Turn.4
"My turn, draw."
After adding one card to his hand and confirming that he had no way to interfere with Kaiba's Mirage of Nightmare draws, Yami Yugi let out a sigh and shifted phases.
During the Standby Phase, among the five cards added by Card of Demise: Dark Blade had been destroyed by Slifer's Divine Thunder upon Normal Summon, De-Fusion had already been used to separate Blue-Eyes Twin Burst Dragon for follow-up attacks, Mirage of Nightmare and Emergency Provisions were both on the field, and only Chaos Emperor Dragon - Envoy of the End remained in his hand.
Because of Mirage of Nightmare's effect, Kaiba drew three cards from his Deck, then immediately flipped over his Set Emergency Provisions and recovered 1000 LP.
[Seto Kaiba, LP: 2000 → 3000]
"I discard a card to activate Joker's Straight from the previous turn, sending one card to the Graveyard to Special Summon Queen's Knight returned to the Deck, add and Summon King's Knight, then Special Summon a second Jack's Knight from the Deck!"
Yami Yugi repeated the same Three Knights tribute setup as before—yet Youmi hadn't expected that he had actually packed two copies of Jack's Knight into the Deck.
"Next, I activate the Normal Spell Polymerization, sending Queen's Knight, King's Knight, and Jack's Knight from my field to the Graveyard as Fusion Materials to Special Summon Arcana Knight Joker from my Extra Deck!"
The three knights crossed their blades as their forms merged into a warrior clad in purple and black armor.
"I activate Card of Sanctity—both players draw until they each have six cards in hand."
Having nearly emptied out his hand, and since Kaiba already had four cards, giving him two more was within acceptable limits, so Yami Yugi decisively activated Card of Sanctity. "With this… Yugi, lend me this card. I activate Polymerization from my hand!"
Remembering the Dragon-slaying fusion monsters Yami Yugi used before—chief among them Dark Paladin—Kaiba felt a headache coming… but quickly recalled the restriction Yami Yugi was under.
"You're Fusion Summoning again? Don't forget—because you activated Joker's Straight, any monster you Special Summon from the Extra Deck must be a LIGHT Warrior. Your Dark Magician–based Fusions won't help you now!"
"Ah, of course I know. Which is why the form I'm Fusion Summoning is not a new Dark Magician… but these two!"
Yami Yugi raised the two monsters and Polymerization high, and behind him the vortex of fusion and the outlines of both monsters emerged. "I fuse the Buster Blader in my hand with Curse of Dragon to Fusion Summon Buster Blader, the Dragon Destroyer Swordsman!"
Seeing a monster he was all too familiar with, Youmi nearly sprayed the cola she got from Iblee. After all, when she first fought Grandpa Ten Thousand, she had originally planned to use this very Deck.
She eventually switched to Labrynth and got OTK'd by a dragon pile even more shameless than her own, but that didn't change how long she had played the Buster Blader deck.
'This thing is from the Arc-V era, right? The card is fairly new, but why are the Fusion Materials so retro?!'
"As long as this card remains in the Monster Zone, all Dragon monsters on your opponent's field become Defense Position, and your opponent cannot activate the effects of Dragon monsters. Kaiba, it seems your precious Blue-Eyes have been completely sealed away."
Yami Yugi waved a finger and exchanged a nod with Yugi. This card had been included specifically to counter Kaiba—at Yugi's suggestion.
While Yugi also recommended increasing the Deck's "red card" ratio further, that part wasn't fully adopted.
"And Buster Blader, the Dragon Destroyer Swordsman gains 1000 Attack and Defense for each Dragon monster on your opponent's field and in their Graveyard. When it attacks a Defense Position monster, it inflicts piercing damage equal to the difference between its Attack and that monster's Defense. You have two Blue-Eyes White Dragons on your field, so Buster Blader gains 2000 Attack."
Despite its Attack gain being similar to Dark Paladin's Dragon-count scaling, its offensive output was so excessive that Buster Blader, the Dragon Destroyer Swordsman was restricted to counting only the opponent's Dragons and could not attack directly.
"Battle Phase! Buster Blader attacks Blue-Eyes White Dragon—Destruction Sword Flash!"
Because Kaiba had previously used Lullaby of Obedience, his LP had been at 2000. If he hadn't used Emergency Provisions earlier, the piercing damage from Buster Blader would have defeated him instantly.
Perhaps Kaiba had foreseen this, which was why he used Emergency Provisions preemptively.
But at that moment, Kaiba's Set card activated.
"Before you enter the Battle Phase, I activate this card—!"
Of the two Set cards Kaiba had on turn one, one had turned out to be a bluffing Megamorph. The other, still unknown until now, slowly revealed itself—displaying a Quick-Play Spell.
"Quick-Play Spell Soul Crossing! This card can be activated during either player's Main Phase. I Tribute Summon one Divine-Beast monster from my hand. In this case, I can Tribute your monsters instead of my own!"
Kaiba swept his arm wide as three beams of light enveloped Yami Yugi's monsters. "Although if I Tribute your monsters, until the end of the next turn I can only activate the effects of Divine-Beast monsters once per turn—but that's more than enough! Descend—Obelisk the Tormentor!!!"
Perhaps due to the excitement of summoning a God, Kaiba's voice even cracked.
"Arcana Knight Joker's effect only protects itself from targeting… damn it, is there no way around this?!"
Thus, in this Duel, the second God manifested.
"The Tributes are—your Buster Blader, your Arcana Knight Joker, and that annoying Token!" Kaiba pointed at Yugi's three monsters as Obelisk the Tormentor appeared on his field. With satisfaction on his face, he continued, "Now your field is left with nothing but that Gorz, which can't use any meaningful effects!"
"So what?"
In spite of saying that, even Yami Yugi felt uneasy. "I switch Gorz to Defense Position, Set two cards, and end my turn. Joker's Straight and Joker's Wild return to my hand, and Queen's Knight and King's Knight return to my Deck…"
...
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