We’ve been enjoying our time with Master Duel, exploring some of the best its ranked format has to offer. But we’ve yet to explore any of the special events Konami has thrown in-game, each with its own themes and gimmicks.
We missed out on the N/R Festival, doing a strong impression of Magic: The Gathering’s Pauper format. And when this Limit 1 Festival came along, I knew I had to show it off. Where the N/R Festival was impersonating Pauper, this one is mimicking the Highlander/Singleton formats that are popular in Magic: The Gathering, like my beloved Commander.
Let’s see if the concept works as well here as it does in Magic.
In looking up possible decks to run for the festival, I came across an attempt to make a Commander-style format in Yu-Gi-Oh! called Hydralander, but it doesn’t seem to have been updated for at least half a year, so I assumed it died out some time ago.
And that’s a real shame because this festival shows off how much fun Yu-Gi-Oh can be in a singleton format. Without the ability to play three copies of a card, there’s more variance in what cards we see in each hand. As a result, the important part is both building a deck that contains multiple potential playlines and ways to reach them, and the ability to adapt to the situation left to them by their opening hand in combination with the board state.
Where most duels are decided in the first turn, these singleton matches result in games with tons of interplay between players. I’ve far more games that swing back in forth between myself and my opponent until one of us finally gains that edge we need to turn the tide permanently and win the game.
It’s a fun space that I wish Yu-Gi-Oh! occupied more often.
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