Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V has been deconstructing a lot of tropes common to the franchise, to the point where it qualifies as a Deconstructor Fleet, largely of Internal Deconstruction examples.
- New Powers as the Plot Demands, which is always used in the Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise, is deconstructed with Yuya's spontaneous creation of the Pendulum Monsters. Normally in the previous series, characters create new cards out of nowhere during climatic battles against major villains, and are supported by a pre-established supernatural entity. The cards that are created are following the pre-established rules of the game, and other characters react with admiration of the duelist's ability. ARC-V completely turns that on its head. Yuya is not in any danger during his duel with Strong Ishijima, it's literally the first episode so no pre-established supernatural factors are in play, and instead of creating a card that abides with pre-established knowledge (say, bring out a new Synchro Monster in a setting where everyone uses them), it's a never before seen card type and summoning method, that being Pendulum. The reactions also reflect it - the audience, Yuya's opponent and the duel commentator all wonder if the move is legal and check if there are any errors in the system.
- Another internal trope that Yuya's creation of Pendulum monsters deconstructs is Uniqueness Value. All main characters have one-of-a-kind cards, but that's usually not brought up In-Universe, unless someone points out that this card is a Signature Mon. With Yuya and his Pendulum cards, everyone gets on his case. A bunch of people try to join You Show Duel School (which Yuya is attending) to learn how to Pendulum Summon, others call him a cheater and a coward, some people straight up try to steal the cards (Sawatari for example), Sora is outright stalking Yuya and his close friends before inserting himself in their group because he finds Pendulum interesting, and Akaba Reiji is creating his own Pendulum cards while spying on Yuya. In addition, since Pendulum Summoning is so new and rare with unusual mechanics, nobody really knows how to counter them, and nobody expects to see them in a duel. This completely backfires on the main cast when Big Bad Akaba Leo reveals that he also created his own Pendulum cards by observing Yuya and the other Pendulum users, and calls out the main cast for being surprised by it.
- The Hard Light technology of the holograms is viciously deconstructed. Arc-V makes it clear what technology of that level would more likely be used for — war. Repeatedly, characters do battle by using their holographic monsters to fight (not a proper duel, just a monster battle), characters are at risk of getting harmed by the holograms, at extreme times, there's immense property damage, and the holograms are often used to get around easier by riding on monsters. Being a duelist in Arc-V means more than just being good at the Duel Monsters card game — it means being athletic enough to run and jump around fantastic Action Duel fields, and having the courage to do so while knowing that serious injury is a probable risk.
- Taken to its logical extreme with Zarc, who dueled with the intent of hurting his opponents in order to get a rise out of the crowds. Eventually, he fused himself with his dragon cards and became strong enough to destroy the world.
- The Superpowered Evil Side trope is deconstructed. Those that fall into it lose all control over themselves, have no control over when it happens, and when it stops they're usually horrified by what they've done.
- Since the use of a Superpowered Evil Side is actually just possession by a God of Evil hell bent on destroying the multiverse, every character with a Superpowered Evil Side qualifies as an Apocalypse Maiden, unless they're a willing Antichrist. Looking at you, Yuri.
- Episode 50 deconstructs Recruit Teenagers with Attitude, as once the protagonists learn that the entire Battle Royale was designed to find Lancers, rather than be proud or excited to join, most of them get mad at Reiji for putting lives on the line so carelessly and are far from thrilled at the prospect of becoming child soldiers.
- Not Just a Tournament is deconstructed with the Maiami Championship. In previous series, all tournaments proceeded normally with the winner getting a title in the end, and the public being completely unaware of any supernatural ongoings. The Maiami Championship however, the moment it achieves its real purpose (pick members for the Lancers), it gets cancelled and then LDS publicly announces its real purpose.
- It's not even afraid to deconstruct things introduced only a few episodes earlier. During Yuya's duel with his mom, his mother tells him how his father use to be able to end any conflict with everyone having a smile on their face, no matter how serious the matter was. Naturally, Yuya attempts to follow in his footsteps when a mix up results in the Synchro Dimension Security coming after him. He starts his Entertainment Duel routine, and Security promptly responds by...frankly not giving a shit and calling more officers on his arse when he starts coming out on top.
- The idea of Mooks is deconstructed by Obelisk Force and Security. They are strong precisely because they attack in numbers and use the same decks over and over; they outnumber opponents and gang up on them, and their decks all synergize perfectly to create devastating combos. Even if they lose the first round, they keep coming to Zerg Rush you until you either collapse from physical exhaustion or make a misplay and lose a duel. The heroes also only defeat them because they are all professional duelists, your standard civilian wouldn't stand a chance.
- Duels Decide Everything is twisted in all sorts of ways, often with Aversions, Subversions or Deconstructions. A few notable deconstructions are as follows:
- Any duel between the Dragon Boys is bound to end in disaster regardless of who wins because those duels only hasten Zarc's revival. Which is exactly what happens when Yuya finally beats Yuri.
- As Asuka displays, this trope can bite you in the ass if your opponent is more skilled than you. She challenges Yuri even after proving that she could just knock him out, and gets carded for it.
- A constant trend in the Synchro Dimension is Security challenging fugitives to duels in order to have their reinforcements capture them. Many duelists pick up on this and so they either resort to monster fights or physical violence to escape.
- Interestingly the Jerk with a Heart of Gold trope usually displayed in The Rival is deconstructed here. Usually, the cast can see through the rival's rough exterior and understand their good intentions. But here, Jack's attitude and words only make everyone see his actions as nothing but arrogance and full of spite instead of what he intended.
- The Serious Business attitudes towards the card game. Normally, the negative effects this causes for the duelist are supernatural (Orichalcos, Shadow Realm, soul sealed in doll, sent to the stars, soul stolen, etc), and are not known to the public. In the Synchro Dimension, the punishment is man-made slavery, and the public is not only aware of it, but they aren't even bothered by it.
- The All-Loving Hero trope is deconstructed with Yuya. He tries to be as peaceful as possible and he usually fails as a result. Most of the time, his attempts are ignored by his enemy, who instead use it to gain the advantage. When he simply can't take all the stress he's under, Yuya tends to become depressed or snap violently because he's unable to deal with the cruelty of the world in a healthy manner.
- The Blithe Spirit trope is horribly deconstructed. Yuya attempts to change the City by showcasing his Entertainment Dueling and calling them out on their apathy, but instead of the Commons seeing Yuya's points and changing, they mock and hate him for attacking their culture. A major part of Yuya's development in the Synchro Arc is his realization that blithe spirits doesn't work; they only anger those you are trying to change.
- La Résistance is deconstructed with the Commons revolution. At first "taking down the Tops" sounds good, but over time, the Commons become increasingly radicalized and paranoid to the point of falling under Black-and-White Insanity. When the revolution breaks out, it's essentially in the form of mobs with actual torches causing massive property damage heading towards the Tops to do who-knows-what to them. Not even children are spared from the chaos. In addition, when cooler heads try to point out the Commons' Skewed Priorities (the Academia invading), or point out that this attitude will lead to a Full-Circle Revolution (Crow in regards to the treatment of children), they are immediately labelled Category Traitors.
- Heel Realization is deconstructed by every Fusion soldier that does so.
- Sora's process of realizing that he's with the bad guys takes ages. He starts off as a loyal and proud Academia spy, who unexpectedly grows just attached enough to Yuya and Yuzu. Prior to that, he couldn't even conceive of dueling being used for peaceful purposes. It takes the Professor targeting Yuzu to put the first real dent in Sora's beliefs, and several encounters with Yuya to make him realize the views he has been raised with are wrong. Yuya in fact has to repeat the words Sora said to him to make him realize what Academia looks like from an outside perspective.
- Serena starts with a rosy view of Academia's war, as she's convinced by their propaganda that they are honorable soldiers with noble goals. When Yuzu describes what she heard second-hand from the Xyz users and Sora, Serena accuses her of lying, and it takes a fair bit of convincing to make her at least talk to someone who's been there. It never once occurred to her that Xyz users may be innocent, and it shakes her really badly when it does.
- Dennis was already Becoming the Mask, and believes that Redemption Equals Death. So he cards himself.
- The biggest example is Edo, who has been raised by the Academia since childhood and as such, he strongly believes in their ideals. When Yusho was able to reach him, he went through a massive freak out, unable to admit beliefs that he had for so long could be wrong. Ultimately reconstructed after Yuya beats him in their second Duel.
- The For Happiness trope is deconstructed by Zarc of all people. He truly wanted to make people happy, but the people of the Original Dimension found joy in brutality. As a result, he started getting more and more brutal to satiate their ever-increasing bloodlust until he snapped.
- Identity Amnesia is deconstructed by Leo. After the dimensions were split, he lost all memory of who he was. Due to having lasting memories of the Original Dimension, he created a new life for himself. Usually, for this trope, the person that suffers from this focuses on their original memories and identity. Here, we see that because Leo focused on his memories of the Original Dimension, he truly hurt Himika and Reiji.
- The Chessmaster is deconstructed in a different manner for each and every instance of this trope, combining it with other trope deconstructions simultaneously.
- Reiji Akaba combines this with Grade-School C.E.O.. While he is a genius, his youth and inexperience mean that it doesn't occur to him to make backup plans in case the original plans fail. For example, he assumes the LDS Youth division will be able to defeat the Obelisk Force without actually knowing how strong the Obelisk Force is (they get crushed). When the Lancers travelled to the Synchro Dimension, he had no plan to contact the Lancers in case they were separated, which is exactly what happens. His father calls him out on this late in the series, telling him that this kind of short-sightedness is unfitting for a businessman...immediately after another one of Reiji's plans blows up in his face.
- Roget combines it with Manipulative Bastard. He quite literally treats other people as chess pieces, and assumes that they will act in ways he expects them to if he gives them the right sales pitch. However, his expectations are always defied because he completely fails to take into account other people's pre-existing biases; his plan to recruit Yuya fails because Yuya prioritizes uniting people with dueling instead of defeating the Academia, any unfair advantage he gives to Serena during her duel goes to waste because she operates on Honor Before Reason, and just about every aspect of his coup fails because the changed circumstances lead the characters to act in ways he can't predict (the Council being convinced to exercise its authority, Yuzu using her position as a hostage to give insider info, and Sergei breaking out of his brainwashing due to being a Death Seeker finally getting what he wanted all along.
- Akaba Leo's plans are ruined due to his emotional bias. His bias towards his daughter Ray and against the man who killed her (Zarc) means that he doesn't treat their respective Reincarnations as their own people with their own personalities and instead as fake images of the real deals. He puts Serena and later the other bracelet girls in Gilded Cages, while using Yuri as his enforcer because he assumed Yuri was predisposed to violence. It's pointed out to him that if he just let things be and let go of Ray, Zarc's revival, which he was trying to prevent, would not be an issue in the first place.
- Ray's plan is a case of Gone Horribly Right along with a deconstruction of Morality Chain. She placed her reincarnations next to Zarc's to have them all grow attached to each other and act as the boys' Morality Chains. However, it works so well that the Dragon Boys prioritize the girls' safety over their morals or wishes, making them just as prone to extreme and violent behavior as before - and even worse, nobody can stop them.
- The Big Bad having Purposefully Overpowered cards is Deconstructed in Zarc's Supreme King Dragon deck. The villains are usually given powerful cards in order to challenge the protagonists more than the usual run-of-the-mill villain, but they're usually defeated either through the heroes' skills or by magically conjuring a new ace-in-the-hole. However, Zarc and his dragons are designed to completely run roughshod over everyone without giving them the chance to fight back, as well as heal whatever damage they do end up doing, and Yuya, the protagonist who would usually be able to stand up to him in the end, can't duel since Yuya is a part of Zarc. As a result, most of the duel against him is mainly Zarc just wiping out the remaining heroes one-by-one. In addition, instead of demonstrating that Zarc is a skilled or powerful opponent, Zarc's blatantly unfair cards, which are implied to have been conjured by Zarc himself, just demonstrate that he's a Sore Loser and Dirty Coward who's afraid of losing, which he's quickly called out upon.
- The series falls under Type 4 of the Mons genre, which is a deconstruction, with its treatment of the concept of dueling, the foundations of the franchise itself. When Leo invented Real Solid Vision to allow Duel Monsters to physically exist, the ancient Duel Spirits started using that to manifest in the real world through them. Turns out they aren't happy at people using Duel Monsters as a game where they fight each other for the entertainment of humans, so they eventually grew angry and started attacking people.
- Ocassionally the series does not deconstruct specific tropes but rather story aspects from the previous series.
- The Battle Royale arc deconstructs the Battle City arc of the second series anime. There, a bunch of duelists wandering town dueling each other at random as a secret force of antagonists invaded the city was presented in a highly formulaic series of normal duels focusing on the two main protagonists before the antagonists got involved in covert abductions. In this series, Battle Royale mode is added, letting duelists enter duels already on progress, and even team up on other duelists 2 or even 3-on-1. The result is total chaos as multiple duels with multiple duelists in them in numerous different configurations happen across multiple episodes, and the spectators and announcer struggle to keep up constantly switching focus on the action.
- The Synchro Dimension seems to be a deconstruction of the entire second season of 5D's. When Satellite and Neo Domino City were connected at the end of the first season, they merged cleanly. Here, despite the Tops and Commons both living in the City, the classism is even worse, what with the Tops looking down on the Commons and the Commons having a lot of aggression towards the Tops and seeming to be one push away from a total rebellion.
- Episode 144 deconstructs Zexal's ending, in which the main cast temporarily died and were brought back to life with no real mental scaring. Episode 144's plot is that the Xyz Dimension is still scarred by their experiences to the point of being unable to duel.
