Admittedly, YuGiOh Master Duel can be a little hard for beginners who don’t know how to build the best decks. As we said in our review, while the game’s a huge boon for anyone obsessively playing YuGiOh, it’s not exactly the most welcoming for new players just getting in.

With a ton of archetypes ranging from Dinosaurs, superheroes to even dragon maids, you’re basically spoiled for choice in building the deck you want in YuGiOh Master Duel. But what if you’re of the more competitive bend, and can’t stand getting your butt handed to you on the second turn?

While I’m obviously nowhere near good enough to be talking about actual deck lists for the best decks in YuGiOh Master Duel, there’s definitely enough resources to suss out some good cards to put together, as well as some good examples of these decks by top players in the game. In no particular order, here they are:

Eldlich

Hands down one of the best decks right now, The Eldlich archetype has the added advantage of being accessible since you can get it as a reward for playing the game. On top of that, they’ll synergize well with other decks too, since they only have a handful of cards needed for their core mechanic.

The key card for the Eldlich is none other than Eldlich, The Golden Lord. This archetype has monsters that are technically Trap Cards, but can use various conditions to be summoned as monsters, And Eldlich makes use of these to special summon himself to the field with an attack buff and immunity to card destruction. On top of that, you can discard Edlich and another Spell or Trap to also send cards to the graveyard, which is good for quick board removal.

Eldlich are great for two reasons- one, their synergy. You only need a handful of Eldlich cards to get going, meaning you can slot it in with other archetypes if you wanted to mix and match.

The other is their relative cost- Eldlich the Golden Lord is the only UR card you absolutely need, and he’s available in the standard Master Pack banner too meaning if you were lucky enough you could get him relatively easy.

Here are cards you’ll want for your Eldlich deck:

• Eldlich, The Golden Lord (UR)
• Cursed Eldland (SR)
• Eldlixir of the Scarlet Sanguine (SR)
• Conquistador of the Golden Land (R)
• Huaquero of the Golden Land (R)

Drytron

Drytron monsters capitalize on the Ritual Summon mechanic- and do so extremely well. Just like Eldlich they have synergy with multiple other archetypes, such as Megalith as well as Blue-Eyes Chaos Max Dragon thanks to their ability to draw out ritual spells as well as ritual materials while also drawing cards.

One of the most important Drytron cards you’ll want is Drytron Alpha Thuban, who can hit the field while also getting you ritual monsters from your deck to your hand. It’s also one of the more economic cards in the deck, since it’s only an SR despite being such a cornerstone of the whole operation. Similarly, you’ll want to pair it up with Drytron Zeta Aldhibah- while Alpha looks for your ritual monster, Zeta can pull up the ritual spells necessary to summon them.

Better yet, thanks to the wording of Drytron cards (locking you to “Monsters that cannot be Normal Summoned/Set” instead of Drytrons), it works incredibly well with other ritual archetypes, letting them make use of cards like Cyber Angel Benten who can be used to search up more cards or deal big damage to your opponent, as well as using that free Normal Summon you wouldn’t otherwise be using to bring out Diviner of the Heralds to make your ritual summoning easier.

Thanks to the open synergy of Drytrons you’ll also be able to have your choice of Boss Monsters. Like I mentioned earlier you can easily use these for Blue-Eyes Chaos MAX Dragon, which can also be run with Geonator Transverser to make use of Drytrons 0 DEF and Chaos Max’ double piercing to instantly win a game. On top of that if you run Mu Beta Fafnir you can also chain it into Divine Arsenal AA-ZEUS- Sky Thunder. You can also run Herald of Ultimateness to lock down your opponent’s game plan, or go pure Drytron with Drytron Draconis Meteonis for a 4k ATK beatstick.

It should note that each of those options drive up the amount of URs for a Drytron deck, but that’s kind of the point- they’re options. The core Drytron machine comes down to Alpha, Zeta and Diviner, and from there it’s up to you on what ritual-based beatdown you want to give next.

Here are the cards you’ll need for your Drytron deck:

• Meteonis Drytron (UR)
• Drytron Meteonis Draconids (UR)
• Diviner of the Heralds (UR)
• Herald of Ultimateness (UR)
• Drytron Alpha Thuban (SR)
• Drytron Zeta Aldhibah (R)

Tri Brigade

Arguably the most economic deck currently available in YuGiOh Master Duel, Tri Brigades work around discarding and banishing monsters while using the newer Link Summoning mechanic to get your monsters on the field. Tri-Brigades gimmick works like the Drytrons where they aren’t archetype-locked: instead just make sure your deck is running a Beast, Beast-Warrior or Winged Beast and you can use your graveyard to summon Link Monsters with the Tri Brigade’s unique skills.

The core of the Tri Brigade is Tri-Brigade Fraktall- this card is severely under-rated for how good it is, since it lets you send a Beast, Beast-Warrior or Winged Beast monster to your graveyard, which synergizes well with Tri-Brigade Kitt. The best bit? They’re both R-rank cards, meaning you could easily get multiples of them in your deck without leaving it to the gacha gods.

While they’ll work with most Link decks thanks to their graveyard-Link abilities, they’re not without their own boss monster. You can get Tri-Brigade Shuraig The Ominous Omen, who can provide some good board removal by banishing monsters every time another of the relevant monster types is special summoned, as well as itself. You will also need to run Fire Formation Tenki to get your combo started, since it can easily pull Tri-Brigade Fraktall out.

Here are the cards you’ll need for your Tri-Brigade deck:

• Tri-Brigade Shuraig, The Ominous Omen (UR)
• Fire Formation Tenki (SR)
• Tri-Brigade Fraktall (R)
• Tri-Brigade Kitt (R)
• Tri-Brigade Nervall (N)

Of course, this is far from an exhaustive link of the best decks in YuGiOh Master Duel. But if you’re too scared to commit your dust to too many URs in case you don’t like a deck, these are definitely some of your best picks. They’re also incredibly open- like I said, all three of these decks fit in with a host of other archetypes, so you’re free to mix and match with other cool monsters and build the deck of your dreams.

Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel

Publisher: Konami

Developer: Konami

Release Date: 2022-01-19

Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Steam, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S

The definitive digital edition of the competitive card game that has been evolving for over 20 years! Duel at the highest level against Duelists all over the world.