Creating a Competitive Yugioh! Deck

Getting Started	1. Select a deck type or general strategy, which you wish the deck to implement. (Below are common deck types, listed from easiest to use to most difficult) Elemental: Earth, Wind, Fire, Water, Dark, Light Beatdown Burn Deck Deconstruction Clown Control
Gathering Cards	2. Research cards that are compatible with the strategies you want to use. Do this by watching matches, looking at card listings that can be found at www.pojo.com, and reading the cards that are for sale or trade by local stores or other players. 3. Pick the cards you have found most desirable to the deck strategy. The best cards will be ones that have effects to support each other while following the deck’s overall strategy. 4. Group and gather all the cards you have picked based on your research. Do this by trading, buying, and winning these cards. Do not worry about having too many cards at this point.
Optimization	5. Weed out cards that do not give your strategy an immediate advantage. Blue ritual magic monsters are an example of this. Any card that relies on two or more others will just take up space in the deck and lower the chance of reaching other cards. They can be powerful cards, however, the chance of getting to use a multiple card strategy is low. 6. Take out any cards with effects that are good but may hinder many other cards in the deck. The cards need to be helpful to a strategy for as much of the match as possible. 7. Remove any attacking monster that has an attack lower than 1800. The only exceptions would be effect monsters whose effects made their attacks larger with little cost to the player. 8. Remove any defending monster that has a defense lower than 2000. There will be exceptions to this for effect monsters with beneficial effects that take place due to being flipped, attacked, or sent to the graveyard. 9. Do not bother using direct damage magic or trap cards that inflict less than 1000 life point damage. 10. Use cards that help put the deck’s most helpful monsters in the player’s hands or onto the field. 11. Make sure to include cards that destroy monsters, magic, and traps in the form of effect monsters, traps, and magic. Cards that return monsters to the player’s hands are also helpful. 12. Do not use only one type of card to do any task. This weakness is easy to exploit.
Improving Ratios to Improve Odds	13. Keep the number of high-level monsters to a minimum. The ratio of high to low-level monsters should be around 1:6. 14. Keep the ratio of monsters to magic/trap cards 50 percent or higher. Monsters are most often the only things protecting your life points in the process of using any strategy. 15. Use no more than two copies of most cards. Exceptions include monsters that put other copies out on the field when destroyed or flipped. 16. Be sure to keep the deck size less than 60. With any more cards, it is extremely difficult to get the card you need at any specific time. With a 60 card deck, you have a 1/14 chance of getting any card. This is about as low of a probability as can be found acceptable in competitive play. Many duelists prefer a maximum of 50 cards.
Trial and Error	17. Play a few matches with this rough form of your deck now that it has been assembled. Experience is the only way to see how a deck will play. How a deck will play will also change with the level of knowledge held by its player. 18. Do not expect to win with this version of the deck. Most of the time, if you win with a new deck, it is because of a lack of skill in your opponents, not the strength of a deck, unless you have much experience with deck building. As a duelist, you will learn more from losing than winning. 19. Keep track of what cards you get during these testing duels and which end up not helping to win. In addition, some cards may prove to be more helpful than expected. This information will tell what kind of cards need to be added or subtracted to improve the ratios to the point of putting good cards in the duelists hand with every draw. 20. Make minor adjustments to the deck, taking out or adding the cards it needs. Change no more than three cards at a time, without testing again. 21. Repeat the testing and adjustment process until the deck plays how you wish it to.