By the time the apartment lights came on, it was already pitch-black outside.
Yūki tossed his schoolbag onto a chair and pressed the big power button on the bulky computer tower.
The cooling fan started humming like a tractor. He ignored it, leaned back in his chair, and stared blankly at the greasy, yellowed incandescent light on the ceiling.
He really had gained a lot today.
He had beaten the five-star vice principal, secured the lead player's entry ticket to the interschool league, jumped straight to 3 Stars certification on the Kaiba Intranet, and naturally wrangled an expense reimbursement authorization out of the school along the way.
But those outward signs of success were not what occupied his mind.
He was reviewing the match.
"Hand destruction... the margin for error is still too small."
Yūki laced his hands behind his head, rocking unsteadily on two legs of his chair.
The problems with the hand destruction strategy had already begun to show during his duel against Sato Renshan.
On the second turn, Sato Renshan had blown away the middle [Trap Hole] with a [Mystical Space Typhoon], though Yūki had deliberately used it as bait.
But what if Satō had opened with two copies of Mystical Space Typhoon?
If his only [Holy Barrier] had been picked off early, Yūki, already low on Life Points, would have had no way to stop the opposing attack from The Captain and Command Knight, both with 1,600 ATK.
Competitive card players never put their faith in "Heart of the Cards Draw," but they had to guard against their opponents' "Heart of the Cards Draw."
Besides, the core logic of hand destruction was extremely all-or-nothing:
Pay 1,000 Life Points to activate [Confiscation], then another 1,000 to activate [Delinquent Duo].
Once the full sequence was over, his opponent's hand would indeed be empty, but he would also have spent three or four cards from his own hand, while his Life Points would be cut straight in half, leaving him at a mere 2,000.
"On the ranked ladder in my previous life, an opponent with no hand and no field could pretty much hit surrender."
Yūki curled his lip.
"But in this world, where 'bonds' are written into the laws of physics, these hot-blooded idiots really will shout, 'My deck, answer me!' during their Heart of the Cards Draw phase, then pull a huge comeback monster off the top of their deck and kick you to death."
Even more fatally, hand destruction was extremely vulnerable to strategies that made use of graveyard resources.
[Delinquent Duo] dumped two of the opponent's cards into the graveyard. Against decks like Dark World, Zombies, or Lightsworn that used the graveyard to get going, discarding cards was not a punishment at all. Instead, it helped the opponent fill their graveyard faster-a truly selfless act of charity.
As for his first [Stall Burn] deck...
Stall Burn really was like bringing a gun to a knife fight against beginners. But against high-level duelists equipped with massive amounts of back-row removal spells, or even continuous Trap Cards like [Royal Decree] that shut down traps, once the back row was wiped out, the small fry in the front row were nothing but meat on the chopping block.
"One Stall Burn deck, one hand destruction deck."
Yūki sat upright, tapping his fingers against the desk.
"Not enough. I still need a truly soul-crushing deck that wins purely through the rules."
He had actually gone over the idea countless times in his head already.
That was [Deck Destruction].
A Card Milling strategy built entirely around [Needle Worm].
Unlike hand destruction, deck destruction did not touch the opponent's hand, nor did it touch those world-destroying monsters in their front row.
Go ahead and draw during your Draw Phase. Summon as many big monsters as you like.
But the moment my face-down monster flips, it digs huge handfuls of cards straight off the top of your deck!
Twenty or thirty cards gone in two or three turns, taking the deck straight to the bottom.
Once your Draw Phase arrives, if you cannot draw a card from your deck, the system automatically declares your defeat.
A win by the rules!
Yūki pulled open a drawer and dug out a piece of junk cardboard he had previously picked up cheap from a pile of secondhand odds and ends at the card shop.
[Needle Worm].
[Level 2 / EARTH Attribute / Insect] [ATK: 750, DEF: 600] [Effect: FLIP: Send the top 5 cards of your opponent's deck to the graveyard.]
One flip, five cards milled straight away!
Pair it with [Book of Eclipse] to turn it face down and flip it again, add [Card Destruction] to make the opponent dump their entire hand into the graveyard, then throw in [Morphing Jar] to force both players to draw five cards...
Once the whole chain got rolling, the opponent's deck would shrink from forty cards to single digits in just three turns!
Whether you had Blue-Eyes White Dragon or Obelisk the Tormentor standing on your field, the second your deck ran dry, you would drop dead on the spot!
"But a lot of these old, obscure cards are out of stock on KC's official website."
Yūki pulled out a sheet of notepaper, picked up a pen, and rapidly wrote out a long list:
A full three copies of [Needle Worm], one [Morphing Jar], two [Book of Eclipse], one [Card Destruction]...
Vice Principal Sato had personally promised that the school would cover the full cost of any resources available through Municipal No. 3 High's channels anyway.
In this era of inflated prices for high ATK, where even [Gemini Elf] could be driven up to thirty-five thousand, Yūki's "list of decrepit junk cardboard" was practically as modest as picking up rotten vegetable leaves at the market.
After finishing the list, Yūki summoned the system panel deep within his mind with practiced ease.
A pale blue screen quietly unfolded before his eyes.
[Host: Fujiwara Yūki] [Soul power level: Lv2 (0%)] [Duel Coins: 5800] [Unlocked archetype packs: None (Defeat named characters to activate exclusive archetypes)] [System shop: Bronze tier (Three cards refresh every Sunday at midnight)]
His balance stood at a full 5,800, and his soul power remained firmly at Lv2.
Although defeating a secondary mentor like Sato Renshan had not yielded an exclusive archetype pack, having over five thousand coins in hand gave him plenty of confidence.
"The Bronze shop refreshes at midnight on Sunday, the day after tomorrow."
Yūki closed the panel and took a long stretch.
Two ready-made decks: Stall Burn to fend off brute-force beatdowns, and hand destruction to lock down the tempo.
Plus a third rules-based win deck, soon to be sponsored through school reimbursement-Deck Destruction.
Three sets of hellish combinations, taking turns serving their opponents.
Yūki stuffed the completed shopping list into his schoolbag, an exceptionally brilliant smile curling at the corners of his mouth.
"The joint interschool league, huh? The top dogs from No. 2 High next door and Experimental High... are you ready to be baptized in healthy living?"
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