YU-GI-OH! SPEED DUELS to Add Controversial Card in November

Speed Duels is going to get controversial! Konami recently announced the next box set for Yu-Gi-Oh!’s Speed Duel Format, Speed Duel: Battle City Finals, and there’s a very interesting reveal: Maxx “C” will be included.

I’ll talk a bit more about the controversy in a bit, but first, let’s get the basics of the set out of the way. Battle City Finals will launch on November 22 (November 20 at OTS locations) with an MSRP of $29.99. Inside, duelists will find 8 complete decks based on the finalists from the Battle City arc in the original anime: Ishizu Ishtar, Joey Wheeler, Mai Valentine, Odion, Seto Kaiba, Yami Bakura, Yami Marik, and Yami Yugi.

Each box of Battle City Finals comes with 200 common cards, a Prismatic Secret Rare copy of each God Card (total of three), nine Prismatic Secret Rares from a 30-card pool, and 20 Skill Cards. 110 of the cards included are brand new to Speed Duel to help shake up strategies.

We don’t know all the cards included, but we do know that the following eight cards will be available in the 30-card Prismatic Secret Rare pool: Joker’s Knight, Lava Golem, Mudora the Sword Oracle, Doomcaliber Knight, Injection Fairy Lily, Breakthrough Skill, Swords of Revealing Light, and Maxx “C”.

This tells us that Yami Yugi’s deck will probably be based on the Three Musketeers of Face Cards (we really couldn’t come up with a better name for the archetype?).

I’m personally excited for that as I’ve always liked that archetype. There’s not much else that’s telling from that list though that would make me think of anything really unique from previous decks released, so I’ll be interested to see what those other decks are.

I personally think these Speed Duel box sets are really fun, especially for nostalgic trips down memory lane with childhood friends. You buy one box and you can have a mini tournament right there.

Let’s go back to Maxx “C”. This is arguably the most divisive card in the history of Yu-Gi-Oh! because of its effect. At any point during a turn, you can discard Maxx “C” and from that point forward you get to draw a card each time your opponent special summons a monster.

For the past decade plus, special summoning has become more and more common which means you would get to draw a lot of cards on your opponent’s turn making it more likely that you’ll be able to wipe their board and win on your turn.

In order to counter it, a player would have to use a card like Ash Blossom & Joyous Spring to negate it or essentially pass their turn with at best a few cards in the back row and a normal summoned monster (maybe 1-2 special summons if they are feeling spicy).

For many duelists, Maxx “C” is viewed as a degenerate card that results in not being able to play the game. For others, it is seen as a valuable counter to combo decks that have historically been able to set up several negates one turn one effectively shutting the other player from playing the game.

Currently, Maxx “C” is forbidden in the Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG (the format played outside of Asia), but remains available to use in Master Duel and in the Yu-Gi-Oh! OCG (the format played in Asia).

I think it’s bold of Konami to bring the card to Speed Duel, but it’s also worth noting that Speed Duel is not as dependent on special summons (yet). It certainly has special summons and some decks really rely on them, but it’s not like every deck is trying to do 15 special summons on their first turn to establish their board.

On the other hand, decks are smaller in Speed Duel increasing the risk of losing by deck out. Who knows what will happen though. Maybe this is signaling the bug’s return to the TCG? Probably not.