Beginner's Guide to Master Duel's Economy and F2P Friendly Tips [Weekly Gem Farming Method Included!]

This guide will atempt to give new or potential Master Duel players some information and tips about the game's economy from the perspective of a F2P player.

Introduction

Hello there and welcome to this informative guide. Here I'll only give some starting information and tips to encourage players to play the game and understand the economy from the perspective of a F2P player.

Gems

I believe talking about the main currency is a right way to start. With Gems you can open Packs and other goodies in the Shop. You get Gems by leveling your Account, completing Missions, leveling the Duel Pass, and buying them with money.

As a new player, you'll get A LOT of Gems thanks to the Beginner Missions. Don't spend them right away, even if you get to the 10K Gem cap. You'll be able to collect exceeding Gems from the Gifts button.

The first thing you should buy with these Gems is the Duel Pass, which costs 700 Gems. This is a typical Battle Pass with a nice twist: You'll get your 700 Gems back while leveling through it. With the Duel Pass, you'll get a high value of resources and goodies, and you should always save 700 Gems in your account for the Duel Pass.

Shop and Packs

Usually, there's three Normal Packs available in the Shop: Two timed ones and the Master Pack. Never buy from the Master Pack, since it has every single card available and it's practically impossible to get what you want.



Secret Packs are your main source of cards, but at first you won't be able to see them in the Shop. These Packs include all of the cards from a specific archetype, with some fillers. For example, the Cosmic Mechanical Entities Secret Pack include Krawlers, Mekk-Knights and Knightmares. You need to unlock them. I'll explain how this works in the Card Crafting section.



The Bonus Pack is a nice filler Pack which can only be opened by spending Tickets. You get these tickets from playing Duels or completing Missions. Open them when you have them, they're free!

Should you buy Structure Decks?

Depends on you. If you're interested in the archetype, you can get a lot of useful cards at once for 500 Gems. The downside is that you only get one copy of each card, and that is the reason why they can (and should) be bought three times.

Best Value Items in the Shop

The Shop has been receiving some good items since the release of Master Duel. One of the best ones are the Bundles, which include 10 Master Packs and a guaranteed copy of a staple card for 750 Gems. Staple cards are very valuable cards in modern Yu-Gi-Oh! and they fit in almost every single deck.

It's recommended to acquire all of these Bundles as soon as possible. They can be found in the Special > Bundle Deals section of the Shop.



Another valuable item is the Duel Experts pack. This pack includes a huge amount of staples of any kind and it's the best pack to open if you are looking for these cards. They also include alternate arts for some of the cards, which is a funny bonus.
Sadly, this pack is only available for a set amount of time. If you miss it, you'll have to wait until Konami puts it back in again, usually during special events like Master Duel Anniversary.

Card Crafting & Secret Packs

Card Crafting is what makes Master Duel a nice F2P game in my opinion. You'll be able to craft any specific card you want if you have the Crafting Points (CP) available.



Crafting Points are divided by Rarity (N, R, SR and UR, just like the cards). For example, If you want to craft an UR card, you'll only spend UR Crafting Points. These Crafting Points are obtained by leveling the Duel Pass, completing Missions and dismantling cards you don't need. It's very intuitive.



It costs 30 CP to craft any card, regardless of rarity, and dismantling a card will give you 10 CP. So normally, you'll dismantle three cards to craft one.

The exception to this are Glossy and Royal-Finished cards, which are cosmetics effects for your cards. If you dismantle a Glossy card you'll get 15 CP, and a Royal-Finished card will give you 30 CP. There's a chance to get these special cards when opening Packs or crafting them.

But you won't always have enough CP to craft the cards you need. When that happens, your only solution will be to open Packs. So, which one do you need to open?

The first answer to that question is "Not the Master Pack". The second one will be answered by the cards themselves. Let's say we want to craft a Cyber Dragon Deck. Where do I begin? Let's search for a card of that Deck, in this case, Cyber Dragon Nova. There's a button at the bottom of the selected card "How to Obtain" telling you which Pack has the card.



As you can see, you can get Cyber Dragon Nova from the Pearlescent Cyber Dragons Secret Pack. As I said in the Secret Packs section, Secret Packs include all the cards from a specific archetype. So now that we know that we can get all the Cyber Dragon related cards from this Secret Pack, we only need to unlock it.

To unlock a Secret Pack, you simply need to craft a SR or UR card from the Secret Pack you want to unlock. Doing this we force the Secret Pack to appear in the Shop for 24 hours and you can start pulling from it. After 24 hours, the Secret Pack will vanish from the Shop and you'll need to unlock it again.

*Note: This is not the only way to unlock Secret Packs, but it's the easiest. You can also unlock Secret Packs when you get SR or UR cards from other Packs or clearing the Solo Campaigns.

*Note 2: New or updated Secret Packs including new cards will take some time to be available in the Shop. Because of this, the newest cards will only be available for a time in their Selection Packs. After that, the only way to acquire them will be the Master Pack (NO) or crafting them until the new/updated Secret Packs are pushed to the Shop.

Consistent Weekly Gem Farming Method

This is a very simple way to get 1000 Gems (10 Packs, or whatever cosmetic or bundle you want) every single week with minimum grinding.



For this method we'll just make use of our Daily Missions. The Daily Missions are:

• Normal Summon a monster 3 times.
  
• Special Summon a monster 3 times.
  
• Activate 3 Spells.
  
• Activate 2 Traps.
  
• Ritual/Synchro/Xyz Summon a monster 3 times.
  
• Fusion/Pendulum/Link Summon a monster 3 times.
  
• Destroy a card 5 times.
  
• Win a Duel.
  
• Duel in Solo Mode 3 times.

If you don't complete your Daily Missions, they'll stack until you have all 9 of them available to complete. This is exactly what we want.

Once we have the 9 Daily Missions, we can start Duelling*. Depending on your Deck, you can potentially complete more than 3 in only one or two Duels.
*This doesn't mean you can't play the game until you have the 9 Daily Missions, just don't collect the rewards from any until you have all of them.

This is the important part: Claim only 3 Missions that your Deck is able to easily complete.
For example: My main Deck is Labrynth, so I can easily complete the Special Summon, Trap, Destroy Cards and of course Win Missions. Normal Summon and Spell are harder, so if I complete them I won't claim them. The other Summon missions are impossible for my Deck so I just ignore them, and the Solo Mode one is a free one.

Bonus tip: At the end of the month all your Missions will reset if you don't claim them, which is the purpose of the Days Left counter on every Mission. Claim all Missions you have completed on the last day to get a bit more Gems, then wait until you have all 9 Missions again to restart the method.

Claiming only those 3 Missions guarantees that those same Missions will be available again on the next Daily Reset (10:00 AM PST) so you can farm the same 3 Missions every day.

Claiming 3 Daily Missions grants us 120 Gems (40 each). Now we just need to claim two more things: Daily Login and DUEL LIVE.



For the Daily Login, just go to the Login section in the Missions menu, and claim your Daily Login, which will grant you 20 Gems daily or 50 Gems only in your 10th and 20th Login of the month.



For the Duel LIVE, just go to the DUEL LIVE button in the upper menu and watch any replay posted there. You don't even have to watch it, just start a replay and exit whenever you can. This will grant you an additional 5 Gems daily once you claim it.

In total, you'll get 145 Gems daily*, which means exactly 1015 Gems a week.
*175 in your 10th and 20th login of the month.

Rookie and Returner Mutual Follower Campaign

On the 2nd Anniversary celebration of Master Duel, Konami deployed a Referral system for new players and returnees that haven't played in more than a month since their last login. You will be able to claim a Free 'Blaze of Albaz' Structure Deck, which is an easy to learn, solid and competitive Fusion-based Deck. You'll be able to claim even more rewards such as Gems if you manage to reach Bronze 4 in Ranked!
Here's how to do it.



Go to the Friends section, in the upper right corner.

You'll get these screens, click on "Rookie and Returner Follower Campaign". Then click on "Enter Campaign Code". Mine is "26db0f09"!


You can find a lot of codes to enter in the Master Duel's Subreddit Code Megathread here!

Random Tips

• Plan your resources carefully. Keep an eye on your CPs. You know that crafting one card cost 30 CP and dismantling a basic foil card gives you 10. Do math, use the calculator. Plan what you can craft and you cannot, which card has priority and which card doesn't. Save CPs to unlock a Secret Pack and spend the Gems you need in those 24 hours. The first week you'll be flooding in Gems, but after that you'll start getting less. Again, be careful and plan your spending.
  
  
• When pulling from Packs, always pull 10 Packs at once. There are SR and UR guarantees pulling this way. This is written in the Details > Important Notes section on every Pack.
  
  
• Buy the Duel Pass with your starting Gems. It has an insane value and you only need to Duel other players to level through it, no specific missions or anything. Remember that the Duel Pass will give you back the 700 Gems you used to buy it, so always save 700 Gems to get the Duel Pass!
  
  
• Clear the Solo Campaigns. They give you Starter Decks, Gems, Account XP and help you progress through the Beginner Missions.
  
  
• Research on your own. As a new player, search for archetypes or playstyles you'd enjoy. Watch videos and read about them to decide what it's fun for you. A nice place to start is Master Duel Meta[www.masterduelmeta.com] website, which has a Tier List based on Weekly Community Tournaments and lists for the most played Decks every season.
  
  
• If you're not sure about what to play and don't want to commit to a playstyle yet, play Swordsoul or Branded. They're consistent, meta-resilient and competitive Synchro and Fusion decks with very simple combos. It's what could be considered a "Midrange Deck" in other TCGs.
  
  
• Read the cards. Take your time, turn times are long so you have time to read what your opponent effects do. Never attack going blind.
  
  
• Don't get discouraged when your opponent throws at you a 3 minute combo in the first turn and OTK's you on your first ever Ranked match. Everyone has been there. Learn about cards which negates the effects of your opponent's and plan to get them. Again, research on your own and watch videos about how to use or how to fight certain Decks. For me, one of the best things of Yu-Gi-Oh! is the theorycrafting.
  
  
• Losing doesn't mean your Deck doesn't work. Strategy is very different from luck, and in TCG games you always need luck. If you have a bad hand and your opponent don't, it's not your fault. It happens.

Closing Thoughts

I hope you found this guide informative and I hope even more that you enjoy Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel more thanks to that. Yu-Gi-Oh! is an amazing TCG that has been neglected in the digital side for a long time, and I really wish this game succeeds and has a recognition similar to Hearthstone's.

Now go there and become the King of Games!

[Saro u Cobra]

RIP Tenpai my beloved , probably the best (cost-effective) deck for F2Ps since Branded Despia

[nullpo]

Can't say this enough, every beginner should read this guide. I bricked this account since I play master duel to learn evil twin deck that my friend gave the OCG version for as birthday gift. poured it all on this account, now I'm left with no gems and no valid deck. Hopefully others can avoid my pitfall.

[Saldyn]

Added "Best Value Items in the Shop" section to the guide. I hope this helps to navigate dubious players towards good shop purchases

[Saldyn]

Updated for the 2025 Rookie and Returner Mutual Follow Campaign, you can get a Branded structure deck this time . Fixed some typos too.

@CR4SH_0VER_R1DE Because I'm telling people how to use the resources ingame, not how the game is competitively . There's meta in every single competitive game, in League of Legends everyone uses the same champions, in Counter Strike everyone uses the same tactics and weapons, and in TCGs the majority uses the seasonal best decks. I don't use a meta deck, they're boring to me, and I consistently reach high ranks. So yeah, no p2w. Also yes, there are bots ingame, and they're free wins lmao.

[idiot 3 alt (7)]

https://youtu.be/ARTiHkBaBzo

[Arfith]

wwwwwww

[NepNepVT 🔌⚙]

Something tells me tenpai dragon and counters made someone a lil' mad~ <3
vvv vvv

[CR4SH_0VER_R1DE]

how about just say its built around everyone having the same decks and special summoning effect blocking and link summoning to death this game is pay to win or bot to win its useless to even try i suggest people just play a different game altogether

[Finalaharl]

Hello, I dunno if it's allowed, but here is my code for Rookie and returner mutual follower.

3388594c

Thanks for your help guys !

[Saldyn]

Updated some things for 2024 and added a weekly gem farm method!