General Information

Title: Yu-Gi-Oh! Legacy of the Duelist: Link Evolution
Developer: Other Ocean Interactive
Publisher: Konami Digital Entertainment
Platforms: Nintendo Switch (Exclusive)
Genre: Strategy Card Battle Game, RPG.
Online Multiplayer: Yes
Distribution: Physical Release, Digital Download
Price: $40

Release Date: August 20, 2019

About the Game

Based on the official Yu-Gi-Oh! TRADING CARD GAME, Yu-Gi-Oh! Legacy of the Duelist: Link Evolution brings more than 20 years of Yu-Gi-Oh! history to the Nintendo Switch. Players will take on iconic Duelists from the Yu-Gi-Oh! the universe, reliving the stories from the original animated series through Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V and challenge the newest generation of Duelists from the virtual world of Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS.

Key features in Yu-Gi-Oh! Legacy of the Duelist: Link Evolution include:

Build and customize a Deck from more than 9,000 cards, the most in any Yu-Gi-Oh! TRADING CARD GAME video game
Challenge other players with local-play or Nintendo Switch Online
First Yu-Gi-Oh! Game to Incorporate the New Master Rules
The addition of Link Monster cards not only change the way seasoned Duelists play their cards, but where they play them
Take on the roles of the animated series’ villains with Reverse Duels
Compete with Battle Packs for Sealed play and Draft play
Includes all previously released Yu-Gi-Oh! Legacy of the Duelist content

Gameplay

In this game, you’ll move through several scenarios based on all Yu-Gi-Oh! Series, dueling with different characters from all eras of Yu-Gi-Oh! earning points to buy Booster Packs and enhance your deck. And you can also challenge your friends for an online duel!

Each player uses a deck of 40 to 60 cards and an optional “Extra Deck” of up to fifteen cards. There is also a fifteen card side deck, which allows players to swap cards from their main deck between games. Players are restricted to three of each card per deck and must follow the Forbidden/Limited card list, which restricts selected cards by Konami to be limited to two, one, or zero.

You’ll use monster cards to battle, spell cards to enhance your strategies, and trap cards to disrupt an opponent’s strategy

Each player starts with 8000 “Life Points” and loses when one of these conditions are met:

-The player’s life points reach zero, this can be achieved through monster cards battling, or alternative card effects
-The player is required to draw, but the player has no more cards to draw in the main deck.
-The player uses an alternative win through a card effect

If you wish to familiarize yourself with the game further you can check the official rulebook here: https://www.yugioh-card.com/en/rulebook/

The single-player campaign takes you on a tour through the plot of all the completed Yu-Gi-Oh! anime series (With a little intro to the lates VRAINS series)

Each campaign is entirely focused on teaching new or returning players about the additions each generation of Yu-Gi-Oh! has incorporated into the game. For example, if you play the Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D’s Campaign you will exclusively be taught how to use Synchro monsters effectively. Then when you move to the ZEXAL campaign the focus will shift to teach you all about Xyz monsters.

“…Link Monsters? New Rules?

The Yu-Gi-Oh! Trading Card changed its rules regarding Extra Deck Monsters back in 2017, following some player complaints that they were too powerful. For that reason, they created a new ruleset on how to summon them that limits them to 1 at a time….With a way to set up a field where you can summon more than 1 by “pointing” to your zones with the new Link Monsters. THIS VIDEO IS REQUIRED VIEWING TO CATCH UP WITH THE GAME’S NEW RULES

“Extra deck? Synchros? Ex-why-zee? I´m so lost…I haven’t played in ages!”

Have no fear!

In the Yu-Gi-Oh! OT I made a full explanation on what has been added to the game! Crossposting now!

ProTip: The following is a condensed version of nearly 12 years of additions to the game. Don’t try to take it all at once, just go little by little. The game will walk you through all the new stuff in a far more organic way.

In these new exciting ERA of 2019 YGO the Duel Field now looks like this:

So what exactly are you looking at? Well there’s 2 new types of Zones

The Pendulum Zones: The rightmost and Leftmost Spell and Trap card Zones now have the power to hold the new Pendulum Cards in them, I´ll go into details regarding that type of card later. Basically whenever a Pendulum Card is activated on these 2 zones that Spell and Trap Card Zone is also considered to be a Pendulum Zone. When these 2 zones are empty they are considered “Unoccupied” Pendulum Zones too.

If a regular Spell or Trap is in these zones, then the zone is NOT considered to be a Pendulum Zone, it becomes a regular Spell/Trap Zone. Be careful, your other Spell and Trap Card Zones cannot hold Pendulum cards!

The Extra Monster Zone: Previously, monsters summoned from the Extra Deck like Fusions could be summoned to any of the 5 Monster Zones, because Konami suc..I mean because Extra Deck Monsters became “too powerful”, a limit of 1 monster was introduced in the form of the Extra Monster Zone. Basically any card that comes from the extra deck must be placed in one of these new zones at the top of the field, your choice, the moment you use one, the other automatically becomes your opponen´t zone until they are both empty again, in which case the player who summons a monster there gets to choose again.

This means that you can only summon 1 extra deck monster at a time, and you can only summon another after your zone becomes unoccupied.

This rule, however, does not affect monsters that are summoned from other places of the field though, a Fusion Monster that is revived from the Graveyard will go into one of your Main Monster Zones, same as an opponent´s fusion monster you take control of.

You might be wondering how many of the cards that worked with more than 1 extra deck monster on the fieldwork now. Well, there is an easy way to bypass the new Extra Monster Zone Rules though….but you´ll see soon enough ;).

Other Rules
Some other rules have been put in place, mainly regarding old broken exploits. These rules are

– The First turn Player can no longer Draw a Card
– Both players can now control a Field Spell Card at the Same Time, if you wish to replace yours, the previous field is no longer considered to have been destroyed
– The term “Cards Removed from Play” has been Changed into “Banished Cards”
– The Term “Reveal from the Top of Your Deck” has been changed to “Excavate”
-“Life Points” and Graveyard are now shortened to “LP” and “GY” respectively

THE NEW CARD TYPES

Cause honestly, that’s what got you here didn´t it?

The Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG has evolved a lot during these years, several new monsters types were introduced to give a grand boost in power and variety for all decks, new and old. These monster are usually found in the Extra Deck, previously called the Fusion Deck. These new Monsters are

Synchro Monsters

For Synchro Summons you need a Tuner Monster, (Tuner is a subtype like “union” or “toon”) and your regular monsters.
When you have a tuner monster and any number of non-tuner monsters on the field you can send them to the grave, then you can special summon a Synchro Monster,whose level is EXACTLY the same as the sum of the levels of the monsters you sent to the grave, from your Extra Deck into an available Extra Monster Zone.

For example, you have a level 3 tuner and a level 5 in your field. Send them both to the grave and you get a level 8 Synchro, “Stardust Dragon” (As 3+5=8)

You could also have used a level 2 tuner, a level 4 non-tuner and another level 2 non-tuner for the same monster (as 2+4+2=8). But remember, only 1 Tuner per Synchro Summon

Synchro monsters will tell you if they have any other restrictions for their Synchro Summon, but most of them will just say “1 Tuner + 1 or more non Tuner Monsters” as their requirement.

Xyz Monsters
(Pronounced Ik-seez)

Xyz Monsters can be summoned using monsters with the same level, no need for tuners here.

You might notice Xyz monsters have black stars located at the opposite side of the card. That’s because Xyz monsters don’t have a Level, they have a Rank (They are immune to any effect that affects levels and can’t be used for Synchro)

For an Xyz Summon, you need to control two monsters with the same level. stack them together on an available Extra Monster Zone and put an Xyz of an equal Rank from your Extra Deck on top. The cards beneath the Xyz Monster are now part of the monster and their effects will ask you to “Detach” them (Send them to the graveyard) that means, the monsters you use for the summon become ammunition for the Xyz Monster’s abilities.

The cards beneath an Xyz Monster do NOT count as cards on the field

Now for an example. To summon the Rank 4 “Number 39: Utopia” above, just stack two level 4 monsters you control, and put “Utopia” on top. To use Utopias effect, just send the monster beneath him to the graveyard.

Just like Synchros many Xyz monsters will put some restrictions on the monsters they need to be Xyz summoned, however the most basic ones only demand “2 Level X Monsters”

Pendulum Monsters

These ones are arguably the most complicated, but also some of the most powerful cards out there

As you can see, Pendulum Monsters have 2 effect boxes. The upper box also has some red and blue arrows. The value in those arrows is called “Pendulum Scale”

Pendulums go in your normal deck (not the extra deck) and you can summon them as regular monsters, OR activate them as spells in the Pendulum Zones of the field

If you activate them as spells, they are considered face-up spell cards on the field, and they use their “spell mode” effect on the top box. They´ll remain on the Pendulum Zone until they are forcefully removed, you can’t replace them as you can with Field Spells.

When Pendulum Monsters are destroyed, regardless of which zone they were in, they are NOT sent to the graveyard, they’ll go to your extra deck. Face-Up.

To Pendulum Summon monsters, you need 2 activated Pendulum Monsters in the Pendulum Zones. You can use the Pendulum Summon only Once per turn.

First, look at the “scales” of each pendulum monster (the red/blue arrows). In a Pendulum Summon you can summon ANY NUMBER of monsters in your hand or Pendulums in your Extra Deck (These would go into an available Extra Monster Zone) as long as these 2 conditions are met.

1-Their levels are in between the values of the scales of the activated cards in your pendulum zones.
2- They don’t have any summon restriction, like Rituals or cards that state “Cannot be Special Summoned”

Now for an example. If I activated a “Scale” 1 Pendulum Monster, and another with a Scale of 10. I can pendulum summon 3 Blue-Eyes White Dragons in my hand. As their levels (8 each) are between 1 and 10

Link Monsters

Remember what I told you about bypassing the Extra Monster Zone Limitation? Link Monsters are the key to do it, so do as Konami intended when they created these guys and buy a lot of them 😀

But seriously, Link Monsters are the Key to modern Extra Deck heavy decks.

Like Xyz Monsters, Link Monsters have no level, and also they have NO DEFENSE! That means that Link monsters can NEVER be placed in defense position, giving them immunity to cards that affect levels, ranks or battle positions. Where they would have their defense, Links have their “Link Rating” which works like Levels and Ranks for them

Link Monsters are summoned from the Extra Deck into an available Extra Monster Zone by sending monsters on the field equal to their Link Rating. Just like that

3 Random Monster= 1 LINK-3 Monsters

Lower level Links also count as more than one material, they can be treated as monsters on the field equal to their rating. That means that for a Link Summon, a LINK-2 monster counts as 2 regular monsters.

1 LINK-2 Monster + 1 Random Monster = 1 LINK-3 Monster

While summoning basic Links monsters is easy, in practice many good Link monsters go batshit crazy with their requirements, some might need tuners, others might ask you for same level monsters and others could even need facedown cards

The requirements for link monsters are written like this Minimum amount of Monsters for the summon+, Type of Monsters.

For example, A LINK-3 monsters that read “2+, Dragon Monsters” would need a Minimum of 2 monsters involved in the summoning, and all must be Dragons.

Now how exactly do these guys help you bypass the Extra Zone limitation? Link Monsters have a number of red arrows equal to their rating, these arrows point at the Main Monster Zones, any Main Monster Zone being pointed at by a Link Monster is also treated as an Extra Monster Zone

That means that if I “Decode Talker” (Above) on my Extra Monster Zone, 2 of my zones would be available for Extra Deck Summons, while my Opponent would receive one.

When a Link Monster is pointing to a card occupied by any monster the 2 cards are considered to be “Linked”, Link Monsters that point at each other are considered to be “Co-Linked”, these terms are often used as conditions for effects.
Can I still use my old favorite cards?

YES! However, you will still need to shake things up a bit! Older cards have received tons of new support that will make them stand against any of the newer monsters! Be prepared to learn some new moves!

Here are some popular examples of Support of classic cards: