I adjusted my tie as I rode the elevator in the Leo Corporation tower. In the briefcase I carried lay both my Swordsoul Zefra and Ishizu Tearlaments decks as well as printouts of as many Pendulum cards and archetype support I could remember from back home, including Qliphort, PendMages, Dracoslayers, Metalfoes, Majespecters, and more. My Duel Disk was on my arm with the Burning Abyss deck loaded in. Truth be told, I was nervous. I was somewhat sure I'd made a positive impression on Reiji, but the things I was about to tell him might potentially sound completely insane. I just had to hope that he had enough faith in me to hear me out.

The doors opened, and I was greeted by Reiji's second-in-command, Nakajima. I wasn't exactly sure what his official role was, but he seemed to always be near Reiji, relaying orders and bringing in reports and such.

"Reiji Akaba will see you now," Nakajima said, gesturing to the open door before me.

I nodded, took a deep breath, and stepped forward through the door and into Reiji's office. To call it an 'office' was a bit of an understatement. It had floor-to-ceiling windows, and was more spacious than my entire apartment back in New Haven. Reiji's desk was large and neat, and the rest of the furniture in the room, while sparce, was very nice and obviously high-quality. The sheer amount of space here was intimidating.

"Ah, hello," I said, stumbling through my greeting. "I have the cards."

"That is not all you came here to talk about, Joshua Cohen" Reiji said, turning around in his chair. His fingers were steepled and the light glinted off of his glasses, making him look similar to a number of anime villains. "Surely you have more to say, otherwise, you would have simply had the cards delivered."

"Indeed. There are several more points I wish to discuss. I have information that I know you will be quite interested in, but it cannot leave this room."

"Oh?" Reiji said, raising an eyebrow. "Do go on."

"The fewer people who know this, the better," I continued.

"Hmmm... Nakajima, leave us."

"But sir—" Nakajima protested.

"I doubt that Joshua has any ill intent towards me," Reiji said. "I felt nothing malicious during our duel."

"Very well, sir," Nakajima said, leaving the room and closing the door behind him. By the lack of footsteps, I figured that he was standing guard directly outside the door.

"This room is soundproof and all recording devices have been disabled," Reiji reassured me. "You may begin."

"As you have probably suspected, I'm not from this world. I'm not from Fusion, Synchro, or Xyz either," I began.

"So you know of the four dimensions..." Reiji said. "Interesting."

"Where I am from, all summoning methods are known. Ritual, Fusion, Synchro, Xyz, Pendulum, and even Link. We don't have Solid Vision in any form, rather, we duel on tabletop."

"Link?!" Reiji asked. "There's a fifth Extra Deck summoning method?"

"Yes. I'll describe it a bit more later, but I doubt it would be useful, as the structure of the Duel Disks are fundamentally incompatible with Link Summoning. Regardless, where I'm from, dueling is nowhere near as central to the culture as it is in the four dimensions. It's regarded as a hobby and sport, but nothing more than that. Pro duelists aren't revered like they are here, and it's certainly not used as a tool for war. Because of this, people share their strategies openly, and the best possible decks are eventually discovered through endless experimentation."

"I see," Reiji said. "Thus your deck is the product of that sort of experimentation?"

"In a sense. It's an optimized Zefra Swordsoul deck, but Zefra Swordsoul is nowhere near the best possible deck that can be built. The other thing about where I'm from is that the cards in general are much more powerful." I opened my briefcase and pulled out the Ishizu Tear deck, placing it on the desk. "This deck is potentially the most powerful deck ever created... so far. In a few years, there'll probably be something stronger."

"May I?" Reiji asked, gesturing towards the deck. I nodded. He looked through the cards, absorbing their effect text quickly. "Interesting," he said after a few minutes. "Yet it doesn't contain Pendulum. Why is that?"

"It's a bit of a complicated story, but basically Links neutered Pendulum, but in general, your mindset is wrong. It's not that one summoning method is more powerful than another. Ritual, Pendulum, Fusion, Xyz, Synchro, and Link... they've all been completely and utterly busted at one point or another. It's the card quality and consistency that determines the power of a deck. You think that Pendulum is going to beat Fusion? Perhaps, there are Pendulum decks that rank among the strongest decks of all time. But not all pendulum decks are going to be that powerful. If you take a pile of random Performapals, I doubt you could beat, say, Burning Abyss with that deck."

"In other words, you believe that your world's deck construction philosophy will be a better weapon than Pendulum?" Reiji summarized.

"They'll go together," I responded. "But yes, that is the another point I wanted to bring up. Create structure decks for your Lancers Selection or change up the way the Arc League Championship works. The Arc League Championship is what, three or for rounds of best-of-one action duels? It doesn't select for good decks. Any deck that manages to sack a few wins off of good draws against other highlander piles will end up at the top... and is that really what you want your Lancers to be wielding?"

"What do you suggest, then?" Reiji said suspiciously. "It's the way that the Arc League championship has always been run."

"Eight rounds of Swiss pairings on the first day with best-of-three matches, cutting to a top sixteen, then a single elimination bracket from their."

"Twenty-four duels in one day? Absurd."

"You're sending these kids into war, Reiji. They'll be dueling constantly for hours on end. If they don't have the mental stamina to do so now, what makes you think they'll have it in a few weeks?"

Reiji turned his chair and sighed. "You are correct. However... can we afford to put children through such a grueling trial?"

"You had the bright idea of using children as child soldiers," I shot back. Reiji raised an eyebrow, and I realized that I'd stepped out of line. "Forgive me, my temper overcame me."

"You are forgiven," Reiji said, settling back down into his chair. "Let us discuss other matters. Do you know much of the card creation process?"

"I imagine it's a bit more complicated than back home," I deadpanned. "Back there, Konami—the company that makes the game—would print cards, and then the cards would be legal. Simple as that."

"It's quite different here, as you guessed. Duel disks are not programmed to recognize each and every card. Instead, they run algorithms designed around recognizing card energies, including summon energies, effect frequencies, and such. Each card we make is imbued with these energies, and the potential cards we can make is limited by potential solutions to a system of very complicated equations. However, the fact that your cards work in our world is a surprising revelation—it means that your world's catalogue of cards functions as a 'cheat sheet' for the equations, so to speak. Every card you have represents a solution we don't have to discover, we can simply input the desire card effects into our algorithm and have the card ready in days, as opposed to weeks or months. Thus I ask you, do you have any other cards from your world we can study?"

"I figured something like that would be the case," I said, producing the printouts from my briefcase. "I printed the effects of as many cards I could remember. Most of these are the strongest cards of their eras. The sheets past the divider include link cards, if you wish to pursue that path."

The CEO of Leo Corporation flicked through the sheets, raising an eyebrow as he got to the Qliphort section. "This card," he said, pointing out Apoqliphort towers. "Am I reading this correctly? It appears to be unaffected by almost everything."

"That's correct," I confirmed. "It was part of a strategy called 'Towers Turbo', designed to bring out this monster as quickly as possible, and was placed on the banlist for a long period of time because of how difficult it was to get rid of before links appeared."

"And it is supported by a pendulum archetype... this is perfect! This is the perfect weapon against Fusion!"

"They can still beat over it with Chaos Ancient Gear Giant," I reminded him. "As well as Cyber End Dragon and a number of other fusions, or just tribute it for Chimeratech Fortress Dragon. While it's definitely a powerful deck, it can fall short against decks that can summon big beatsticks off of a single card. Qliphort wins by restricting the opponent's moves while sitting on Towers, and actually has a very bad matchup against quite a few fusion decks. I'd recommend looking at page six, 'Performage Performapal', if you want something that works well against fusion."

Reiji brought out the sheet I suggested and glanced at the spreadsheet of combo lines. "Is this sort of thing common in your world?"

"For more complex decks, yes. D/D/D in particular is famous for having an extensive spreadsheet dedicated to all its potential lines."

"I see," he said, adjusting his glasses. "It will not be easy to train people to use this sort of deck. It took me years to understand D/D/D, and I will humbly say that I am far above average in this regard."

I chuckled. "You figured out the lines alone, which is impressive, but very difficult. I can teach them, and worst-case scenario, they can carry a reference spreadsheet with them. But perhaps a more linear strategy would work better if we want to go for quantity."

"I will consider your suggestions," Reiji said. "These cards alone have been a great boon to my cause. Now I have a few questions to ask you. Firstly, how did you know about the Lancers Selection?"

"I can't explain everything, but my specific origins grant me information that I should not have access to naturally," I responded. I kept things as vague as possible so he could come to his own conclusions.

"Perhaps... is it something related to duel spirits?"

I nodded. In a very abstract sense, that was true.

"I see. Are you a very skilled duelist where you come from?"

"I'm above average at best," I responded honestly. I was no Jesse Kotton, but at the level of my locals I was pretty good.

"Do you have a way to get back to your dimension?"

"Not that I know of." Of course. If there were a huge supply of highly-skilled duelists, of course Reiji would want to tap into that.

"Interesting, very interesting... thank you for your cards and ideas. You will be compensated, of course. I believe I have quite a bit of work to attend to, now."

"Of course, sir," I said respectfully, bowing before I exited the room.

That went rather well, I thought. Having a number of people using full power PePe would make any opposition a complete joke to defeat, and hopefully completely trivialize any potential difficulties in Synchro or when battling Academia. I wandered the streets a bit, lost in my thoughts, before I was roughly grabbed by the arm and pulled into an unused warehouse. Slightly annoyed, I looked up and saw that my 'kidnapper' was Yuzu. She shut the door and then walked back over to me, a determined expression on her face.

"I want you—" she began, before I cut her off.

"At least let me buy you dinner first," I joked.

Yuzu blushed. "Not like that!" she yelled, hitting me over the head with a fan, sending me into the ground.

I rubbed the lump on my head as I stood back up. "Of course, of course. Everyone knows that you and Yuya are dating, anyway."

Now she turned bright red. "Yuya and I... we're not... couldn't... I would never... Yuya isn't my boyfriend, you idiot!" she sputtered, bringing her fan down to give me another lump and sending me crashing back to the ground once more.

"Oy vey," I groaned as I got up for the second time. Note to self: teasing Yuzu in that manner is a horrible idea. "That hurt quite a bit. Okay, why did you drag me into this warehouse, then? It's quite easy to get the wrong impression after being led into a dark building with thick walls and no other people around."

"I—dammit, take this seriously! Teach me how to get stronger!"

"Why?" I asked. "I mean, you've already improved dramatically in the past two days or so. You've defeated one of LDS's top students."

"When I saw you duel Reiji, I realized how much I have left to learn," Yuzu responded. "The way you were able to perfectly predict Reiji's moves and turn the tide in a single turn is so far beyond what I can do! I only won against Masumi because of Retaliating 'C'. I want to improve beyond having to rely on a single powerful card, especially with what's coming."

"What's coming?" I echoed. I was impressed by how perceptive Yuzu was when she wasn't as distracted by the plot.

"I managed to track down Yuto earlier today," Yuzu explained. "He said something similar to you, but he did tell me a little. 'Fusion is the enemy'... that's what he said. I don't know why or in what way, but it's clear that something big is happening. I need to be prepared."

"I see. You're right that you still have a lot left to learn, but you're quickly approaching your deck's ceiling."

"'Ceiling'?" Yuzu questioned. "What do you mean?"

"Every deck has a maximum potential it can reach, a 'ceiling', so to speak. Melodious doesn't do a whole lot; the best thing I can think of doing with it is either playing it as a rank-4 toolbox, which other decks can do better, or summoning the fusion boss, which has minimal protection. Essentially, you're already drawing as much out of your deck as you can. You can perfect your play, but you'll still be running into that ceiling," I explained.

"What can I do?" Yuzu asked. "You make it seem like my situation is hopeless."

"Switch decks," I advised bluntly. Seeing her shocked expression, I decided to elaborate. "You can still play Melodious for fun, but for a more competitive duel, use something else. It's what I do—I had a number of fun decks that I wouldn't bring to a tournament as well as a competitive deck."

"But Melodious is the deck I've played for years! It's part of my style!" Yuzu protested. "If I switch decks now, I'll have to work much harder building my image!"

"That's stupid. Why should your competitive success hinge on a decision you made when you were seven?" I rebuked. "Besides, you can still play Melodious in a low-stakes entertainment duel where the purpose is to put on a show. But for a tournament, where you want to win? Use something else."

Yuzu sighed. "Fine," she relented. "What deck should I be running?"

"Hmmm... Nekroz, Burning Abyss, Shaddoll, Monarch, and Tellarknight are all pretty strong right now. Leo Corporation is going to be printing Pendulum cards in few days though, and those will blow everything we have out of the water, so I'd recommend waiting for those. In the meantime, I'd be happy to tutor you on card interaction!"

"So in this situation, you now know that your opponent is going to have to go into the Ptolemaeus-Nova-Infinity line here in order to contest both your backrow and your handtraps. That's why you hold your Veiler until they commit to the Ptolemaeus summon," I explained. "If you fire it earlier, they can potentially extend and play through that. Remember, they have a backrow."

"I see," Yuzu said. "But can't I just Torrential now and then Veiler whatever they use to extend?"

"That leaves them with a body on board and you with nothing," I explained. "By Veilering the Ptolemaeus, you force them to use their backrow if they want to go for another rank-4, and Satellarknight Constellar Diamond still can't contest your Construct."

We'd spent over an hour going over similar sorts of situations. Various gamestates between two meta decks where proper interaction order mattered. It was difficult stuff, but Yuzu was starting to get the idea of choke points. I was proud of her; it reminded me of the time I'd spent teaching my younger brother how to play Swordsoul.

"Wait, but he's not guaranteed to go for the Ptolemaeus here," Yuzu pointed out. "My opponent could go into Castel the Skyblaster Musketeer instead to get rid of the Construct."

"Same situation," I said. "Veiler stops the Skyblaster as well, and then you Strike once he commits to another Xyz summon. That's probably their best line though; they can do a double Castel play with their Call of the Haunted, which does force Torrential, but once again they'll be out of options after that. They've already used their resources, and while they might have one extra card in hand from a Deneb search, you'll be in a winning position regardless."

"This is a lot to consider," Yuzu said. "Is this how you play all the time? Knowing all of your opponent's potential options and figuring out counters to every one of them?"

I nodded in agreement. "It's difficult at first, but once you get used to it you start winning a lot more. Figuring out what your opponent is doing and what they could be doing is one of the most important skills to develop."

"I'm exhausted," Yuzu groaned. "You said that you've done this for a full day multiple times?"

"Essentially, yes," I responded, thinking back to many locals I'd attended. "Like I said, once you get used to it, it becomes fun. It's like a game of chess, but with ten thousand pieces and a lot of randomness—well, that's not a great metaphor, but you know what I mean. I suppose this is enough for today; you've improved quite a bit."

Yuya shook hands with Michio after their duel. It had gone extremely smoothly, with his Performapal combos giving Michio no room to execute his strategy. The key part of Michio's deck, the "Food Cemetary", had been swiftly dealt with as soon as it was flipped, and the duel was over quickly after that. Yet Yuya felt ultimately unsatisfied. Sure, he had won, but it hadn't been a good close duel like he'd had in the past. It was similar to his duel with Hokuto, where he'd given the Xyz user no chance to use his deck and then won on the second turn in an OTK. And yet... the crowd seemed to love it, praising how flashy his deck was, with all its unexpected twists and turns. Didn't they realize he'd been using the same singular combo he'd been taught? Didn't they realize how boring the duel was, with him barely giving Michio a chance to play? No, the crowd loved how powerful his deck was, and it made him feel sick.

The pendulum duelist nodded along to Nico Smiley's praise as he exited the duel school. Apparently his duel had been unexpected and exciting, being completely different from most professional duels. But it wasn't his way of dueling, it was Joshua's. And somehow, he couldn't find it within himself to switch back to his old style, the one his father had taught him. Every time he wanted to just summon a random Performapal, maybe set a few traps, and pass, he remembered what he could be doing, the powerful Performapal combos playing over and over in his mind. Was this what dueling was really about? Comboing off on your first turn so your opponent couldn't use their cards?

It was disrespectful to his opponent. It shouldn't have made people smile. Yet somehow, the audience had been cheering for him. Perhaps it was just the novelty of it all, and it would fade soon. That had to be it; lockdown combos like that were practically unheard of. Of course the first time someone did something like that, with Pendulum Summon no less, would be new and interesting.

But if he hated this way of dueling so much, why did he hunger to find an opponent that could stand up to it?

Two days later...

"It's here!" I exclaimed excitedly, tearing into the package from Leo Corp. "Two days was a lot shorter than I expected!"

The package contained a note, a structure deck, and a metal box with unknown contents. "Let's see... 'Dear Mr. Cohen. Thank you for your cards and suggestions. Enclosed is the one of the first Pendulum structure decks produced by Leo Corporation. Your compensation is in the box. I hope that it is to your satisfaction. Sincerely, Reiji Akaba, CEO of Leo Corporation.' Neat!"

"Leo Corp is printing Pendulums?" Yuya questioned. "Wait, why did you give them cards? Pendulum was supposed to be our thing! It—"

"Everyone should have access to the strongest cards," I explained, cutting off Yuya before he could go into an angst-outburst. "How else am I going to find a duel against a strong opponent? If we keep Pendulum to ourselves, it won't be able to grow and evolve. But if everyone has it, then they can bring their ideas in and create a variety of pendulum decks and eventually find stronger ones."

"I see," Yuya said. "It was selfish of me to expect Pendulum to be special forever. What kind of new Pendulum Monsters are in that deck, anyway?"

I turned the structure deck box over and started reading off the back. "There's the Dracoslayer (and Dracoverlord) archetype, which has a Synchro, Xyz, and Fusion monster, but its main power is concentrated in the fact that it can set pull two pends from your deck with one card and also cycle your pendulum scales to refresh their once-per-turn effects. There's pendulum-based support for the Performage archetype, only one card of it actually—but it has a non-once-per-turn 'special summon from deck' effect. And finally, there's the Performapal pendulum monsters, the good ones at least. No Odd-Eyes or Pendulum Magician stuff, though."

"Performapal?!" Yuya yelled. "Joshua, just what did you give to Leo Corp?"

"The Performapal countains some of the best cards ever printed. It wouldn't exactly be fair for you to hold all of them," I explained. "Besides, it's not the only structure they printed. There's also a Qliphort one, which focuses around summoning an unaffected monster, and a Majespecter deck, which is a control strategy based around Pendulum's natural resource loop."

"We'll have to upgrade our decks," Yuzu said. "I've seen what Performapal can do, and it might be even stronger with the new Dracoslayer and Performage cards."

"My advice would be to play Performapal Performage," I said. "I'm not exactly sure what the best build is, but it's probably stronger than all other decks. Majespecter might pose some issues with their ability to search a negate for Pendulum Summons, but Performapal's end board is strong enough that Majespecter can't play through it."

"It's that strong?" Yuya asked.

"Yep. You can easily end on two negates, three with Odd-Eyes, and two to three other points of interaction, more with the Pendulumgraph engine. Yuya, I'd advise you to test out the Odd-Eyes/Pendulum Magician build to see if it's worth using. I'm going to see if the Brilliant engine is good enough to add and find the best Lavalval Chain targets."

I'd spent the rest of the day working on decks with the You Show students, and by the end of it we had what was potentially one of the most broken combo decks I'd ever laid eyes on, or to be more precise, three variants of the most broken combo deck. The fact that none of the searchers had a once per turn clause on them meant that the deck had Spyral levels of repeated searchers. Performage Trick Clown's anime version also lacked a once-per-turn, didn't have the life point cost, and was an ignition effect, which meant unlimited Xyz or Synchro material. And of course, there was the fact that the deck was a pend deck and could recover almost everything even if it did get its board wiped. A quick internet search revealed that there was no limit on the number of cards that could be put into the extra deck, and the only reason why I wasn't carrying around the entire rank-4, rank-6, and Synchro toolbox was that the deck had gotten a bit difficult to carry around. Of course, I was nowhere near done with labbing this deck, which is why I was currently making my way to the warehouse where my study group met.

The metal box containing my 'compensation' turned out to be absolutely full of cash, and I spent a small portion of it getting the Brilliant Fusion engine, more Rank-4 toolbox cards, and some Lavalval Chain targets. Plaguespreader plus Ignister Prominence made Baronne, as did Jet Synchron plus Trick Clown plus Seraphinite, which meant that the deck had an even better end board.

And that was only after a few hours of playing around the deck! Imagine what twenty people could come up with over a week!

I saw that there were thirty-odd people already in the meeting place, which was higher than our usual number. Was it because the Arc League championship was coming up, or was it due to the release of the Pendulum structures? Most likely, it was a combination of the two.

Even more people filed in after I got there. I recognized some faces, Sawatari and his trio of supporters, Kenji, a quiet guy named Ren who had an affinity for control decks, and many others. When the meeting time came, the place was packed with around forty people.

"Hello all, and welcome to another meeting of our study session. If you're new here, welcome! Here, anyone can learn to become a great duelist," I began. I wasn't great with this sort of thing, but hopefully the new people felt comfortable. Crap, the air was still full of tension. Make a joke or something. "We might have to move somewhere else soon, as this place is getting packed." I chuckled awkwardly, which was mirrored by the crowd. Okay, tension partially diffused. Now get them excited. "I'm sure many of you have heard of the release of the Pendulum structure decks! Probably a good portion of you have bought them or are considering them. Well, I'll tell you that they are... one hundred percent worth it! Performapal, in particular, is the strongest deck that you could be playing at this time!"

Excited whispers filled the crowd. Good. "Of course, the other two decks are quite strong as well. Qliphort can put up a boss monster that is nigh-invulnerable, while Majespecter can constantly gain card advantage and pressure the opponent. However, none of these decks can really compare to the sheer explosiveness and consistency of Performapal! If you want to easily get your six consecutive wins to qualify, use this deck!"

Noises of excitement sounded, and I grinned. My plan to create an invincible force of duelists, all armed with even more powerful versions of one of the most powerful decks ever printed, was going well.

"How about a demonstration?" someone in the crowd asked.

"Yeah, let's see the deck in action!" another person yelled.

"Of course," I said. "Any volunteers?"

"I, New Neo Sawatari, volunteer!" Sawatari said, making his way to the front of the room. Cheers sounded, not just from his three friends, but from a good portion of the study group. After getting a bit more humble and becoming a competend Domain Monarch pilot, Sawatari had grown surprisingly popular with the study group, and at this point I could honestly call him my friend. He seemed to consider me as more of a rival, an obstacle to be surprassed, but we were always on good terms.

"Sounds good," I said as I activated my duel disk. "As this is a demonstration, I'll be going first. Ready?"

Sawatari nodded.

My opener was stupidly good. It had full combo even through two potential handtraps, which... come to think about it, that was around average for this deck. "Normal summon Performapal Skullcrobat Joker Joker, Joker effect. This allows me to add a Performapal, Pendulum Magician, or Odd-Eyes monster from deck to hand."

"I activate effect Veiler, targeting Joker!" Sawatari responded. "Your monster's effect is negated until the end of the turn!" The ghostly image of Veiler appeared in front of Joker, grabbing the monster's arm and preventing it from reaching into its hat to pull out what would be a Performapal.

"All right. I'll activate the quick-play spell Draco Face-Off, revealing a Dracoslayer and Dracoverlord monster from my deck! You pick one to go to my Extra Deck, and then I'll place the other on my field or pendulum zone! I reveal Luster Pendulum and Vector Pendulum."

The two cards appeared in a holographic display in front of Sawatari, and after a moment of consideration, he stabbed a finger at Luster. The two monsters clashed, sword against staff, before Luster was repelled and shot back into the Extra Deck, while Vector remained on the field.

"Scale Performapal Monkeyboard, Monkeyboard effect. This allows me to, once per turn, add one level four or lower Performapal monster from my deck to my hand, so I'll grab Performage Pendulum Sorcerer." From there, I was free to pop off, going into a long combo. I wasn't going to narrate every single part of it. Monsters appeared and disappeared quickly, becoming either Synchro material or vanishing into the Overlay Network to bring out the deck's various boss monsters. By the end of it all, I had a board consisting of a draconic-looking sea serpent wreathed in flames (Lavalval Chain), a red-caped insectoid knight wielding a sword of darkness (Evilswarm Knightmare), and a large mechanical dragon (Cyber Dragon Infinity). I had Maxx "C" in my hand, searched off of Lavalval Chain, as well as Hat Tricker and Joker in hand for followup on top of Performapal Monkeyboard and Performapal Guitartle in the Pendulum Zones. Honestly, this was an average board at best for this sort of deck, but I didn't want to overextend, and I was using the base version, without the Brilliant and Baronne engines.

"My turn, draw!" Sawatari proclaimed. "I summon Edea the Heavenly Squire and activate its effect!"

"Maxx "C" in response," I said. "Every time you special summon this turn, I get to draw a card."

Sawatari gritted his teeth. He, like myself and many other members of the group, had quickly grown to hate the card. "Fine. Special Eidos from deck." I drew my card off of the damn cockroach card as a demonic-looking knight joined the angelic one on the field. "Eidos' effect activates! This turn, I can Tribute Summon one more time in addition to my usual Normal Summon! Eidolon Procession!"

"Activate Cyber Dragon Infinity in response," I said. "Detach one material to negate the activation and destroy it."

The mechanical dragon ate one of its Overlay Units before rearing back its head and firing a blast of light into Eidos, destroying the knight and dispersing the miasma that was gathering around it.

"I set one card and end my turn," Sawatari declared. "Honestly, why go to the trouble of searching that Maxx "C" if you're only going to draw one card off of it?"

"Assertion of dominance," I responded as I drew for turn. "Standby, main. Let's wrap this one up, shall we? I'll have Infinity eat your Edea, then special Trick Clown from grave and special Hat Tricker from hand. Overlay for Tornado Dragon, Tornado Dragon detach one to pop your backrow. Said backrow was revealed to be a useless copy of The Prime Monarch as it was blown away by Tornado Dragon's strong winds. "Battle phase. Tornado Dragon and Infinity will get in for lethal."

"I'd say good game, but that was even more one-sided that usual," Sawatari said. I coughed. "And not in a good way, like when I establish the domain-lock," he clarified.

I nodded. "This deck is obscenely powerful. Would anyone like to explain why?"

"You have several repeatable search effects," one person suggested.

"The searches lack a once-per-turn."

"You have full access to the rank-4 pool and have an easy time gathering material for it."

"The deck doesn't lock itself in any way."

"You can splash engines such as the Brilliant Fusion engine."

I nodded at each respones, then held up my hand. "These... and even more, such as the ability to search Maxx "C" and even things that I haven't shown off yet, like the absurd play-starter that is Draco Face-Off or the deck's absurd level of recursion, make this deck the best deck you could be playing. Get this deck! Experiment with it, add your favorite engines, push its limits! Because this is a deck with no ceiling!"

Cheers rang out from among the crowd.

"This deck also lacks the typical weaknesses of Pendulum decks. Your Pendulum Summon gets negated? You'll at least have enough resources to put up Cyber Dragon Infinity and you'll probably have enough gas to try again next turn. Pendulum scales destroyed? That's a good thing, just set new ones and use Monkeyboard again! This deck has precisely three weaknesses: Droll & Lock Bird, Anti-Spell Fragrance and the mirror match. Droll and Lock Bird is the only card that can prevent the endless train of search effects, Anti-Spell Fragrance completely shuts off the ability to set Pendulum Scales, and the mirror, well... that's self-explanatory."

The students cheered once again. I smiled; this was all going according to plan. No anime character would main something like Droll or Anti-Spell.

"Because of this, I'll be spending the rest of the session going over the deck's basic combos. If you have a copy, feel free to experiment with it, see what you can put in or of there are any interesting techs for the mirror," I concluded.

Two Days Later

"Reiji, sir, the Leo Corporation has made massive profits on this structure deck," Nakajima said, reading off of his clipboard. "Additionally, and probably not coincidentally, there have been an unexpectedly high number of people qualifying for the Arc League Championship. Specifically, all of these people qualified by getting six consecutive wins with the Performapal deck."

"I see," Reiji said, turning around in his chair. "Anything else of note?"

"We analyzed the match data and found that a large portion of the decks are modified. Modifications include the addition of Lavalval Chain, Droll and Lock Bird, and... Gem-Knight cards?!"

Reiji adjusted his glasses and leaned back into his chair. "Joshua Cohen... just what did you do?"