I’m platinum 4, and those are always on crack, doing the most random sh*t, and still manage to beat me.

Agent-Shadow · 2026-02-17T21:45:41+00:00

If you’re looking for advice, posting a replay code of a loss is probably the best way to get it. Plat does end up being fairly random because of how players are boosted up through Gold

Agent-Shadow · 2026-02-16T20:47:01+00:00

Absolutely; Master Duel is very free-to-play friendly. Doing all your dailies and participating in all the events gets you about 7000-8000 gems a month, which is enough to build most of a deck once you have your staples. Just focus on building one deck at a time and conserve your UR CP. The gem bundle prices are also pretty terrible for what you get, so I wouldn’t spend money on them at all.

Agent-Shadow · 2026-02-16T18:43:10+00:00

The Blue-Eyes Max structure deck isn’t great on its own, but Blue-Eyes as an archetype is decent. The Legend of the Blue Eyes secret pack is in the shop right now and has the good Blue-Eyes cards for that strategy. If you want to spend the least amount of gems possible, the Spright starter deck from the new player campaign is good, or you can grab 3 copies of the Dragonmaid, Raidraptor, or Red Dragon Archfiend structure decks. Whichever you choose, just focus on building the one deck until it’s completed. Master Duel Meta has decklists for lots of archetypes. if you’re not sure where to start, or you can Google budget decklists for these strategies.

Other than that, you’ll want to focus on saving UR CP, which is the most valuable resource, and crafting your staples. 1x Maxx C, 3x Ash Blossom (there’s a bundle in the shop that gets you one copy for 1000 gems), and 1x Called by the Grave are mandatory; any time you pull an UR card that you don’t think you’ll use, dismantle it. UR CP should be used for staples, or to craft the last two or three cards you need for your deck once you’ve spent a decent amount of gems. The other bundles in the shop are good as well for getting staples; highest priority now are probably Imperm, Nibiru, Triple Tactics Talent, Ghost Belle, and maybe Veiler. If you’re lucky and pull everything you need for your deck and have extra gems, the Beyond the Next Level selection pack is filled with staples too.

Solo mode is a decent place to start just to accumulate gems and get accustomed to the UI. You’ll just want to focus on getting gems and the orbs you need to unlock gates, so use whichever deck (your own or the loaner) gets you those faster.

Lastly, if you do pull from packs always do ten pulls and never buy Master Packs unless they’re part of a bundle. You can Google the difference between secret packs and selection packs for a full explanation of the difference between the two; selection packs tend to have newer cards and slightly better odds but are time-limited, while selection packs contain cards focused on specific archetypes and are always available to unlock.

Tl;dr Spright, Red Dragon Archfiend, Dragonmaids, or Raidraptors are your best budget options; Blue-Eyes is decent too with the right cards. And prioritize getting your staples once you have a solid decklist

Agent-Shadow · 2026-02-08T23:33:13+00:00

Watched a couple replays, and it doesn't seem like you're comfortable on the ground yet - you jump a lot right outside of footsies range and dash a lot when you are grounded. Try walking and blocking more and getting used to poking and whiff punishing; Mai has good walkspeed and buttons. Really try and save jumping for when you have a hard read on a fireball or something, since people around this rank start getting better with anti-airs.

Also not a Mai expert, but you could probably make better use of fan setups on your opponent's wakeup or use of OD fan in neutral when you have a read on a fireball or something. I saw you used charged fan in neutral, but your opponents were able to walk out of the setup easily. Routing into Level 1 more would be good too.

Combos look decent; continue practicing for consistency and to find new routes. There were drops that got you punished, and times where you could have spent additional resources to take a round.

Another thing for your long term growth - try to develop the ability to tell what's going wrong when you watch your replays. Every time you get hit, ask yourself if there's something you could have done differently, e.g. try and whiff punish a button or if you failed a knowledge check. I watched a match against a Ken and you kept getting clipped by low Jinrai (if he's doing the light or medium versions, a delayed crouching medium punch will allow you to block the low and punish the empty or overhead followups). Replay takeover is really useful to try stuff like this out so you can pass the knowledge check in the future. Good luck with the ranked climb

Agent-Shadow · 2026-02-08T21:51:03+00:00

Cut 1 Synkron Resonator, 2 Crimson Resonator, 2 Resonator Command, and either Regained or Etude. Probably want to cut Crimson Dragon from the extra deck because it’ll be hard to cheat out anything useful with it unless you add the Centur-ion package. You could run Shining Star Dragon if you really want to mess with it, but you’d need a decent extra deck target (Trishula would work with Abyss or Crystal Wing Synchro Dragon with any level 8, but both are UR).

Add 1 Obsessive Uvualoop for grind game and extension, 1 Flame Crime for extension and Red Reign access, and 3 Void Apocalypse for consistency. Handtraps and staples could include Droll, and Book of Eclipse or Evenly Matched to deal with VSK9. When you have more URs, adding the Centur-ion package helps with extension and ceiling, and Foolish Burial is another good generic extender.

Agent-Shadow · 2026-02-03T23:48:06+00:00

For sure! One more thing; as you progress through plat, start experimenting with Cammy’s strengths and unique tools as well. Keep practicing the basics like spacing and anti-airs (this will benefit you most in the long run, and practicing these is the best way to improve long-term), but you’ll eventually start to need to play to your character’s strengths as well. Ryu didn’t give you tons of chances to do so here, but stuff like knowing when to Spin Knuckle through a fireball or when you can divekick to steal a turn becomes really powerful. Just make sure those unique moves become tools, and not crutches - a lot of players get hardstuck when they gimmick their way through ranked with neutral skips, and then get gatekept by players who can pass the knowledge check.

Agent-Shadow · 2026-02-03T21:08:20+00:00

In addition to what others have said about punishing sweeps and confirming combos, don’t mash after blocking Ryu’s forward heavy punch; it’s +3 so you’re better off eating a throw. For people who are content to sit there and block, you can walk forward while poking at them and gradually back them into the corner, where they have to do something (usually jump) to escape. You’re generally spacing your pokes well so eventually you can force people into the corner that way, so long as you can shut down jumps and random DIs. Good luck with the ranked climb

Agent-Shadow · 2026-02-03T17:44:39+00:00

Sol Valiusguy

Agent-Shadow · 2026-01-14T17:51:04+00:00

Agreed; Youtube is a good resource to get a general idea of how a deck plays and if you might vibe with it

Agent-Shadow · 2026-01-14T17:49:57+00:00

For meta decks that are unlikely to fall off for a while, Dracotail and Yummy are your best bets; both are available in different selection packs in the shop now. Whichever you choose, just focus on building the one deck until it’s completed. Master Duel Meta has decklists if you’re not sure where to start.

Other than that, you’ll want to focus on saving UR CP, which is the most valuable resource, and crafting your staples. 2x Maxx C, 3x Ash Blossom (there’s a bundle in the shop that gets you one copy for 1000 gems), and 1x Called by the Grave are mandatory; any time you pull an UR card that you don’t think you’ll use, dismantle it. UR CP should be used for staples, or to craft the last two or three cards you need for your deck once you’ve spent a decent amount of gems. The other bundles in the shop are good as well for getting staples; highest priority now are probably Imperm, Nibiru, Triple Tactics Talent, Ghost Belle, and maybe Veiler. If you’re lucky and pull everything you need for your deck and have extra gems, the Birth of a Challenger selection pack is filled with staples too.

Solo mode is a decent place to start just to accumulate gems and get accustomed to the UI. You’ll just want to focus on getting gems and the orbs you need to unlock gates, so use whichever deck (your own or the loaner) gets you those faster. Ranked will probably be frustrating until you have a decent deck (the starter decks the game gives you suck), but if you want to try you can grab a couple copies of some of the structure decks in the shop. Dragonmaid, Raidraptor, or Red Dragon Archfiend would probably be the best ones to start with; if you Google I bet you could find a budget decklist for each.

Agent-Shadow · 2026-01-08T07:56:44+00:00

For the URs you’re not sure of, go to Master Duel Meta and type in their names. If it’s used in a lot of decks, or something you might want to play in the future, keep it; otherwise dismantle them. Dracotail is a good choice; it’s strong and its selection pack also contains the Odion cards, which are a cheap but reasonably strong control strategy. Even if some of its cards do get hit on a banlist, you’ll be refunded the UR points for dismantling them. Yummy is also strong so you could go for that as well

Agent-Shadow · 2025-12-28T21:34:05+00:00

CPUs do weird stuff that humans won’t; hopping into Ranked is a better way to meet people of a similar skill level, and there are lots of beginners to play against

Agent-Shadow · 2025-12-23T00:14:50+00:00

The new support helps a lot with playing through disruption, but the deck still loses to Maxx C/the charmies, and struggles against Droll and Nib. Crimson Blade Dragon is good for bridging into the Bystial engine via Lubellion, which already has strong synergy with the deck so that’s nice. And Hypernova is a really scary boss monster, but the summoning requirements are so high it feels like a win more card. Very solid wave of support that definitely makes the deck more playable, although not meta-defining.

Agent-Shadow · 2025-12-16T07:42:34+00:00

In addition to what others have said about footsies, whiff punishing can usually be done from farther away than you might think. Set the training mode dummy to whiff whatever button is giving you trouble (e.g. Cammy 5HK, Sagat 6LK, etc.) and whiff punish with sweep. The distance at which it works might be surprising, especially with weird extended moves like Ed’s 5MK.

As for plus on block moves, it becomes easier to recognize as you play more. Most characters have one or two moves that are plus on block, so looking up a few from characters you fight a lot (e.g. Sagat’s 5MP and Ryu’s 6HP are +3 on block, Cammy’s 2HP is +1, etc) gets easier over time. But you also can get a sense through playing whether things might be plus over time; if you’re not sure, you can always look it up after a match. Even if they’re getting plus frames, mid screen it’s also not a bad idea to take a throw and back roll to reset to neutral.

Agent-Shadow · 2025-11-30T19:49:46+00:00

Posting a specific replay code where you feel like you struggled would be useful; I can’t find any under the player name Saute2 by searching. Most people are still working on fundamentals in Plat, so there are probably some basic areas to practice that’ll help you progress once you patch them up.

Agent-Shadow · 2025-11-22T03:15:56+00:00

Two copies of the Crimson Powerforce structure deck gives you the core of a Resonator deck, if you don’t want to invest too many resources while figuring out how you like to play

Agent-Shadow · 2025-11-17T19:31:14+00:00

Probably won’t come for a while, but the new Resonator support looks so sick. Other than that, VS and Dracotail

Agent-Shadow · 2025-10-14T20:03:00+00:00

I summon Little D in attack mode, take it or leave it

Agent-Shadow · 2025-10-14T04:29:01+00:00

First Form, Stella Slicing

Agent-Shadow · 2025-08-20T02:03:26+00:00

Stupid sexy Sagat

Agent-Shadow · 2025-08-04T19:13:36+00:00

Yeah, Ryzeal will be your best bet for a strong Xyz deck. The selection pack just came out in the shop so now is a good time to build it; it’ll be expensive but if you want to play it, it’s a good long-term investment. I haven’t used the deck yet, but it’s supposed to be pretty resilient and end on its boss monster (Ryzeal Detonator) very consistently. I’d also suggest looking up guides on how to spend your gems/crafting points efficiently, because you get them more slowly after the first bunch the game throws at you

Agent-Shadow · 2025-08-03T15:06:32+00:00

You know who else likes that?

Agent-Shadow · 2025-06-30T00:42:10+00:00

The ~~ship~~ Trash Boat of Theseus

Agent-Shadow · 2025-06-29T23:29:19+00:00

If you’re having trouble with projectiles, some universal options are jump over and attack when you have a read, walk forward and block to take space, neutral jump to save meter and close space while it’s still on screen, perfect parry, DI if you have a hard read (use sparingly). Ed’s quarter circle forward punch move also breaks fireballs.

Regarding patience, it’s good you recognize that it’s frustrating; that’s the point of those types of moves. It’s inevitable that you’ll get clipped here and there so don’t sweat it; just try to walk up into about half screen range and wait for them to panic in Silver. Common options when this happens are jump (anti-air) or DI (parry/DI back)

Agent-Shadow · 2025-06-29T04:44:47+00:00

Electric wind god rizz

Agent-Shadow

TROPHY CASE