Romin Kirishima BE (Patreon)

I can't friggin wait for Rush Duel to come out in the US, it's been such a long time since I really gave much care to Yugioh, primarily because the game has gone on so long, introduced so many new summoning mechanics, has more than ten thousand unique cards that are almost all tournament-legal, necessitating a ridiculous amount of power creep in order to make new cards more relevant than old ones, that trying to play it now just makes me feel like Grandpa Simpson:

https://youtu.be/5DlTexEXxLQ?t=6

So naturally I've been loving the hell out of the newest series of the anime, because they basically wove my old-man attitude into the narrative, with the main character (who's name I refuse to remember, he looks like Spike from Ape Escape, his friend looks like Jake, and his signature monster looks like Specter, so I'm calling him friggin' Spike) basically inventing his own reboot of Duel Monsters, which even though it hasn't been released outside Japan yet, can be played on Ygopro. I've seen people who describe it as a more simplified version of the game and suggest it's primary merit as a way of getting kids into the game to cut their teeth before moving on to the Master Rule version, but I'm not one of them, the Rush Duels I played were the most fun I've had playing Yugioh in a long time, it's a legitimate alternative for people who don't like the main game as-is and dropped it out of lost enthusiasm, isn't an insignificant amount of people, so I don't think you really have to be a little kid who's just inherently bad at card games to prefer it.

So between it and the new Digimon card game that's coming to the US in January, next year is looking really good for TCGs, for my money at least, so I really hope those two games in particular catch on and I don't just end up wasting my money on decks that never actually see play.