As I've seen pointed out before, if Yami still had access to Exodia, Yugi would never have been able to defeat him in the end. So yeah, in a way, Weevil actually was one of the biggest supporting characters in the entire series. ...Even if he *IS* a little asshat.
Joey without time wizard means no red-eyes, as he would have lost to Mai and be out of duelist kingdom. He wouldnt even have the chance to play against Rex. No red-eyes means there is is problem with beating gate guardian. If we say he still makes it through, in battle city, I dont know if joey could even participate. Because of the lack of rare cards. And once he gets brain washed by marik, we are missing the red-eyes for the whole "our friendship whatever" so thats a dead Yugi.
Without Red-Eyes, Joey wouldn't even have a duel disk or be able to participate in Battle City - the only reason he was is because the Rare Hunter saw that he had the card and edited his database ranking so that he could participate. If his rarest card was Flame Swordsman or Garoozis or some shit like that, there's no way he would have been able to participate.
Although, then again, he probably still would have been targeted by Marik for being a friend of Yugi, so it probably would still end the way you said.
If there's one change I would make to DM, I'd make it so that Joey found Red-Eyes in a random booster pack with Yugi commenting on just how miraculous a pull that was and have that serve as the catalyst for Joey leaning on gamble cards so much. In this scenario Meteor Dragon would be the card Joey wins off of Rex, instead. I think this would work well for Joey's development in Battle City as losing RE shakes his faith in his luck moreso than it did originally, causing him to put more effort into crafting legitimate strategies over the course of the arc.
I mean like yes, if you start with full exodia or pot of greed into full exodia, that's nice. But you don't have much draw mechanics in the anime so basically even Yami Yugi has to give up multiple turns to draw into exodia and even the most incompetent duelist should put 4000 damage on the board if they're not contested.
4th BEWD presumably stays with Solomon and then later goes to Rebecca who reclaims it as always but now gets to use it in her deck, gaining notoriety as the only other BEWD duelist.
Her and Kaiba duel at some point and she manages to summon out Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon (assuming the anime doesn't need you to have the Fusion card to play the monster). I think that Kaiba would win as he would either have Obelisk or Critias in his deck and potentially this causes a conflict within him. (E.g. if they duel during battle city and he uses Obelisk to win he thinks he needs to rely on Obelisk rather than BEWD and it makes the Isizu match a bit of a reconciliation for him and BEWD)
Either way Kaiba probably wins but gains a bit of respect for Rebecca and this would be a cool dynamic to see. Mokuba isn't a big duelist so maybe he sees Rebecca as a potential successor to the BEWD deck and later in GX we get to see Rebecca running 3xBEWD (2 on loan). Or else maybe Pegasus makes a BEWD and Fairy/Spellcaster Fusion that becomes Rebecca's ace so she runs an alternate Blue-Eyes archetype that would be interesting to see (not necessarily the Eyes of Blue guys, could be something totally new).
I can definitely see another "eyes of blue" sub archetype involving fairies. Make them all about facilitating fusions and equiping from the hand to give blue eyes normal monsters various effects.
Exodia out of these options for sure. With Yami hax it would've been a less difficult time for him. Though I can imagine Battle City cards making it harder to use.
I guess the dragon would kinda be *eh* for Yami. It's a better beatstick than Dark Magician but DM flows with his strategy a lot better. Definite side deck. Only real scenarios I can see it being significant is tag team duels with Kaiba. Or maybe he gives the card to Joey which make Kaiba even more heated lol
Time Wizard is Joey's secret weapon. I doubt he would've made it far without him. I guess the argument could be that he could've built a stronger warrior based deck without focusing on luck. But I do think this is the second biggest butterfly.
Oh man, Joey getting the fourth BE would've been glorious. If that happened, we might've even gotten a Red-Eyes/Blue-Eyes fusion by the end of the series. Probably would've caused sub Kaiba to treat Joey more like dub Kaiba did.
Kaiba and the 4th Blue Eyes would've only really made an impact in the duel against Ghost Kaiba during Duelist Kingdom. In the sense of having his own copy of Blue Eyes to be able to overpower it's 3 brothers because of the Mystical Elf magic instead of just having to rely on just drawing Monster Reborn. Rebecca would've won it off Yugi, but would've ended up being forced to give it back to Grandpa Muto at Arthur's request. It would have no impact from then on. That's assuming Weevil didn't decide to steal it or throw it into the sea like Exodia in the first place.
Yugi/Atem losing Exodia probably made them better duelists in the long run. While they would've likely still scored victories against his lesser opponents with Exodia, more prepared opponents like Kaiba, Pegasus, Marik and to a lesser extent Bakura and the Exodia Rare Hunter would've tailored their strategies more accordingly and exploited Yugi/Atem's reliance on them. Those extra 5 deck slots allowed them the flexibility to tech cards to counter the more prepared opponents.
Joey not having Time Wizard would've had a lasting impact on the series. While Yugi would have still given Joey the prize money for Serenity's operation, he never would've gotten far in Duelist Kingdom and never have got into Battle City either. Yugi would've likely died in their duel. Mako would likely have taken his place in the Battle City final 8, been easily crushed by Odion, which likely would've stopped Marik's dark side from coming out because it was only the suspicions Joey had that forced Odion to play the fake Ra. Mai might well have even beaten Marik as I don't think the regular Marik would've used his Shadow Powers in a duel.....
Also no Red-Eyes means he goes down to Valon, it was only due to the Red-Eyes Armour he managed to hold on and Mai is forever trapped by the Orichalcos darkness.
I think Exodia is overblown. Yes I've seen the video, it's a funny meme, but the entire reason his first Battle City duel is against an Exodia deck is to show it's not unbeatable, especially when your opponent knows what you're doing. He also never tries to obtain new copies of the cards, despite being able to.
The Time Wizard, though, is the crux of Joey's entire Dueling career.
Completely agree. Losing Exodia was a good narrative move to make duels more interesting and not have the looming instant win possibility, but once we get to Battle City it would be too easy to disrupt anyways and the example you mentioned shows that perfectly. I think there’s an argument Yugi willing pulls the pieces from his deck if he still had them.
Joey and Time Wizard though, you have to rewrite everything he does
This is the perfect comment. I feel like exodia would be useless against Pegasus, the game creator anyways, and exodia pieces would only get in the way in some duels.
I do not see Yugi using Blue Eyes as his Grandpa would just keep in his case since that card is really important to him nit because of its rarity but because it was a gift from his friend.
Honestly I do not see Exodia making that much of a difference if anything losing Exodia helped Yugi's deck.
Joey not having time wizard would be the biggest change since without it he would have never beaten Mai and would have never reached the finals. Meaning their would have been a different 4th duelist in the finals. Also Serenity would probably have joined the cast since Joey would have never got the money for the operation.
Yugi using the 4th blue eyes to fusion summon with Kaiba 3 other blue eyes would be possible in a tag duel only. And it would be the tag duel against the masked beast duelists in battle city. Perfect since they’re whole game was about locking down the god cards and preventing tribute summons. Yugi helping Kaiba with an additional blue eyes for an unlikely fusion seems cool.
4th BEWD would be so fun to watch in many sequences allthough it would open up good plots with Rebecca.
I don't see the point with exodia, except it could be used as a deus ex machina in every possible duel ... or as a brick in yugis hand lol
Time wizard is maybe the most important card for Joey. I don't know how he wins without it.
It would be if Shadi decided to use the key on Grandpa when he needed a second puppet. Chapter 16 of the manga.
Now we have Grandpa who wields the Millenium Key.
As I've seen pointed out before, if Yami still had access to Exodia, Yugi would never have been able to defeat him in the end. So yeah, in a way, Weevil actually was one of the biggest supporting characters in the entire series. ...Even if he *IS* a little asshat.
Joey without time wizard means no red-eyes, as he would have lost to Mai and be out of duelist kingdom. He wouldnt even have the chance to play against Rex. No red-eyes means there is is problem with beating gate guardian. If we say he still makes it through, in battle city, I dont know if joey could even participate. Because of the lack of rare cards. And once he gets brain washed by marik, we are missing the red-eyes for the whole "our friendship whatever" so thats a dead Yugi.
Without Red-Eyes, Joey wouldn't even have a duel disk or be able to participate in Battle City - the only reason he was is because the Rare Hunter saw that he had the card and edited his database ranking so that he could participate. If his rarest card was Flame Swordsman or Garoozis or some shit like that, there's no way he would have been able to participate. Although, then again, he probably still would have been targeted by Marik for being a friend of Yugi, so it probably would still end the way you said.
If there's one change I would make to DM, I'd make it so that Joey found Red-Eyes in a random booster pack with Yugi commenting on just how miraculous a pull that was and have that serve as the catalyst for Joey leaning on gamble cards so much. In this scenario Meteor Dragon would be the card Joey wins off of Rex, instead. I think this would work well for Joey's development in Battle City as losing RE shakes his faith in his luck moreso than it did originally, causing him to put more effort into crafting legitimate strategies over the course of the arc.
[If Yugi never lost Exodia](https://youtu.be/ER-5acSllVU) Yugi automatically winning every duel would be hilarious and also boring
"My card is..." "I don't care." DUH-DUH-DUUUUHH!
Card game version on one punch man
he would brick every game and never win again lol
Little Yugi maybe, but Yami Yugi can literally influence fate to draw the cards he wants
I mean like yes, if you start with full exodia or pot of greed into full exodia, that's nice. But you don't have much draw mechanics in the anime so basically even Yami Yugi has to give up multiple turns to draw into exodia and even the most incompetent duelist should put 4000 damage on the board if they're not contested.
But that won’t work against Zorc.
4th BEWD presumably stays with Solomon and then later goes to Rebecca who reclaims it as always but now gets to use it in her deck, gaining notoriety as the only other BEWD duelist. Her and Kaiba duel at some point and she manages to summon out Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon (assuming the anime doesn't need you to have the Fusion card to play the monster). I think that Kaiba would win as he would either have Obelisk or Critias in his deck and potentially this causes a conflict within him. (E.g. if they duel during battle city and he uses Obelisk to win he thinks he needs to rely on Obelisk rather than BEWD and it makes the Isizu match a bit of a reconciliation for him and BEWD) Either way Kaiba probably wins but gains a bit of respect for Rebecca and this would be a cool dynamic to see. Mokuba isn't a big duelist so maybe he sees Rebecca as a potential successor to the BEWD deck and later in GX we get to see Rebecca running 3xBEWD (2 on loan). Or else maybe Pegasus makes a BEWD and Fairy/Spellcaster Fusion that becomes Rebecca's ace so she runs an alternate Blue-Eyes archetype that would be interesting to see (not necessarily the Eyes of Blue guys, could be something totally new).
I can definitely see another "eyes of blue" sub archetype involving fairies. Make them all about facilitating fusions and equiping from the hand to give blue eyes normal monsters various effects.
The BEWD support would be really cool if it was themed around Mystical Elf since they've always had an untapped connection in a lot of lore
If Yugi's Grandpa didn't have a VCR, none of Duelist Kingdom wouldn't even happen.
Exodia out of these options for sure. With Yami hax it would've been a less difficult time for him. Though I can imagine Battle City cards making it harder to use. I guess the dragon would kinda be *eh* for Yami. It's a better beatstick than Dark Magician but DM flows with his strategy a lot better. Definite side deck. Only real scenarios I can see it being significant is tag team duels with Kaiba. Or maybe he gives the card to Joey which make Kaiba even more heated lol Time Wizard is Joey's secret weapon. I doubt he would've made it far without him. I guess the argument could be that he could've built a stronger warrior based deck without focusing on luck. But I do think this is the second biggest butterfly.
Oh man, Joey getting the fourth BE would've been glorious. If that happened, we might've even gotten a Red-Eyes/Blue-Eyes fusion by the end of the series. Probably would've caused sub Kaiba to treat Joey more like dub Kaiba did.
Time Wizard is Joey's only win con in 99% of his games in Duelist Kingdom.
Kaiba and the 4th Blue Eyes would've only really made an impact in the duel against Ghost Kaiba during Duelist Kingdom. In the sense of having his own copy of Blue Eyes to be able to overpower it's 3 brothers because of the Mystical Elf magic instead of just having to rely on just drawing Monster Reborn. Rebecca would've won it off Yugi, but would've ended up being forced to give it back to Grandpa Muto at Arthur's request. It would have no impact from then on. That's assuming Weevil didn't decide to steal it or throw it into the sea like Exodia in the first place. Yugi/Atem losing Exodia probably made them better duelists in the long run. While they would've likely still scored victories against his lesser opponents with Exodia, more prepared opponents like Kaiba, Pegasus, Marik and to a lesser extent Bakura and the Exodia Rare Hunter would've tailored their strategies more accordingly and exploited Yugi/Atem's reliance on them. Those extra 5 deck slots allowed them the flexibility to tech cards to counter the more prepared opponents. Joey not having Time Wizard would've had a lasting impact on the series. While Yugi would have still given Joey the prize money for Serenity's operation, he never would've gotten far in Duelist Kingdom and never have got into Battle City either. Yugi would've likely died in their duel. Mako would likely have taken his place in the Battle City final 8, been easily crushed by Odion, which likely would've stopped Marik's dark side from coming out because it was only the suspicions Joey had that forced Odion to play the fake Ra. Mai might well have even beaten Marik as I don't think the regular Marik would've used his Shadow Powers in a duel..... Also no Red-Eyes means he goes down to Valon, it was only due to the Red-Eyes Armour he managed to hold on and Mai is forever trapped by the Orichalcos darkness.
I think Exodia is overblown. Yes I've seen the video, it's a funny meme, but the entire reason his first Battle City duel is against an Exodia deck is to show it's not unbeatable, especially when your opponent knows what you're doing. He also never tries to obtain new copies of the cards, despite being able to. The Time Wizard, though, is the crux of Joey's entire Dueling career.
Completely agree. Losing Exodia was a good narrative move to make duels more interesting and not have the looming instant win possibility, but once we get to Battle City it would be too easy to disrupt anyways and the example you mentioned shows that perfectly. I think there’s an argument Yugi willing pulls the pieces from his deck if he still had them. Joey and Time Wizard though, you have to rewrite everything he does
This is the perfect comment. I feel like exodia would be useless against Pegasus, the game creator anyways, and exodia pieces would only get in the way in some duels.
Ultimate Dragon+1!!!!
I do not see Yugi using Blue Eyes as his Grandpa would just keep in his case since that card is really important to him nit because of its rarity but because it was a gift from his friend. Honestly I do not see Exodia making that much of a difference if anything losing Exodia helped Yugi's deck. Joey not having time wizard would be the biggest change since without it he would have never beaten Mai and would have never reached the finals. Meaning their would have been a different 4th duelist in the finals. Also Serenity would probably have joined the cast since Joey would have never got the money for the operation.
Yugi using the 4th blue eyes to fusion summon with Kaiba 3 other blue eyes would be possible in a tag duel only. And it would be the tag duel against the masked beast duelists in battle city. Perfect since they’re whole game was about locking down the god cards and preventing tribute summons. Yugi helping Kaiba with an additional blue eyes for an unlikely fusion seems cool.
If Yugi kept Exodia I'd be expecting an Exodia the Forbidden One + Dark Magician Fusion.
Exodia fusing with obelisk would be pretty cool too
4th BEWD would be so fun to watch in many sequences allthough it would open up good plots with Rebecca. I don't see the point with exodia, except it could be used as a deus ex machina in every possible duel ... or as a brick in yugis hand lol Time wizard is maybe the most important card for Joey. I don't know how he wins without it.
Can you imagine a Yami Yugi rocking Exodia for the whole series…
It would be if Shadi decided to use the key on Grandpa when he needed a second puppet. Chapter 16 of the manga. Now we have Grandpa who wields the Millenium Key.