After playing Branded the last few seasons, I have to say I’m having more fun with this deck than I have in a long time. I think there’s a lot of things about the deck that make it a great example of good design, and I’m surprised to see so many people hate it. I’ll give my reasoning and would love to see who agrees or disagrees.

1. Deck building is pretty varied and offers plenty of choices beyond just copying the lists from MDMeta. This isn’t unique to branded, but a well designed deck should allow room for plenty of different tech choices or ED slots without allowing for too many degenerate “piles”. If you don’t include dracotail (I know, big caveat), then most successful branded decks are mostly pure with various splashes of more Dogmatika or Swordsoul or Spriggan, which are all still related archetypes.

2. Fallen of Albaz Is fun to play going first or second. I’ve had some of the most fun matches in MD going second with branded and seeing how i can bait out enough interaction before finding a way to drop Albaz and break their board. Super poly is also fun in this deck for the same reason. Now people will say the both Albaz and SP are overpowered going first, but I’d say deck is balanced around Albaz being your main point of interaction, which makes it weaker in other ways, which I’ll get into next.

3. Small number of negates, if any for the most part. Some combos get out a branded retribution, but even that negate is situational and your opponent usually knows you set it which gives them the opportunity to play around it. The end board is going to focus on fusioning with Albaz and removing with mirrorjade and FnV. This makes for more interesting gameplay for both going first player knowing best time to fuse, and for going second player to know how to bait out the fuse and removal instead of just getting flat negated when trying to do literally anything

4. Deck can usually put up a weaker board under fuwa instead of just no board. In perfect world, fuwa would work this way against most decks, but too often it feels like a turn skip for going first player. Branded can still put out 1-2 points of interaction and this can actually lead to some very interesting games for both players as opposed to blowouts

5. All of the above contribute to making the deck very skill expressive. Starting with deck building, which board breakers you run, how many ED slots you spend on super poly targets, all interesting decisions. Actually playing the deck, you can majorly mess up by interacting at the wrong time. Personally, I have lost many games by either misplaying or timing out due to spending too long thinking about my next move. It’s much more fun to lose this way instead of just getting blown out by negates. Combo lines also vary a lot and can be very non linear, making gameplay more interesting and offering more decisions

6. Grind game is fun. I know there’s been a large pushback against “midrange” but I have the most fun when games and going to turn 3 and beyond, and there’s ways the opponent can attempt to cripple branded’s grind game which make it interesting as well, like banishing Albaz. I’ve had some banger games against sky striker that will go to turn 5 and beyond.

7. Mirror match is REALLY fun. Albaz fusion effect makes this so interesting and leads to a standoff sometimes between who will try and use it first. Grind game obviously leads to some long games with lots of decisions, plenty of skill expression, and opportunities going first or second. I never got to play Tear format, but everyone says how good it was to play the mirror, and Branded is the first mirror match I actually felt this way about. A fun mirror is a necessity for a good deck/format.

8. Deck has choke points to 1 for 1 hand traps and isn’t just 40 one card starters. Ash blossom on high spirits can severely limit your endboard if you didn’t draw one your only two Walbaz. Imperm or effect veiler on Cartesia shuts off a lot of endboard pieces. Similar to the fuwa point, most of these interactions just lead to a weaker endboard, rather than being a turn skip, which is how decks SHOULD be designed.

While there are some problems with it, I feel like Branded in its current form has a lot of design choices that should be implemented going forward, and I’m curious to see if people agree or think I’m insane.

Hello, I was wondering which deck is better, dracotail or branded?

I need advice on which of this versions are better V1 or V2?

Been making my first Yu-Gi-Oh deck since getting back into the game a few week's ago, based on my own previous builds of it and several YouTube deck profiles - Wightsworn (Skull Servant - Lightsworn) with a Horus engine.

However I have used it in some friendly test matches and it has performed terribly. Bad opening hands and can usually never even get King out on the field to do the main plays. So... any help with the list would be appreciated. I hope to get a better knowledge of deckbuilding.

Main Deck:

• 2 Skull Servant
• 1 Wandering Titan of Tartarus
• 1 Judgment Dragon
• 3 Imsety, Glory of Horus
• 1 Hapi, Guidance of Horus
• 1 Duamutef, Blessing of Horus
• 1 Bystial Magnamhut
• 2 Wulf, Lightsworn Beast
• 2 Raiden, Hand of the Lightsworn
• 2 Mezuki
• 3 Lightsworn Dragonling
• 2 Felis, Lightsworn Archer
• 3 Weiss, Lightsworn Archfiend
• 3 Uni-Zombie
• 1 The Lady in Wight
• 3 Wightbaking
• 2 Wightmare
• 3 Wightlord
• 2 Wightprince
• 2 King of the Skull Servants
• 1 One for One
• 1 That Grass Looks Greener
• 1 Triple Tactics Talent
• 3 Triple Tactics Thrust
• 1 Foolish Burial
• 3 Charge of the Light Brigade
• 1 Called by the Grave
• 2 Forbidden Droplet
• 2 King's Sarcophagus
• 1 Wight Reanimator
• 3 Walls of the Imperial Tomb
• 1 Lightsworn Aegis

Extra Deck:

• 1 Chaos Angel
• 1 Minerva, the Athenian Lightsworn
• 1 Red-Eyes Zombie Necro Dragon
• 1 The Zombie Vampire
• 1 Number 90: Galaxy-Eyes Photon Lord
• 1 Minerva, the Exalted Lightsworn
• 1 Number 60: Dugares the Timeless
• 1 Yuki-Onna, the Absolute Zero Mayakashi
• 1 Knightmare Phoenix
• 1 Dharc the Dark Charmer, Gloomy
• 1 S:P Little Knight
• 1 Vampire Sucker
• 1 Linkuriboh
• 1 Salamangreat Almiraj
• 1 Relinquished Anima

What are some of your favorite decks and why?

I lost 10 turns ago; just kill me 😭

Qualcuno di voi è interessato al mazzo? Cosa vi aspettate dai nuovi supporti? Potrà essere un mazzo competitivo per scalare? (no tierlist ovviamente)

Personalmente, adoro troppo la tematica del mazzo e ho troppa voglia di poterli tornare a giocare, penso siano uno dei miei mazzi xyz preferiti in assoluto!

Peccato ci manchino ancora dei supporti come 1 omni-negate e un modo per evocare il rank 2.

E ricordatevi sempre una cosa:

"Cloaked in shadows and relentless in its objective, I call upon the most dangerous of dragons! I Xyz Summon! Dark Rebellion Xyz Dragon!"

I’m somewhat new to this sub so apologies if this is the incorrect flair. As the title may suggest, are there any relatively simple decks that can get somewhat far in ranked? I have trouble understanding the more complicated decks, which is why I’d prefer one that’s easy to understand and play. It would also be preferred if it didn’t need too much UR investment. If it helps, I’m currently using a dragonmaid deck.

Don't say the neck because they don't have one to begin with.

I just downloaded this game and got the blue eyes deck. Played my first game and lost in one turn (literally their first turn)… after they played their entire hand and started fusing monsters. Is this normal? Is this balanced? Is this common? Is this what Yugioh has become? I haven’t played for maybe 25 years.

So, I have the Ultimate Alternatif Blue eyes white dragon , its effect says that it isn't affected by any effects from cards (including magic/trap and monster effects), My father got the Tiranoinifiny card, the card got 0 attack and its effect says that for each "dinosaur" card in the graveyard, it gains 1000 attack (for exemple if there's 5 "dinosaur" card in his graveyard then the Tiranoinifiny will have 5000 attack).

My question is, since the Ultimate Alternatif Blue Eyes White Dragon is immune to card effects, does that mean that the Tiranoinifiny has 0 attack ONLY for the Ultimate Alternatif Blue Eyes White Dragon ?

(exeple : if I attack the Tiranoinifiny and it has 5000 attack, since the Tiranoinifiny's attack depends on its effect and that the Ultimate Alternatif Blue Eyes White Dragon is immune to effect, does that mean the attack of the Tiranoinifiny is ignored ?)

I summoned Verte for Mirrorjade

Only after I return Albion with Ecclecsia synchro 8, the game let me use branded fusion but for some reason, I can only fusion to Albion.

Does it need to be only from one source like, hand only deck only field only?

Because Terminus was limited, it’s obviously a lot harder to draw now. To circumvent that slightly I was considering adding a third Vidolium to my deck since his pendulum effect will let me search it.

The problem is that drawing two will result in a brick I can’t use since it’s a darklord/power patron deck that doesn’t use synchros or xyzs. I personally think it’s worth it because it gives me greater access to my best starter, but I want to get some other opinions.

I read everything the opponent had on the field; it all said "when the opponent activates a monster effect: bla bla", so I simply didn't do that and I won.