discard Kaiser Glider and Polymerization. Kaiba looks at Ishizu's hand and asks her to discard Monster Reborn and Revival Magic. Then each player draws two cards. Kaiba gets Virus Cannon and The Flute of Summoning Dragon. Ishizu gets Sword of Dagra and Swords of Revealing Light.

Ishizu ends her turn. But Ishizu could have won the game here.

All she has to do is play Monster Reborn face-down, and then summon Zolga in Attack Position. Then she can use Fellow Traveler from the Grave, and make Kaiba discard Blue-Eyes White Dragon and Soul Exchange. At this point, she can use Monster Reborn to bring back Kaiba's Blue-Eyes White Dragon to her side, and have it attack Vorse Raider, dropping Kaiba to 2900 LP, and then attack directly with Zolga to bring Kaiba down to 1200 LP. Kaiba's next turn, and he draws Shrink. Now, at this point, his hand has nothing that can help him, so all he can do is play Shrink face-down. Ishizu then attacks with Blue-Eyes White Dragon, and even if Kaiba uses Shrink to halve its ATK, it wouldn't be enough to save him, and Ishizu wins.

So why didn't she do this? Well, because she literally can't.

She already foresaw the entire duel with her Millennium Necklace, so... she knows how this duel must go. She saw herself making this misplay, so therefore, she had to make it, because the future is pre-determined.

But... is it?

That's a philosophical question that is very difficult to unpack. Does Ishizu have free will? Like... it seems the answer is no. She saw the future and is sticking with it, despite things she could do to change it. So... can she change it? Maybe not.

But then... why not? Like, everything you do in the present affects the future... so Ishizu can just... do things differently...

Or can she?

This is where we get into the philosophical question: is the future pre-determined or is it unwritten? That's a hell of a question that no one has the answer to.

But... let's try and take a look at this. Assuming that everything is unwritten, then the Millennium Necklace is useless, because it just shows one possible future out of a theoretically infinite amount. So that CAN'T be right. Assuming that everything is predetermined, then the Millennium Necklace strips you of your free will and provides no advantage whatsoever, since everything that was going to happen to you is still going to happen to you regardless of whether you had the necklace or not. Either way... the Millennium Necklace is garbage.

That's... not good writing.

Kaiba's turn, he draws Shrink.

He attacks with Vorse Raider, destroying Keldo. Then he plays Shrink face-down. He ends his turn.

What Kaiba should have done here was use Soul Exchange to sacrifice both Keldo and Vorse Raider to summon his Blue-Eyes White Dragon, then attack Ishizu directly with it for 3000 damage. She drops to 1000 LP and Kaiba has a dominant board presence here. That's the far better situation. (In real life, you can't attack on the turn you play Soul Exchange, but in the anime, Soul Exchange does not carry that restriction.)

But Kaiba can't do that, because I guess this entire duel is pre-written.

Also, Kaiba gets a little tunnel-vision here. He has two plans in this duel right now. The first is to use Shrink to cut his Vorse Raider's ATK in half, which would then make it a DARK monster with 1000 or less ATK, and therefore a valid candidate to be used with Crush Card Virus in order to wipe out a decent chunk of Ishizu's deck. The other plan is to wait for Ishizu to get three monsters, then use Soul Exchange and summon Obelisk the Tormentor. Both of these plans are good things to hope for. But... don't get tunnel vision here. The optimal play is to use Blue-Eyes White Dragon here, and abandon those plans.

Ishizu draws Exchange of the Spirit. She summons Mudora (1500/1800) in Attack Position, and she equips it with Sword of Dagra, giving it an extra 500 ATK. It goes up to 2000 ATK and so she attacks Vorse Raider. Kaiba uses Shrink to cut Vorse Raider's ATK in half, dropping it to 950 ATK, so Kaiba drops to 2950 LP from this battle. However, he is now able to use Crush Card Virus, since a DARK monster with 1000 ATK or less was destroyed. Now Ishizu sends all monsters on her deck, hand, and field to the graveyard with an ATK of 1500 or more. This destroys Mudora, makes her discard Zolga, and also takes out a huge chunk of her deck.

Ishizu activates Swords of Revealing Light to prevent Kaiba from attacking for three turns. Then she plays Exchange of the Spirit face-down.

Ishizu also says that in three turns, Kaiba will draw the card that will lead to his downfall.

Kaiba draws Dark Gremlin and summons it (1600/1800). Then he puts Virus Cannon face-down and ends his turn.

Ishizu draws Muko and passes.

Kaiba draws Ring of Destruction and passes.

Ishizu draws a second copy of Muko and passes.

Kaiba draws Silent Doom and passes.

Ishizu draws Bomb Held By A Tribute and passes. Swords of Revealing Light expires.

Yeah, riveting gameplay there.

Kaiba draws the card that Ishizu predicted would lead to his downfall: Obelisk the Tormentor.

Kaiba attacks with Dark Gremlin, dropping Ishizu to 2400 LP. Then he activates Virus Cannon, forcing Ishizu to send ten magic cards from her deck to her graveyard.

Ishizu activates Exchange of the Spirit. For the cost of 1000 LP (she drops to 1400 LP), she can force both players to swap their decks with their graveyards. Because Kaiba milled Ishizu's deck quite heavily, she has a pretty normal-sized deck here. But Kaiba's deck, in its entirety, now consists of Vorse Raider, Crush Card Virus, Shrink, Virus Cannon, Polymerization, and Kaiser Glider.

Kaiba ends his turn.

Ishizu draws Kelbek. She summons it (1500/1800) and then plays one copy of Muko face-down.

Kaiba draws Virus Cannon, as Ishizu predicts. He activates it. Ishizu activates Muko, which can either negate a card or force an opponent to discard a card that they just drew. So it negates Virus Cannon in this case. Kaiba ends his turn.

Ishizu predicts that the next card Kaiba draws will be Crush Card Virus.

Anyways, Kaiba has a Dark Gremlin in play, and Ishizu has Kelbek. Dark Gremlin can attack it, so why didn't he? Well... Kaiba has very few monsters in his deck. If he wants to win with Obelisk the Tormentor (which he does), he runs into a problem, as he doesn't have enough monsters in his deck to sacrifice to summon it, when you consider that some of his monsters are high-level that would actually cost him monsters to summon. As such, his ONLY way of getting this card out and winning the duel with it is Soul Exchange. So he needs to let Ishizu get three monsters, so he can't destroy any of her monsters.

At least... that would be the case if he didn't have a Blue-Eyes White Dragon in his hand. That only needs two tributes, so Kaiba can just rely on that instead.

Ishizu's turn. She draws Zolga and summons it (1700/1200). She attacks Dark Gremlin with Zolga, dropping Kaiba to 2850 LP. Then she attacks directly with Kelbek, dropping Kaiba to 1350 LP. Then she plays her other copy of Muko face-down.

Kaiba draws Crush Card Virus, but Ishizu activates Muko to force Kaiba to discard it. With no way to summon anything, Kaiba just puts Soul Exchange face-down.

Now, Battle City rules may allow you to use normal magic cards as though they were quick-play, since that happens a lot. So... I guess Kaiba's plan here is to pray that Ishizu plays a third monster and he can activate this at quick-play speed and summon Obelisk. Of course, Ishizu can just attack and win... but... Kaiba's out of options here. This is his last-ditch effort to stay in the game.

Wait a minute...

What am I talking about? Of course Kaiba has options! He has Silent Doom in his hand. This can be used to revive one of Kaiba's monsters in Defense Position. After that, he can use Soul Exchange while it's still his turn, sacrifice all three monsters, summon Obelisk, and now he has a 4000 attacker that can win him the game. And it's a god card, so it's immune to magic and trap cards, so he doesn't even have to worry about that. This is literally a zero-risk way to win the game.

Ishizu could easily counter this play with Bomb Held By A Tribute... if she had set it face-down first. Which she didn't. That's honestly a misplay and she should have set it as soon as she drew it, really. Because it counters Soul Exchange incredibly well. But... you know... Ishizu doesn't have free will, I guess.

Ishizu draws Agido. She plays Bomb Held By A Tribute face-down, and secretly places it inside of her Zolga. If Zolga is tributed for a tribute summon, a bomb will be placed in the monster that was tribute summoned. If that monster attacks, it will be destroyed and its controller loses LP equal to its ATK.

But... ugh. Just attack directly and win the duel. There's no need to do any of this.

Now... Kaiba can technically stop Ishizu here, by activating Soul Exchange as though it were quick-play and just sacrificing the two monsters that are present right now to summon Blue-Eyes White Dragon. However, if he does this, then Blue-Eyes White Dragon gets the bomb, and it will explode when it attacks, and Kaiba loses. Either way, Ishizu wins this duel. And even if Kaiba somehow knew that his Blue-Eyes White Dragon were infected with this bomb, and he would lose if it attacks... he couldn't do anything about it. He can't summon Obelisk the Tormentor anymore in this situation. The only way that would be possible is if he draws Vorse Raider, summons it, uses Silent Doom to get a third monster out, and then sacrifices all three of his monsters to summon Obelisk the Tormentor. And yes, that would work. But by then, several turns would have gone by, and Ishizu could have just been playing a ton of monsters in Defense Position to stall out Kaiba until he loses by deck out, before he can manage to pull off a direct attack.

So yeah... Ishizu would have been in a much better situation had she just attacked.

But instead, she summons Agido (1500/1300). Kaiba activates Soul Exchange and sacrifices all of Ishizu's monsters to summon Obelisk the Tormentor, with a bomb inside of it.

Kaiba draws Polymerization. He wants to attack with Obelisk the Tormentor, but Marik's Millennium Rod activates and gives Kaiba a vision of Priest Seto with Kisara and he realizes that Blue-Eyes White Dragon is the key to his victory.

So he activates Silent Doom to bring back his Gadget Soldier (1800/2000) and then sacrifices it and Obelisk the Tormentor to summon Blue-Eyes White Dragon (3000/2500), changing his destiny and re-writing fate and making the Millennium Necklace even more useless in the process.

Kaiba attacks Ishizu directly and she drops to 0 LP, and Kaiba wins. By deus ex machina with magical powers. However... given how many characters have magical powers in this show, and Kaiba has none... he deserved this. That said, if we ignore the plot... and look just at dueling alone, Ishizu could have won in several ways, if she had the free will to alter her plays, which... may or may not have actually been the case.

Anyways, we move to the semifinals (after the entire Virtual World arc interrupts this), and we start with a four-way duel to decide the matchups. This is a four-way match between Yugi, Kaiba, Joey, and Marik and it will continue until two players lose. The two losers play each other first, and then the two winners play each other.

First, to decide the turn order, they each must remove one monster from their deck for the duel, and the turn order will be in order of ATK of the monster that they removed. Kaiba gets rid of Masked Beast Des Gardius (3300). Marik goes second for getting rid of Lekunga (1700). Then is Yugi, who got rid of Feral Imp (1300). And last was Joey, who ditched his Swordsman of Landstar (500).

So we start with Kaiba. His opening hand is Vorse Raider, Blue-Eyes White Dragon, Pot of Greed, Ring of Defense, Ring of Destruction, and Attack Guidance Armor.

Kaiba summons Vorse Raider (1900/1200) and plays Attack Guidance Armor face-down. Now... he absolutely should have put Ring of Destruction and Ring of Defense face-down, right? I mean, that's a good combo, isn't it? Yes, but bear in mind the rules of a Battle Royale duel prevent anyone from attacking on their first turn. So Kaiba is safe and there's no need to leave his cards vulnerable to removal, which is especially noteworthy if you have three opponents that may have removal.

But that doesn't excuse him not activating Pot of Greed. Why would he not do this? There's literally no reason for it.

Marik's turn. His hand is Newdoria, Lord Poison, Dark Jeroid, Legendary Fiend, Helpoemer, and Spell of Pain.

Marik plays Newdoria in Defense Position (1200/800) and ends his turn.

Yugi's turn. His hand is Big Shield Gardna, Beast of Gilfer, Dark Magician, The Regulation of Tribe, Spellbook of Secrets, and Seven Tools of the Bandit.

Yugi plays Big Shield Gardna in Defense Position (100/2600), and then plays The Regulation of Tribe and Seven Tools of the Bandit face-down.

Joey's turn. His hand contains Skull Dice, The Legendary Fisherman, Foolish Burial, Jinzo, Insect Queen, and Graverobber.

So he has no monsters that he can summon. So he just puts Graverobber face-down and ends his turn.

Now, this is bad news for Joey, because it's a four-way duel. So if all three opponents attack him directly, he's not gonna be surviving. Sure would be nice if he had a way to reduce that damage. Oh wait, he does. It's Skull Dice. He absolutely should be using this card, and yet... he doesn't. That's a misplay.

But more importantly... even though Joey thinks that this is a bad hand, it's actually not. It has the Foolish Burial + Graverobber combo that he used against Odion. Now, yes, this lets him summon whatever he wants from his deck... but... there's slim pickings there. With Jinzo, Insect Queen, and The Legendary Fisherman all in his hand, and him not having his Red-Eyes Black Dragon at this point, what does that leave him with?

Well, he has Gilford the Lightning. Probably. The first time he uses this card is in his duel against Marik, which is his very next duel, and I doubt he added it to his deck between that duel and this one, so I'm gonna assume he has it, so he absolutely should have done this. And even if I'm wrong and he doesn't have it in his deck yet, he can always use Panther Warrior or Gearfried the Iron Knight. Like, he has options.

Kaiba's turn, and he draws Shrink. Now that the Battle Phases are active, he attacks Joey with Vorse Raider, but Yugi activates The Regulation of Tribe, which lets him choose a monster type, and he chooses Beast-Warrior. As long as The Regulation of Tribe is in play, monsters of that type cannot attack, so Vorse Raider's attack is cancelled. However, Yugi has to sacrifice a monster each turn to keep The Regulation of Tribe in play.

Now... Kaiba has a great hand. He has Pot of Greed, which he could use. Or he has a ton of good quick-play magic cards and trap cards... which he could set. He does none of this and simply passes to Marik.

(facepalm)

WHY WOULD YOU NOT USE POT OF GREED!?

Marik draws Mirror Force. He plays it face-down and summons Lord Poison (1500/1000). Then he switches Newdoria to Attack Position and attacks Vorse Raider with it. This destroys Newdoria. When Newdoria is destroyed in battle, Marik can destroy one monster on the field, and so he destroys Kaiba's Vorse Raider. Marik should take 700 damage from this battle, but he activates Spell of Pain, a quick-play card that lets him transfer the damage to another player, and he chooses Joey. So Joey goes to 3300 LP.

Now, Kaiba and Joey are both wide open for a direct attack, and Marik's Lord Poison still has yet to attack, so... which of them will he attack? The answer is... neither. Marik just ends his turn without attacking here. WHY!? Just attack and get some damage in. Now, granted, if he had chosen to attack Kaiba, Kaiba could have used his Attack Guidance Armor to redirect the attack to Yugi's Big Shield Gardna, which has 2600 DEF. But even that situation isn't so bad, as when Big Shield Gardna is attacked while in Defense Position, it changes itself to Attack Position, where it is vulnerable.

Yugi's turn.

He draws a mysterious card that we don't see. In the standby phase, he has to sacrifice a monster to maintain The Regulation of Tribe, but he chooses not to, so The Regulation of Tribe is destroyed.

Yugi sacrifices Big Shield Gardna to summon Beast of Gilfer (2200/2500). Yugi attacks Kaiba directly. Kaiba uses Attack Guidance Armor to redirect the attack to Marik's Lord Poison. Marik activates Mirror Force to stop the attack and destroy Beast of Gilfer. But Yugi uses Seven Tools of the Bandit to pay 1000 LP (dropping him to 3000 LP) to negate Mirror Force, so the attack is successful, Lord Poison is destroyed, and Marik drops to 3300 LP. Yugi ends his turn here.

Joey draws Gearfried the Iron Knight and summons it (1800/1600). Both Kaiba and Marik have no cards on their fields, so Joey can safely attack either of them. Joey attacks Kaiba, and Kaiba drops to 2200 LP. Then Joey plays Skull Dice face-down.

Kaiba draws Blade Knight. He plays Ring of Destruction, Ring of Defense, and Shrink face-down. Then he summons Blade Knight (1600/1000) and attacks Marik directly, dropping Marik to 1700 LP. Then he ends his turn without activating Pot of Greed. Just... ugh... that's such poor dueling. You should ABSOLUTELY use Pot of Greed. It's not like Ash Blossom exists as a card yet.

Marik draws a mysterious card that we don't get to see. He summons Dark Jeroid (1200/1800). When summoned, he can reduce a monster's ATK by 800 for the turn, so he makes Joey's Gearfried drop to 1000 ATK, and then attacks it with Dark Jeroid.

Joey uses Skull Dice to divide Dark Jeroid's ATK by whatever number he rolls. He rolls a 2, so Dark Jeroid drops to 600 ATK. However, Kaiba activates Shrink to halve Gearfried's ATK, cutting it down to 500 ATK. Gearfried is destroyed, and Joey drops to 3200 LP.

Marik ends his turn, thereby causing Skull Dice to expire, so Dark Jeroid's ATK returns to normal.

Yugi draws a mysterious card. He has Beast of Gilfer attack. Initially, he wants to attack Dark Jeroid, but Joey convinces him to attack Joey directly instead. So Beast of Gilfer gets a direct hit on Joey's life points, and Joey drops to 1000 LP.

Joey's turn, and he draws Axe Raider. He summons it (1700/1150) and attacks Kaiba's Blade Knight. Kaiba uses Ring of Destruction to blow up Axe Raider and inflict its ATK in damage to both players (Kaiba and Joey), but Kaiba also uses Ring of Defense to prevent the damage to himself. However, Joey activates Graverobber to steal a card from the opponent's graveyard, so he takes Marik's Spell of Pain and uses it to redirect the damage to Marik, thereby causing Marik to lose the rest of his life points.

So uh....that was a bad play. I mean, it worked out, because Joey successfully predicted that Kaiba had Ring of Destruction and Ring of Defense, but what was Joey's plan if that didn't happen? What Joey should have done was instead used Graverobber to take Marik's Spell of Pain when Yugi had attacked him directly last turn. Then he gets the same result, but it's a guarantee.

Now, one could argue that if we're looking for optimal plays, then Joey shouldn't have Graverobber at all at this point because, as I mentioned much earlier, he had the opportunity to use it with Foolish Burial, and... playing optimally, that's what he should have done. Now you could argue that he deliberately didn't do this move so that he could save Graverobber for this exact situation right here, but that would require an insane amount of foresight and I do not believe for a second that Joey planned all this out that far in advance.

Anyways, Joey has a completely empty field and his turn just ended, so he's in a bad spot, but that's what he wants. He wants to lose this duel so that he can face Marik in the semifinals. And, with Kaiba's turn coming up, he's about to get his wish.

Kaiba draws a card and doesn't even bother to look at it himself. He just attacks Joey directly with Blade Knight. This drops Joey's life points down to 0, and the duel ends.

Joey vs Marik is the first semifinal duel, and Kaiba vs Yugi is the second.

So let's jump into our first matchup: Joey vs Marik.

Marik's opening hand is Gil Garth, Card of Last Will, Tribute Burial, Plasma Eel, Helpoemer, and Dark Wall of Wind.

Marik summons Gil Garth in Attack Position (1800/1200) and puts Dark Wall of Wind face-down.

Joey's opening hand is Alligator's Sword, Rocket Warrior, Baby Dragon, Graceful Dice, Foolish Burial, and Scapegoat.

Since Joey has no monsters strong enough to defeat Gil Garth, he just puts Scapegoat face-down and summons Alligator's Sword in Defense Position (1500/1200).

Except... Joey DOES have a way of dealing with Gil Garth. He has Rocket Warrior. True, Rocket Warrior only has 1500 ATK, but whenever it attacks a monster, that monster loses 500 ATK. This would make it weak enough that Rocket Warrior could have destroyed it on the following turn. Maybe he's planning on saving Rocket Warrior for a later monster that's more threatening, that's the only thing I can think of.

Oh, and as for Graceful Dice multiplying the strength of Joey's monsters, that won't work. In the anime, Graceful Dice only works on a monster whose ATK is 500 or less.

At this point, Marik turns this into a shadow game. From now on, whenever a monster receives pain, its owner also receives the same pain.

Marik draws Drillago, which he immediately summons (1600/1100). He attacks and destroys Alligator's Sword. And so Joey gets to feel what it feels like to be drilled to death. Gil Garth attacks directly, but Joey activates Scapegoat to create four Sheep Tokens (0/0) (0/0) (0/0) (0/0). So the attack only destroys a Sheep Token, and since it was just a token, there is no shadow game punishment for its destruction.

Joey's turn. He draws Panther Warrior and summons it (2000/1600). Panther Warrior can't attack unless Joey sacrifices another monster, so Joey sacrifices a Sheep Token to attack and destroy Gil Garth. This drops Marik to 3800 LP and lets Marik feel the pain of a sword slash.

However... I think Marik is a bit of a sadomasochist, and I think he kinda likes the shadow game damage, so... I'm not gonna really talk about it from now on. He seems to handle it a lot better than Joey does.

Marik's turn. He draws Hidden Soldiers. He activates Tribute Burial. Now, by removing from play one monster from each player's graveyard (he chooses Alligator's Sword and Gil Garth, obviously), he can summon a high-level monster without tributing for it. So he summons Helpoemer (2000/1400). Then he plays Hidden Soldiers face-down and ends his turn.

I was wondering why Marik didn't attack this turn, and Yugi is thinking that same thing. Marik could have gotten rid of Joey's last two Sheep Tokens. Or, even better, he could attack Panther Warrior with Helpoemer (destroying both) and then destroy a single Sheep Token with Drillago. And... the reason is... because he wants to just torture Joey, rather than just winning the card game. Which... meh.

Joey draws Jinzo. He summons Rocket Warrior (1500/1300) and... um.... why not play Jinzo instead? Well, because Joey thought that Jinzo is one of his best cards and he didn't want to risk losing it. But... yeah, that's the wrong play. If you don't use the card, then you've basically already lost it.

Anyways, Marik activates Hidden Soldiers. This trap is used when a monster is summoned on the opponent's side and lets you summon a monster from your hand, so Marik plays Plasma Eel (500/1200). Plasma Eel turns into an equip card and equips itself to Panther Warrior, electrocuting it. And it also electrocutes Joey, because this is a shadow game. Now, Panther Warrior will lose 500 ATK during each of Joey's end phases.

Joey has Rocket Warrior attack Helpoemer. Due to Rocket Warrior's effect, when it's an attacker, it doesn't get destroyed and Joey doesn't take damage. Instead, the attack target simply loses 500 ATK. With Helpoemer down to 1500 ATK, Panther Warrior can now attack it (Joey sacrifices another Sheep Token to do so), destroying it. Marik drops to 3300 LP.

As long as Helpoemer is in the graveyard, Joey has to discard a random card from his hand after each of his battle phases. Since his battle phase just ended, he discards his Jinzo.

Again... if Joey had just played his Jinzo, he could have avoided all of this, especially given how trap-heavy Marik's deck is.

Now, one thing that I should say...

In the English dub of this episode, Marik explains that Helpoemer goes to Joey's graveyard rather than his own, and that's why it's able to reach out of Joey's duel disk to grab the cards in his hand. This explanation was added to the dub, and is not present in the original Japanese version of the episode. This is important because later on, Joey uses a card where exactly what is found in his graveyard is extremely important, so the fact that the dub gets this wrong here is... not great.

So yeah, Helpoemer is in Marik's graveyard right now, not Joey's.

Marik's turn. He draws Coffin Seller. He puts it face-down alongside Card of Last Will. I think he probably should have set Card of Last Will last turn, but whatever, it's fine. Using Card of Last Will when you have no cards in your hand is the optimal way to use it anyways.

Marik ends his turn without attacking.

Joey's turn, and he draws Insect Queen. I really don't know why Joey still has this card in his deck. It really doesn't fit with the rest of his deck at all.

Joey thinks that it's too dangerous to summon a powerful monster, since Marik has three face-down cards. So he just summons Baby Dragon in Defense Position (1200/700). Again... this is overthinking it. Just summon Insect Queen. Marik actually has nothing to stop it right now. You'd think he would have learned his lesson after not summoning Jinzo.

But I guess Marik successfully bluffed Joey here. Which is fine, bluffs work in the real world too.

And that would be totally valid... if not for Joey's next play.

You see, Joey realizes (and Yugi agrees) that he should go on the offensive and attack Marik after all. By forcing Marik to use his traps, Joey will see what they are and can then devise a plan to deal with them. Well, if you're going on the offensive anyways... just summon your Insect Queen.

Rocket Warrior attacks Drillago to reduce its ATK to 1100.

Marik activates Card of Last Will, which lets him draw until he has five cards in his hand when the ATK of one of his monsters is altered. He draws The Legendary Fiend, Premature Burial, Relieve Monster, Nightmare Mirror, and The Winged Dragon of Ra.

Joey sacrifices his last Sheep Token to attack Drillago with Panther Warrior, causing Marik to drop to 2900 LP.

Marik activates Coffin Seller. Now, every time a monster goes to Joey's graveyard, he takes 300 damage.

Joey's battle phase ends, so Helpoemer makes him discard Insect Queen (Joey drops to 3700 LP).

Then the end phase happens, and so Plasma Eel electrocutes Joey yet again and drains 500 of Panther Warrior's ATK.

Marik draws Nightmare Wheel, which he puts face-down. Then he activates Premature Burial. By paying 800 LP (he drops to 2100 LP), he can bring back a monster from his graveyard, and he chooses Drillago. Then he sacrifices Drillago to summon The Legendary Fiend (1500/1800). The Legendary Fiend will gain 700 ATK during each of Marik's standby phases.

The Legendary Fiend may only have 1500 ATK for now, but... Panther Warrior has been weakened down to just 1000 ATK and Baby Dragon has only 700 DEF, so Marik should attack, but... yet again, he just... doesn't. Because he wants to keep Panther Warrior in play to keep electro-torturing Joey.

Joey draws Little Winguard. Marik activates Nightmare Wheel on Rocket Warrior, so now it can't attack, and during each of Marik's standby phases, Joey loses 500 LP and will feel what it's like to be crushed by a giant wheel.

Joey summons Little Winguard in Defense Position (1400/1800) and switches Panther Warrior to Defense Position. Then he ends his turn. Because he skipped his Battle Phase, Helpoemer does not force him to discard a card here. However, in his End Phase, Plasma Eel still reduces Panther Warrior's ATK and electrocutes Joey.

Marik draws Malevolent Catastrophe. In the standby phase, Joey suffers 500 damage and the effects of a torture-wheel. He drops to 3200 LP. Also, The Legendary Fiend gains 700 ATK, going up to 2200. Marik FINALLY decides to attack, having The Legendary Fiend destroy Little Winguard by slicing it in half with its claws (which the shadow game makes Joey feel too). Then, because a monster went to Joey's graveyard, Coffin Seller takes another 300 LP from Joey, dropping him to 2900. Marik ends his turn by setting Malevolent Catastrophe.

Joey draws Question, which he immediately activates. This forces Marik to guess what the bottommost monster card in Joey's graveyard is. If he's right, the monster is removed from play. If he's wrong, the monster is summoned. This is why it was important to note that the dub is wrong and that Helpoemer is NOT in Joey's graveyard, or else Helpoemer itself would be the bottommost monster card.

Now... Marik cannot remember what the bottommost monster in Joey's graveyard is. Alligator's Sword was the first monster that was sent to Joey's graveyard, but it was later removed from play by Marik's Tribute Burial. In fact, the bottommost monster was sent to Joey's graveyard by Helpoemer, so Marik has no way of knowing, and he doesn't even bother to attempt to guess. This means the monster gets special summoned, and it's Jinzo (2400/1500).

Now, Marik's contingency plan for if Joey found a way to gain control of this duel was to use Malevolent Catastrophe. When an opponent's monster attacks, you can use Malevolent Catastrophe to destroy all monsters on the field (in the anime). But because that's a trap card... Jinzo destroys it. Jinzo also destroys Nightmare Wheel and Coffin Seller.

Joey switches all of his monsters into Attack Position, then has Jinzo attack The Legendary Fiend, doing 200 damage and dropping Marik to 1900 LP.

Joey has Baby Dragon, Rocket Warrior, and Panther Warrior and can attack with all of them to end the game (actually, he can win by attacking with just two of the three as long as Rocket Warrior is among the two), but Marik activates Dark Wall of Wind, a quick-play card. On the turn this is activated, players cannot be attacked directly, so Joey is forced to end his turn here.

At the end of the Battle Phase, Helpoemer forces Joey to discard Foolish Burial. At the End Phase, Plasma Eel electrocutes Joey and causes Panther Warrior to lose the rest of its ATK points.

Marik's turn. He draws Lava Golem. Lava Golem is a unique card in that you sacrifice your opponent's monsters to summon it, and then it summons itself to the opponent's field. So Marik sacrifices Jinzo and Baby Dragon to summon Lava Golem (3000/2500) onto Joey's side. There is no sensible reason to sacrifice Baby Dragon here. He should have sacrificed Rocket Warrior instead. Like... that's just a straight-up misplay.

Now, although Joey has a 3000 attacker, Lava Golem's downside in the anime is that during each of its controller's End Phases, they lose 700 LP. Marik puts Relieve Monster face-down on the field and ends his turn.

Joey's turn. He draws Gamble. Joey attacks Marik directly with Lava Golem to win the game, but Marik activates Relieve Monster. This lets Marik bounce his own Plasma Eel and then re-summon it in Defense Position, so it takes the hit. But Plasma Eel can't be destroyed in battle, so the attack effectively did nothing. The Battle Phase concludes, and Helpoemer makes Joey discard Gamble.

Now... here's the thing about Helpoemer. For the past few turns, Joey's hand has had only magic and trap cards. He could just play them face-down to get them out of his hand and then not have to discard anything. I have no idea why he never does this. Now, one possible reason could be that if he does draw a monster and wants to keep it, the odds of it being chosen go down if he has more cards in his hand. But... I dunno, that seems like a bad play.

Anyways, Joey ends his turn, and Joey takes 700 damage as molten lava starts dripping down on him. He goes to 2200 LP.

Marik draws Machine Duplication. He activates it, targeting Plasma Eel. The anime effect of Machine Duplication lets him summon two more copies of Plasma Eel from his deck. He attaches them to Rocket Warrior and Lava Golem. Then Marik plays Nightmare Mirror face-down and ends his turn.

Joey draws Gilford the Lightning.

Joey decides to activate Graceful Dice, which has been in his hand since the duel began and has somehow dodged every Helpoemer effect that Marik threw at Joey. He got really lucky with that. Anyways, this lets him multiply the ATK of any monster on the field with 500 or less ATK by whatever he rolls. He chooses to target Marik's Plasma Eel and rolls a 6, multiplying its ATK by six, and raising it all the way to 3000. However, Machine Duplication requires its target to always have 500 ATK or less, so now that this requirement isn't satisfied, Machine Duplication destroys itself and takes the two extra copies of Plasma Eel with it.

Then, Joey sacrifices Panther Warrior, Rocket Warrior, and Lava Golem in order to summon Gilford the Lightning (2800/1400). When summoned by sacrificing three monsters instead of just two, Gilford the Lightning automatically destroys all of Marik's monsters, so that gets rid of the last Plasma Eel.

Now... if he was gonna do that anyways... why bother with the Graceful Dice? He could just sacrifice his trio of monsters, summon Gilford, wipe Marik's field, and achieve the same result except he keeps his Graceful Dice around.

Joey attacks directly, but Marik uses Nightmare Mirror. By discarding one card (he discards The Winged Dragon of Ra), he can negate the attack and inflict 1000 damage to Joey, so Joey drops to 1200 LP.

The Battle Phase ends, and Helpoemer would make Joey discard a card, but he has no cards to discard. He ends his turn.

Marik draws Monster Reborn. He activates it to bring back The Winged Dragon of Ra (?/?, becomes 0/0). Then Marik uses one of Ra's many abilities. By paying 1000 LP (he goes to 900 LP), he can transform it into its phoenix form and destroy all cards the opponent controls with a sacred flame of unimaginable heat, and being a shadow game, Joey feels all that pain.

Now, at this point, Marik thinks that Joey has to be dead, after everything that he has endured throughout the duel, but shockingly, Joey remains standing and is still in the game. So... at this point, Marik loses. Because when he ends his turn, The Winged Dragon of Ra returns to the graveyard. And now he has nothing to defend himself.

Joey's turn. He draws a card, which clearly takes a lot of strength to do. It is Gearfried the Iron Knight, and he summons it (1800/1600). All Joey has to do is say the word "attack", and he wins the game. But... after all the torture that he has gone through in this game, he simply collapses into unconsciousness and near-death, thereby disqualifying him from the tournament, and Marik wins by default.

So... did Joey deserve to win this duel? Ehhhhh... I'm skeptical. So, on one hand, if we ignore the plot line and just look at dueling, then yeah, obviously none of the shadow game stuff would have happened, and then Joey would have been able to attack and win the game. However, if we throw out the shadow game, then Marik wouldn't be toying with Joey and wouldn't be trying to win by torturing him. As such, Marik likely would have played a very different game and would have been much better off throughout the duel. But if we look at Marik's optimal plays, we also have to consider Joey's, and he could have gotten Jinzo and Rocket Warrior out a lot sooner, as well as maybe playing his Insect Queen. The duel would have been very different, and so I can't confidently say anything about it. However... Marik clearly underestimated Joey throughout this duel, so for that reason, I am inclined to say that, since that's a thing that can happen in real life too, Marik probably would have still misplayed and not attacked and toyed with Joey for a bit, and that would have resulted in Joey winning by simply declaring an attack with Gearfried on the final turn of the duel.

Now we look at our other semifinal duel, between Kaiba and Yugi.

Yugi's opening hand is Queen's Knight, Big Shield Gardna, Exchange, Collected Power, Magical Hats, and Lightforce Sword.

Yugi summons Queen's Knight in Defense Position (1500/1600) and plays Lightforce Sword face-down. Now... the optimal play is to play Big Shield Gardna, as it's a 2600 defender (even better would be playing it face-down), but he doesn't do this. I have no idea why.

Kaiba's opening hand is Obelisk the Tormentor, X-Head Cannon, Spell Sanctuary, Lullaby of Obedience, Power Balance, and Enemy Controller.

Kaiba summons X-Head Cannon (1800/1500). Then he activates Spell Sanctuary. This allows both players to search their decks for a magic card and put it into their hands. Yugi finds Change of Heart, while Kaiba finds Soul Exchange. Additionally, as long as Spell Sanctuary is in play, both players can activate magic cards on their opponent's turns if they were set face-down first.... as though that wasn't already a thing in Battle City rules? Like... people do this all the time throughout Battle City. So I don't get why that needs to be an effect. But, oh well, it doesn't hurt anything. Kaiba chooses not to attack. He just puts Enemy Controller face-down and ends his turn.

Why didn't Kaiba attack and destroy Queen's Knight? Because he wants to allow Yugi to get more monsters in play, so that he can use Soul Exchange to summon Obelisk the Tormentor and win the duel in a single direct attack. It's a good plan, so I don't fault him for thinking this would work. Having said that... if he did attack Queen's Knight, it would have been a very different duel with the ripple effects of that, and... I think Kaiba would have been better off in this new hypothetical duel. But obviously that's with the benefit of hindsight.

Anyways, Yugi draws Alpha the Magnet Warrior. He has no monsters that can attack X-Head Cannon profitably, so he just summons Alpha the Magnet Warrior into Defense Position (1400/1700) and ends his turn. He plays Change of Heart face-down and ends his turn.

Now, you may be screaming at Yugi to play Alpha the Magnet Warrior in Attack Position instead, and switch Queen's Knight to Attack Position, and then use Change of Heart to take X-Head Cannon. Then he can attack with all three monsters and win the game. However, had he done this, Kaiba would have used Enemy Controller to take control of X-Head Cannon again, and then Yugi would be unable to attack it, so he'd have to pass, and he'd be in the same situation as he is now, except that his monsters would be in Attack Position so that his life points would be vulnerable. So it's a good thing that he did not do this.

Kaiba draws Interdimensional Matter Transporter. Now it's time for Kaiba to put his plan into motion. He activates Soul Exchange, allowing him to sacrifice Yugi's monsters this turn in place of his own. He attempts to sacrifice all three monsters on the field, but Yugi activates Change of Heart to gain control of X-Head Cannon. Since it wasn't Yugi's monster at the time Soul Exchange was activated, Kaiba can't sacrifice it with Soul Exchange. But Kaiba plays Enemy Controller, paying 1000 LP (he drops to 3000 LP) to gain control of X-Head Cannon again. At this point, Kaiba can summon Obelisk the Tormentor, attack directly, and win, so Yugi's final gamble is to play Lightforce Sword and remove a card in Kaiba's hand from play for four turns. The card that is chosen is random, so he can't guarantee that it's Obelisk, but... it is. So Kaiba can't complete his summoning, and he ends his turn.

Yet again, Kaiba should have attacked with X-Head Cannon to destroy one of Yugi's monsters.

Yugi draws Life Shaver. He just plays Exchange face-down and ends his turn.

Ugh. That is such bad dueling. I get that he has no strong monsters to deal with X-Head Cannon, but he could at least summon (or better yet, set) Big Shield Gardna in Defense Position to defend himself from it. Additionally, there is no excuse for not putting Life Shaver face-down. In the anime, Life Shaver is a trap that, upon activation, forces your opponent to discard a number of cards from their hand equal to the number of turns that Life Shaver was face-down on the field. This is a card that should ALWAYS be set as soon as you draw it, with very very few exceptions. And on top of that... this is a powerful card. If you have Exchange face-down, you really do not want powerful cards in your hand, since Exchange can let the opponent take them from you.

Kaiba's turn. He draws Y-Dragon Head and summons it (1500/1600). He uses Y-Dragon Head's effect to equip itself to X-Head Cannon, which gives X-Head Cannon an extra 400 ATK, bringing it up to 2200. Then he has X-Head Cannon attack Alpha the Magnet Warrior, destroying it.

Next, Kaiba activates Lullaby of Obedience. Now he pays 1000 LP (he drops to 2000 LP) to name a monster that's Level 8 or higher, and if Yugi has that card in his deck, then Kaiba gets to take it and add it to his own hand. He names Slifer the Sky Dragon.

Kaiba notes that Slifer was so deep into Yugi's deck that he never would have drawn it anyways, which Yugi agrees with. But then Yugi plays Exchange. He says that he was planning on using this to take Obelisk once Lightforce Sword expired, but since Kaiba was generous enough to get Slifer out of Yugi's deck for him... he just takes Slifer instead. Kaiba takes Yugi's Life Shaver card in exchange.

Very amusingly, when Kaiba plays Lullaby of Obedience, he walks over to Yugi to take Slifer the Sky Dragon, and Yugi doesn't bother to activate Exchange until Kaiba walks ALL THE WAY BACK to his side of the arena, and then Yugi plays Exchange and forces Kaiba to walk back to Yugi's position, and then back again. This isn't commented on in the episode itself, but I just found it very funny upon analysis. In my mind, Yugi did this deliberately just to fuck with Kaiba. Kaiba ends his turn.

Again, had Yugi played his Big Shield Gardna and Life Shaver last turn, Kaiba wouldn't have been able to take either one. His only options at that point would have been Collected Power and Magical Hats, neither of which really work well for Kaiba's deck.

However, Yugi also misplayed here. He shouldn't use Exchange straight away. Even if Kaiba does have Slifer the Sky Dragon in his hand right now, he has no means of summoning it, and you can always save Exchange until later. In fact, doing this would have given Yugi the opportunity to have another turn and give him an opportunity to get Life Shaver out of his hand so that Kaiba can't take it. In fact, he could deliberately manipulate his hand to give Kaiba only one option, which would be the worst one for him, likely Magical Hats.

Oh, and on top of that... Yugi doesn't even bother to look at the rest of Kaiba's hand. He just says that he wants Slifer the Sky Dragon back and Kaiba gives it to him. We know this because Yugi is later shocked when Kaiba plays Power Balance, which should not have been a surprise, because he could have seen it here had he looked at Kaiba's hand. Always take in all of your options.

Now... that's what Yugi did wrong. Let's look at what Kaiba did wrong.

After all of this happened, he should have put Life Shaver and Power Balance face-down. Then, on Yugi's turn, he can activate them. Life Shaver would force Yugi to discard a card, and then Power Balance would force Yugi to discard half of his hand, while also letting Kaiba draw two cards. This would have not only decimated Yugi's resources while bolstering Kaiba's, but also drastically weakened Slifer the Sky Dragon if Yugi ever summons it.

Yugi's turn. He draws Soul Rope. He summons Big Shield Gardna in Defense Position (100/2600) and puts Soul Rope face-down. He ends his turn.

Kaiba's turn. He draws Z-Metal Tank. He plays Interdimensional Matter Transporter face-down. Then, he summons Z-Metal Tank (1500/1300). Then, by removing from play X-Head Cannon, Y-Dragon Head, and Z-Metal Tank, he can freely summon XYZ-Dragon Cannon from his Fusion Deck (2800/2600). XYZ-Dragon Cannon attacks and destroys Big Shield Gardna.

Yugi activates Soul Rope, which is activated when a monster is destroyed. He can now pay 1000 LP (dropping to 3000 LP) to summon a Level 4 monster from his deck. He summons King's Knight (1600/1400). When King's Knight is summoned, if he has a Queen's Knight in play, and he does, he can summon Jack's Knight from his deck (1900/1000).

Now uh... Kaiba cheated, right? XYZ-Dragon Cannon is a fusion monster. By Battle City rules, Fusion Monsters cannot attack on the turn they are summoned (although the real-world card game has no such rule). Now, one could argue that maybe this only applies to monsters summoned via a Fusion Summon with Polymerization. If that's the case... fine, this is legal. But... that really needs to be made more clear, because that's not at all what the anime implies whenever they mention this rule.

However, we do still need to talk about misplays, and Kaiba misplayed here regardless. You see, XYZ-Dragon Cannon has a very powerful effect that Kaiba never bothered to use. By discarding a card from his hand, Kaiba can automatically destroy any card on Yugi's field. Since he knows Yugi has Slifer the Sky Dragon in his hand, he absolutely should NOT let Yugi keep all three of his monsters on the field, and should destroy at least one. Even better, what Kaiba could have done is not bothered to set Interdimensional Matter Transporter at the start of the turn. Had he done that, then he would have had enough cards in his hand to wipe Yugi's entire field and then attack directly with XYZ-Dragon Cannon, dropping Yugi to 1200 LP. Then, Yugi's turn comes around, he has nothing he can play, and Kaiba attacks directly to win on the next turn. In fact, Kaiba does exactly this in his duel against Alister next season, so that proves that he knows he can do this. So this is just sloppy dueling.

Yugi's turn. He draws Pot of Greed. He sacrifices Queen's Knight, King's Knight, and Jack's Knight to summon Slifer the Sky Dragon (?/?, becomes 3000/3000). Yugi attacks XYZ-Dragon Cannon, but Kaiba uses Interdimensional Matter Transporter to remove XYZ-Dragon Cannon from play until the end of the turn. In real life, Yugi could just attack directly at this point and win. But in the anime, the attack loses its target, so the attack fizzles and is negated. Yugi puts Pot of Greed face-down on the field, thereby decreasing Slifer's ATK to 2000, and then ends his turn.

Now, I get why Yugi put Pot of Greed face-down. With Spell Sanctuary in play, he can use it at quick-play speed and surprise Kaiba by giving Slifer a 2000-point boost at any point. However, he also could have used it at the start of his own turn, to see what he would draw, and possibly change his plays as a result (although he wouldn't have drawn anything helpful). I think both options are valid, so I'm willing to give Yugi a pass here.

Kaiba draws Command Silencer. Lightforce Sword wears off and Kaiba gets to add Obelisk the Tormentor back to his hand. WAIT A MINUTE. That's not how this works. Lightforce Sword is supposed to last four turns. It says so on the card, both in real life and in the Japanese version of the episode. And it's only been three turns. I guess the writers forgot how to count.

Anyways, because Battle City rules are weird, XYZ-Dragon Cannon counts as three monsters, since it is made up of three monsters. So he sacrifices it to summon Obelisk the Tormentor (4000/4000). However, whenever the opponent summons a monster, Slifer the Sky Dragon reduces its ATK by 2000, so Obelisk drops to 2000 ATK. So if Kaiba attacks, both monsters will be destroyed.

So Kaiba opts not to attack. He just puts Power Balance and Command Silencer face-down (the dub has an animation error here, where the face-down cards are shown as the wrong cards - the Japanese version is correct though). Kaiba ends his turn, and because god cards can only be affected by card effects for one turn, Obelisk's ATK returns to 4000.

I just want to point out that had Kaiba used Power Balance and Life Shaver at earliest opportunity, he could use them to weaken Slifer enough to the point where Obelisk could have destroyed it, and even counter Yugi's Pot of Greed by making him discard the cards he draws off of it.

Yugi's turn. He draws Chain Destruction. Slifer goes up to 3000 ATK. He activates his Pot of Greed to draw two cards and raise Slifer's ATK to 5000. He draws Card Destruction and Disgraceful Charity.

Slifer attacks Obelisk. Kaiba activates Command Silencer, which negates the attack and lets Kaiba draw a card, and he draws Kaiser Sea Horse.

Yugi puts Card Destruction and Disgraceful Charity face-down, putting Slifer down to 3000 ATK. Then he ends his turn.

Kaiba draws Blade Knight. Yugi immediately activates Card Destruction, forcing both players to discard their hands and draw an equal number of replacement cards. So, Yugi discards Collected Power, Magical Hats, and Chain Destruction. He draws Kuriboh, Spell Textbook, and Electromagnetic Turtle. Meanwhile, Kaiba discards Life Shaver, Kaiser Sea Horse, and Blade Knight. He draws Sword of Soul, Thirst for Compensation, and Card Guard.

Yugi then activates Disgraceful Charity, which allows both players to add from their graveyards to their hands all cards that they discarded from their hands during this turn, so they get back the cards that were lost, and Slifer's ATK goes up to 6000.

Kaiba activates Thirst for Compensation. Since Yugi added a card to his hand, Kaiba can special summon two Level 4 monsters from his hand into Defense Position. He summons Sword of Soul (0/1900) and Blade Knight (1600/1000). In doing so, Slifer's effect activates, and attempts to take 2000 points off of them, which would destroy them since they don't have that many points. But Kaiba activates Card Guard to prevent his monsters from being destroyed by battle or card effects for this turn. The cost to use this is discarding a card from his hand, so he discards Kaiser Sea Horse.

Kaiba then activates the effect of Obelisk the Tormentor, by sacrificing two monsters (Sword of Soul and Blade Knight), he can do 4000 damage to all monsters on the opponent's side of the field. Since Slifer has over 4000 points, it will survive. However, it also does 4000 damage to Yugi himself, which would win Kaiba the duel. However, Yugi discards Kuriboh (Slifer drops to 5000 ATK) to negate the damage. Kaiba puts Life Shaver face-down and then ends his turn.

Yugi really messed up here. What he should have done is wait until the Battle Phase when Obelisk attacks Slifer and only THEN use his Card Destruction and Disgraceful Charity. This would destroy Obelisk, do 2000 damage to Kaiba, and put Kaiba in a bad position for the next part of the duel. Why he didn't wait until Kaiba's Battle Phase to do this is a mystery.

Yugi's turn. He draws Necromancy and Slifer goes up to 6000 ATK. He has Slifer attack Obelisk, but Kaiba activates Power Balance. This forces Yugi to discard half of the cards in his hand while Kaiba draws an equal amount. He discards Collected Power, Electromagnetic Turtle, and Chain Destruction. Meanwhile, Kaiba draws Blue-Eyes White Dragon, a second copy of Blue-Eyes White Dragon, and Polymerization. Slifer's ATK drops to 3000.

But before Slifer can be destroyed, Yugi activates Necromancy (Slifer's ATK drops to 2000). At this point, Yugi is cheating. Necromancy is not a quick-play card, so he can't use it during the Battle Phase. Spell Sanctuary only circumvents this if you set the card first, so you can't use it from your hand. This is just an illegal play. Necromancy summons four random monsters from Kaiba's graveyard to his field in Defense Position, so Blade Knight (1600/1000), Sword of Soul (0/1900), Kaiser Sea Horse (1700/1650), and X-Head Cannon (1800/1500) come back to Kaiba. This triggers Slifer's effect, which inflicts 2000 damage to each, destroying them all again. And due to Necromancy's other effect, whenever a monster summoned with it is destroyed, all of Kaiba's monsters lose 600 ATK. Obelisk drops to 1600 ATK.

However, when Sword of Soul is destroyed, it can increase the ATK of a monster by 1000, so Obelisk shoots back up to 2600 ATK.

Yugi activates the effect of the Electromagnetic Turtle in his graveyard. By removing it from play, he can immediately end the Battle Phase, so he does so.

He puts Spell Textbook face-down (Slifer drops to 1000 ATK) and then ends his turn. At the end of the turn, the effects wear off and Obelisk goes back to 4000 ATK.

Kaiba's turn. He draws Final Attack Orders.

Kaiba has Obelisk attack Slifer. But Yugi activates Spell Textbook. By discarding his entire hand. which is just Magical Hats (Slifer goes to 0 ATK), he can draw one card and play it immediately. He gets Card of Sanctity, letting both players draw until they have six cards in their hand. Yugi draws six cards, which are Dark Magician, Magic Formula, Spellbinding Circle, Magician Selection, Red-Eyes Black Dragon, and a mysterious card that we don't get to see. Slifer goes up to 6000 ATK.

Kaiba, meanwhile, draws two cards, and gets Card of Demise and Cloning.

Slifer is about to destroy Obelisk, but Kaiba activates Life Shaver, which has been set for two turns, so Yugi must discard two cards. He discards Dark Magician and the card that we never see. Slifer drops to 4000 ATK. Both god cards are destroyed.

Kaiba puts Cloning face-down and ends his turn.

Yugi's turn. He draws Gazelle the King of Mythical Beasts. He summons it in Defense Position (1500/1200). Kaiba responds by activating Cloning to create a Clone Token with the same stats as the monster that was just summoned (?/?, becomes 1500/1200). Yugi plays Magic Formula face-down and ends his turn.

Kaiba's turn. He draws Cost Down, which lowers the Level of one monster in his hand by 2. He sacrifices his Clone Token to summon the now-Level 6 Blue-Eyes White Dragon (3000/2500).

He attacks and destroys Yugi's Gazelle.

Yugi's turn. He draws Monster Reborn. He activates it to bring back his Dark Magician (2500/2100) and then puts his Spellbinding Circle face-down. He ends his turn.

Kaiba's turn. He draws Magical Trick Mirror. He puts it onto the field face-down, and then activates Card of Demise, allowing him to draw until he has five cards in his hand, at the cost of needing to discard his entire hand in five turns' time. Since Kaiba has three cards in his hand (Blue-Eyes White Dragon, Polymerization, and Final Attack Orders), he only draws two. He gets a third copy of Blue-Eyes White Dragon and Lord of D.

Kaiba summons Lord of D. (1200/1100) and ends his turn.

Why didn't Kaiba attack the Dark Magician with Blue-Eyes White Dragon? Because he knows Yugi's deck pretty well, and figured that Yugi's two face-down cards would be a card to power up his Dark Magician and a card to weaken the Blue-Eyes White Dragon. And, to be fair, he is correct. Yugi's two face-down cards are Magic Formula and Spellbinding Circle, which matches Kaiba's prediction perfectly. However... as long as Lord of D. is in play, Dragon-types cannot be targeted by card effects, so Spellbinding Circle would not work here. So he needn't worry about that. Now, to be fair, Magic Formula is a concern here. This would enable the Dark Magician to defeat the Blue-Eyes White Dragon.

But that's only a problem if you're using the Blue-Eyes White Dragon. You have a better option for an even stronger monster, namely... Kaiba is holding Polymerization and two other copies of Blue-Eyes White Dragon in his hand. By making a Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon, he could defeat the Dark Magician regardless of whether Yugi used Magic Formula or not. So this is indeed a misplay.

Yugi's turn. He draws Beta the Magnet Warrior and summons it in Defense Position (1700/1600). He has Dark Magician attack Lord of D.

Kaiba responds by activating Magical Trick Mirror. When an opposing monster attacks, this card can be used to allow Kaiba to activate a card from Yugi's graveyard, and he chooses Monster Reborn. He brings back Obelisk the Tormentor in Defense Position (4000/4000). And then Kaiba explains that when a god card is summoned in Defense Position while an attack is being declared, the attack gets redirected to it. I... don't think that's actually a thing... like... ever? The god cards are annoyingly undefined and seem to have different effects depending on which medium you're looking at (anime, manga, or any one of the video games (which are all different from each other, even)). But like... I'm pretty sure this is only ever in this one duel.

Anyways, Dark Magician attacks Obelisk the Tormentor, and Yugi takes 1500 damage, leaving him with 1500 LP. Yugi puts Magician Selection face-down, then ends his turn. At the end of his turn, Obelisk returns to the graveyard.

Kaiba draws The Flute of Summoning Dragon. He switches Lord of D. to Defense Position, then activates The Flute of Summoning Dragon, to special summon two copies of Blue-Eyes White Dragon from his hand (3000/2500) (3000/2500). However, the anime effect of The Flute of Summoning Dragon also lets the opponent summon up to two Dragons as well, so Yugi summons Red-Eyes Black Dragon (2400/2000).

Kaiba attacks with his three Blue-Eyes White Dragons. The first attacks Dark Magician, but Yugi activates Magician Selection to negate the attack and destroy Kaiba's weakest monster, which is Lord of D. The second attacks Beta the Magnet Warrior, and this attack is successful, destroying Beta. The third attacks Red-Eyes Black Dragon, but with Lord of D. no longer on the field, Yugi can activate Spellbinding Circle to reduce the ATK of Blue-Eyes White Dragon by 700, making it only 2300 ATK, and therefore allowing Red-Eyes to destroy it. Kaiba drops to 1900 LP. In every other instance when Spellbinding Circle is played, it also stops the monster from attacking, but... I guess that's an optional effect and Yugi chose not to use it? Okay, sure. Let's go with that.

Kaiba puts Polymerization and Final Attack Orders face-down, then ends his turn.

Yugi draws Double Spell. He puts it face-down and then switches Red-Eyes Black Dragon to Defense Position.

Kaiba activates Final Attack Orders. This forces all monsters on the field into Attack Position and prevents them from changing battle position. Additionally, each duelist chooses three cards from their decks, sends all other cards from their decks to the graveyard, and then puts the three chosen cards back as their new decks, in whatever order they like.

Yugi picks De-Fusion, then Diffusion Wave-Motion, then a card that we won't see.

Kaiba picks Monster Reborn, then Absorb Spell, then another card that we won't see.

Kaiba's turn now, so he draws Monster Reborn. He activates it to bring back Blue-Eyes White Dragon (3000/2500). He then activates his face-down Polymerization to fuse his three Blue-Eyes together to make Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon (4500/3800). Yugi responds by activating his face-down Double Spell. This allows Yugi to use all the magic cards that Kaiba just used. So first he uses Monster Reborn to bring back his Buster Blader (2600/2300), and then uses Polymerization to fuse it with his Dark Magician to create Dark Paladin (2900/2400). Dark Paladin gains 500 ATK for each Dragon-type monster on the field, so with Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon and Red-Eyes Black Dragon in play, Dark Paladin goes up to 3900.

Fusion monsters can't attack the turn that they're summoned, per Battle City rules, so Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon cannot destroy Dark Paladin. Kaiba ends his turn.

So uh... Kaiba could have won this turn.

When he drew Monster Reborn, he didn't need to bring back his Blue-Eyes White Dragon. What he should have done was brought back Obelisk the Tormentor. Then, he could use Obelisk's effect to sacrifice his two Blue-Eyes White Dragons to wipe Yugi's field and do 4000 damage to him. That would have left him with 0 LP, and Kaiba would have emerged victorious. Yugi had nothing to stop this.

Yugi's turn. He draws De-Fusion, puts it face-down, and ends his turn.

Kaiba's turn. He draws Absorb Spell.

Now, Kaiba attacks with Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon. He never states what the attack target is, nor is it ever shown. It's just... an attack coming Yugi's way. I assume that he's attacking Red-Eyes here, because that would do enough damage to bring Yugi to 0 LP. But... then Yugi uses Magic Formula to boost Dark Paladin's ATK by 500, bringing it up to 4400. So... that's... not relevant if Kaiba was attacking Red-Eyes. Maybe he was attacking Dark Paladin, but that wouldn't do enough damage to win the game. So... I guess he just wanted Dark Paladin off the board. But then also... Magic Formula isn't enough here. It only brings Dark Paladin to 4400 ATK, which is 100 short of what Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon has. I don't get it.

Kaiba activates Absorb Spell. This transfers the ATK increase from Dark Paladin to Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon, so Dark Paladin goes down to 3900 and Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon goes up to 5000, which is still not enough for Kaiba to win the duel. So... I still don't get it.

And none of it matters anyways, because Yugi uses De-Fusion to split Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon into the three separate Blue-Eyes White Dragons anyways (3000/2500) (3000/2500) (3000/2500).

Now that there are more Dragons on the field, Dark Paladin's ATK goes up by its own effect, putting it at 4900.

Kaiba ends his turn.

Yugi's turn and he draws Diffusion Wave-Motion. Now... all Yugi has to do to win the duel is to just attack Blue-Eyes White Dragon with Dark Paladin. That's 1900 damage and Kaiba only has 1900 LP left.

But Yugi instead activates Diffusion Wave-Motion, paying 1000 LP (he drops to 500 LP) in order to enable Dark Paladin to attack ALL of Kaiba's monsters, so Dark Paladin destroys all three Blue-Eyes White Dragons and drops Kaiba to 0 LP. That was totally pointless, but whatever.

I feel like Kaiba made a lot more misplays this duel, and he did so just for the sake of the plot of the anime so that Yugi could win the duel, since he has to do so in order to face Marik.

Speaking of which, our next tournament duel is Yugi vs Marik, but before that happens, Joey challenges Kaiba to a duel to see who gets third place in the tournament. I was unsure whether or not to cover this duel here, but... ehhh, why not.

Kaiba's opening hand is Ryu-Kishin Powered, Crush Card Virus, Shrink, Blade Knight, Enemy Controller, and Blue-Eyes White Dragon.

Kaiba summons Ryu-Kishin Powered (1600/1200) and puts Shrink and Crush Card Virus face-down. Then he ends his turn.

Joey's opening hand is Gearfried the Iron Knight, Swordsman of Landstar, Little Winguard, Legendary Sword, Nutrient Z, and Graverobber.

Joey summons Gearfried the Iron Knight (1800/1600) and attacks, but Kaiba activates Shrink. Joey states that magic cards don't work on Gearfried (which isn't actually true, it's only equip cards that don't work on Gearfried, but maybe in the anime it's all magic cards?), but Kaiba says Gearfried isn't the target. He's halving the ATK of his own Ryu-Kishin Powered, down to 800. Gearfried destroys it, and Kaiba drops to 3000 LP. Now that a DARK monster with 1000 or less ATK has been destroyed, Kaiba can activate Crush Card Virus, wiping Joey's field, hand, and deck of all monsters with an ATK of 1500 or more, so Gearfried is destroyed. Joey ends his turn.

Personally, if I were Joey, I would have thrown down Nutrient Z and Graverobber. Graverobber lets him take a card from Kaiba's graveyard. Crush Card Virus would be ideal here, but Joey doesn't have any easy way of meeting the condition of getting a DARK monster with less than 1000 ATK. His deck just... doesn't play any cards that fall into that criteria. But Shrink is a good option. It could be helpful for Joey later. And, of course, Kaiba will continue to accumulate more cards in his graveyard as the duel continues, so even more options will be available to Joey. He ABSOLUTELY should have thrown down his Graverobber. As for Nutrient Z, it activates whenever Joey is about to take 2000 or more damage, and allows him to gain 4000 LP before that damage happens. That's just always helpful. You never know when your opponent is gonna make a big play, and so... yeah, this should absolutely be set face-down on the field. Joey is just not playing optimally here.

Kaiba's turn. He draws La Jinn the Mystical Genie of the Lamp and summons it (1800/1000). He attacks Joey directly, dropping Joey to 2200 LP. Then Kaiba ends his turn.

Joey's turn. He draws Graceful Dice. We see Joey's hand here, and if you're watching the English dub, then there's an animation error, where the two traps in his hand (Nutrient Z and Graverobber) are incorrectly shown as Crush Card Virus and Collected Power. The Japanese version gets his hand correct.

Joey summons Swordsman of Landstar (500/1200) and then activates Graceful Dice to multiply its ATK by a die roll. He rolls a 4, so Swordsman of Landstar goes to 2000 ATK and destroys La Jinn, dropping Kaiba to 2800 LP. He ends his turn, and Graceful Dice wears off.

Kaiba draws Absorb Spell. He summons Blade Knight (1600/1000) and uses it to attack Swordsman of Landstar, destroying it and bringing Joey down to 1100 LP. He puts Absorb Spell face-down and ends his turn.

And... Joey could have won this duel here. Kind of. So... okay, let's see what he should have done on his turn. He summons Swordsman of Landstar. Rather than activating Graceful Dice, though, merely put it face-down. Also, put Nutrient Z and Graverobber face-down as well. Then Joey's turn ends. Now Kaiba's turn comes around. With Joey having three set cards, it's possible Kaiba chooses not to attack, but knowing Kaiba, he's still gonna attack Joey anyways. He first summons Blade Knight, and then attacks with La Jinn. Joey activates Graceful Dice, Swordsman of Landstar gets boosted, and then destroys La Jinn. Kaiba is forced to end his turn. But instead of attacking, Kaiba could use Enemy Controller to destroy Swordsman of Landstar, and then attack Joey directly to win the duel (after summoning Blade Knight). But that would require Kaiba wasting his Enemy Controller on a monster with only 500 ATK, which isn't Kaiba's style. So instead, we look at Kaiba's third option: he uses Enemy Controller to gain control of Swordsman of Landstar. And then he sacrifices it along with La Jinn in order to summon Blue-Eyes White Dragon. This fits with Kaiba's playstyle so well that I consider it to be the most likely of the three options. And with this, Kaiba can attack directly and seemingly drop Joey to 0 LP. However, Joey would then activate Nutrient Z to gain 4000 LP, going to 6200, and then dropping to 3200 after the attack. And so Kaiba has nothing to do but throw Absorb Spell face-down and end his turn. With that, on Joey's turn, all he has to do is use Graverobber to take Enemy Controller, gain control of Blue-Eyes White Dragon, attack Kaiba directly, and win the duel.

So... assuming Kaiba did all this, Joey would win, right?

Well... no.

Because... Enemy Controller's anime effect is... very weird. In real life, Enemy Controller lets you either change the battle position of an opposing monster, or sacrifice one of your monsters to gain control of an opposing monster for one turn. Gaining control of an opposing monster is what this card does in real life. So it's a reasonable assumption that this is what it does in the anime.

However, it's anime effect is written strangely. It reads:

Give a command to one of your opponent's monsters on the field with the Enemy Controller.
• 1000 Life + Up, Left, Down, Right, A = Explode
• 1000 Life + Left, Right, A, B = Sacrifice

So... this doesn't actually take control of the monster, it just makes it able to be sacrificed as though you control it. It LOOKS like it gives control, as the two duels where Kaiba uses Enemy Controller (this one and Kaiba's duel with Yugi just now), the animation shows the monster going to Kaiba's side of the field. But this is just for the benefit of the audience. You can tell because the same thing happens with Soul Exchange, which explicitly does NOT give control of a monster, but instead just lets you sacrifice your opponent's monsters as though they were your own.

With that in mind, Joey couldn't have attacked with Blue-Eyes White Dragon... so... none of this matters and Joey actually couldn't have won.

Probably.

Look, anime cards are WEIRD. And often unclear and contradictory. So... it's possible that maybe the monster can attack? I don't know how this card works.

Let's leave this hypothetical behind and look at the actual duel that happened.

Joey's turn. He draws Scapegoat. He summons Little Winguard (1400/1800) and equips it with Legendary Sword, giving it an extra 300 ATK. However, Kaiba activates Absorb Spell, to switch the target of Legendary Sword to Blade Knight. Blade Knight goes to 1900 ATK. Joey puts his Scapegoat face-down and ends his turn.

Kaiba draws Cost Down. He activates Enemy Controller, paying 1000 LP (he drops to 1800 LP) to sacrifice Joey's Little Winguard. He uses Cost Down to reduce his Blue-Eyes White Dragon's level in his hand from 8 to 6, so Little Winguard is the only sacrifice needed to summon it (3000/2500).

Now that Kaiba's hand is empty, Blade Knight's effect gives itself an extra 400 ATK, bringing it up to 2300. Kaiba attacks directly with Blue-Eyes, but Joey uses Scapegoat to create four Sheep Tokens (0/0) (0/0) (0/0) (0/0). Blue-Eyes and Blade Knight each destroy one, and Kaiba ends his turn.

Joey's turn. He draws Battle Warrior. He puts Graverobber face-down and then summons Battle Warrior into Defense Position (700/1000).

Kaiba's turn. He draws Card of Demise. He activates it, allowing him to draw five cards, at the cost of needing to discard his entire hand in five turns. He draws Kaiser Sea Horse, Blue-Eyes White Dragon, Interdimensional Matter Transporter, Quick Attack, and Polymerization.

He summons Kaiser Sea Horse (1700/1650) and then has it, alongside Blade Knight and Blue-Eyes, attack Joey's Battle Warrior and two Sheep Tokens, wiping out Joey's monsters. Kaiba ends his turn.

Kaiba could have set his Interdimensional Matter Transporter and save himself a lot of trouble later on next turn, but he didn't. I have no idea why.

Joey draws Pot of Greed and uses it to draw two cards. He gets Monster Reborn and Hayabusa Knight. He activates his Graverobber to take Kaiba's Enemy Controller and uses it to destroy Blue-Eyes White Dragon at the cost of 1000 LP (Joey drops to 100 LP). If Kaiba were dueling sensibly, he would have set Interdimensional Matter Transporter and then used it here to protect his Blue-Eyes White Dragon. But he didn't.

Joey activates Monster Reborn to bring Blue-Eyes White Dragon back to his side. He attacks Blade Knight, destroying it, and drops Kaiba to 700 LP. Joey then summons Hayabusa Knight (1000/700) in Defense Position. Then he puts Nutrient Z face-down and ends his turn.

Kaiba's turn and he draws Monster Reborn.

He sacrifices Kaiser Sea Horse, which counts as two tributes when used to tribute summon a LIGHT monster, and summons his second Blue-Eyes White Dragon (3000/2500). He has his Blue-Eyes attack Joey's, and both are destroyed. Then in Main Phase 2, he uses Monster Reborn to bring back Blue-Eyes White Dragon (3000/2500).

Joey draws Baby Dragon and summons it in Defense Position (1200/700). He ends his turn. Not really any other options here.

Kaiba draws Stop Defense. He uses it to switch Hayabusa Knight to Attack Position. Then he attacks with Blue-Eyes White Dragon, destroying Hayabusa Knight and doing 2000 damage to Joey. But Joey activates Nutrient Z, causing him to gain 4000 LP first, so he goes to 4100 LP, and then back down to 2100 LP. Kaiba puts Interdimensional Matter Transporter face-down, and then ends his turn.

Joey draws Time Wizard. In the anime, Time Wizard can be played like a magic card, so that's what Joey does, using its time roulette. And the roulette is successful, so all monsters on the field age forward one thousand years. This turns Baby Dragon into Thousand Dragon (2400/2000). Before the time roulette ages up Blue-Eyes White Dragon, however, Kaiba activates Interdimensional Matter Transporter to remove it from play for one turn, saving it from Time Wizard's effect.

Now, you may think that Joey can now just attack directly with Thousand Dragon to win the duel, but... Thousand Dragon is technically a fusion monster, and by Battle City rules, fusion monsters can't attack on the turn they are summoned. So Joey is forced to end his turn. At the end phase, Blue-Eyes White Dragon returns to Kaiba.

Kaiba draws Thunder Dragon. By discarding it from his hand, he can use its effect. This lets him search his deck for two more copies of Thunder Dragon and add them to his hand. He does so, then uses Polymerization to fuse them together into Twin-Headed Thunder Dragon (2800/2100). Then Kaiba activates Quick Attack. This anime-only card allows a fusion monster to attack the turn it is summoned, regardless of Battle City rules. So it destroys Thousand Dragon, and then Blue-Eyes attacks directly, depleting Joey's remaining life points.

Kaiba wins.

Now we move on to the main event: the final duel of the tournament, between Yugi and Marik. Before the duel begins, Kaiba gives Yugi a copy of Fiend's Sanctuary to add to his deck. We immediately start out with Marik turning this into a shadow game.

Marik's opening hand consists of The Winged Dragon of Ra, Vampiric Leech, Juragedo, Dark Spell Regeneration, Zombie's Jewel, and Vengeful Bog Spirit.

Marik summons Vampiric Leech (500/1200). Vampiric Leech's effect is that it can attack even on the first turn of the duel, so it does so, and Yugi drops to 3500 LP. After attacking, Vampiric Leech's other effect activates, allowing it to switch to Defense Position if Marik discards a card from his hand, so he discards The Winged Dragon of Ra.

Now, in the anime, graveyards are not public information, so Marik doesn't reveal what card he discarded to Yugi, and also Yugi can't just check it or ask him. However, Yugi assumes that it was The Winged Dragon of Ra, because Marik has been known to discard it to bring it back later. I found it kinda funny that Yugi acted like this was a clever deduction when, in real life, he could just check.

Marik puts Zombie's Jewel face-down and ends his turn.

Yugi's turn. His hand is Queen's Knight, King's Knight, Kuriboh, De-Fusion, Exchange, and Multiply.

He summons Queen's Knight (1500/1600), then attacks Vampiric Leech, destroying it. He puts Exchange and Multiply face-down and ends his turn.

Marik's turn. He draws Left Arm Offering. He summons Juragedo (1700/1300) and attacks Queen's Knight, destroying it and dropping Yugi to 3300 LP. He puts Dark Spell Regeneration and Left Arm Offering face-down and ends his turn.

Yugi's turn. He draws Ragnarok. Immediately, Marik activates Left Arm Offering, allowing him to discard his hand (which is just Vengeful Bog Spirit) to add any magic card from his deck to his hand, and he chooses Monster Reborn.

After that, Yugi activates Exchange. He takes Marik's Monster Reborn. Marik takes Yugi's De-Fusion.

But... let's look at Marik's options here: King's Knight, Kuriboh, De-Fusion, and Ragnarok. I think that there is merit to taking all of these cards. Taking King's Knight would prevent Yugi from doing his combo of Queen's Knight, King's Knight, and Jack's Knight that he is quite fond of using. Taking Kuriboh not only prevents Yugi from discarding it to prevent damage, but also allows Marik to do that instead. Taking De-Fusion stops Yugi from using it to split up Marik from Ra should Marik use Ra's ability to fuse the two of them together. And taking Ragnarok prevents Yugi from using it, since that card will ultimately win Yugi the game (although Marik's deck can't use it).

So I think De-Fusion is a fine option, this isn't a misplay.

Yugi activates Monster Reborn to bring back Queen's Knight (1500/1600). Despite Monster Reborn being Marik's card, it goes to Yugi's graveyard, because anime mechanics. That will be important later. Then Yugi summons King's Knight (1600/1400), which lets him summon Jack's Knight (1900/1000) from his deck. Yugi can attack with all three knights and drop Marik down to just 700 LP. But he has a bad feeling about Marik's face-down card, so he chooses not to attack. Was that the right call?

In reality, Marik's face-down card is Dark Spell Regeneration, which would allow Marik to use a magic card from Yugi's graveyard, namely Monster Reborn. This would bring back The Winged Dragon of Ra. Yugi would be forced to end his turn here, returning Ra to the graveyard. Next turn, Marik finds another way to bring back Ra, then summons a monster, sacrifices all of his monsters and all but one life point to it, and then it has enough ATK to wipe out all of Yugi's life points when he attacks one of Yugi's knights. But Yugi has Kuriboh in his hand, which can nullify the damage. But does that work on god cards? Well, yes. Yugi did this against Kaiba's Obelisk in his last duel. So now that Ra is unable to defeat Yugi, Marik would be forced to end his turn and send it to the graveyard, but before he does so, he should use De-Fusion to split himself apart from Ra to regain back all the life points that he spent. After that's done, he can re-fuse with Ra. If he does this during the battle phase, then the game might see this new fusion as being a different monster than the one that attacked. This would give Marik another attack to use, and would let him win. Or the game might view it as the same monster and not let him do so. It's unclear. It's also unclear if Ra can even re-fuse in the middle of the battle phase at all. So Marik would need to build up some defenses. By this point, he would have drawn Card of Sanctity and can use it to get some resources to use. Or he could just wait until his next turn and see what happens. Either way... this moves the duel in a completely different direction from where it actually went, so... I don't feel comfortable saying anything definitive about what would have happened.

Marik's turn. He draws Card of Sanctity. He sets De-Fusion face-down and then activates Card of Sanctity to force both players to draw until they have six cards in their hand. Marik draws six cards, namely Jam Defender, Polymerization, Swallowtail Spike Lizard, Class System, Bait Doll, and The Mask of Remnant. Meanwhile, Yugi already has two cards in his hand (Ragnarok and Kuriboh), so he only draws four cards, namely Dark Magician Girl, Gazelle the King of Mythical Beasts, Magical Dimension, and Dark Magician.

Marik switches Juragedo to Defense Position and ends his turn.

Yugi's turn. He draws Slifer the Sky Dragon. He sacrifices his three knights to summon it (?/?, becomes 6000/6000). Now that Yugi has an Egyptian God Card on the field... he doesn't need to worry so much about Marik's face-down cards, because god cards are immune to magic and trap cards. He has Slifer attack Juragedo.

Marik activates his Dark Spell Regeneration, which can be used when a monster attacks, and it allows Marik to activate a magic card from Yugi's graveyard, so Marik uses Monster Reborn to bring back The Winged Dragon of Ra (?/?, becomes 0/0). Ra is summoned in its phoenix form, so it is immune to being destroyed by battle and by Slifer's effect. Then Marik pays 1000 LP (he goes to 3000 LP) to use Ra's phoenix effect to destroy all monsters Yugi controls, destroying Slifer the Sky Dragon. At the end of the battle phase, Ra returns to the graveyard.

But Marik still has one more thing to do. He activates Zombie's Jewel, which lets him add a magic card from Yugi's graveyard to his own hand, and he takes back his Monster Reborn. However, when Zombie's Jewel is activated, the opponent is able to draw one card, so Yugi gets to draw a card. He draws, and then, without looking at the card he drew, places it face-down on the field. In the Japanese version, the referee (Roland) stops Yugi here and says that placing a card face-down without looking at it is illegal, since if it was a monster card, then Yugi just put it in the wrong slot, and that would be a disqualifiable action. But Kaiba finds it interesting and decides to let the duel continue anyways. All of that is cut from the English dub. The card in question is Fiend's Sanctuary, the card that Kaiba gave him, and Yugi knew that this was the card he drew because he believed in the heart of the cards. Yeah... stupid anime shit.

I think it's funny that the referee has a problem with Yugi putting a card in the wrong slot, but takes no qualms with Marik going around literally murdering people and disintegrating their souls.

Marik's turn and he draws Metal Reflect Slime. Marik activates Monster Reborn to bring back Ra (?/?, becomes 0/0). He then transfers all of his life points except for one (he drops to 1 LP) in order to increase Ra by the same amount, raising it to 2999 ATK and DEF. This fuses Marik and Ra together.

Then Marik sacrifices Juragedo to increase Ra's ATK by the same amount (1700), raising it to 4699. He attempts to attack Yugi directly, but Yugi activates Fiend's Sanctuary, creating a Metal Fiend Token (0/0).

As long as Yugi controls a Metal Fiend Token, Marik's attacks must target the Metal Fiend Token, and any damage that would be dealt to Yugi in battles involving the Metal Fiend Token is dealt to Marik instead. So this attack will cause Marik to lose the game. So Marik activates De-Fusion to split himself from Ra. This cancels out the attack, and Marik goes to 4700 LP. Then The Winged Dragon of Ra returns to the graveyard.

Marik puts Metal Reflect Slime face-down and then ends his turn.

Yugi's turn. He draws Obelisk the Tormentor. In his standby phase, he must pay 1000 LP to keep his Metal Fiend Token in play. So he does so, dropping to 2300 LP.

Yugi activates Multiply, targeting his Metal Fiend Token, to create two more copies (0/0) (0/0). Then he sacrifices all three to summon Obelisk the Tormentor (4000/4000).

Now... Multiply could have created as many copies of the Metal Fiend Token as Yugi wanted, so why not fill his field? Well, for starters... Yugi would have to pay the maintenance cost on them which would quickly add up and drain his life points. You may think that having Obelisk out with two monsters that can be tributed to use its effect is really good, and you'd be right, but because Marik has no monsters out and Yugi can just attack directly with Obelisk anyways... I think the risk here outweighs the reward. I can understand if you disagree with that. Really, both options are valid, so I don't fault Yugi for only making three copies of his token.

Yugi attacks directly with Obelisk, and so Marik takes 4000 damage. And... this is a shadow game, so the monsters are real... and... yikes that looks painful. Marik drops to 700 LP.

Marik activates Metal Reflect Slime. In real life, this is a 0/3000 trap-monster, but it works quite differently in the anime. In the anime, this can be activated only if you just got hit with a direct attack, and it creates a copy of the attacking monster to be on your side, except that the copy has 0 ATK and a DEF equal to three-quarters of the original. Why three-quarters? That's just... such a random number. But... okay. It's a 3000 defender.

Yugi puts his Magical Dimension face-down, then ends his turn.

Marik's turn. He draws Revival Jam and summons it (1500/500) in Defense Position. Then he activates Polymerization to fuse it with Metal Reflect Slime. This creates Egyptian God Slime (?/?, becomes 3000/3000). This card's name is treated as Revival Jam while it's on the field. Its ATK and DEF are equal to the DEF of the Metal Reflect Slime used to summon it. And if it would ever be destroyed, it revives itself immediately.

Yugi's turn. He draws Big Shield Gardna and summons it in Defense Position (100/2600). Yugi doesn't know about Egyptian God Slime's effect, so he attacks it with Obelisk, but it reforms. He ends his turn.

With the benefit of looking back on it in hindsight now, Yugi absolutely should have used Multiply to create another Metal Fiend Token. Yeah, it would have cost him 1000 LP, but now he can sacrifice the Metal Fiend Token along with Big Shield Gardna and use Obelisk to do 4000 damage to Marik and win the duel. He would have had to wait until this turn because Obelisk can't attack on the turn it uses its effect, so the 1000 LP cost for the Metal Fiend Token is still a consideration. However, if this did become a major issue, he does have Dark Magician Girl in his hand, so he could have just sacrificed the Metal Fiend Token to summon it and then not have to deal with the maintenance cost anymore.

So... fine. He should have played more tokens.

But that's only looking back on it now. I think that at the time, it was a sensible play.

Marik's turn. He draws Bowganian. He puts Jam Defender face-down and summons Bowganian (1300/1000) in Defense Position. Bowganian's effect deals 300 damage to Yugi during each of his End Phases.

Yugi's turn. Yugi draws Soul Taker and immediately throws it onto the field face-down. He sacrifices Big Shield Gardna to summon Dark Magician Girl (2000/1700) and uses it to attack Bowganian. Marik, however, activates Jam Defender, forcing all attacks to get redirected to Revival Jam. Since this is a 3000 DEF monster and Dark Magician Girl's ATK is only 2000, it means that Yugi takes 1000 damage, leaving him with 1300 LP. Yugi ends his turn, so Bowganian does 300 damage to him, dropping him to 1000 LP.

Yugi definitely misplayed that. He should have attacked with Obelisk the Tormentor instead. Not only would he have not taken damage from the attack, but also... magic and trap cards don't work on god cards, and while I think Jam Defender would still redirect the attack, since Revival Jam is the main card involved there... Yugi had no way of knowing that the card was Jam Defender. It could have been something more dangerous like a Magic Cylinder. And so attacking with Obelisk would have been the safer option.

Marik's turn. He draws Magical Stone Excavation. He immediately activates it. Now, he discards two cards from his hand - he chooses Bait Doll and The Mask of Remnant - to bring one magic card from his graveyard back to his hand, and he chooses Monster Reborn. However, due to the effect of Magical Stone Excavation, he cannot activate the card that he recovered from his graveyard on this turn.

He puts Class System onto the field face-down and then summons Swallowtail Spike Lizard (1900/700) in Defense Position. As long as this card remains on Marik's field in Defense Position, he will gain 1000 LP during each of his standby phases. Marik ends his turn.

Yugi's turn. He draws Monster Reborn. He summons Gazelle the King of Mythical Beasts in Defense Position (1500/1200). Then he plays Monster Reborn and Ragnarok face-down. He ends his turn, and Bowganian does 300 damage to him, dropping him to 700 LP.

Marik's turn. He draws Surprise Attack from Beyond. In his standby phase, he gains 1000 LP, so he goes to 1700 LP. Then he activates Monster Reborn to bring back The Winged Dragon of Ra, in phoenix form (?/?, becomes 0/0). He pays 1000 LP (he goes down to 700 LP) to use its effect and destroy Obelisk the Tormentor. However, Yugi activates his Monster Reborn to bring back Slifer the Sky Dragon (?/?, becomes 2000/2000) in Defense Position. And when a god card is summoned in Defense Mode during an attack declaration... it redirects the attack to the god card. So Slifer takes the hit for Obelisk here. Then The Winged Dragon of Ra returns to the graveyard.

Marik then uses Surprise Attack from Beyond to repeat his Battle Phase, also bringing back any monsters that he lost in the first one, so The Winged Dragon of Ra comes back yet again (?/?, becomes 0/0). He can't put it in phoenix form this time, due to the fact that this costs 1000 LP and he cannot afford that. So he instead pays 699 life points (bringing him down to 1 LP) to increase Ra's ATK and DEF by that amount. Yugi then activates Soul Taker, which lets him sacrifice one of Marik's monsters as though it were his own, in exchange for Marik gaining 1000 LP (he goes up to 1001 LP). Yugi chooses to sacrifice Egyptian God Slime, which... due to being a fusion monster, counts as two tributes under battle city rules. This lets him use Obelisk the Tormentor's effect to do 4000 damage.

Marik sacrifices Bowganian and Swallowtail Spike Lizard, and pays 1000 LP (going back down to 1 LP) to raise Ra's ATK by all that, putting it at 4899 ATK. Then he activates Class System, which prevents monsters from attacking unless the attack targets are of lower level. And since Obelisk is a Level 10 monster, it is unable to attack Ra, who is also a Level 10 monster. The effect (which I guess counts as an attack) is now canceled, and so Ra is free to attack Obelisk, since it has higher ATK now.

Yugi responds to this attack by activating Magical Dimension. This is activated when he controls a Spellcaster and the opponent just declared an attack. It lets him special summon a Spellcaster from his hand that will be destroyed during the end phase. He sacrifices Gazelle and Obelisk to summon Dark Magician (2500/2100). Due to Battle City rules, because Obelisk the Tormentor left the field, Ra's attack fizzles.

Now... at this point, all Yugi has to do is wait. The Winged Dragon of Ra will go to the graveyard during the end of the battle phase, and Yugi will still have his Dark Magician Girl available to finish off Marik. But that wouldn't be very exciting for the audience, so instead... Yugi activates Ragnarok. This card can only be activated if Yugi controls any two of Dark Sage, Dark Magician, Dark Magician Girl, or Magician of Black Chaos. By removing from play every monster card in his deck, his hand, and his graveyard, he can remove from play all monsters that Marik controls.

In doing so, because Yami Marik fused himself with The Winged Dragon of Ra, it also removes from play Yami Marik's soul, which enables the good Marik to take control of his body again.

And at this point, Marik surrenders the duel. Not that it matters. Remember, this is all happening in Marik's Battle Phase. Even if Marik didn't surrender here, here's the rest of the duel: Marik has no more monsters, magic cards, or trap cards, so he has nothing to do, so he passes. At the end phase, Dark Magician goes to the graveyard. Yugi's turn. He draws a card, doesn't matter what it is (he got rid of all his monsters, but that doesn't matter). He attacks directly with Dark Magician Girl. That's 2000 damage, and Marik only has 1 LP, so Yugi wins.

And so Yugi is the winner of the Battle City tournament.