Yugi: Skill or Magic/Plot?

[Pyro]

Do you think Yugi (mostly as Atem) relied more on actual skill in his duels, or plot magic?

 

[Papasmurf]

He definitely became a total cheater near the end. I'd say the biggest instance of relying on magic though were against Pegasus, Bakura and Dark Marik. Though, the anime version of the final duel was the worst one.

 

[Coos]

Just like mostly every other yugioh character (except in 5Ds, haven't watched all Zexal or Arc-V). Magic and Plot. Seriously, 3 simple cards would had destroyed everyone on the shows: Magic Cylinder, Mirror Force, Bottomless Trap Hole. Shit, Mysthical Space Typhoon would had wrecked lots of people.

 

[Doctor Havoc]

Idk sometimes it was skill and stuff
But I mean he had heart of the cards which just meant pull a card out of his ass to win at any given time or moment

 

[withheldforprivacy]

What Yugi did was the same thing as Keith pulling cards out of his wirstband, masked with the Heart Of Cards
bullterm.

 

[Super Saiyan Overlord1007]

A little bit of both. He apparently has as much skill as you could possibly have in this show but you can make a drinking game of all the time he's cheated/used plot magic to win duels

Kaiba in Battle City
Arcana
Dartz is a perfect example
Joey in Duelist Kingdom
Strings

 

[maddoggninetyone]

He cheated, every time.

 

[Papasmurf]

He cheats every day. Marik's less of a cheater than he is considering he didn't draw Ra just by thinking it.

 

[withheldforprivacy]

A little bit of both. He apparently has as much skill as you could possibly have in this show but you can make a drinking game of all the time he's cheated/used plot magic to win duels

Kaiba in Battle City
Arcana
Dartz is a perfect example
Joey in Duelist Kingdom
Strings

Explain those situations a little bit better.

 

[Pyro]

He made up complete BS against Dartz with the whole Knights thing.

 

[Super Saiyan Overlord1007]

A little bit of both. He apparently has as much skill as you could possibly have in this show but you can make a drinking game of all the time he's cheated/used plot magic to win duels

Kaiba in Battle City
Arcana
Dartz is a perfect example
Joey in Duelist Kingdom
Strings

Explain those situations a little bit better.

Kaiba in Battle City

Yugi discarded Kuriboh to guard from Obelisk the Tormentor's effect of dealing him 4,000 points of damage. I haven't played the game in sometime but if I remember properly Kuriboh only guards from battle damage rather than effect damage.

Kaiba used Flute of Summoning Dragon to summon 2 Blue Eyes White Dragons from his hand and Yugi used the same effect to summon Red Eyes Black Dragon claiming Flute of Summoning Dragons works on all sides of the field when it doesn't

Yugi used Magic Formula to power up Dark Paladin by 500 Atk. Magic Formula only works for Dark Magician & Dark Magician Girl.

Yugi beats Kaiba with Diffusion Wave Motion and Dark Paladin attacking all 3 of Kaiba's Blue Eyes White Dragons (granted that's perfectly legal and epic but that was overkill).

Arcana

Used Dark Magic Curtain's effect to summon Dark Magician Girl after Arcana used it to summon his Dark Magician claiming that it works on both sides of the field when it doesn't. Also Dark Magic Curtain only summons Dark Magician rather than D. Magician Girl.

I don't remember exactly but he sacrificed his Dark Magician to guard himself from Arcana's Dark Magician. I'm not sure if he sacrificed it himself or the Dark Magician chose to sacrifice itself on its own either way that's definitely cheating or a plot convenience or both.

Dartz

Uses an OP Strategy that I can't explain to both his monsters power to infinity than merge them in Battle Phase to summon another monster of infinite strength to beat Dartz. It's hard to explain so I copied and pasted it from YGO Wiki.

Yami draws "Attack Guidance Barrier". "Legendary Knight Critias" attacks "Divine Serpent Geh". Yami activates the effect of "Critias", having "Critias" absorb the effect of "Attack Guidance Barrier" from his hand. Now Yami can choose another monster on the field, and whenever "Critias" attacks or is attacked this turn, the attack will be redirected to the chosen monster. Yami chooses "Legendary Knight Hermos". (For dramatic effect, "Hermos" is shown flying alongside "Critias" and also attacking "Divine Serpent Geh".)

Since "Hermos" has been attacked, Yami activates its third effect by removing from play 3 monsters in his Deck ("Alpha The Magnet Warrior", "Beta The Magnet Warrior" and "Gamma The Magnet Warrior"). Now for the rest of the turn, whenever "Hermos" is attacked, its ATK will be tripled ("Hermos": 2800 → 8400/???) and the attack will be reflected back to the attacking monster (i.e. "Critias").

Since "Critias" has been attacked, its absorbed effect activates, redirecting the attack to "Hermos". Since "Hermos" has been attacked, its effect triples its ATK ("Hermos": 8400 → 25200/???) and reflects it back at "Critias". Since "Critias" has been attacked, its absorbed effect activates, redirecting the attack to "Hermos". Since "Hermos" has been attacked, its effect triples its ATK ("Hermos": 25200 → 75600/???) and reflects it back at "Critias". Yami declares that this is an infinite loop, and will repeat until the ATK of "Hermos" reaches ∞. (Note: This would be impossible in both mathematics and normal game mechanics for obvious reasons, as infinity is not an actual number but rather the concept of a value greater than any number.)

Yami Yugi activates the effect of "Legendary Knight Timaeus", having it absorb "Critias" and "Hermos" in order to Special Summon "Timaeus the Knight of Destiny" (?/???) in Attack Position. Due to the first effect of "Timaeus the Knight of Destiny", its ATK becomes equal to the combined ATK of the absorbed monsters ("Timaeus the Knight of Destiny": ? → ∞/???). "Timaeus the Knight of Destiny" attacks "Divine Serpent Geh". This would normally end in a Double KO, but since "Timaeus the Knight of Destiny" cannot be destroyed by battle, only "Divine Serpent Geh" is destroyed. Since Dartz has 0 Life Points and no longer controls "Divine Serpent Geh", he loses the Duel.

Yami Yugi wins.


Joey

Summons Dark Sage on Joey's turn and counters with a magic card from his hand on Joey's turn claiming the Dark Sage allows him to do so when it really lets you add 1 magic card from your deck to your hand. Than he beats him on his next turn.

Strings

Uses a Paradox by using Brain Wash on Revival Jam forcing Slifer to repeatedly attack and destroy Revival Jam causing Revival Jam to resurrect itself on Yugi's side of the field when you have to pay LP to do so (although Mark did the same thing) and Marik/Strings is forced to draw cards until he eventually decks out automatically giving Yugi the win.

 

[withheldforprivacy]

The anime rules are different. You can't call that cheating. Against Dartz, the action was more concentrated
to epic scenes with knights rather than dueling, so that was whatever.

 

[maddoggninetyone]

It's cheating. Yugi uses a magical artifact to gain advantages over his opponents.

 

[Pyro]

A little bit of both. He apparently has as much skill as you could possibly have in this show but you can make a drinking game of all the time he's cheated/used plot magic to win duels

Kaiba in Battle City
Arcana
Dartz is a perfect example
Joey in Duelist Kingdom
Strings

Explain those situations a little bit better.

Kaiba in Battle City

Yugi discarded Kuriboh to guard from Obelisk the Tormentor's effect of dealing him 4,000 points of damage. I haven't played the game in sometime but if I remember properly Kuriboh only guards from battle damage rather than effect damage.

Kaiba used Flute of Summoning Dragon to summon 2 Blue Eyes White Dragons from his hand and Yugi used the same effect to summon Red Eyes Black Dragon claiming Flute of Summoning Dragons works on all sides of the field when it doesn't

Yugi used Magic Formula to power up Dark Paladin by 500 Atk. Magic Formula only works for Dark Magician & Dark Magician Girl.

Yugi beats Kaiba with Diffusion Wave Motion and Dark Paladin attacking all 3 of Kaiba's Blue Eyes White Dragons (granted that's perfectly legal and epic but that was overkill).

Arcana

Used Dark Magic Curtain's effect to summon Dark Magician Girl after Arcana used it to summon his Dark Magician claiming that it works on both sides of the field when it doesn't. Also Dark Magic Curtain only summons Dark Magician rather than D. Magician Girl.

I don't remember exactly but he sacrificed his Dark Magician to guard himself from Arcana's Dark Magician. I'm not sure if he sacrificed it himself or the Dark Magician chose to sacrifice itself on its own either way that's definitely cheating or a plot convenience or both.

Dartz

Uses an OP Strategy that I can't explain to both his monsters power to infinity than merge them in Battle Phase to summon another monster of infinite strength to beat Dartz. It's hard to explain so I copied and pasted it from YGO Wiki.

Yami draws "Attack Guidance Barrier". "Legendary Knight Critias" attacks "Divine Serpent Geh". Yami activates the effect of "Critias", having "Critias" absorb the effect of "Attack Guidance Barrier" from his hand. Now Yami can choose another monster on the field, and whenever "Critias" attacks or is attacked this turn, the attack will be redirected to the chosen monster. Yami chooses "Legendary Knight Hermos". (For dramatic effect, "Hermos" is shown flying alongside "Critias" and also attacking "Divine Serpent Geh".)

Since "Hermos" has been attacked, Yami activates its third effect by removing from play 3 monsters in his Deck ("Alpha The Magnet Warrior", "Beta The Magnet Warrior" and "Gamma The Magnet Warrior"). Now for the rest of the turn, whenever "Hermos" is attacked, its ATK will be tripled ("Hermos": 2800 → 8400/???) and the attack will be reflected back to the attacking monster (i.e. "Critias").

Since "Critias" has been attacked, its absorbed effect activates, redirecting the attack to "Hermos". Since "Hermos" has been attacked, its effect triples its ATK ("Hermos": 8400 → 25200/???) and reflects it back at "Critias". Since "Critias" has been attacked, its absorbed effect activates, redirecting the attack to "Hermos". Since "Hermos" has been attacked, its effect triples its ATK ("Hermos": 25200 → 75600/???) and reflects it back at "Critias". Yami declares that this is an infinite loop, and will repeat until the ATK of "Hermos" reaches ∞. (Note: This would be impossible in both mathematics and normal game mechanics for obvious reasons, as infinity is not an actual number but rather the concept of a value greater than any number.)

Yami Yugi activates the effect of "Legendary Knight Timaeus", having it absorb "Critias" and "Hermos" in order to Special Summon "Timaeus the Knight of Destiny" (?/???) in Attack Position. Due to the first effect of "Timaeus the Knight of Destiny", its ATK becomes equal to the combined ATK of the absorbed monsters ("Timaeus the Knight of Destiny": ? → ∞/???). "Timaeus the Knight of Destiny" attacks "Divine Serpent Geh". This would normally end in a Double KO, but since "Timaeus the Knight of Destiny" cannot be destroyed by battle, only "Divine Serpent Geh" is destroyed. Since Dartz has 0 Life Points and no longer controls "Divine Serpent Geh", he loses the Duel.

Yami Yugi wins.


Joey

Summons Dark Sage on Joey's turn and counters with a magic card from his hand on Joey's turn claiming the Dark Sage allows him to do so when it really lets you add 1 magic card from your deck to your hand. Than he beats him on his next turn.

Strings

Uses a Paradox by using Brain Wash on Revival Jam forcing Slifer to repeatedly attack and destroy Revival Jam causing Revival Jam to resurrect itself on Yugi's side of the field when you have to pay LP to do so (although Mark did the same thing) and Marik/Strings is forced to draw cards until he eventually decks out automatically giving Yugi the win.

Most of that was due to the anime having altered effects compared to the OCG/TCG. There are tons of little differences, specifically Magic Cylinder, Brain Control, Revival Jam, Flute of Summoning Dragon, etc. Although I do hate it when we as the audience aren't aware of this, but then Yugi is like "your card works on BOTH sides of the field ahaha~!" Like, god dammit.