The night before the Duelist Kingdom finals, the participants are paired off. Yugi will duel against Mai, and Joey against Bandit Keith. However, Croquet reveals that additional criteria is needed. Glory of the King's Hand is needed to compete for the prize money, and Glory of the King's Opposite Hand is required to duel Pegasus. Joey and Keith, who sneaked in uninvited, don't have either card. Yugi solves Joey's problem by giving him the card needed for the money shot, but Keith is determined to get one by any means necessary.
While Mai stays up late adjusting her deck, Yugi has a vivid nightmare in which his Grandpa pleads with him to stop Pegasus, and to do so he must master the power of his Millennium Puzzle. Tristan, Tea, and Bakura, still shaken by Pegasus defeating Kaiba so easily, decide he must have cheated somehow and try to find evidence of it. Meanwhile, Keith steals Joey's entry card while he's asleep.
Tristan's group finds a portrait of a woman they've never seen before, but Pegasus himself interferes and magically casts them into the castle basement. They witness an ancient dueling ritual, which, in the dub, channels the energy of the Shadow Realm—every soul trapped there feeds Pegasus's Millennium Eye, and capturing Yugi's friends and Bakura's Millennium Ring will strengthen him even more. Yami Bakura won't allow that to happen, and he erases everyone's memories of the incident. (The Japanese version had Pegasus explaining the Eye's mind-reading powers with a demonstration before being stopped by Yami Bakura.)
Yugi wakes up and prepares to duel Mai, wondering if what happened was a dream or reality.
This episode contains examples of:
- Chekhov's Gunman: Cecelia's portrait has attention drawn to it here, foreshadowing her role in Pegasus's backstory. The dub even asks if Cecilia is Pegasus's wife...which she is.
- Bowdlerize:
- In the dub, the Soul Cards of Grandpa, Kaiba, and Mokuba appear against giant monoliths instead of giant crucifixes in Yugi's nightmare. Similarly, a shot of a church with its bell ringing is removed prior to Yugi waking up.
- When Tea, Tristan and Bakura ascend the tower, the dub loses a small scene in which Tea protests about going first as she thinks that the guys will be looking up her skirt, resulting in Tristan and Bakura climbing up blindfolded.
- When Tea, Tristan and Bakura bear witness to the Shadow Game, the man that loses is engulfed in flames in the Japanese version. In the dub, the man instead vanishes in a sparkly blue light.
- Four Lines, All Waiting: Several plot threads happen at around the same time.
- He's Back!: Although Yugi defeated him in their first encounter, this episode reveals that the evil spirit of the Millennium Ring is far from gone.
- Hey, Wait!: A Talking in Your Sleep variant when Keith steals Joey's Glory of the King's Hand card:Joey: Hey, let go of that! [Keith turns around and prepares to defend himself, but finds Joey is still asleep] That's my pizza!
- It's Personal: After learning that he's been paired up against Keith, Joey looks forward to the duel, considering it a chance for payback for Keith trapping him and his friends in the underground cave.Keith: (Smugly) When I get through with you, you'll wish you were still in that cave!
- Never Say "Die": Surprisingly averted when Pegasus tells Tea, Tristan and Bakura that the one power that still eludes him is "the ability to control life over death!".
- Now You Tell Me: Upon learning that the playoffs require Glory of the King's Hand cards, Joey and Keith have this reaction, due to having entered the tournament without gaining the cards. While Yugi is more that happy to provide Joey with his spare card, Keith resorts to more deceitful methods to gain one.
- Right for the Wrong Reasons: While Tristan is correct about how Pegasus beat Kaiba by cheating, his assumptions how he did is wrong.
- That Was Not a Dream: After waking up in his room after having a nightmare where his Grandpa and the Kaiba Brothers were calling out to him, Yugi can't tell if it was a dream or not.
- Unexplained Recovery: How Yami Bakura managed to repossess Bakura after he was apparently Reaped during his Shadow Game with Yugi is never revealed.
- Villain Has a Point: Pegasus isn’t actually wrong when he calls out, Tristan, Tea, and Bakura for breaking into his private sanctuary for the window, especially when Tristan calls him out for wrongdoing.
- Wrong Genre Savvy: Tristan believes Pegasus is cheating by having one of his men spy on his opponent cards through a telescope in a tower.
