Chapter 203. The Forbidden History of Exchange of the Spirit Is Exposed! The Exchange-of-the-Spirit FTK Leaves the Old Guard Completely Baffled!
The rattled, brittle mood of Yusei Fudo and the others was, in truth, the same feeling shared by Duelists across the other worlds.
For a moment, they all felt a kind of powerlessness and bewilderment toward Blue-Eyes White Dragon.
In the ARC-V world, Yuto and Yuya Sakaki were chattering away about Blue-Eyes after its new wave of support.
The more they talked, the more they realized Blue-Eyes had changed.
Just like old-school Speedroids versus modern-day Speedroids in Yu-Gi-Oh!—
the gap in how they play was enormous!
It was completely beyond comprehension!
"The higher worlds are like this—Duels can make you black out in an instant!"
"Two Level 12 Whites, summoned like it's nothing."
"Why am I having a dream like this?"
"Except… this isn't a dream."
Off to the side, Gong Strong let out a heavy sigh.
For him right now, all he could do was hope future Superheavy Samurai support wouldn't let him down.
In the VRAINS world, after watching those Blue-Eyes combos—
for the Duelists of the Link era, the biggest takeaway was still Link-1.
As long as a single monster can Link Summon into a Link-1, that monster is just too important.
If every Deck had a Link-1 that mobilized its in-house engine…
who knows what earth-shaking changes that would bring!
"As expected, Link is the true path!"
"Give a Deck a little support!"
"Print a Link, and the boost is guaranteed!"
Theodore Hamilton narrowed his eyes at the final frame of the short video.
What welled up in his heart afterward was simple sentiment.
Because his Salamangreat engine is itself a very straightforward, Link-centric Deck!
He also knew that in the Blue-Eyes engine,
the key couldn't be separated from that Link-1, "Spirit with Eyes of Blue."
In the main world—
after Sei Yuki finished watching this video, he couldn't help feeling emotional.
Originally, the Blue-Eyes engine would never have run Red Dragon.
But with a native Level 12 Blue-Eyes monster now in-house,
and on top of that the so-called "Spirit Dragon" acting as a routing piece—
once you add Red Dragon,
it really does lead the whole Blue-Eyes family up into modern Dueling power.
"As expected, even ancient engines can still shine."
"Although people always ridicule Blue-Eyes for being weak…"
"You have to admit—Konami's favorite son gets special treatment!"
"Just look at Dark Magician, Red-Eyes, and the others."
"How about printing a Dark Magician Link-1—'Dark Magician Sprite'?"
"Or a 'Red-Eyes Sprite'?"
"I look forward to that day."
"..."
After muttering this, Sei Yuki set those thoughts aside.
Next, he began searching for other short-video content.
And with that search—
he really did find a very interesting "forbidden card retrospective" short.
Title: "A Forbidden-History Retrospective on Exchange of the Spirit! The Shocking Exchange-FTK!"
Exchange-FTK, huh?
Now that you mention it,
Sei Yuki did know a bit about that engine.
He only remembered that back then, the Trap Card "Exchange of the Spirit" didn't have the same text it has now.
Maybe it's worth a look?
Decision made.
The video began playing right away!
At the same time,
the old-guard Duelists across the worlds shifted their discussion
from Blue-Eyes over to this brand-new short.
Inside the clip—
the Yu-Gi-Oh! Forbidden List explainer quickly got started.
Forbidden-List Explainer: "Hello! Good evening, fellow Duelists."
Forbidden-List Explainer: "Tonight we're bringing you a history lesson on a fairly old card's road to the Forbidden List."
"I'm sure everyone's familiar with the effect of 'Exchange of the Spirit'!"
"Its current effect is—"
"When both players each have 15 or more cards in their Graveyards, you can pay 1000 LP to activate it."
"Each player swaps all the cards in their Deck and Graveyard with each other, then shuffles the Deck."
"So then, what was the effect when 'Exchange of the Spirit' first released?"
"Simply put, when your own Graveyard had 15 or more cards, you paid 1000 LP to activate it."
"Both players swapped the cards in their Graveyards and Decks."
"At that time, the Graveyard was shuffled before those cards were moved to the Deck."
"Alright, with the pre-errata text understood, let's see what kind of legendary path this card carved out at the time!"
"On December 28, 2001, the card released; the metagame back then was still wild!"
"And the appearance of 'Exchange of the Spirit' drew plenty of attention!"
"Remember, in that ancient era—"
"many cards weren't banned."
"'Graceful Charity,' 'Pot of Greed,' and so on were still playable."
"And so! People at the time discovered just how valuable 'Exchange of the Spirit' could be—"
"namely, as an FTK."
"So here's the question: what was the core plan?"
"Simply put: on our first turn we fill the Graveyard to 15+ as fast as possible!"
"Then we find a way to flip 'Exchange of the Spirit' so Deck and Graveyard get swapped!"
"Finally, with a bunch of supporting cards, we make it so the opponent has no cards left to draw!"
"At that point, we basically secure an FTK!"
???
What the heck?
Did I hear that right?
This engine—by relying on 'Exchange of the Spirit'—
can actually dump every last card from the opponent's Deck into the Graveyard,
then win because they can't draw?
What the—
Does this FTK really exist?
Is it really doable—that's the main thing?
Right now,
after hearing that simple outline, Duelists from every world all pulled odd faces.
Because it sounded completely like a tall tale.
But the very next second—after a short combo showcase—
every Duelist fell silent.
Forbidden-List Explainer: "So here's the question."
Forbidden-List Explainer: "How exactly do you pull off this FTK?"
Forbidden-List Explainer: "Let's look at these combos!"
"I believe once you've seen them, you'll understand what's going on!"
"First, after we win the die roll for first turn—"
"we activate the Spell Card 'Painful Choice'."
"We select five cards from the Deck, our opponent chooses one to add to our hand,"
"and the other four all go to the Graveyard."
"If we're missing 'Makyura the Destructor' and 'Temple of the Kings' in hand,"
"then we select those."
"As long as at least one of those two key pieces reaches our hand, we're fine."
"Selection complete; the card we get is 'Makyura the Destructor'."
"Next, activate 'Upstart Goblin' to draw one! Set 'Card Destruction'!"
"Activate the Continuous Spell 'Temple of the Kings'."
"This turn, we can activate a Trap the same turn it's Set."
"Then activate a second 'Card Destruction'; the sent 'Makyura the Destructor' triggers!"
"When this card is sent to the GY, we can activate Trap Cards from the hand this turn!"
"Set the monster 'Morphing Jar,' and Set the Trap 'Exchange of the Spirit'."
"Activate the Spell 'Book of Taiyou' to flip our 'Morphing Jar' face-up."
"'Morphing Jar' resolves—both players discard their entire hands, then draw five."
"Hand-activate the Trap 'Reckless Greed' to draw two, and skip our next two Draw Phases."
"Activate the Spell 'Book of Moon' to Set our 'Morphing Jar' again."
"Activate the Spell 'Soul Release'."
"We banish five cards from the opponent's Graveyard."
"At this point, the opponent still has five cards left in their Graveyard."
"Activate 'Graceful Charity'—draw three, discard two."
"Flip up the Trap 'Exchange of the Spirit' and pay 1000 LP."
"Now the Decks and Graveyards swap."
"That means the opponent's Deck now has only five cards left."
"We activate a second 'Book of Taiyou' to flip 'Morphing Jar' again."
"'Morphing Jar' resolves—both players discard their entire hands, then draw five."
"At this moment, the opponent's Deck has no cards left."
"At that point, we've already won."
"But to be safe, we then activate 'Book of Moon' to Set 'Morphing Jar' once more."
"Flip the Trap 'Acid Trap Hole' to turn 'Morphing Jar' face-up again."
"'Morphing Jar' resolves again—so the opponent cannot draw and loses."
"Our Exchange-FTK is complete."
Silence.
Dead, tomb-like silence.
Every world's Duelists stared, dumbfounded, at the combo sequence on screen.
At the start,
they were curious and expectant.
Midway through,
they grew grave and serious.
By the end,
they were stunned—shaken to their cores.
A simple showcase of an ancient Exchange-engine FTK
forced the expressions of all those old-guard Duelists to keep changing.
At the beginning,
they were watching with a teasing, spectator's mood.
They figured the FTK's odds couldn't be that high.
But now—
they were wrong.
Utterly, completely wrong.
Judging by what they just saw,
the success rate of this engine looked terrifying! Ninety percent?
Or—
one hundred?
Unbelievable. Absolutely unbelievable.
In the DM world—
Yugi Muto and Pharaoh Atem were shaken to the point they nearly forgot to breathe.
A Duel? Is this still a Duel?
This Exchange-engine Deck could actually shred the opponent's Deck to nothing.
And the cards used along the way—they knew them all.
"Morphing Jar"? "Temple of the Kings"? "Graceful Charity"?
They recognized every one of them.
Precisely because of that, they understood everything as it happened—
which only made the shock hit even harder.
"This—'Temple of the Kings' is Odion's card!"
"Exchange of the Spirit is my Trap!"
"I never imagined that, in a higher world—"
"it would ferment into something like this!"
"Is this the guidance of fate, or…?"
Ishizu Ishtar murmured, growing ever more excited.
Beside her, Odion and Marik both twitched at the corners of their mouths.
So dirty. Too dirty. Dirtier than any Deck they knew.
In the GX world—
seeing a combo that truly wiped out an opponent's Deck in one go,
Jaden Yuki and Aster Phoenix couldn't sit still.
The noise around them grew more and more raucous.
"Mamma mia! What did I just see?! The Deck—gone? Just gone?!"
"Who came up with this Exchange thing? Which genius? Tell me which genius!"
"Going first is basically a win; going second might be tougher, but this is disgusting enough!"
"The kicker is—they even thought through what to do if the opponent's Graveyard had cards! Too shocking!"
Voices from students and teachers alike filled Jaden and Aster's ears—
and only got louder.
The Academy was swept into a frenzy once again.
In the 5D's world—
after witnessing how effortlessly one could win with an FTK,
Yusei Fudo and Jack Atlas couldn't keep their composure.
Huh?
This kind of tall tale—
actually worked.
"I see—it leverages those specific combos."
"That 'Morphing Jar' really is the highlight."
"And with two Spells repeatedly flipping it,"
"you solve the problem of the remaining cards in the Deck."
Jack muttered, a faint chill running down his spine.
Coming up with a combo like this? That's insane.
"Right—and there's also the rule that lets you activate Traps the turn they're Set."
"If not for that, Exchange could never do FTK."
"I think I've got the framework of this engine figured out."
Crow Hogan narrowed his eyes. Even they could follow the operations.
This Exchange-FTK wasn't just someone's tall tale.
Forbidden-List Explainer: "Having seen the combo—"
Forbidden-List Explainer: "I think you all understand just how strong Exchange-FTK was."
Forbidden-List Explainer: "At the time, there weren't many hand traps,"
"and Duels flowed mostly one way."
"Exchange's line of play was basically impossible to stop."
"Its very high success rate deepened the view that the OCG was a 'coin-flip game.'"
"Of course, that 'ninety percent' you hear is probably exaggerated,"
"but seventy to eighty percent FTK odds were real."
"Even if not a true one hundred percent—it was already terrifying."
"And so, the metagame back then was in a panic."
"Every time you flipped the coin, you dreaded being put on second."
"But good times don't last—this is exactly the kind of engine Konami tolerates least."
"So, on May 1, 2002, 'Exchange of the Spirit' was limited."
"Other accomplices like 'Morphing Jar' and 'Makyura the Destructor' didn't escape either."
"But 'limited' was still just 'limited'—it didn't mean Exchange decks were finished."
"On September 19, 2003, Exchange welcomed another accomplice—"
"'Sixth Sense.'"
"Its effect is simple and brutal—"
"You declare two numbers from 1 to 6."
"Your opponent rolls a die; if it hits one of your numbers, you draw that many cards."
"If it hits neither, you send that many cards from the top of your Deck to the Graveyard."
"In short: if it hits, you draw; if it whiffs, you mill."
"For Exchange, both outcomes are excellent support."
"But at that point, the Exchange Deck still wasn't strong enough."
"First, 'Sixth Sense' mills a bit blindly."
"What if it mills 'Exchange of the Spirit' itself? Then what?"
"Wouldn't that be a mess?"
"Remember, retrieval tools were scarce back then."
"Exchange relied on a single 'Mask of Darkness.'"
"You could only retrieve a Trap by flipping it."
"If you tried 'Magical Stone Excavation' to get things back, the requirements were steep."
"Only later—when better draw and retrieval options came together—"
"did Exchange finally gain better throughput and recursion."
"In the end, in September 2004, 'Sixth Sense' was limited—"
"Exchange lost its legs and formally exited the stage."
Finally, it was over?
The old guard across the worlds took a deep breath.
They'd never have imagined that—
before the higher worlds existed, a metagame like that could spawn an engine like this.
If only they could know how Duelists felt back then…
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