Practicing your favorite Yu-Gi-Oh deck against yourself before showing it to your friends or using it at a competition can help you find flaws or game mechanic errors that you would have otherwise missed. Play testing a new deck alone is also a good way to bring out a somewhat polished deck before refining it further.
When playing against yourself you may run into a few issues. The first issue is that you know what cards each deck has in hand before playing them. Another problem is playing favorites. Everyone wants their new deck to win, but favoritism can skew your results.
If you don’t want to wait for a friend to duel or take a trip to your local card shop, then there are a few ways to setup a duel against yourself. In this article I’ll go over the most effective forms of playing Yu-Gi-Oh against yourself whether it’s for practicing a new deck, or just playing for fun.
Choose Two Decks
The first thing you need to do is pick out two decks that you want to practice against. The first deck being your deck that you want to test, while the second deck is another deck that you will be currently going up against. These decks can be the current meta decks, your friends decks, or anything that you will be going up against.
If you are still learning how to play the deck you built then it may be good idea to go against a starter deck or an easy deck at first so you can play a few hands to see how your combos turns will look. Once you have chosen your practice deck and deck you are going up against, it’s time to practice.
Set Up and Duel
Set up both decks as if you were going to play a real game against an opponent. This means extra decks, graveyards, playmats, etc. Once both decks are set up on the field, it’s time to start the duel.
Draw hands for each of the decks. Play monster cards, lay trap cards/spell cards as you normally would during each turn. Do not play favoritism. Play trap cards and spell cards with no mercy against each of your decks even if you know you will be walking right into the trap.
The key is to use each deck to their full potential so you can see how well each deck does against each other. Remember to deduct life points when needed and have fun!
Obviously, this isn’t the best way to test out decks since you know each and every move each turn. There are a few other ways to play Yu-Gi-Oh
Alternate Methods to Play Test Yu-Gi-Oh Decks
Dueling against yourself is not always the most practical way to practice a new deck. Here are few other ways you could practice your new deck out:
- Invite a friend over to your house and play against one of their decks
- Find the local card shops in your area and figure out when they do meetups to play. Most card shops welcome a variety of card games and is also a great way to meet new friends
- Play an online Yu-Gi-Oh simulator or game like YGO Pro. YGO Pro is one of the top Yu-Gi-Oh simulators online. You have access to every card and online play which means you can play decks before you buy them in real life. This is a great way to test out very expensive decks to see if they really are the right deck for you. You can even play against your deck using the AI functions to see how your deck plays against a variety of decks.
- If you have a gaming console, then you can practice playing against the AI. There are tons of different Yu-Gi-Oh GameBoy Advance titles to immerse yourself in for hours.
- Find local tournaments to participate in. If you are a new player, the best way to get your feet wet is to play in a Yu-Gi-Oh tournament. Don’t expect to take 1st place if you are going for the first or even 10th time, but you can expect to meet a lot of new like minded people that can even help you out.
Here’s an awesome video tutorial showing how to use YGO Pro:
Final Thoughts
Playing Yu-Gi-Oh against yourself is a great way to test out new decks before you unleash them on friends, but isn’t always the most practical. Knowing every move, and not really having to think or plan out your next attack takes a lot of the strategy out of the game.
Playing an online simulator is probably the cheapest and most effective way to test out new decks against yourself or others since it doesn’t require you to purchase expensive cards. If you don’t have someone in your household that you can readily play a game of Yu-Gi-Oh with, then playing online is the next best thing.
Just remember that practice makes perfect. Yu-Gi-Oh is a game of strategy with thousands of cards available for play. Practice one type of deck for awhile before moving on to the next. You will never be good with a deck if you are constantly changing because you will always be learning and not perfecting.