Notes & Combos

Late December, 2025

Three people on the Dracotail channel, at the peak of Dracotail meta, whose names shall be buried in the sands of time, decide to use their influence, reputation, and skill at the game to eloshame and prune out all those they deem "cursed", as in those who don't behave in a way the 3 despots find compliant to their way of playing the game, boasting their prowess, and looking down on everyone who is below Diamond.

In the wake of this attitude, between scaring away everyone who isn't willing to pay tribute, or at least has the mentality to put up with their consistent everyday toxicity, I found myself in a vicious net of libel and bullying by said 3, being mocked mercilessly, (but acting like everyone and everything but the would-be-victim are being chill), until I'd prove my worth by reaching Master.

Unable to resist the urge of damaging my own mental health, and desperately in need of an actual motivation to engage in this insanity that is grinding, I accepted, despite my mental resilience having been considerably damaged by extended exposure to the mob mentality of the trio.

What unfolded right after was a greatly predicted slaughter of everything that could be in ladder, luck, tilt, irl complications, massive time scheduling, bad matchups, mental exhaustion, Konami's push for a human right-violating ladder system, hype culture and badmouthing within the server, bad banlist, coinflip disasters, disconnection bugs, broken handtraps and staples deciding whole matches, and floodgate galore, truly everything.

...except for skill. Dueling skill, (lowercase, for this isn't Duel Links), is truly a deceased and devastated corpse, held in place by Konami's utter lack of game direction, respect for the players and consumers, and constantly desecteted by the wrestling-style narrative's, and tales about the "ring of honour", "forging your own anime arc", "complainers are always wrong", and "locking in" lies that is destroying whatever's left of a very hollow community that is the vocal part of the generic Yu-Gi-Oh's playerbase, let alone Master Duel's in particular.

...with a build composed of cards that are either the forced in (Dracotail ones), handtraps, Branded, or are the least worse option (Cartesia) due to the lack of name count on DTail and card-advantage-keeping, especially...

...and by having only a single card to redeem what's a deck that would bite the dust, and is otherwise surrounded by either more consistent decks (Mitsurugi and Ryzeal), or lacks native flexibility (Yummy and Odion), DTail finds power mostly in the massive abuse of Droll, Maxx C and Fuwalos, and the ever present and overestimated-in-health Blossom, by otherwise hoping Ketu can save them when going second...

Being the grueling wasteland that it is, and accessing to the 2 not-so-hidden unhealthy bosses that are Mysterion and Secreterion, I used every trick I could pull, prayed for my own luck, tried to correct on my own mistakes and blinders, and pushed every single button on the opponent's tilt, and both feigned incompetence and competence, in order to win, even if in the slimiest ways possible: in this dystopic, cold, heartless corporate scenario, pushed by Konami, by sacrificing every other mode for PvP, the players from Gold (or Silver, earlier in the season) to Master are grown into cutthroat beasts who only care about winning at any cost, rejoicing at every Wuli bot that makes the job better for them, even if that utterly annihilates skill or any purported importance of grinding, and get a fake sense of joy and worth that serves to make people who embark in this folly supporters of this slow and steady destruction of any sense of progression, all for a small glimmer of either pride, competition, or, more probably, a deadly combination of the two. For getting Master rank has no value, yet it's condidered both easy and desirable by the petty.

After a senseless, misinformed (especially concerning the builds of Yummy, as of writing) and utterly consuming session of everything that resembles a respect of the self, I can finally say that I can free myself of these chains and enjoy my false freedom, now that I have reached this pitiful rank that is Master...for now.