Master Duel ist the friendliest F2P game we have (for PC & Mobile)
This is gonna be a brief summary but here is what I think are the most important aspects that make me think its the best:
You get plenty of gems, which can we farmed through missions and events or you can simply buy them.
Now what do you do with those Gems?
You can buy EVERYTHING in the shop. Yes Everything and they can be farmed. Do you know how many games have multiple currencies, some that can be farmed and some that cannot be farmed?
First of all, the cosmetics: from simple things such as icons, icon cover, deckbox to cardcovers, an entire playing field with different visuals and little easter eggs (like the sword in the island one), mates like ash blossom or infinite impermenance.
Now what about the gameplay? Works like normal YGO. you can be lvl 1 crook dueling vs lvl 10000 Pharaoh, the mechanics do not change. There is no power or gimmick you need to unlock, no special characters with abilities or anything.
So how do we get the cards then? From packs! They are either "normal packs", "secret packs" or by playing the solo mode.
The normal packs have 8 random cards of the desired card pool. The secret pack has 4 random cards from the entire card pool and 4 from the selection.
Normal packs are usually newer cards, but with a wieder range of different decks/archtypes, while secret packs focus on 1 or 2 decks maximum.
There are 4 rarities a card can have.
"Normal and Rare" are both the most frequent cards, making them considered "free"
Then comes super rare, which usually you get one out of 2-3 packs, but if you buy 10 packs, you are guranteed 1 super rare.
The last rarity is Ultra rare. Those are the archtype defining cards, the game changer, the powerful ones and sometimes having different animations with some super rare cards.
Now comes the magic in this system: You can break cards into 1/3 of their value.
To generate any card, you can break 3 other cards of the same rarity.
This, combined with everything else makes masterduel one of the greatest f2p games of all time.
You are unlucky and keep pulling an useless card multiple times (e.g. 6 blue eyes white dragons), then you can break them and create what you need.
You wanna create a new deck or pull from a new or secret pack? Farm gems by doing missions or events!
When you first start the game, you get so many gems and now we have packs for must have cards in your deck.
Yes an entire pack with ash blossom triple tactics, infinite, etc...
Whatever you pull there, its gonna be good at some point.
Yes the waifu tax is expensive, Sky striker Alt Arts are way more expensive, than the deck itself by turning more cards into UR, but only the alt arts, not the "original ones" meaning that whales, who propably sponsor the game for us f2p gamers, are putting their money into something, that does not give them an advantage at any time.
You only get MORE cards by paying, not better cards.
I know a lot of people hate konami for making certain decks (Heros) very expensive or hate how expensive real life cards can become.
I personally believe, this should be the industry standard, make it available and playable for everyone at every level by little grinding while having something for the whales (like skins) to spend on.
Thanks for reading.