Forged in Chaos 3: Ascent of Dragons

Yugioh as a game is nothing short of great. It has a lasting legacy, an abundance of memes, and an ever-growing community to enjoy it with. As a huge fan of Yugioh in all its forms, I'm always on the search for a new, creative ways to play the game that serve as great breaks from the normal style. What sticks out to me as an incredible phenomenon since its inception is Duel Links, a speed duel format style mobile game that has people around the world playing Yugioh at unprecedented amounts. With Duel Links being so large, and retro formats like Goats being more popular than ever before, there's an endless potential for Yugioh to be played in an interesting, fun, and skillful way. And so I began doing my own work.

I decided that Goat format and Duel Links both have a lot to offer. Goats is a skillful, interesting format with tons of deck variety, but a lot of its cards are overly warping and can take some getting used to. Duel Links is an awesome game because it features a grind for your cards that makes you truly feel like you've accomplished something, but it feels incomplete to me. So why not combine them? And after that, augment them? I wanted to make a grindy game with real accomplishments and rewards. I wanted to make a skill-intensive, fun format with powerful cards, but none that turn it on its head and force you to play a deck you don't want. And I wanted to create it as a longtime member of the community who will interact with its players personally. And so Forged in Chaos was born.

I set out to make something perfect. The first step to creating such a format was to take the parts I liked about these other formats: the grind, the skill, the focus on main deck technical play rather than mass extra deck summoning...

And then throw everything else away and break the shackles that bring down most custom formats.

Creating Forged was not easy. The first set alone, a mere 150 cards, brought forward over a month of careful planning and consideration, to create something Yugioh has never truly seen before. I intended to use a combination of cards both old and new, popular and forgotten, that would interact in ways we hadn't seen before. Cards that never got to see the light of competitive play because of their release dates, such as Endymion, the Master Magician, or that were very popular but never lived up to their maximum potential, such as Dragon Spirit of White. I even took cards that everyone knows and loves (or maybe loves to hate!) like Machina Fortress and Book of Moon and gave them new life in the format. What's not to love about Yugioh when you're playing some of the coolest cards ever printed without having to worry if they're going to be good or not?

And the end result? An exciting format rife with technical gameplay, interesting main deck bosses, battle recruiters, and rich decision trees, and even separate game modes within the game itself!

Within the ever-expanding list of legal cards are hidden gems you'd never expect to be the defining forces of a meta, that you'd not even think about when you make a list in your head of "the best decks ever." Cards you just might not even realize existed but that will make you think about Yugioh in a new and exciting way. And these are the cards you'll use to make your first fully original deck, after opening packs to pull the cards you've sought after, and making great deals with other players to trade for mutual benefit. While you receive a starter deck at the beginning, the changes and additions you make with your first few packs will define who you are as a duelist in the game, and moreso as you improve more and more. The satisfaction of building your best, most powerful deck, in a format and meta designed solely by fellow players who have sought to bring you the best Yugioh experience is guaranteed to be one of your most worthwhile endeavors in the game. And with each 100 card expansion, the possibilities to make your mark become limitless.

If you're like me, Jazz, Aretos, the beta testers who helped me design and perfect this, and so many other players, always looking for a fresh Yugioh experience, Forged in Chaos is the game to be playing to reignite the spark that made you love Yugioh to begin with. I can guarantee you, it'll be one of the best formats you've ever played.
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