What's Yu-Gi-Oh VRAINS?
Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS is the sixth Yu-Gi-Oh! anime series and the fifth main spin-off series, which began airing in Japan on May 10, 2017, following the end of Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V.
When?
Every Wednesday at 6:25 pm Japanese Standard Time.
Ok So what is it this time? Card Games in Space? On Unicorns?
Close, but it's actually cardgames while surfing the wind a la Eureka Seven while inside a Tron-like cyberspace world.
Den City. In this city, with the advanced network technology developed by the corporation "SOL Technology", a Virtual Reality space called "Link VRAINS" (Link Virtual Reality Artificial Intelligence Network System) has been developed.
By using Link VRAINS exciting VR duels unfold where Duelists change their appearance separate from their real life identities
However, in "LINK VRAINS", a mysterious hacker group that hacks via Dueling has appeared: The Knights of Hanoi. Their goal is to destroy the "AI World" known as "Cyberse" that exists somewhere in the depths of the Network.
However, there is one Duelist who stands against this threat to "LINK VRAINS". His name is "Playmaker". He has become famous in the Network World for crushing the "Knights of Hanoi" in fierce Duels. But the true identity of "Playmaker" is ordinary high school student "Yusaku Fujiki", who pursues the "Knights of Hanoi" that appear in VRAINS in order to find out the truth of an incident that happened in his past.
That's Cool I Guess, but what about the Characters?
Yusaku Fujiki
Yusaku is described as a boy who doesn't like standing out at school, not because he's timid or shy but because he is a hacker constantly interfering with the evil Knights of Hanoi.
Instead of uploading his cards to the virtual space he prefers the feel of good ol´ cardboard attached to high-tech machines.
Yusaku's Avatar in the virtual world is called "Playmaker", and is just him with a different hairdo and a sexy skintight suit.
Yusaku's deck is filled to the brim with "Cyverse" type monsters, a new kind of monsters straight out of the Tron levels of Kingdom Hearts II. Obviously he also uses the new mechanic of the day but we'll get to that later.
His Ace card is Firewall Dragon, A 2500 ATK Cyverse-Type Monster....with no defense!?
Ignis
A powerful AI trapped into Yusaku's duel disk, he is responsible of bringing cyber storms back into LINK VRAINS allowing Speed Duels to take place, the Knights of Hanoi are desperately searching for it.
If Yusaku Loses a duel, Ignis could be taken away from him.
Aoi Aizen
Aoi is described as being very quiet and shy on first sight. However in Link VRAINS Aoi has total personality change!!. As "Blue Angel", she is a smiling idol with a cheerful and perky demeanor.
Her deck is made of Trickstars, the token fairies females characters are always given, but these ones BURN.
Ok That's fine, but how about the cards? Do they get a new crazy mechanic?
After Fusion,Synchro and Xyz Monsters allowed players to combine their monsters in different ways to allow for combos and in depth strategies and Pendulum Summon allowed players to set up a field where they could summon 5 monsters at a time many wondered what could possibly be done anymore...
Obviously a company with such amazing decision making skills as Konami found the best possible way to have something new and different that we can all enjoy....By making all the previous mechanics we've learned to use for over ten years useless unless you buy the new shit...
Introducing Link Summon!
The new Extra Monster Zone is a separate Zone located at the top of your regular monster zones, now that is the only place where you can play your previously unlimited fusions,synchros and Xyz as well as Pendulums that come from the Extra Deck. One at a time.
Unless of course you buy Links! They are unlimited! and they can make your Fusions/Synchros/Xyz and Pendulums unlimited again!
Link summon is by far the easiest mechanic to pull off.
You just need to send any kind of monsters on the field to the graveyard equal to the Link Rating of the Link Monsters, the Link Monster goes to the new Extra Monster Zone
3 random monsters = 1 Link 3 Link Monster
Link Monsters can also be used to summon other Links with a higher Link Value with ease
A link 2 monster + 1 Random monster = 1 Link 3 Link Monsters
Links have no Level, Rank or DEF and can never be placed in any form of defense position.
Link Monster cards have red arrows pointing to the monster card zones, starting in July you can only summon Fusion, Synchros, Xyz and Pendulums from the Extra Deck to Monster Zones pointed at by Link Monsters or to the Extra Monster Zone.
If you don't have Link Monsters you will only be able to summon 1 synchro/xyz/etc to the new Extra Monster Zone, and cannot replace it until it's removed from there.
This video can help illustrate it further
https://youtu.be/EeoT0zfEe-w
