It's no secret that Yu Gi Oh has gone down hill over the last decade or so. Rampant power creep has created a situation where the overwhelming majority of games are decided within the first two turns. This is a problem that Konami seems to have no desire to fix and often times seems to be actively trying to make worse. Then you have Duel Links which fixes every problem associated with modern Yu Gi Oh, but is massively held back by being about as pay-to-win as mobile games get. Since I expect if you're reading this review you will already have some knowledge of Yugioh and how it's played, I will mainly be focusing on how it fixes the core problems with the TCG.
First, and this is probably the most important difference Duel Links has from the TCG: the existence of skills. Skills are abilities that are played from outside your deck, such as starting the duel with a certain card in play or giving your monsters an ATK boost. The existence of skills drastically levels the playing field between decks, and can even turn what would otherwise be a terrible deck into a meta-defining threat. You can get to the highest rank of "King of Games" with just about anything, thanks in large part to the existence of skills.
Second biggest change is the card pool. A lot of high powered cards from the TCG cannot be used in Duel Links, which just generally creates a much more interactive game overall, since you can't simply put out 6 negations turn 1 and No-Sell everything your opponent throws at you.
Last big change that helps to fix the TCG is how the banlist works. Instead of "limited" and "semi-limited" we have "limited 1", "limited 2", and "limited 3". What this essentially means is that, for example, you can only have two limited 2 cards in your deck in total. Unlike semi-limits, a card being limited 2 is quite a big hit. It means that you have to choose between running the maximum copies of that card or miss out on powerful staples that are also limited 2. It's an even bigger hit if other key cards in the same deck are also put to Limited 2.
But now for the big downside to all this: that Duel Links is extremely pay-to-win. Some products, such as Structure Decks, can only be purchased a limited number of times with in-game currency called "gems", requiring real money to purchase any more beyond that. Konami will also periodically just drastically reduce the number of gems you can get. Konami also stuffs nearly every box wit pack filler, ensuring that you will have to spend a lot of gems to build that new deck you really wanted to play. There's also no crafting system like most digital card games, meaning that in most cases you will have to play the gacha to get the card you want. There are Dream Tickets which can be exchanged U Rs or S Rs from all but the most recent few boxes, which come around just often enough that you don't have to spend your gems on staples.
In conclusion, strongly recommend Duel Links, but only if you're prepared to spend money.
The best Yu Gi Oh Game locked behind a massive paywall
It's no secret that Yu Gi Oh has gone down hill over the last decade or so. Rampant power creep has created a situation where the overwhelming majority of games are decided within the first two turns. This is a problem that Konami seems to have no desire to fix and often times seems to be actively trying to make worse. Then you have Duel Links which fixes every problem associated with modern Yu Gi Oh, but is massively held back by being about as pay-to-win as mobile games get. Since I expect if you're reading this review you will already have some knowledge of Yugioh and how it's played, I will mainly be focusing on how it fixes the core problems with the TCG.
First, and this is probably the most important difference Duel Links has from the TCG: the existence of skills. Skills are abilities that are played from outside your deck, such as starting the duel with a certain card in play or giving your monsters an ATK boost. The existence of skills drastically levels the playing field between decks, and can even turn what would otherwise be a terrible deck into a meta-defining threat. You can get to the highest rank of "King of Games" with just about anything, thanks in large part to the existence of skills.
Second biggest change is the card pool. A lot of high powered cards from the TCG cannot be used in Duel Links, which just generally creates a much more interactive game overall, since you can't simply put out 6 negations turn 1 and No-Sell everything your opponent throws at you.
Last big change that helps to fix the TCG is how the banlist works. Instead of "limited" and "semi-limited" we have "limited 1", "limited 2", and "limited 3". What this essentially means is that, for example, you can only have two limited 2 cards in your deck in total. Unlike semi-limits, a card being limited 2 is quite a big hit. It means that you have to choose between running the maximum copies of that card or miss out on powerful staples that are also limited 2. It's an even bigger hit if other key cards in the same deck are also put to Limited 2.
But now for the big downside to all this: that Duel Links is extremely pay-to-win. Some products, such as Structure Decks, can only be purchased a limited number of times with in-game currency called "gems", requiring real money to purchase any more beyond that. Konami will also periodically just drastically reduce the number of gems you can get. Konami also stuffs nearly every box wit pack filler, ensuring that you will have to spend a lot of gems to build that new deck you really wanted to play. There's also no crafting system like most digital card games, meaning that in most cases you will have to play the gacha to get the card you want. There are Dream Tickets which can be exchanged U Rs or S Rs from all but the most recent few boxes, which come around just often enough that you don't have to spend your gems on staples.
In conclusion, strongly recommend Duel Links, but only if you're prepared to spend money.