Notes & Combos

Overview & General Notes

My first Deck to hit Master Rank in MD! Not gonna lie, I'm pretty happy that Yubel is the first Deck I've taken to Master, given how much I've always liked Yubel as a character in Yu-Gi-Oh GX. So when I saw they were getting new support, AND it was going to actually be fairly strong and meta-relevant, I was ECSTATIC, haha.

Strengths

It's actually absurd how much you can do just from one Samsara D. Lotus or one Nightmare Throne in hand, with both of those being one-card combos, and Spirit Of Yubel's floating effect into base Yubel when it's popped not being once-per-turn is actually insane. The addition of Phantom Of Yubel really helps, too, given how it screws over one of your opponent's Monster handtraps, or forces them to blow an Imperm to try and prevent that.

Watching the opponent Summon a big beefy Monster only for my 0/0 enby demon to slam into it face-first to turn those ATK points against them is so funny. It's roughly the same idea as Mikanko -- turn your opponent's strength against them -- but instead relying on a Continuous Spell (Nightmare Pain) instead of Equip Spells. The synergy with other Fiends like Muckraker and the Unchained archetype, especially with the latter's tendency to pop things (thus triggering various Yubel effects), is really nice, too.

Also, RUN MATURE CHRONICLE, YOU COWARDS.

Weaknesses & Struggles

Obviously this Deck struggles a lot with outputting big amounts of damage when there's not something to swing at, or force to swing into it via Nightmare Pain. The mirror tends to be pretty rough, too, from my experience, for basically that reason, and I found that a lot of Yubel mirrors came down to whoever had the most well-timed handtraps and the better opening hands, not to mention who made better use of their Phantom. That and Decks like Mikanko or Runick that don't themselves have any big Monsters to slam into are part of why I insist on running Geistgrinder Golem, to give me something to attack with Nightmare Pain up even if the opponent won't provide something themselves.

Obviously anything with non-destructive removal (Exosister, Runick, DIMENSION SHIFTER, etc.) is an issue. Obviously there's only so much recursion you get when a good chunk of your Deck is sitting in the banish pile. I've been considering maybe running Artifact Lancea to prevent banishes or Pot Of Acquisitiveness just to get them back, but I don't know how well those would actually perform.