The Forbidden Game of Yu-Gi-Oh! Gateball Begins

　At long last, we’ve started playing the forbidden game of Yu-Gi-Oh! gateball.

　I’d previously written in my diary about binge-watching videos of duels played under the rules and card pools of the 2000s. After reading that, Uozaki from Dwango, who works with me on various things for a YouTube show, said, “I did the same thing with a friend once,” and brought in two decks from the 2004 format. So we all settled in for some friendly duels.

Yu-Gi-Oh! Gateball - HazeDenki.net

HazeDenki.net

　Apparently, some of the old-timers who have played gateball before us have posted “easy-to-play deck lists for the 2004 format” online, so both decks had the same build. My favorite era was the one that came a little later, after Chaos was banned, so someday I’d like to play a Triangle deck mirror match too. Something with all the mind games around Cyber Dragon.

　Even so, I’m happy.

　Just plain happy. It makes me feel like we could skip the meetings and do this forever... Back when I was in elementary school, after a duel we’d all stand around reading Jump at the store, talking about BLEACH and NARUTO, and arguing about what was happening in the Heisei-era Kamen Rider shows. Oh, and there was Super Smash Bros. Melee too. Though I feel like things aren’t all that different now...

　In the 2004 format, you’re simply throwing strong cards at each other, which makes for a wonderfully rough-and-ready balance. We’d be unable to get past Jinzo or Injection Fairy Lily, or watch the monsters we’d worked so hard to put on the field get wiped out by Torrential Tribute. It was chaos. The various Jar monsters would occasionally show up and reset the field, sometimes to our annoyance and sometimes to our relief. Because what you can do in a single turn is so straightforward, the finer points of play really get a chance to shine.

　Maybe I should be proud that I get to work with people who, when suddenly told, “Let’s play Yu-Gi-Oh! using an old format!” can jump straight into a duel without batting an eye or needing much of a rules refresher.

　It’s dangerously fun!

　This releases bad brain chemicals! 

　On the way home, someone even suggested, “Nyalra, should we buy some old Duel Masters preconstructed decks and do something similar?” and I got so excited. If we keep playing Yu-Gi-Oh! and Duel Masters using formats from around 2004 between meetings, I’ll never make it back to reality. At that point, I’d just be someone reluctantly coming to work for the sake of gateball.

　Then I start wanting to play Duel Masters too, thinking, “I’d love to build a Survivor deck—the one I gave up on back then because I didn’t really understand it and couldn’t collect the cards.” And if we all eventually start putting together decks from those days and bringing them in, we’ll truly have an old-timers’ club on our hands.

　In Nakano, the neighborhood bulletin boards regularly have flyers saying things like “Let’s play Famicom together.” They’re probably aimed at people in their fifties and older, so I’ve never joined in, but I suppose no matter how old you get, nothing is more exciting than revisiting the games you were hooked on in elementary school. Perhaps gateball is the abstract memory of “playing in the park” given physical form.

　Next, if it turns into a gathering of "Let's deliberately play only GameCube games," that's the end.

　And yet, there’s surely nothing more fun than that.

　Knowing the “answer” to what’s most fun is right there is almost too dangerous in its own way, and it leaves me at a loss. “What am I supposed to do...?” I agonize as I summon Breaker the Magical Warrior. It falls into a Bottomless Trap Hole.

　And so the day ends.