Who Let Him Play Yu-Gi-Oh! novel Chapter 21

Chapter 21 - 21: The Inheritance of the Style

The next day, when Kira returned to the dueling dojo, everything felt different.

It wasn't just about how he had changed. Of course, after returning as a champion, he could feel that everyone looked at him differently. As soon as he stepped in, someone took the lead to shout, and then everyone swarmed up to worship the big shot.

But that wasn't all.

When he walked into the dueling arena, Kira immediately noticed that the entire vibe was completely different from his first visit.

The first time he came, duels here still felt like the old days—like two Axe Raiders hacking at each other. Maybe not entirely "you play one, I play one," but the main offense and defense still revolved around both sides desperately summoning stronger monsters to overpower each other.

But today when he walked in...

Apprentice A: "I'll go first. Draw! I set four cards and end my turn!"

Apprentice B: "Nani?! Four set cards to start?! But don't get cocky! Watch my turn, draw! I set five cards and end my turn!"

"..."

Scenes like this were happening all over the arena.

Just a week ago, when Kira first arrived, people would mock you if you went first and didn't summon a monster, saying your deck build was wrong.

Now, all of a sudden, this had become the norm.

The dueling style had become very strange. Often, one side would set three cards in the back row and pass; the other would reciprocate with three or four set cards and pass with an empty field.

Then both sides would just stare at each other, sometimes going several turns before someone finally summoned a monster—only for it to be immediately destroyed by a trap. Then the staring contest continued.

It was a mutual lockdown. The philosophy seemed to be: "If I can't have fun today, you can't either."

Kira: "..."

His friends had fallen into a weird trap.

Trap Beat is indeed a classic deck-building strategy in Yu-Gi-Oh! that's stood the test of time, but Trap Beat is not just about having traps.

The essence of this style is that traps are just disruption—cards that can interrupt your opponent's plays and halt their strategies. But that's just a defensive tactic. To win, you still need to rely on monster attacks (beatdown).

Put simply: you need both offense and defense.

So, this style requires a tight monster core: strong offense, sustain, and consistency, while still making room for plenty of traps to disrupt the opponent.

Even with a heavy focus on traps, the point is to trade resources and create an advantage for yourself. A deck that just sets traps for the sake of it doesn't make sense and has very little combat power.

That's why everyone knows traps are strong, but not every competitive deck is filled with them. Many decks don't have good synergy with traps, or their main engines can't spare the space for so many unrelated cards.

Deck-building is quite a science. Even though old-school decks are destined to be outdated, many competitive ideas never change. Many principles still apply even in today's ultra-fast meta.

But clearly, the dojo's brothers hadn't realized the problem. They just saw Kira beating people with traps and winning the championship, so they thought traps were OP.

In just a week, the dojo's previously healthy atmosphere had gotten toxic.

Kira started self-reflecting.

Was this his fault?

"Hey, Kira!"

One apprentice seemed to remember something.

"Master said if you're here, go see him."

"Okay, got it."

Kira agreed, feeling a bit uneasy. Why did this sound like a teacher telling a student to come to the office after class?

Was the old man dissatisfied with how the dojo had turned so toxic overnight?