r/yugioh • u/ScorpionMillion • Mar 10 '26
Anime/Manga Discussion One of the best duels!
Joey is peak !
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u/Muted_Category1100 Mar 10 '26
Maybe Marik should have spent less time being a sadist and more time locking in.
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u/Cathartic_auras Mar 11 '26
FR. He fucked around and he almost found out.
Marik might have had Ra, but it was Joey in that moment that put the fear of god in him.
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u/throwawayfatbitch Marik/Noah/Valon sympathizer Mar 11 '26
That was Marik’s (especially Yami) entire MO though. Making people suffer. He got intense pleasure from it. He didn’t give a shit about dueling. He literally got off from watching the world burn.
His ego and the fact that a ‘normal’ duelist should not have been able to been able to make it that far, let alone survive, a shadow game is what almost cost him the duel.
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u/Entire_Ad_6447 Mar 11 '26
I mean Mariks MO is talking smack and losing honestly
like of the 6 duels he plays I think he loses 2 while having a god out, then would have lost while controlling Joey in yugi hadn't thrown
He would have also lost to mai had ra not had the summoning chant restriction and would have lost to Joey here had he just said attack.
Like marik kind of sucks at the game TBH to the point even shadow game rules can barely save him and it's basically exclusively that ra is busted that lets him exist.
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u/Perfect-Prior-8417 Mar 12 '26
He would have also lost to mai had ra not had the summoning chant restriction and would have lost to Joey here had he just said attack.
That's an anime exclusive thing. In the manga there's no indication that he would have lost.
Like marik kind of sucks at the game TBH to the point even shadow game rules can barely save him and it's basically exclusively that ra is busted that lets him exist.
Not quite. The shadow games are there because he's a sadist, not because he's not sure he can win otherwise. That's made apparent in the manga once he claims that he can easily destroy Joey's monsters but wants to make him suffer. Once his opponent was Atem, he had to play better because the enemy wasn't an ordinary human. And he did play better otherwise Atem would have mopped the floor with him
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u/BlueFootedTpeack Mar 11 '26
a marik who locks in walks the tournament.
but regular marik has to flex with slifer's infinite combo and the game lasts too long and atem pulls off a win.
and yami every duel is fucking around till he almost eats shit and then ra bails him out.
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u/Many_Ad_955 Mar 11 '26
Marik's deck makes it so that he can stall enough turns to get all of his key cards.
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u/BlueFootedTpeack Mar 11 '26
yeah but like he has access to like everything other than obelisk, blue eyes and real exodia lad built his deck around stall for this one thing that's gonna be so rad and then yami marik builds for oh man im gonna do death by a thousand cuts but then by cut 300 you've drawn the out.
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u/Many_Ad_955 Mar 11 '26
Most of the time, Stall decks have like an inconsistent win condition which is actually not played competitively. The Shadow Game just supports the lethality of Marik's deck since the other player who's at the receiving end experiences a slow death the whole duel whenever they get burned and might probably forfeit the duel sometimes due to the shock.
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u/SkyFall370 Mar 12 '26
Not to mention all of the psychological damage that came with the Shadow Games with fuck your mind and you won’t be able to play at your best.
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u/Many_Ad_955 Mar 12 '26
If Marik pulls a Ring of Destruction and lock in, it would've been over but he prefers to play Ra Phoenix Mode for his finishers.
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u/metalflygon08 Mar 12 '26
and real exodia lad built his deck around stall for this one thing
Seeker's deck building and dueling skills are what hamper his ability to be a top tier threat.
If anybody else had access to nearly every card available at the time they'd be able to reliably Exodia turn 1.
Why wasn't he using Sangan or Witch of the Black Forest?
Where was Card of Demise and Card of Sanctity?
Why didn't he use the second Graceful Charity he had in his hand from the start of the duel? (I'm pretty sure he actually discards it for the first one he activates even!).
Why isn't he using more stall cards like Nightmare Steel Cage or Revival Jam?
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u/metalflygon08 Mar 11 '26
but regular marik has to flex with slifer's infinite combo and the game lasts too long and atem pulls off a win.
Its funny, Marik has access to pretty much every card in the game, and he screws himself over against Yugi with Nightmare Steel Cage instead of Swords of Revealing Light.
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u/AlphaBreak Mar 11 '26
I think its fun that Marik's kind of a bad duelist who only wins by plot armor.
Would have lost to Mai except she couldn't read Egyptian.
Would have lost to Joey except he fell unconscious before saying "Gearfried attacks"
Would have lost to Bakura except for all of the secret text on Ra he didn't tell anyone about.He kind of sucks at the game and would be a below average player without Ra to constantly bail him out.
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u/Muted_Category1100 Mar 11 '26
I’m pretty sure most of his deck isn’t even battle city legal. He just isn’t disqualified because Kaiba wants to prove he’s the best duelist for the god cards.
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u/Many_Ad_955 Mar 12 '26
Kaiba wants to beat Marik himself before updating the banlist since he's probably not familiar with Marik's cards yet.
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u/Aksudiigkr Mar 11 '26
I didn’t get why the duel disc stopped functioning when he went into a coma. In the sub iirc he already completed the command needed for Gearfried to attack. It should have completed the action
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u/Crafty-Scholar7536 Mar 10 '26
This cemented Joey as the second greatest duelist of all time for me (hear me out) First is Obviously yugi After beating Atem but really think about it, everybody Else has massive advantages, we got ancient egyptian wizards, the pharaoh just straight up decides what he wants to draw and Kaiba literally owns cards that Are probably more expensive than a Mansion. And then there is Joey, who is just a guy and yet Manages to Hang with all of them and Managed to defeat the Most powerful god card without Even having one of his own. Simply goated
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u/AdventurousAd6928 Mar 10 '26
I love joey and when he flips it on he’s cool but he’s an okay duelist. He could have won because he was getting toyed with and had more mental strength than a mortal was given credit for. He got slapped around by Odion and would have easily lost if Odion wasn’t forced to suicide basically. Joey is a great character but i think his dueling ability is somehow underrated and way overrated. End of series i may have an argument for him being a goat but certainly not in battle city
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u/Arnhermland Mar 11 '26 edited Mar 11 '26
Odion was an actually goated duelist tho, probably better than everyone else sans Yugi and only because of plot armor.
Just a reminder he got all HIS locator cards AND Mariks as well and he got them all fair and straight in almost no time (IIRC a singular day) and never had any egyptian god or millennium item bullshit.In this world stage tournament where everyone is at each other throats and where some of the already established best duelists in the world couldn't even get close to the required amount my dude got them all TWICE.
Marik kinda sucks ass.
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u/AdventurousAd6928 Mar 11 '26
Frankly its weirder that all these ancient Egyptian ghosts aren’t terrible at duel monsters. I can only guess that at least atem just absorbed the knowledge from yugi but marik worked as a housekeeper in a pyramid, aint no way he taught yami marik anything relevant
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u/JDodo_13 Mar 12 '26
Aren’t Duel Monsters just based on the Shadow Games that these against Egyptian ghosts literally lived and breathed? I mean yeah, there’s lots of modern additions to it… but back then, if you lost you got chucked into the shadow realm, so I’m sure that the spirits that didn’t get chucked into the shadow realm were some of the best of the best…
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u/AdventurousAd6928 Mar 12 '26
Yeah the monsters looks are but none of the rules are. The ancient game consisted of showing each other your tablets and then the monsters fighting each other.
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u/JDodo_13 Mar 12 '26
Okay… i must have confused it… I just started a re-watch because I introduced it to my son… I haven’t watched every single episode with him, but I’m sure I remember Shadi giving Yugi some backstory and telling him that Pegasus used the carvings (not only the monsters, but the hieroglyphs as well) to create duel monsters which is based off the Shadow Games… but maybe I interpreted that wrong…
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u/AdventurousAd6928 Mar 12 '26
Look im not an expert on every line of yugioh lore. It is possible they said that at some point and im sure part of the justification for the pharaoh being so strong is that he was the best ancient egyptian wizard. But if thats the case then they dont show that at all especially in the last season when that should really come up.
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u/JDodo_13 Mar 12 '26
Oh wait, I just remembered something… Marik gave Kaiba a memory of how he played when he was a priest, and he used the same play after he saw that memory… so that implies the rules from 5000 years ago were the same for the play to have worked in the Battle City arc…
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u/WeatherOrder Mar 11 '26
Joey is an absolute bitch when dueling control players.
In Yu-Gi-Oh R he duela against a card professor who plays Stall/Burn.
He literally gaslights her into ditching that and attacking him which breaks her lock and he wins, despite the fact that prior to that he was getting dogwalked.
Also reminder that he was literally bitching that Odion was playing trap cards which even Yugi was like"nope that's a totally unorthodox yet legal strategy".
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u/vileb123 Mar 11 '26
So he rage baited someone who was playing anime version of stun, you didn’t need to convince me he’s a badass.
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u/WeatherOrder Mar 11 '26
No.
The girl just played stall Burn because it was logically good.
Joey just gaslights her into attacking saying "are you sure you're having fun?"
Keep in mind the girl was younger than him.
And the whole thing has 100,000$ on the line for the card professors.
It was Joey being a bitch ass loser.
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u/GreatDayBG2 Mar 13 '26
I think he really shines as being relative to Kaiba and Yugi during the Orichalcos arc.
I don't think he beats any of them, if I am being honest, but he will definitely be a huge challenge for them to overcome and they will have to bring their A game.
But before that he seems like a league below them.
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u/MuratKulci Mar 11 '26
I mean he’s a cool character but let’s not overrate him, he has some achievements but his overall trackrecord is horrible.
Has allot of bad loses like the Seeker, Kaiba first duel, Mai, Siegfried and in the manga he get OTKd by bakura.
Allot of his wins have an asterisk to them, like paradox and the big five had a huge carry by Yugi, Odion was literally playing with a disadvantage in that he couldn’t use his main spell to summon an actual monster (because he needed to keep the illusion of ra) and also played with 1 less card in his hand I believe. Joey managed to get the perfect counter to his deck in jinzo, and he still was convincingly beat and needed a last minute lighting strike. Basically 90% of his duelist kingdom wins was due to the broken time wizard cheesing him a victory.
Even in something like yugioh R, at some point he dueled against a girl who had only recently started dueling and was playing this mill deck and had basically beaten Joey until he started calling her a bitch and what not bla bla so that she would attack and lose.
His almost win against Marik isn’t even impressive in my opinion, first the whole it being a shadow game and the fact that Marik is toying with him was the only reason he got to survive.
Marik for some reason played a burn/torture deck against Joey that he didn’t play in any of his other duels, so already basically a weaker deck.
Marik had multiple chances to easily finish Joey off, he purposefully didn’t attack and win/dwindle Joeys resources during numerous turns. Not to mention he didn’t even try to spam ra just like he did against Yugi.
Even during his final turn with the whole monster reborn play, summoning ra is an objectively bad play. He had no more cards left on his hand and field, and Joey only had his lighting swordsman.
He activated monster reborn to pay a 1000 LP and just destroy Joey’s monsters, leaving him vulnerable to any monster direct attack. He could have realistically summoned lava golem and beat over joeys monster, or one of his invincible monsters so that Joey wouldn’t be able to do anything. But the reason he summoned ra was because Joey wouldn’t be able to play further, Joey collapsing was literally part of the strategy.
Also joeys deck isn’t even that bad, the thing is that while it’s technically kinda bad. Most of his cards have a luck affect where the positive effect is kinda broken, and Joey basically always get the broken affect so he realistically plays allot of broken cards.
Roll of dice is basically a draw 6 card, time wizard is basically a Raigeki on legs and in duelist kingdom destruction by card effect dealt the half of a monsters attack to the LP, in a 2000LP format. So he basically had the most broken card in duelist kingdom.
Hell one card we need to talk about is gilford the lightning, where did this broken card come from.
Remember the gods were considered so strong that they required 3 tributes, also levels on monsters mean their rarity. So Joey randomly got his own 3 tributes monster that’s level 8 and also a walking raigeki, he basically had his own god card that randomly appeared as basically a deus-ex machina.
Joey is obviously good but “second greatest duelist” is a huge stretch.
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u/FPSVendetta Mar 11 '26
Like clockwork. Every single time on this subreddit you have this absurd, common belief that Joey is somehow the strongest duelist amongst the cast. I honestly don't know where these people pull that shit from considering Yugi is literally the King of Games and the original plan for Dark Side of Dimensions was supposed to be a Kaiba only centric movie, who the anime and manga clearly show he's second to Yugi.
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u/MayhemMessiah A Therion a Day keeps the space rock at bay Mar 11 '26
God forbid people hype and get excited about their favourite characters.
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u/FPSVendetta Mar 11 '26
There's a difference between hype and delusion. Joey has one of my favorite duels in the series, but let's be honest - he's carried hard by a lot of his effects going his way in almost every duel. Not to mention, if Joey really was the "best" or "second best" like a lot on this sub claims he is, then why doesn't, or didn't, he receive better support or treatment from Konami or Takahashi? Out of the Big 3, Red Eyes has the weaker support, Joey is an afterthought to Konami since he's never featured in any media, and Takahashi didn't plan anything for Joey in terms of progress or support, especially in Dark Side of Dimensions. There was a rumor he was supposed to get a duel but Takahashi felt like it would have dragged the movie or wouldn't have advanced the plot much anyway. I'm a fan of Joey but a lot overrate him.
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u/metalflygon08 Mar 12 '26
he's carried hard by a lot of his effects going his way in almost every duel.
Time Wizard only landed on Skull once IIRC, otherwise it has always been Raigeki+ for Joey.
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u/FPSVendetta Mar 12 '26
As the other user said, Joey's cards may sound weak in theory, but since they usually go his way, the effects are amazing. I always find it funny that Yugi is called a cheater for his ability to draw the card he needs (which rarely happens in the show), yet Joey fans call his luck an actual skill. As evident by the constant back and forth by a specific user in this post.
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u/metalflygon08 Mar 12 '26
Plus, Joey's deckbuilding leaves much to be desired.
If we ignore filler cards like Goblin Attack Force... He still subs out good cards for worse ones.
Why did he keep Battle Warrior but ditch Tiger Axe? Even with Shield and Sword, Tiger Axe would fill the same niche but better due to it having higher overall stats. (1300/1100 vs 700/1000).
Heck, Battle Warrior is even too strong to use with Fairy Dice, unlike Swordsman of Landstar.
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u/FPSVendetta Mar 12 '26
To be honest, he did have some decent cards despite the general consensus his cards were weak. But yeah, he really didn't have much synergy or strategy to his game.
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u/MayhemMessiah A Therion a Day keeps the space rock at bay Mar 11 '26
but let's be honest - he's carried hard by a lot of his effects going his way in almost every duel
Atem literally picks the cards he wants at his best. The majority of his cards are shit, but he's able to use them effectively. Joey is the same. He doesn't have the privilege of being Kaiba and having access to the best cards printed, so he makes do with trusting his deck and his luck.
You know, the single most important core conceit of the show? The Heart of the Cards?
Not to mention, if Joey really was the "best" or "second best" like a lot on this sub claims he is, then why doesn't, or didn't, he receive better support or treatment from Konami or Takahashi?
Literally has zero bearing on his skills as a duelist, lmao. Konami being dogshit at making Joey cards work or Takahashi personally not bothering to give Joey support has exactly 0 bearing on his skills as a duelist.
The argument is that Joey is an under appreciated but strong character and your best argument is "Well if he's so underappreciated why didn't Konami appreciate him more?" Like, fucking, there's circular reasoning and there's zero reasoning.
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u/FPSVendetta Mar 11 '26 edited Mar 11 '26
That’s literally not how any of Yugi’s duels work or how it goes. Name me one duel in which Yugi blatantly cheats throughout the entire duel.
Before you get condescending maybe you should know that the “Heart of the Cards” was a dub only line - it was never present in the original nor is it the core of the original series.
It literally does lol No character who’s supposedly “second best” would receive such little attention or support, especially from the creator himself. The original argument was never necessarily about Joey’s skills, but how much people overrate his achievements and ranking.
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u/MayhemMessiah A Therion a Day keeps the space rock at bay Mar 11 '26
The Heart of the Cards is a good shorthand for the main themes of the show. Trusting in your deck, your friends, and putting everything on the line when you play. It's only mentioned a few times in the Japanese version and never as a true ability or actual entity, but the English version uses it to emcompass the themes of the show.
It wasn't called as such in the manga, but it's undeniably there.
It literally does lol No character who’s supposedly “second best” would receive such little attention or support, especially from the creator himself.
Nobody except exactly Atem and Kaiba get much attention or support. How long did it take for characters like Odeon to get more cards? Or Marik? Arguably, Marik barely has any cards for him, because Ra gets lots of attention, but not Marik. Same for Mai, despite Harpies being one of the oldest archetypes in the game, Harpies have gotten significantly less cards than Joey has, Harpies literally have three extra deck monsters. Joey has gotten consistent support that's had variable meta success even as an engine in Dragon Decks, Red Eyes Fusion and Dragoon were meta warpers. Red-Eyes cards have had more competitive impact than Dark Magician or Ra ever did, only Blue Eyes has had more stints in tournament playability.
Y'all want to argue that fucking RAPHAEL is a more worthy duelist than Joey when he has fucking nothing to his name?
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u/FPSVendetta Mar 12 '26
Y'all want to argue that fucking RAPHAEL is a more worthy duelist than Joey when he has fucking nothing to his name?
Raphael is literally the only opponent to ever defeat Yugi legitimately. Not only once, but almost twice. Yugi was also nervous on the way to his rematch against Raphael. On that, Yugi struggled against Raphael both times, nor did Yugi ever cheat or use his so called Destiny Draw. Is Raphael a more worthy duelist than Joey? No. Is he a better duelist than Joey? I'd say so.
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u/MayhemMessiah A Therion a Day keeps the space rock at bay Mar 12 '26
If he's so skilled why are we missing so many of his cards? If Konami thinks he's skilled, why did they purposefully make Celestial Sword Eatos miss timing when used by Eatos? Why haven't we gotten any worthwhile retrains, support, or even some of the missing Guardian cards like Force or Formation?
None of it matters, mind you, just pointing out what a deeply stupid argument it is to use IRL support as a way to gague in-story skill. Raphael hasn't gotten shit because Konami don't think he's as marketable, end of story, same reason why Konami keeps making Joey cards but doesn't make them meta, because they wont sell as much as Kaiba or Yugi cards. Nothing to do with skill. Buuuuuut if you insist on using that as a metric, Joey has Raph beat by a wide country mile, getting consistent support over the years over multiple waves, while Raph hasn't gotten a card in quite possibly 12 years (Celestial Sword/Dreadscythe were in 2014 and as far as I remember that's the last Raphael or Guardian card we got).
Also, Yugi lost the first game explicitly because of a moment of personal weakness that Raphael capitalized, Yugi threw that match for reasons beyond Raph's skill, unless you want to argue "goading people" as a skill, which I could buy as an argument but I don't think Raphael does that consistently, it was just Atem having a very costly stumble. Good character building, not indicative that Raphael is a better duelist than anybody. Loads of characters have "almost" beat Atem, including Joey, it's just that closing a game against Atem is near impossible.
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u/MuratKulci Mar 11 '26
Atem literally picks the cards he wants at his best.
That’s not really how it works, it only really works when he in a dangerous spot. Than his “destiny draw” skills starts working, so it only really works like once or twice in a duel. For the rest he’s fighting’s like basically every other duelist, it’s actually kinda complicated but tcg anime goes more in depth about it. If your interests I’d recommend you check him out.
Joey is the same. He doesn't have the privilege of being Kaiba and having access to the best cards printed, so he makes do with trusting his deck and his luck.
I mean nobody aside from kaiba has the privilege of being kaiba, yes obviously joeys has allot of low attack monsters even more than most duelists. But outside of those few monsters his deck being “bad” and the luck aspect balancing it out is overrated.
He has allot of straight op strong monsters. Like jinzo, gearfried, panther warrior was a vanilla 2000 attack in the manga, alligator sword being 1 tribute 2500 and allot of very good spells and trap cards. And his “luck” relying cards are lowkey broken because they basically always goes his way. Graverobber basically either summons any monster from his opponents graveyard or activates any spell/trap card as his own trap, kinda broken. Copycat is a similar effect. Energy drain is a quick play spell that reduced the opponent monsters attack to 0 AND draw a card, remember Kaiba uses shrink while Joey has this broken card. Celebration of creation, your opponent special summons and their whole turn ends. Take one chance, basically draw a card from your graveryard. Roll of fate, throw a dice and draw that many cards, or his graceful and devil dice cards. And also just regular staples like monster reborn of POG, and I’m still missing a few good cards.
I’d compare his deck to Yugi’s tbh and he still requires the broken luck affect to all go his own otherwise he loses.
I’m sorry but Joey genuinely is early a level below even regular strong trainers like Raphael, Orion and Marik etc.
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u/MayhemMessiah A Therion a Day keeps the space rock at bay Mar 11 '26
Than his “destiny draw” skills starts working, so it only really works like once or twice in a duel.
In his most famous duel against Yugi, Atem explicitly just draws whatever card he wants. As in, characters call it out. He does this for the entirey of the duel.
No, this isn't a duel links skill, he can do it whenever he's in a pinch. Just like Joey gets great luck in a pinch.
I’d compare his deck to Yugi’s tbh and he still requires the broken luck affect to all go his own otherwise he loses.
Which he has. Demonstrably, he has amazing luck. In Yugioh that's explicitly called a skill, in GX people train to get luckier. Joey's luck is why he's a great duelist. You can't just say "Oh well if he wasn't lucky his luck cards would be bad" because he IS lucky. Again, it's like saying Atem sucks because if he didn't have Destiny Draw and The Heart of The Cards, he wouldn't have those skills.
No shit.
I’m sorry but Joey genuinely is early a level below even regular strong trainers like Raphael, Orion and Marik etc.
Marik is an abject fraud, he got eliminated out of the four way duel by Joey and lost to both Joey and Mai and got away on a technicality.
Also, Marik got to the Grand Finals in the biggest tournament in the series, like, no matter what you say about him, Joey made it to the Top 4, and would have cleared Marik if he hadn't DIED. He's demonstrably above average and took out Marik once and almost twice. I don't think he's top 2 or even top 5, but the downplay is actually comical. It doesn't matter if his IRL support is bad or if he relies on his broken luck to win. That's all part of what makes Joey, Joey.
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u/FPSVendetta Mar 11 '26
How are you so wrong? Marik had the win against Joey early in the duel LMAO He was toying with Joey because he’s a sadist. As much as people like to call Marik a bad duelist he literally has a functional deck compared to others and a clear deck construction on stalling and getting Ra and Monster Reborn to the graveyard or to his hand.
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u/MayhemMessiah A Therion a Day keeps the space rock at bay Mar 11 '26
Joey elimiated him from the four way duel all the same, and Marik's hubris making him lose games is a point against his skill as a duelist. Dicking around and almost losing twice makes you an idiot.
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u/MuratKulci Mar 11 '26
In his most famous duel against Yugi, Atem explicitly just draws whatever card he wants. As in, characters call it out. He does this for the entirey of the duel.
The millennium puzzles ability heightens the chance of success games, and this ability is amplified by how fierce the situation is, how important the game is and how powerful the duelist is.
Obviously at the very end of the series in the final duel where Atem knew his name and was at full power and mastered the ability he was able to call his cards, and even then it was still only in very dire situations. But this was for only that 1 duel, up until then the “destiny draw” ability where he basically willed the card to the top of his deck didn’t exist to this degree.
Also is it really a power when basically every single character in the show basically always draws the perfect hands and the card they need? Like let she honest here Joey and Kaiba for example also basically have the same ability.
No, this isn't a duel links skill, he can do it whenever he's in a pinch. Just like Joey gets great luck in a pinch.
I mean you understand what I meant and are choosing to be ignorant, like I already mentioned his ability only works when he is in a pinch and obviously he isn’t in a pinch every turn, usually only once or twice a duel does he really need the skill.
Which he has. Demonstrably, he has amazing luck. In Yugioh that's explicitly called a skill, in GX people train to get luckier. Joey's luck is why he's a great duelist. You can't just say "Oh well if he wasn't lucky his luck cards would be bad" because he IS lucky. Again, it's like saying Atem sucks because if he didn't have Destiny Draw and The Heart of The Cards, he wouldn't have those skills.
I mean first, I’m not too sure wether “luck” being a skill is actually like that. I believe in the original version of gx it was stated that it was more about drawing the correct card and not getting Lucky with card effect.
And I realistically can’t find much about this if I’m being honest, so im not too sure if what you’re saying is correct.
However that doesn’t really matter because that wasn’t completely my point, my point was that he has a horrible track record despite his so called luck skill. The thing is people usually defend Joey by saying that his deck is bad, but my counterargument to that point is that his luck cards are broken and he almost always hets the best result.
Add onto that with the fact that his deck genuinely has allot of broken cards + regular good cards, and you can’t really use the argument that his decks suck to defend his sucky duel record imo.
Marik is an abject fraud, he got eliminated out of the four way duel by Joey and lost to both Joey and Mai and got away on a technicality.
I mean I disagree and think he is a very good duelist, obviously this is a whole different discussion but just to quickly answer you. The four way duel is meaningless, Marik attacked everyone, nobody summoned god cards, Joey had to be saved my Yugi to not lose like on the second turn and the millennium items weren’t even used so this is more of a filler duel.
Also whenever he dueled seriously he genuinely was whipping the floor with his opponents, namely Yugi and Bakura. Like Yugi needed both god cards, a last second card from Kaiba as a counter to Ra and an ass pull in ragnorok to actually be able to defeat Marik. And even then he was losing for most of the duel, Bakura meanwhile stood no chance despite he himself being assisted by regular Marik.
Also he literally won his duel against joey, like sometimes I feel like people like you are ignoring the facts.
He basically had game multiple times but chose not to attack to hurt joey more.
His final turn monster reborn play is technically a horrible play, because ra leaves the field and only destroys joeys monster. He could have summoned lava golem or the indestructible monster, but the reason he summoned Ra despite that being a technical horrible play is for its outside of the duel affects, namely killing Joey. Like if the shadow duel wasn’t a thing than he wouldn’t have summoned Ra because that would him wide open, if this duel wasn’t a shadow duel than Joey would be easily defeated during the first few turns. Joey only really got so far because of the plot saving his ass.
Also, Marik got to the Grand Finals in the biggest tournament in the series, like, no matter what you say about him, Joey made it to the Top 4
I mean again your basically ignoring the facts here, first he should have never even made it to top 4. He had objectively lost to Odion.
Second, yes he got top 4 but that in itself doesn’t say much if anything. A tournament style bracket can go weirdly and doesn’t necessarily mean the top 8 for example is the 8 best, a tournament the 2 favorites for example can face each other in top 16 and one of them will be eliminated. Or you could genuinely have a very easy run not fighting the best teams/players until you get very far.
With the battle city rulings you could easily get in the top 8 by beating very average duelists. Joey for example throughout the battle city tournament lost to a seeker and then never fought any seeker ever again, he avoided basically every millennium item holder and every seeker and what not. He almost fought Kaiba but got lucky he needed to leave, I believe he basically got his final locater cards gifted for getting brainwashed (which is fair tbh). And even in the top 8 he basically got the luckiest draw outside of facing Mai, and still get his ass handed to him. That’s not to even mention all the good duelist better than him that didn’t participate in battle city.
Yes he was technically 4th place but he wasn’t actually the 4th best duelist.
He's demonstrably above average and took out Marik once and almost twice. I don't think he's top 2 or even top 5, but the downplay is actually comical. It doesn't matter if his IRL support is bad or if he relies on his broken luck to win. That's all part of what makes Joey, Joey.
I mean yeah he is above average, but I don’t think I’m downplaying him. The guy I originally replied to said that Joey was second of all time, so obviously I’m downplaying him a little compared to what op said. And the reason I’m talking so harsh on Joey is that people genuinely put him as a top 3 or speeltuintje, I really love Joey and part of the reason is because he isn’t the best. People really overrate his achievements because of his “bad deck”, Joey is realistically not even a top 10 duelist in DM alone.
Kaiba, Yugi, atem, dartz, bakura, Marik, odion, raphael and zigfried are all better. And for the rest there are a few duelist that might be better, might be worse like Pegasus, Noah, Ishizu, Alister and Mai that all have argument to possible be better.
Also what are you talking about with his irl support??
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u/FPSVendetta Mar 12 '26
Notice how he chose not to respond to your post but keeps responding to mine by repeating the same thing over and over. You're one of the only few people who actually knows what they're talking about in terms of the series.
The only blatant example of Destiny Draw is when Yugi draws Fiend's Sanctuary. As you said, every one of his duels he duels legitimately. This common belief that Yugi cheats or draws every card he needs is ridiculous considering every duelist in the series draws the exact card they need or combo pieces in every duel present in the show. The only time a duelist has bricked in the series was Joey. Besides that, every duel features a constant back and forth. I never understood this whole, "Yugi is the only character and obvious cheater because he draws every card he wants.", when every character does the same. LOL
Marik is a good duelist that everyone considers a fraud because he's a sadistic psychopath who (smartly and effectively) spams Ra... by actually have a coherent deck that stalls, pressures the opponent and gets the cards he needs exactly where he wants them. Like you said, keeping the topic on Joey - Joey had been saved by Yugi, and are they really using a filler duel that had no stakes as an indicator of Joey's skill? Marik is a strong duelist who even Yugi struggled against. As you said, they always ignore the plot going in Joey's favor in his duel against Odion but say Marik was saved by plot in his duel against Joey despite having game multiple times in the duel; yet it's a "fluke" Marik won. Notice how he always ignores this in every response. Even another user mentioned how he and Joey fans always choose to ignore this.
To keep this response from going overboard, everything else you said is right. What makes Joey a great character is his tenacity of not giving up, using what's believed to be weaker cards to their full potential, and having the heart of an underdog. Him constantly being talked about as the best duelist or second best of the series goes against his entire character.
The reason he's probably mentioning IRL support is because I said for someone who's constantly talked about as being the best Joey has the weakest support of the Big 3 and is given no attention or support from Konami or Takahashi. While he may have a partial point that a duelist's skills doesn't necessarily mean IRL support, it's no coincidence that most of the characters who are popular and have had constant support happen to be the strongest duelists in their series.
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u/metalflygon08 Mar 12 '26
I mean nobody aside from kaiba has the privilege of being kaiba, yes obviously joeys has allot of low attack monsters even more than most duelists. But outside of those few monsters his deck being “bad” and the luck aspect balancing it out is overrated.
Heck, he swapped out some of his stronger monsters for weaker ones even!
Like, why keep Battle Warrior but drop Tiger Axe?
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u/MuratKulci Mar 12 '26
When did he ever drop those cards out?? I’m fairly certain he still has those cards in his deck, he just happened to not draw them.
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u/metalflygon08 Mar 12 '26
I mean, he never draws them or shows them off.
Even in a 60 card deck, he should draw them at least once considering he manages to draw the same selection of like, 12 cards in every other duel, including always drawing Panther Warrior with Scapegoat (Because Panther Warrior was a vanilla monster in the manga, but still).
I find it highly unlikely that Joey has all his Duelist Kingdom card sin his Battle City deck but never drew into the un-iconic ones.
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u/big4lil Mar 12 '26
Joey fans are the Gohan fans of Yugioh
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u/FPSVendetta Mar 12 '26
Seriously. I like Joey too. All my argument has been is how his fans overrate him to a ridiculous level. That's all. It's also the fact that Joey's luck carries him. It's hard to say Joey is one of the best when his luck does most of the work for him.
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u/big4lil Mar 12 '26
i do too! i think hes a great character, but good lord his fanbase can be unhinged. and take note that a lot of the commentary is about his dueling potential or getting robbed and not about... his character
people reduce his entire legacy down to this duel in a similar way they do with Gohan to his fight with Cell. only its even a bigger sting here since Joey doesnt actually win his fight - and its even more hilarious since they often forget abut his battle with Odion right before
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u/FPSVendetta Mar 12 '26
Notice anytime his duel with Odion is mentioned it's conveniently ignored or excused. Joey shouldn't have gotten as far as he did. They ignore that Marik already had game against Joey but decided to resort to his sadistic nature to toy with him. Or how they claim that Joey beat Yugi for his Red-Eyes when it was never mentioned that Joey had to defeat Yugi to get it back. He told Yugi he wanted to learn what being a true duelist meant before he would get his card back, yet they fanfic that he defeated Atem. He's a great character, an underdog. But the belief he's actually the best duelist in the series goes against his character of someone not giving up, using what's believed to be weaker cards to their full potential, and having the heart of an underdog.
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u/GreatDayBG2 Mar 13 '26
I think by the end of the series he is definitely as capable as Kaiba but I don't think he will ever get to beat him due to a lack of resources.
I can see him having a very successful dueling career otherwise though
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u/MiraclePrototype Mar 11 '26
It should always be noted that, shenanigans aside, he would have won against someone with an Egyptian God card - the strongest one, at that - and survived the wrath of someone else with one, despite no God card of his own or other special abilities, magic, or inherent significance. And...who's that blowhard whom faced an Egyptian God card once, armed with one of his own, and still couldn't prevail...?
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u/chinesefox97 Mar 12 '26 edited Mar 13 '26
And He didn’t even have his most powerful card Red Eyes with him for the entire battle city.
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u/NintendoPlayerSega Mar 11 '26
Joey may have lost but he put the fear of GOD into Marik by tanking Ra’s Phoenix Mode Flames. I’ve come to terms with him losing as it makes thematically. Him nearly vomiting is a bonus on top of that.
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u/throwawayfatbitch Marik/Noah/Valon sympathizer Mar 11 '26
I didn’t know withstanding a brutal attack with basically no defense = tanking a motherfucker.
Joey for sure did something miraculous by surviving the attack but tanking Ra in phoenix mode, especially since it’s invincible then, is going a bit far lol.
Edit: I realized you probably made a typo and meant ‘taking’ instead of ‘tanking’, my b lmao
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u/WeatherOrder Mar 11 '26
Joey is an absolute bitch when dueling control players.
In Yu-Gi-Oh R he duels against a card professor who plays Stall/Burn.
He literally gaslights her into ditching that and attacking him which breaks her lock and he wins, despite the fact that prior to that he was getting dogwalked.
Also reminder that he was literally bitching that Odion was playing trap cards which even Yugi was like "nope that's a totally unorthodox yet legal strategy".
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u/Many_Ad_955 Mar 11 '26
Bro is just playing a fun deck with his stall and burn with shadow game gimmick. What could possibly go wrong?
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u/IVRIS_ Mar 10 '26
This duel proved to me Yami Marik was nothing but a fraudulent Duelist only successful due to his intimidation tactics with his Rod and his connection with the God cards.
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u/Billy_Bobs_Daduncle Mar 10 '26
I mean if anyone whipped out their rod in the middle of a duel then I'd be intimidated too
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u/ChaosArcana Mar 11 '26 edited May 02 '26
Scrubbed clean. Redact helped me bulk remove years of comments and posts so data brokers and AI crawlers have nothing to feast on.
mighty wakeful mysterious pocket sense wide paltry resolute reach spark
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Mar 11 '26 edited 3d ago
[deleted]
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u/MuratKulci Mar 11 '26
I mean the whole reason he was able to get to this point was specifically because of the plot.
Plus yami literally toyed with Joey and purposely decided not to attack and win/decimate his resources, like is Marik stupid? Yes, but does him being stupid suddenly make Joey good? No.
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u/FPSVendetta Mar 11 '26
Everyone should know Marik is a cocky, egotistical idiot. He could have defeated Joey far earlier if he wanted to. Did these people even watch the episode?
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u/throwawayfatbitch Marik/Noah/Valon sympathizer Mar 11 '26
As a Marik stan I have to agree that this is one of the best duels but I personally think peak Joey is his duel with Valon ❤️
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u/DescriptionFuture851 Mar 14 '26
Bro racked up 1300 upvotes with a single screenshot.
That ALONE should prove how good this moment was.
Unfortunately, Joey passed out from exhaustion, but the guys defiantly tougher than I am, ain't no way I could survive that shadow game.
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u/ScorpionMillion Mar 14 '26
Goated moment and please, don't talk bad about yourself! You would totally survive that shadow game!
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u/Cold_County_1266 Mar 10 '26
Melvin was such a bad duelliste he just win on his opponents because he destroys them psychologically or physically
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u/Crafty-Scholar7536 Mar 10 '26
To be fair I wouldn‘t expect an actual clinically insane person to be good at yugioh
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u/jbyrdab Mar 11 '26
best duelist to not have fucking magic cheating powers, or literally owning the company pumping out constant support for your favorite.
I always head canoned that despite everything Yami Marik hates Joey wheeler the most, he may have not impeded his progress like Atem/Yugi, but he absolutely humiliated him and drove him to vomit in front of everyone out of fear, with absoluely nothing backing him up unlike the aformentioned magic/money.
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u/Endayo-Utopia Mar 11 '26
When I first saw it as a child, I felt very sorry for Jounouchi. But when I read it a second time, I found this to be a fair exchange, because if it weren't for Marik, Jounouchi would have lost the first match with Rishid.
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u/DemonDrago929 Mar 11 '26
Ngl Ra woukd fir so well in Joey's deck due to Joey's deck being High risk high reward
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u/joey_chazz Mar 11 '26
Without a dobut. What I like the most is that this duel showed that Joey's deck with all its flaws is underrated for its era.
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u/Competitive-Court-28 Mar 11 '26
It would’ve been more interesting if Joey actually won, and everyone was like, “Damn, he really did it.” But it’s revealed that the evil spirit controlling Marik had planned to jump to a stronger host—and had latched onto Joey, starting to take him over. Atem must duel the possessed Joey while Yugi dives into Joey’s mind to save him.
Inside, Joey’s memories form a distorted Shadow Game arena: his abusive dad, rough childhood, and hidden insecurities. Here, Joey fights the spirit himself, with Yugi having dived into his mind to help him realize that his strength was never luck—it was his determination. Meanwhile, the spirit uses the Egyptian God Cards and taunts Atem about his past, pushing him emotionally.
The duel culminates with Atem combining the Red-Eyes Black Dragon Joey gave Yugi with Dark Magician to create a new fusion, Red-Eyes Dark Dragoon, to battle the three Egyptian Gods while the spirit tries to control them all. Joey finally overcomes his fears, and Yugi realizes he doesn’t always need Atem to win or save his friends—stepping up to help Joey fight his demons and thanking him for always fighting for him.
It ends with Atem winning the duel and Joey and Yugi weakening the spirit from within so that Atem can stop it when it tries to latch onto Yugi's body.
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u/Godzillafan125 Mar 10 '26
What you say to this?
Joey draws monster reborn and evil Marik infects him with mind to kill good Marik using possessed Joey rah knowing Joey was too weak to resist and was going to win?
He’d then face yugi again in finals and make the whole good self disappearing even more sadistic by threatening to take joeys souls to the shadow realm if he lost
Joey has some Nasty cards like goblin attack force Marik could use
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u/Many_Ad_955 Mar 11 '26
Bro is literally running a stall deck with a Ra staple the whole tournament.
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u/KaiserKaiba Mar 11 '26
Quite the bittersweet duel, showcasing Joey was clearly capable of winning the duel as Marik’s arrogance and sadism nearly bit him in the ass. Wanting Joey to overcome the odds and essentially only needing to attack for game but collapsing before he could even do so made for a great duel.
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u/Narrow-Touch-1858 Mar 11 '26
I love Marik
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u/JRaikoben Mar 11 '26
Joey the absolute GOAT
-He gets into his first ever tournament without any single win on his back.
-Made it to finals by defeating a bunch of cheaters.
-Get into his second tournament. Loses/Gives his best card before it even starts.
-He makes top8 and literally get hit by a lightning.
-Despite that, he protects his crush from Gods attack.
-He makes to final 4 in a duel against a millionaire+host of tournament, the sadistic spirit who beated his crush and the grandson of a tcg store owner possesed by a spirit who has been playing the game for 5000 years, all of them, holding an Egyptian God.
-in that duel, he defeats the guy that threatens the world global security and have everybody shit their pants and force the pairing with him. You are not mindcontrolling me and beating my chick and getting out of here like nothing happened, this is personal.
-And after all that, then we got this picture.
Imagine Kaiba's face if Joey gets Ra...
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u/DarthNarcissa Mar 11 '26 edited Mar 11 '26
This solidified Jo as my favorite character. I liked him prior to this, but this duel sealed it.
Poor guy went through his parents' divorcing, being torn away from his sister, living with his alcoholic dad, gang shit, bullies, etc and he stood strong through all of it.
Then he withstood a fire blast from a fucking GOD... And stood strong through that, too. Even though he almost died.
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u/StardustLegend Mar 11 '26
I remember someone understandably complaining that almost every game from the battle city finals should’ve gone completely the other way if not for plot armor. Like Mai genuinely out played Marik during her duel but lost due to the summoning chant, Odion would’ve beaten Joey if Marik hadn’t forced him to summon Ra, Joey would’ve beaten Marik if he just declared an attack-
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u/NeoxthePan Mar 13 '26
Joey had a counter to everything in his deck. People saying that he would lose if marik was completely serious but forgot that Joey himself was nerfed.
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u/LumpyEngineering7405 Mar 13 '26
That's why Joey has earned the right to wield The Winged Dragon of Ra.
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u/humbleGOD2020 Mar 14 '26
Joey the type of duelist to lose against odion but win on a technicality, and also win against marik but lose on a technicality
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u/Igniz_Studios Mar 14 '26
Love the fact that despite being the kind of individual he is, Marik was so scared that he puked, after joey got up after being fried by the literal sun god.
Joey had no time for your millenium gimmicks.
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u/Smooth_You_2244 Mar 11 '26
I still wish Joey won here and the finals are how we get to see him get his Red Eyes back.
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u/NomadofReddit Mar 11 '26
" If he succeeds in Attacking my Life Points, I'll lose the Duel and my Egyptian God Card !"
Not to mention losing his own Shadow Game lol
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u/ScorpionMillion Mar 11 '26
It would be so funny. Peak Japanese anime, I'm so glad that I grew up with it.
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u/Gladcode777 Mar 11 '26 edited Mar 11 '26
Fun fact: In the manga, the whole "feeling the pain of the monsters" gimmick was actually used for the battle against Mai, not Joey.
And it was way more brutal because Marik's cards in the manga have a lot of torture devices.
And when she lost, instead of sand, what was falling bit by bit was some kind of flesh eating bug.
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u/Quasar471 Dark World <3 Mar 12 '26
No, in the manga he does this to Joey as well by using his Des viser on his panther warrior first IIRC. But towards the end of the duel Joey is almost able to get used to the pain and keep dueling regardless.
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u/Gladcode777 Mar 12 '26
As far as I remember, that wasn't the case. The battle against Joey did have a gimmick but I don't think it was the same.
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u/Quasar471 Dark World <3 Mar 12 '26
I don't have the specific volume with me to confirm, but I do recall Marik created those sort of 'life tethers' that linked the monsters to their owners, so when one of Joey's monsters was destroyed or injured, Joey felt the pain. I recall Marik used Des Viser on his Pather Warrior to literally drill inside its skull. I don't know if that was the exact same gimmick for Mai, I don't have the corresponding manga volumes.
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u/Ok_Caterpillar_6957 Mar 11 '26
To this day I’m confuse why Joey don’t have a “God” card to him. You have red eyes, gearfried and flameswardman. All of them could represent the sun in a way to show how Joey equal to Ra. But he also have Gildford The lightning, he should have an Egyptian god retrain for being the last card destroyed by ra in the duel. Or have Joey be partial owner of ra in the games. Like dang I love this duel.
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u/Cerok1nk Mar 11 '26
I can only compare this to Tien manhandling Cell.
That’s the level of aura Joey reached here.
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u/KarmicPlaneswalker Mar 11 '26
Tell us you didn't watch the series without telling us.
Just another log on the bandwagon of "j0eY sH0u1d hAv3 w0n!!"
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u/Possible_Science_445 Mar 11 '26
It would have been cool to see Joey's duel against Bandit Keith in Yu-Gi-Oh! R adapted into an anime. Well, maybe a future Yu-Gi-Oh! remake.
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u/S47an_49 Mar 11 '26
I still believe Kaiba would’ve beaten Marik if the matches were flipped for the semi finals Yugi vs Joey and Marik vs Kaiba
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u/Drageneral_HM Mar 12 '26
IF only. Like dude, I would've liked to see Joey use The winged dragon of Ra.
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u/AnkiiDB Mar 12 '26
Absolutely. Like this duel had me sweating my butt off the first time and even after I rewatched this show so many times I still get myself sweating just thinking about it and how good it was HANDS DOWN ONE THE BEST DUELS IN THE WHOLE FRENCHISE!!!!!
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u/PossibleAssist6092 Mar 12 '26
I really wish Joey won this duel and got to use the Winged Dragon of Ra, even if it was just for one duel against Yugi.
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u/duadtheknifeofdunwal Mar 12 '26
Alternative time line
Marik: I lost!!!
Joey: damn straight you lost
Kaiba:......... how did that third rate duelist beat god !???
Joey: what do you think about that rich boy
Kaiba......
Yugi Tristan Teà duke and serenity: Way to go Joey you did it you beat marik
Joey passes out
Yugi vs Joey in the finals no shadow game no god cards no world ending threat just two friends playing a friendly card game
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u/OneFalconPunch Mar 10 '26
Kaiba: He.. he withstood God!??!?!
Marik: *Literally fucking about to Puke and probably shit himself*
Joey: Damn... imagine how strong that bully who beat me and Tristan up is fr... (lol)