Awesome / Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS

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General

1 2 3... 1 2 3... with soul! Yeah! Yeah! Come with me, come with me, go forward~

• Both versions of the Link Summoning animation are gorgeous.
  • In the first version, the user shoots a laser beam into the sky which opens the gate to another "world" inside of an already virtual world. Then the user flies through the gateway and floats above it, commanding their monsters to go into one of 8 directional arrows surrounding the portal. After that is done, the monster gets summoned with a little flair before the user shoots through the portal again to continue riding the datawind.
  • The second and current version of Link Summon animation cuts the another "world" part, but in exchange, the monsters now turn into tornadoes colored according to their Attribute as they go into the arrows. Not only is this new animation faster, but it also harkens back to the summoning animations of Xyz, Fusion, and Synchro instead. The Link Monsters' ATK gauges also now include those monsters' respective Link Markers.
• Not just Link Summoning is gorgeous. Every summoning method is beautifully animated, but especially Synchro and Xyz since their animation got a complete overhaul compared to Ritual and Fusion.
  • Ritual Summon: The user summons a cybernetic magical circle which also enlightens flames equal to the level of the Ritual Monster on the circle. The tributes then decompose into particles which go into the circle and out of that circle comes the Ritual Monster.
  • Fusion Summon: All Fusion Materials decompose themselves into particles with each of them having a different color and form themselves into a swirling vortex. Out of the vortex come tornadoes colored to the particles of the materials and then merge together into a purple tornado which the Fusion Monster comes out of.
  • Synchro Summon: The Synchro Materials decompose into particles and become rings with layers equal to their level with the Tuner being green. The rings then stack on top of each other and out of the stack comes out a tower of rings equal to the Synchro Monster's level and out of the tower comes the Synchro Monster.
  • Xyz Summon: The user shoots out a laser beam into the sky just like Link Summon and summons a huge overlay network (which looks like a cross) behind of the user. The Xyz Materials then turn into blue particles and fly into the network. The network will then shoot 4 laser beams to open a portal to space! Then an explosion comes out of the portal, but inside it seems that the explosion is actually a big bang since DNA patterns are forming that are immediately decomposing and recomposing themselves into the Xyz Monster. This truly shows the lore that Xyz Monsters are made out of Anti-Matter. Also the Overlay Units are now shown on the monster's back instead of hovering around them like satellites along with showing the number of them on the ATK gauge.
• The second opening, "go forward," is sung by KIMERU, the same artist who sung that last opening, "Overlap," of the Duel Monsters anime. It's also beautifully animated, but these two scenes stand out:
  • One scene has Playmaker dodging the bullets fired by Blood Shepherd's "Battle Drones" while on his D-Board. After that, Playmaker gets hit by their missiles, but instead of looking hurt by it, Playmaker only looks determined and ready to continue the battle.
  • Another shows all six Code Talkers in the order Playmaker has acquired them, all of them wielding their weapon and ready to battle. After the six Code Talkers assemble, Firewall Dragon comes in and transforms into its attack form. The Code Talkers then pose with it.
• The Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Hour commercials features Yusaku teaming up with both Yuma Tsukumo and Yusei Fudo.
• Someone solved the Freeze-Frame Bonus puzzle in episode 68, which had him googling obscure cards to find the solution. Turns out the answer is Ignis.
• The dub being much better received than the past few series.

Season 1: Knights of Hanoi Arc

• Yusaku capturing Ai shortly after learning of the AI's existence. SOL Technologies and the Knights of Hanoi, both powerful organizations, were trying to capture this AI for five years and Yusaku captured it in a few hours. He did so by giving Ai a fake escape route right into his Duel Disk. He also made sure when Ai was trapped in his Duel Disk, he would have no way of tampering with it, leaving it forced to become Yusaku's ally against his enemies. Our protagonist, ladies and gentlemen!
• Playmaker's Skill, Storm Access. When Playmaker has less than 1000 LP left, he can add a powerful monster card to his deck. How does he use this skill? By riding into a huge tornado and turning the data storm into a card!
• Blue Angel saving Playmaker from falling to his death, paying him back for when he saved her in the first episode.
• Link Summoning's debut: For details how it looks like, go look on the top of the page.
• Playmaker and GO's Duel:
  • Playmaker Link Summons four times during the same turn during his first duel with Go Onizuka, and uses Link Monsters as Material, a concept not normally seen until later in the series.
  • Go has the tendency to deliberately put himself in a disadvantage only to go on a Heroic Second Wind and absolutely destroy his opponent the next turn in order to maximize entertainment value. Playmaker copies his style and purposefully leaves himself with only 100 LP to use Storm Access, a skill only usable if Playmaker has less than 1000 LP and gather the pieces for victory.
  • The exchange between Gouki, The Great Ogre and Decode Talker was a highlight. Both monsters went at each other 3 times in epic clashes similar to a Wrestling match, as they were being protected from being destroyed by battle and standing up after every hit. In the end though, Great Ogre ran out of monsters to save himself from the continuous attacks which led to Go's defeat, making Great Ogre collapse on the mat. Decode Talker even does a little taunt to tell Great Ogre to come and get some more.
• Yusaku showing competence when he joined the Duel Club on campus by presenting Aoi with a fake deck when she wanted to see it, hiding the fact he's actually Playmaker in the process.
• The entire first duel with Blue Angel and Playmaker is filled with these. Blue Angel shows off her Trickstars with their Death by a Thousand Cuts play style. By the end of Yusaku's turn, he lost almost half of his LP, while Blue Angel is controlling a monster whose ATK increases each time he gets damaged. When Yusaku summons his signature monster Decode Talker, he tries to destroy Blue Angel's own Link Monster, Holly Angel. Blue Angel damages him enough to raise Holly Angel's ATK above Decode's and when Decode survives, she instantly destroys it with a different card. Just as his LP dips below 1000, Playmaker uses his Storm Access to gain a new Link Monster, Decode Talker's LIGHT counterpart, Encode Talker. Encode Talker then makes his Big Entrance by slicing a hole through the Data Storm for Playmaker to pass through, turning the tide of the duel instantly. Just as it seems like she'll lose, Blue Angel uses her Skill to force Yusaku to draw cards which, with her Lilybell and Lightstage's effects, would have won her the duel. Playmaker counters this with a monster, and as Blue Angel uses another effect that would have secured the duel again, Yusaku reveals his new monster's ability, which he combines with two other cards for a One Hit KO.
• Emma and Akira's plan, which involves using the entirety of LINK VRAINS as a trap for Playmaker. And then Revolver trashes it without a second thought, claiming he could bring down the whole LINK VRAINS easily, should he have a reason to. Revolver isn't just bluffing' in a later episode he's in the middle of taking down LINK VRAINS - and the whole world's computer system.
• Yusaku beating Revolver during their Master Duel, with this being the first time since Yugi where a protagonist beat his primary rival in their first real duel (Yusei was about to win in the first duel with Jack, but technically didn't since the duel was interrupted and never concluded). Yusaku was on the losing end of the duel, then he turns it back around with an OTK depleting all 4000 of Revolver's lifepoints in a single attack.
• Ghost Girl comes dangerously close to a second-turn kill against Playmaker, after a very impressing turn and completely stopping Playmaker on his own first turn. She's also savvy enough to know she mustn't let Playmaker use Storm Access, always leaving him more than 1000 LP. She continues to pull a good call with countering the ability to access Storm Access. While many duelists have played anti-support against a main character's deck type before, she's the first one to do so specifically for a special ability like Clear Mind or Chaos Xyz Change. She uses multiple contingencies, only failing when Playmaker himself gets to reduce his own LP.
• In their first turn, Kitamura's AI manages to summon a powerful Link-3 monster and completely destroy Playmaker's hand, also setting their GY so that in the next turn they also eliminate the card Playmaker draws and get an extra monster on the field out of it. Then Blue Angel rides in while Playmaker was being attacked by Kitamura's other AI, not only to allow Playmaker to focus on his duel, but allowing them to distract all of them from Ghost Girl and her brother's attempt to get to the data bank.
• To follow up on Blue Angel's arrival, she is able to set up her entire board Turn 1. Afterwards, what follows can be best described as an effect damage showdown, each using their own effects to whittle the other's LP. When it seems like she is about to lose, she stops the battle and unveils a new Trickstar Link Monster, removes his remaining monsters, and clinches it with a direct attack.
  • Following Playmaker's duel, Playmaker is able to use the cards he discarded to Special Summon monsters back to the field and stage a OTK utilizing Storm Access through paying his LP.
• The duel between Playmaker and Akira Zaizen has many amazing moments.
  • Akira manages to give Playmaker trouble without using Link Monsters with Tindangle Hound's effects, which causes Playmaker's Link Monsters to lose 1000 ATK whenever they are Linked with other monsters. Whenever Playmaker destroys Hound, Tindangle Angel can resurrect it again and allow Hound to reset Angel so that she can activate her effect again. This forces Playmaker to summon Firewall Dragon and use a Spell Card that destroys both Tindangle Hound and Angel at the same time. Akira counters this with Hound's upgrade, Tindangle Acute Cerberus. Cerberus gets more ATK thanks to its ability to summon tokens and the Tindangle Hound and Angel in Akira's GY. He also keeps fortifying his defense and offense with other spell and trap cards he draws in his next turn. This eventually culminates into making Playmaker unable to attack and being forced to end Akira in his next turn.
  • Playmaker Link Summons three times in his last turn. He swarms his field with the usual Draconnet and Link Spider combo, summons Recovery Sorcerer to resurrect his destroyed Link Monster and eventually summons Secure Gardna next to Tindangle Acute Cerberus's link. This would normally cause Playmaker's defeat, but Secure Gardna negates effect damage and with the destruction of Akira's tokens allows Playmaker to finish the game with Firewall Dragon, but instead of just attacking Akira directly with Cynet Backdoor's effect, he uses Firewall Dragon's effect to return Akira's Hound and Angel from the GY in order to lower Cerberus' ATK to 0 and attack Cerberus in order to end the game in a more meaningful way. We also get to see Firewall Dragon's full transformation into its attack form and it's glorious to see.
  • The dub managed to find a way that Dr. Kogami has died without saying death.
    Koulter: It says Dr. Kogami retired seven years ago, as in retired retired.
• Go Onizuka, disguised as Playmaker, makes a return to the public eye in episode 22, wiping the floor with Hanoi grunts not through dueling, but with some impressive stunts to turn their weapons against them. His following duel with Doctor Genome shows his skills off pretty well too, topping it off with a Link-4 Monster attacking all of Genome's monsters after negating their powerful effects. Playmaker and Go then agree to work together to find the cause of the virus.
• Aoi returns to VRAINS and battles Baira in a close match, culminating in the debut of her own Link-4.
• Naoki finally enters VRAINS as Lonely Brave, and despite the hilarity of the whole situation, he manages to defeat a Knight of Hanoi, finishing with Playmaker's catchphrase! Unfortunately this leads to Faust kidnapping him.
• Powercode Talker's pose in its debut duel is all about being awesome. It even gets the classic action scene where it attacks a monster, and then acts cool behind the ensuing explosion. Playmaker throwing down with the Knights of Hanoi is nothing new, but he fights against Faust whose deck shuts down his Link Summoning. In spite of that, Playmaker still manages to pull off Storm Access and defeat his opponent in one episode where it took Go Onizuka and Blue Angel two.
• Topologic Trisbaena has three "modes". All of them are shown during the debut, which each of them being specified during the commercial for Flames of Destruction set. Its effect banishes Spell and Trap cards instead of destroying them, making them harder to retrieve back, and it inflicts Burn damage to the opponent in addition to that. And then it still can attack with its decent 2500 ATK afterwards. Usually when a monster has a powerful card removal effect, it cannot attack in exchange for activating said effect, especially when Burn damage is also involved. That's not the case for Trisbaena. It's also not hard to summon.
• Playmaker vs. Spectre starts as an awesome stalemate, with back and forth damage and LP gain exchange that results in both eventually going back to 4000 LP, and both, at one point, control a 4000 ATK monster.
  • Playmaker gets credit for working around Spectre's threats by not attacking and goading Spectre into taking the initiative. The attack is parried, both monsters are destroyed, and neither player takes damage from the battle, but because Spectre's setup is dependent on his one Sunavalon monster, his entire field crumbles around him.
  • The duel also involves so many Link Summons it ends up causing the amount of Link monsters in both player's GY to be as much as fourteen monsters. And since each of them also had Link Monsters in play, that means both players depleted roughly half of their Extra Deck during the duel. Playmaker ends up exploiting this via a card effect, that leads to his victory.
  • Playmaker is about to win when Spectre used Akira Zaizen as a living shield so that he couldn't take any damage. So not only does Playmaker have to stall, he has to play purely on the defensive since he can't risk damaging Spectre, but even under this restriction manages to destroy Spectre's ace monster. And after he no longer has that limitation, he immediately ends it by destroying both Spectre's resurrected ace and all his LP in one hit. In the end Playmaker is reduced to 50 LP, when Spectre activated a card that deals the same damage he receives back to Playmaker, he gets around this by dealing exactly 4000 damage, defeating Spectre before the mirrored damage takes effect.
• Revolver pulls off an impressive Xanatos Gambit against Go Onizuka using Mirror Force. Revolver starts the turn with a 3000 attack, Link 4 Topologic Bomber Dragon and a face down card while Go Onizuka has no monsters. When GO Link Summons Gouki the Shadow Ogre and uses its effect to destroy Topologic Bomber Dragon, Revolver activates Arrow Protection's effect from the GY, preventing Go from attacking for the rest of the turn unless he controls 4 Link Monsters, allowing Revolver to re-establish his board on his turn. Go manages to get 4 Link Monsters into his field and proceeds to go for the kill, allowing Revolver to activate Mirror Force and completely wipe Go's side of the board because he had nothing but Link Monsters (which can only be in attack position) on the field.
• Go still refuses to back down as he repeatedly re-summons his Gouki monsters and brings out a new Link-4 ace monster: Gouki The Giant Ogre, and evens the scores with one strong hit. Revolver honors Go's tenacity by not holding back, recycling his own monsters to bring out his own new Link-4 monster: Borrelsword Dragon. Even still, The Giant Ogre's own effects let it resist Revolver's multiple attempts to destroy it, and it takes all of Borrelsword Dragon's effects to end the Duel. For a secondary protagonist standing against the main antagonist, Go had put up an impressive fight.
• Episode 42 features not just one, but two awesome Storm Access, with both duelists being backed up by someone close to them due to the danger of this episode's Data Storm.
• Revolver and Playmaker's climactic duel at the end of the first season.
  • In his first turn Revolver deliberately shows that he has obtained Mirror Force through his card effects, and sets a Spell/Trap card. Playmaker moves to neutralize it, only to realize it's a decoy card, which Revolver replaces immediately on top of setting his Mirror Force card. While Playmaker goes to spring the trap, he also sets up protective effects to minimize his losses.
  • Playmaker carefully works his way around Revolver's Topologic Bomber Dragon and Mirror Force, first by negating Topologic Bomber Dragon's effect and Co-Linking his Code Talkers to have an ATK advantage over Revolver's field. However, this is all turned on its head, as Revolver protects his Dragon and gains the ammunition needed to recycle a large number of his cards.
  • Revolver then exploits the fact that his Topologic Bomber Dragon's effect is negated^note Which would have destroyed his own Main Monster Zone monsters whenever he summons anything next to it to start summoning a large number of monsters in a single turn. First comes the use of his monsters to summon Borreload Dragon, which takes control of Transcode Talker and opens up Playmaker's field for destruction in battle. Then, after laying waste to Playmaker's field, Revolver begins using Playmaker's own Code Talkers — including the ones fallen in battle — to summon a series of Link-4 monsters. This culminates in him performing the first ever Extra Link in the show, dominating both Extra Monster Zones using a whopping five Link-4 monsters, an equivalent of twenty monsters' investment!
  • Playmaker continues to display remarkable tenacity, trying his best to stay alive while dropping to as low LP as possible without losing. He then capitalizes on Revolver's Extra Link to mutually link his Link Monsters with Revolver's, allowing him to amass a tremendous 6400 ATK boost that ultimately wins him the game. With only 13 LP left.
  • Revolver makes pretty impressive plays against Playmaker's setup. Suspecting that Playmaker's sole facedown is a gamechanging Trap, he masks Borreload's attack with its own unreactable effect, preventing its activation. This is a trick that would not have occurred even to many real-life players, demonstrating that there is more to Revolver than merely swinging with high-power monsters.

Season 2: Ignis Warfare Arc

• Episode 47 introduces a rebooted and upgraded Link VRAINS. Unlike the previous design of digital-looking real-world cities, this time there's an octahedron-shaped floating central area with many layers surrounded by many floating islands, highlighting the cyber paradise it was meant to be. Ai’s return in this episode has him forcing Blood Shepherd to log out via Data Storm, allowing Playmaker to duel Jin Kusanagi’s attacker unimpeded.
• Everything about Playmaker doing a Ritual Summon.
  • First not only do the original blue cards appear in VRAINS, but it's Yusaku himself who uses and reintroduces them. The last protagonist who performed a Ritual Summon was Yugi from the original Duel Monsters anime. Not even Yuya, who used every other extra deck summon^note Fusion, Synchro, Xyz and Pendulum performed a Ritual Summon.
  • Cyberse Magician's Ritual Summoning is accompanied by a unique summoning chant, which is also the first instance of Playmaker reciting one. It gains 1000 ATK whenever it battles a Link Monster, halves all the damage you take, when you control a Link Monster your opponent can only target Cyberse Magician for attacks and effects and when destroyed by a card effect it allows you to search you deck for a Cyberse Monster card. It's not even that hard to summon thanks to Cyberse Witch's effect.
  • Playmaker's Ritual Monster is an important plot point as Haru, a member of the faction that uses Cyberse Monsters and destroyed the Cyberse World, is unaware of the existence of Cyberse Ritual Monsters.
• Despite having no recollection of anything, including anything that has happened in the duel itself, after Bohman decides to keep dueling, he quickly scans the field, assesses the situation, and comes up with a strategy right then and there.
• Playmaker uses Storm Access to get the card needed finish the game. Unlike the previous uses which uses a data storm nearby, Ai instead summons a data storm for Playmaker to go through. The card Playmaker got this time is Shootingcode Talker, the only one of the six Code Talkers he hasn't acquired yet. Shootingcode Talker's effect allows it to gain additional attacks equal to the amount of monsters it's linked to in this case two. This allows it to attack three times in the same battle phase, destroy all of Bohman's monsters and deplete the rest of his LP.
• Soulburner makes his presence known by appearing out of a flaming tornado out of the storming sky and keeps Bit and Boot busy so that Playmaker can focus on catching Haru and Bowman.
• Soulburner introduces a new type of Link Summoning in the game, Reincarnation Link Summon. While it doesn't evolve or change your monster into a new form like Chaos Xyz Evolution does, it instead summons the same Monster as the one used as material, but with the ability to use an effect that it couldn't use before thus truly reincarnating the Monster in a new stronger body.
• Following after Playmaker, Soulburner also Ritual Summons Salamangreat Emerald Eagle, while lacking in versatility compared to Cyberse Magician, makes up for it with pure firepower. By sacrificing a Salamangreat Link Monster it gains the effect to destroy Go's Dinowrestler King T Wrextle and inflict damage to him equal to its ATK, thus granting Soulburner his victory.
• Playmaker also reintroduces Fusion Summon via using Link Monsters as Fusion Materials. Cyberse Clock Dragon's animation for its Fusion Summon is glorious, and it gains 1000 ATK for every Link Marker the Link Monsters that were used as Fusion materials have. Before that it sends an equal number of cards from the top of Playmaker's deck to the GY. This allows its ATK to become 7500 which it then uses to destroy Blood Shepherd's ace monster and the rest of his LP.
• Not to be outdone by the boys, Blue Girl really puts on the pressure against Soulburner. Similar to her fight against Playmaker, her Trickstar's constant effect damage chips away at Soulburner and with Lycoris on board Soulburner cannot perform Burning Draw or else the resulting burn damage will tap out his LP, putting Soulburner on the defensive the entire time. While he does manage to set up a trap that reduces any effect damage 300 or less to 0 (Trickstars always burn in intervals of 200), Blue Girl simply doubles that to one up him further. Finally she activates her own Fusion card. However, Soulburner activates Burning Draw and fuses with Blue Girl's Link Monster, eliminating almost all of the issues he's been having in the duel. Soulburner then doubles his own monster's ATK for a One-Hit Kill.
• The Bohman vs Playmaker rematch. Bohman cheats by using a Skill in a Master Duel, but Playmaker still wins the duel. Bohman's attack has its damage reduced by Playmaker using Link Ration Trap card, allowing Playmaker to remain in the Duel with 100 LP, and summons a Token. On Playmaker's turn, he pulls a Yugi and declares he will win on that turn, quickly doing multiple Link Summons in order to assemble the materials for Cyberse Clock Dragon, and win the duel in a single attack strong enough to wipe out Bohman's remaining LP, even with Bohman's Judgement Arrows doubling the ATK of his Trident Hydradrive Lord. What's even more awesome is that Playmaker planned his Cyberse Clock Dragon finisher since the second turn of the Duel in the previous episode just in case his first attempt at victory wouldn't work.
• Blood Shepherd shows his mettle when it comes to hacking by successfully imitating a program that only an Ignis would be able to produce in less than a day. By the time Shoichi notices the trap, it's already too late. Made all the more impressive by the fact that in the episode prior The Knights of Hanoi openly pondered on whether or not Blood Shepherd has the skills to compare with the likes of the aforementioned Ignis, or with Doctor Kogami and Revolver himself.
• Turns out that Flame already helped Takeru overcome a significant portion of the latter's trauma. Despite getting trapped by Blood Shepherd, Flame and Soulburner manage to swiftly adapt to the situation and fool him when he tries to find a weakness in Takeru's memories. Many cheered the long-awaited reappearance of Firewall Dragon in Playmaker's duel with Yoroizaka, which also used all of its effects in the duel.
• Episode 64:
  • When he was just starting out as Playmaker, Yusaku goes to town on a Knight of Hanoi using cards from a Starter Deck. This is a testament to his ability as a duelist to be able to fight against the Knights of Hanoi and still manage to deliver a One-Hit Kill using generic cards anyone could get.
  • Notably, he countered the Knight of Hanoi's Limiter Removal, then activate his own copy not long afterwards, showing that he even expected his opponent to have an ATK boosting card just like him.
• Episode 65:
  • After Yusaku clears the duel puzzle at the end of the dungeon, both a Knight of Hanoi and Shoichi believe that the Cyberse deck was just a lie after the sarcophagus that was supposed to contain it simply vanished. Yusaku used his plays in the duel as a clue to discover the deck's actual location in Den City, finding the real sarcophagus which did contain the Cyberse deck.
  • Whoever made the duel puzzle also deserves credit here - it was a duel puzzle and a map. Even if the challenger noticed the map set-up, it's actually possible to solve the puzzle without using Yusaku's method, but doing so will not properly reveal the location of the Cyberse deck in Den City.
  • At the end of the episode we see a nice role reversal. When we first saw the Knights of Hanoi they are hunting innocent duelists who run in fear, but at the end of the episode a Knight of Hanoi runs away from Playmaker, who declares himself the envoy of revenge hunting the Knights of Hanoi. This starts Yusaku's growth into a duelist feared by his enemies.
  • Yusaku walking out on Naoki after the latter threatened to spill his secret...of working at Cafe Nagi. Considering that Naoki was hanging the threat of Blackmail over Yusaku's head for the past two episodes over a relatively dumb reason, Yusaku wastes no more time entertaining Shima after confirming that his real secret is safe, establishing that he will not submit to Naoki's will, especially after he he threatens to rat him out to Playmaker.
• The duel between Playmaker and Earth shows that the Ignis truly do have dueling skills. Earth is able to counter the supposedly unstoppable Cyberse Clock Dragon not just once, but twice and even managed to destroy it the first time. The only reason Playmaker wins is thanks to Clock Lizard's effect, which also doubles as a moment of awesome for Playmaker for creating a backup plan in case Cyberse Clock Dragon's effect would be negated.
• When it looked like it's over for Playmaker and Ai after getting caught by Windy and Lightning, Revolver shows up with a new look and declares that he will kill them, while the other Knights of Hanoi are destroying Windy's shoddily made Cyberse World with Cracking Dragon.
• Revolver re-introduces Synchro Summon in VRAINS. Instead of modifying the Tuner rings from 5D's like in ARC-V they created a whole new summoning animation◊ for it.
• In episode 73, Playmaker's skill updates from Storm Access to Neo Storm Access. Now instead of pulling a random Cyberse-type Link Monster from a Data Storm, Playmaker can now pull any Extra Deck Cyberse-type monster from a Data Storm. That means Playmaker can now add Fusion, Synchro, Xyz, and Link Monsters to his Extra Deck. Playmaker demonstrates this new ability for the first time in his third duel against Bohman by pulling Cyberse Quantum Dragon—a Synchro Monster—and subsequently summoning it. It turns out Playmaker could always use this Skill, but Ai hid it away. Not only did Ai hide an even more powerful Skill the whole time, but it shows that Storm Access is truly something he created since Revolver, Bohman and Windy are only able to get Link Monsters with their imperfect normal Storm Access. Who's conceited now Revolver?
• Go Onizuka's new skill, Anti-Skill. Not only does it negate the opponent's Skill, it also lets Go draw two card afterwards. And he created it himself thanks to seeing a new world after getting an AI implant in his brain. This makes Go currently the most dangerous duelist in a speed duel.
• Blue Girl pulling a Big Damn Heroes moment as she shields Aqua from Blood Shepherd's attack with her D-Board. Emma was able to track Aqua down, allowing Blue Girl to save her. She knew she's unable to understand the Ignis algorithm and use it, but she does know that Blood Shepherd does know how to do it and instead tracks him down to find Aqua.
• The duel between Blood Shepherd and Ghost Girl is really a spectacle to see, since they both keep countering each other moves and show off their Synchro monsters. After matching each other blow for blow, Blood Shepherd wins the duel in the end.
• When Emma lost the duel she was at first sad this was the end for Ghost Girl, but later on steels herself and tells Blood Shepherd about their father and what he told her in his last moments. With that of her chest she tells him to do the deed, but her words caused Blood Shepherd to hesitate and decide not delete her account.
• Blue Girl steeling her resolve and transforming into Blue Maiden at the end of episode 77. The heroes have gathered and they head towards their target, Lightning, as they vow to save Jin and Miyu and rebuild the Cyberse World.
• Episode 78 is basically just a moment of awesome for Revolver.
  • When Blood Shepherd does his usual three count, not only did Revolver expect him to shoot at two, but also got behind him without Blood Shepherd noticing.
  • He also completely dominates Blood Shepherd in their duel. In Revolver's first turn, he only sets one card to piss Blood Shepherd enough to make him try to pull an OTK. Not only did the OTK fail thanks to Revolver's face down card being the classic card, Imperial Order, which negated Blood Shepherd's Continuous Spell, but he also has enough monsters to set up his field and own OTK in his second turn.
• Playmaker and GO's second Speed Duel:
  • Part two of the duel has Playmaker reintroduce Xyz Summoning after he acquires "Firewall Xceed Dragon" via Neo Storm Access. Like with Synchro Summoning, the reintroduction of Xyz Summoning is complemented with a unique animation, differentiating itself from the ones used in ZEXAL and ARC-V.
  • Even with Firewall Xceed Dragon's debut, what actually wins Playmaker the duel is an extremely clever combo: he destroys Go's World Dino Wrestling to allow more than one of his monsters to attack, but King T Wrextle's effect forces Firewall Dragon to be the first attacker regardless or Playmaker can't attack at all (and attacking T Wrextle with Firewall would lose him the duel). The observing Soulburner and Blue Maiden conclude that he's finished. Playmaker promptly declares the attack to a Big "NO!" from Ai, but it's accompanied by a Theme Music Power-Up as he uses Firewall Guardian's effect from the GY to negate Firewall Dragon's attack, then render T Wrextle unaffected by the effects of other cards and reduce its ATK to 0. Since Firewall Dragon declared an attack, the condition of T Wrextle's effect is fulfilled, allowing Firewall Xceed Dragon to deliver the final blow.
• Akira finally deciding it's enough and disobeys his boss, Queen, by forcing GO to log out of LINK VRAINS. This not only saves GO's life, but also prevents Playmaker and Ai's capture while pissing Queen off.
• Playmaker's team and the Hanoi work together to reactivate the Tower of Hanoi still remaining in the old LINK VRAINS. With its program modified to work as a powerful scanner to find Lightning.
• Lightning's base turns out to be a mirror version of LINK VRAINS which can't be normally seen because it exactly overlaps with normal LINK VRAINS. This also shows they weren't kidding when they said that Lightning is the fastest of the Ignis since he was able to create a mirror copy of LINK VRAINS which overlaps with the original in no time all on his own.
• Blue Maiden using a new deck, Marincess, to show the unity between her and Aqua and defeating the BitBoots and Haru with ease.
• Episode 86, The duel between Specter and Lightning as two of the most nightmarish narcissists in Yu-Gi-Oh face off. At first it seems that Lightning will crush Specter via Extra Link until Specter steals the Game-Breaker card Judgement Arrows destroying Lightning's strategy, his lead, and his pride while giving him a Breaking Speech that seems to hit home.
• Episode 87: "Chain Destruction"
  • Spectre turning the tables on Lighting and creating two Extra Links like Lightning did in the previous episode, than takes it even further by creating Extra Link: Full Mode by filling all of his Monster Card Zones and Extra Link Zones with Link Monsters, something Revolver admitted that he couldn't do.
  • A villainous example, but Lightning destroying Spectre's entire field and predicting that Spectre would steal Judgement Arrows and defeating him was pretty cool and solidified Lighting as an even greater threat than what he already was.
• While Blue Maiden was unable to defeat Bohman, after encouragement from her brother, she decided to give it her all even when she knew she wouldn't stand a chance against him. This managed to impress Bohman who even let her meet her brother one last time as a sign of respect to her will. This is also a nice contrast to her loss to Spectre in season 1; in that duel, she was completely manipulated and played by Spectre and in the end of the duel she felt helpless, but in this duel she kept going even when she knew she wouldn't stand much of a chance against her opponent and put up a hell of a fight.
• Remembering his promise with Kusanagi, Playmaker finally goes serious and defeats him in a single turn. By Link Summoning his new Code Talker, Decode Talker Extend, and using it in combination with the Spell Card "Decode End". With them he was able to destroy Kusanagi's field and lower his LP in a single attack!
• Props to Kusanagi for managing to outsmart Lightning, feigning ignorance despite knowing that inevitably Lightning would use Jin as a hostage to blackmail him into fighting Playmaker and making preparations for when it finally did happen. When Lightning realizes he's been made the fool, he looks utterly pissed.
• Flame saving Soulburner from Windy by sacrificing himself in order to continue the duel.
• Resolved by Flame's sacrifice, Soulburner summons his own LINK-4 Link Monster, Salamangreat Pyro Phoenix and immediately uses it to Super Reincarnation Link Summon another copy whose effect nearly destroys Bohman's entire field.
• Bohman defeating Soulburner, unlike other antagonists who usually just use brute power to defeat their opponents. Bohman makes use of dice rolls in a way it's not just luck, but also calculates them in a way they always go right for him and even an Ignis is unable to know what he does. This shows him not only as a great strategist by using his cards to ensure that the odds are good for him regardless of the result of the dice, but also shows why he was created by Lightning as the successor of the Ignis.
• Bohman proceeds to do what was thought to be impossible and summons a LINK-5 Link Monster, the first of its kind which he in turn created. A subtle one, but the skill he uses to summon/create it, another improvement on Storm Access. How great is the improvement? Not only it can be activated regardless of his life points, but instead of once per duel the skill can be activates once per turn. And whether it's the same effect or another, the ending confirms that it means it can be activated on Playmaker's turn as well.
• The fact that Ai created a backup of himself in case he would die such as when he sacrificed himself to stop Bohman's Neuron Link. This shows that despite his behaviors, he's still an Ignis.
• Playmaker's own LINK-5 Link Monster, Firewall Dragon Darkfluid and everything about is awesome in its own right:
  • First it was created by the Ignis absorbed in Bohman (including Lightning who was forced to) who gave their power to Ai who in turn attempted to rescue them.
  • In order to summon it Playmaker uses a multitude of summons in his last turn. During his combo he managed to summon Code Talker, Encode Talker, Cyberse Witch, Cyberse Magician, Firewall eXceed Dragon and Transcode Talker. Only to end up with Cyberse Magician, Transcode Talker and Code Generator to summon Firewall Dragon Darkfluid. This is clearly the longest Link Summon combo Playmaker has done with even Ritual and Xyz Summon and it was amazing to see.
  • The summoning chant and animation, involves references to Flame, Aqua, Windy, and Earth.
  • With its effect it gains 10000 ATK and a total of 5 attacks at the cost of decreasing its ATK by 2500 which not only allowed it to destroy Bohman's own LINK-5 Perfectron, but also defeat him once and for all. Also every one of it's attacks were amazing in their own right especially since they all have different animations with their corresponding Ignis appearing with them as if they went to avenge themselves:
    Neo Tempest Flame: A scorching breath of fire from it's mouth with the aura of Flame dashing inside of it.
    Neo Tempest Aqua: With its hand it creates a ball of highly concentrated water which it then fires as a beam with the aura of Aqua appearing to command the stream of water.
    Neo Tempest Earth: It coils its tail into a drill and pretty much drop kicks the opposing monster with the image of Earth kicking with it.
    Neo Tempest Windy: The 6 black wing pieces detach and each of them fire a separate laser with the aura of Windy commanding them to hit their target.
    Neo Tempest End: A highly concentrated beam of energy in rainbow colors is fired from out it's mouth.
  • The whole continuous attack as the ATK keeps on lowering, reminded fans of Yusei's final move against ZONE.

Season 3: Ai's Rebellion Arc

• Episode 104: "Declaring a Crime":
  • Queen reveals that she's more than capable of dueling herself, summoning a monster with 5000 ATK as well as putting up defenses to prevent her other monster from being destroyed. She sets all this up on her first turn!
  • Not to be outdone, Ai reveals that he's been learning from Playmaker, dismantling Queen's set up and beating her on his first turn. To add to the sheer awesomeness, he also pulls off a Link, Synchro, and Xyz summon!
• Episode 105: "Intercept":
  • When Ai threatens not only Akira's life, but possibly many more. Akira jumps into action immediately and prepares to intercept Ai's attack. For this he creates a team which includes Playmaker, Soulburner, Blue Maiden, GO, Ghost Girl, Blood Shepherd and later on even the Knights of Hanoi.
  • Unlike the case in his duel against Shouichi, Playmaker decides to join the battle against Ai despite his doubts and declares that it's his responsibility as Ai's partner to prevent him from performing any more crimes. Ai's reaction to this is that naturally nothing can start without Playmaker.
• Episode 107: "Slay the Demon":
  • Roboppi getting Emma to use up her Kunquery counter before banishing and resummoning his own monsters with abilities switched to be even more dangerous, finishing off both Ghost Girl and Blood Shepherd.
• Episode 114: "Dreaming Roboppi":
  • Roboppi completely dominates the duel against Soulburner. Soulburner's own way to start from scratch and managing to come back into the duel, even pulling off a Reincarnation Xyz Summon is an impressive feat, but it amounts to nothing as Roboppi counters his every move. Roboppi actually points out that he is the only duelist so far not struggling against Soulburner.
• Episode 116: "Complete Combustion":
  • After being reduced to 800 LP and very few cards in his hand, Revolver makes a tremendous comeback against Soulburner, reviving Borreload and also Synchro Summoning Borreload Savage Dragon with Borrelsword equipped as well as Link Summoning his newest Topologic monster, Topologic Zeroboros.
  • Soulburner to his credit somehow manages to withstand all of Revolver's attacks until the effect of Zeroboros gets triggered and banishes the entire field.
  • At the start of the final turn of the duel, Soulburner thinks he's lost, having drawn a card that he can't use. And then Revolver's Topologic Zeroboros Special Summons itself, given Soulburner the activation conditions he needed to activate his Burning Draw spell card.
  • This culminates in Soulburner bringing out Pyro Phoenix to destroy Zeroboros, and both Revolver and Soulburner reviving their ace monsters; Borreload and Heatleo. Soulburner manages to bypass the effect of Borreload, reduce its ATK with Heatleo's Reincarnation ability, and defeat Revolver. As a result, Soulburner becomes the first tertiary protagonist in the history of the franchise to defeat a main rival; the only other two tertiary characters to have dueled the main rival were Joey/Jonouchi and Shark against Kaiba and Kaito respectively, and both were soundly defeated.
• Episode 117: "Parallel Paths":
  • Ryoken giving Yusaku a card before the duel, harkening back to Kaiba giving one to Yugi before he dueled Marik.
  • An utterly heartbreaking one; Ai ensuring that Playmaker is going to have to duel him despite Yusaku clearly not wanting to.
  • The final duel between Playmaker and Ai.
  • Ai starts off strongly with his usual @Ignister + Judgment Arrows combo, but Playmaker's well-prepared for it and all Ai is able to accomplish is destroying Decode Talker with Dark Templar, who clash in an epic sword fight before Dark Templar prevails.
• Episode 118: "Reckless Proposal":
  • Playmaker proceeds to absolutely swarm his field, culminating in him bringing out Cyberse Magician and Cyberse Clock Dragon simultaneously, with the latter at 7500 ATK at that. As Ai later notes, since he also has Transcode Talker out, this triggers both of their effects to create a simultaneous attack and targeting lock.
  • Not to be outdone, Ai manages to bring out the rest of his @Ignister Extra Deck monsters with a single Trap Card. The following turn, Ai bypasses the lock with the effect of Water Leviathan, which doesn't target and returns Transcode to the Extra Deck, dispelling Playmaker's lock.
  • When Ai tries attacking to end the duel in one shot with the effect of Fire Phoenix, Playmaker is able to negate its effect. Cyberse Clock Dragon promptly counterattacks and smashes Ai down to 1100 LP in a single shot.
  • The culmination of the episode, Ai Link Summoning the first LINK-6 monster; The Arrival Cyberse @Ignister, which gains 1000 ATK for each of its materials and for every card on Ai's field, and is immune to card effects, and can destroy a monster once per turn. It skyrockets to 10000 ATK as soon as it's summoned.
  • Ai also anticipates that Playmaker will try to combat The Arrival with Cyberse Quantum Dragon, and deliberately keeps its immunity effect secret until then.
• Episode 119: "Self Breakdown":
  • The horrible, horrible last plan of Lightning. He left a copy that showed Ai the truth about the future were he the only Ignis to survive, thereby sending Ai down the path he took, and even in death succeeds in sabotaging human-Ignis relations.
  • Playmaker fights back by bringing out his own ultimate monster, Firewall Dragon Darkfluid. In comparison to many other duels, where The Arrival would have easily decimated it without a second thought, it comes darn close to actually defeating him.
  • Playmaker also reveals the card Revolver gave to him - his Fusion Monster Borreload Furious Dragon, which sacrifices itself to take out Judgment Arrows and enable Playmaker to almost win there and then. Revolver effectively took out the card representing Ai following Lightning's path.
• Episode 120: "Connected Worlds":
  • Despite having no cards in his hand, Playmaker uses the effects of the cards in his graveyard combined with his draw to swarm the field with three of his oldest monsters - Linkslayer, Cyberse Wizard, and Backup Secretary, and then banishes Borreload Furious Dragon to revive Darkfluid, using them all to Link Summon the ultimate Code Talker; Accesscode Talker. And this was when Ai had a trap out that limited them to Link Summoning once.
  • Accesscode destroys Ai's entire field systematically, but Ai is still able to make the battle a draw. As the music swells we're treated to a gorgeous clash between The Arrival and Accesscode.
  • Once that happens, Ai revives Dark Templar. Playmaker then reveals the card he'd banished on his second turn; Recoded Alive. Just as it did against Revolver, it saves him by bringing back a Decode Talker, and this time it wins the battle thanks to the first Trap Playmaker used, Code Hack.
  • The final shots of the episode, Playmaker has returned to LINK VRAINS even stronger than before according to Revolver, and despite rigging events so that he'd die regardless of the outcome, Ai managed to survive. Even better, his confusion indicates that even he isn't sure how it happened. He wasn't joking when he bragged about surviving to Ryoken in episode 76.

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