I've been a massive fan of Yu-Gi-Oh! ever since I learnt of its existence some 25 years ago. Back in time I used to own some cards, but due to my lack of friends I was never able to do anything with them nor attempted to create any real deck. Therefore, a real life duel was that last shrapnel embued in my heart.

Last December, I just saw that Samsung TV has a dedicated channel to Yu-Gi-Oh! where all the first 144 episodes are played in a loop (those are all episodes that got a Spanish dub). Sometimes, because my TV is like this, I get the French dub which went much farther, but this is a rare instance. Also, even though the commercial breaks play different scenes of some of its spin-offs, so far it focuses just on the original second series, despite GX also receiving the Spanish dub for its first season (interesting note, no scenes of GX are played on the 5-minute break between episodes).

My girlfriend's best friend, whom I affectionately call "brother in law", is also a big fan of Yu-Gi-Oh! and loved the fact I always have that channel as the standby command for my TV for whenever it's turned on or we exit any of the apps. And just recently, he commented he had a large stash of cards from 2010 belonging to Yugi/Yami Yugi, and even though he kept them intact he suggested bringing them so we could finally play the real game.

He spent this weekend at home and he brought his stash. We took all the cards out and each of us created a deck out of everything available. We can't do much but replicate to some degree the decks Yugi used during the anime, but still it was an awesome first time for us.

I know a lot more about the game and I think I also chose better cards in general terms, whereas he relied on high defense monsters and trap cards. I lost only twice out of the 10-12 duels we played between yesterday and today, and one of those losses almost had a major comeback but it was cut short. We basically didn't want to do anything else but keep enjoying our time as if we were little kids.

We definitely want to do this again. Such a shame getting new cards to support it will be extremely hard and also pricey, but we do have interesting things to play with and it serves its purpose of us having fun like in our favorite anime. I just wish there was an easier way of playing this in real life and with much more variety.

Has somebody else played this game in real life? Have you truly attempted to get a personal deck or you're just collecting cards you then get together for some playful fun?