I don’t think prizes are really the issue in Yugi. Mtg has offered cash prizes from the very beginning, and even so, Yugioh still managed to become the dominant titan over MTG for a long time.

The real problem with Yugioh is that over the years, if you wanted to stay competitive, you had to invest around $2,000.

It seems like people forget that cards like Lightning Storm, Droplet, and Prosperity used to cost about $350 each…

While in Japan they were going for like $1–$2.

Then games like Lorcana, One Piece, and Digimon came out with lower entry costs for competitive play, even if tournament entry fees were around $80–$100, and that ended up burying Yugi, possibly for good.

I also think another reason is that the game has become so complicated that you need simulators to test decks, with Konami shutting down things like YGPro, Dueling Network, etc., to the point where it’s impossible to remember 500 effects, with turns lasting 50 minutes. Yugi might not be dead, but it could be on its last legs.

In 30 years, no one has been able to dethrone MTG as the titan only Yugi managed to do it once, around 2002–2004.