This is part of a series of articles on the Yu-Gi-Oh! Trading Card Game, written to assist players participating in the Cup of Greed tournament, hosted by Pod of Greed (the only podcast officially sponsored by KaibaCorp).
This is the last in a three-part series on using EDOPro. It goes over dueling in EDOPro, setting up a duel room, and tips on dueling an AI opponent.
The basic interface is pretty straightforward. Clicking on a card gives you a set of contextual options. For example, if I clicked on Foolish Burial I could either activate or set it, whereas if I clicked on Torrential Tribute, my only option would be to set it. You can also view the contents of your Extra Deck and you or your opponent's Graveyard.
One thing to note about playing cards is that EDOPro is ruthless when it comes to taking back your moves. Once you've started doing something, you can almost never undo it, so play your cards carefully.
In the middle of the screen, between the two fields, you can see the buttons "M1" and "EP". The first is the current phase (Main Phase 1) and the second is the phase I can advance to (End Phase). Since it's the first turn, I can't conduct a Battle Phase, but normally there would also be a "BP" button.
If you want to cancel or back out of a submenu, or respond No to a dialog prompt, you can right-click anywhere on the screen.
The same ring of light appears over your Extra Deck when you can Synchro Summon something.
One key item is the Log. The left pane is normally for displaying card text, but it has several other tabs as well, including the Log tab. Unlike most logs, which record every event, EDOPro's log only records only what the developers thought would be useful for players to reference. In this case, I played two copies of Tuning to add Junk Synchron and Quickdraw Synchron to my hand, and the log recorded my showing them. The results of coin tosses and dice rolls (Dice Jar!) also appear in the log.
Next, if you look at the top left, you can see a big "Surrender" button. Under that are three buttons that say "Chain: OFF", "Always pause", and "Chain: ON". These change how EDOPro pauses to let you respond to game events.
For the most part, if you have something that can activate at a given timing, EDOPro will prompt you at that time. Otherwise it will not prompt you. But it also has some... I was going to call it smart coding, but that's overblown. Basically, EDOPro smooths over some details of game flow, rather than stopping you at every single possible juncture (even if it sometimes feels like it is). That's good 98% of the time, but if you have a set of responses or a chain-based combo you absolutely want to get off in a specific way, you may want to temporarily turn on Chain: ON. This will make the system stop at every slightest opportunity you have to activate an effect.
Always pause is even more stringent: it makes the system stop at every opportunity, even if you don't have anything you can activate. This isn't something you want to do very often, but if your opponent is in the middle of some complicated combo, you may want to stop from time to time to read what their cards are doing.
Last is Chain: OFF, which is the opposite. While active, the system will never ask you for a response. This is something you want to be very cautious about using, but it can also be quite convenient when all you have is a set MST you aren't going to activate until the End Phase.
Now, there are keyboard shortcuts for these three options. Holding down A, S, or D will apply Chain: OFF, Chain: ON, or Always pause, respectively, as long as the key is held down. If you want a sort of mnemonic, from left to right it goes OFF (A), ON (S), VERY ON (D).
Speaking of keyboard shortcuts, you can press F1 to view your Graveyard, F2 for your banished pile, F3 for your Extra Deck, F4 isn't relevant (it lists the Xyz Materials you have attached to Xyz Monsters), F5 for your opponent's Graveyard, and F6 for their banished pile.
One useful feature of these hotkeys I learned today is that, when EDOPro gives you a prompt to respond, you can't click on things on the field, so you can't check your Graveyard or Extra Deck or things like that. But you can still check them using these hotkeys.
Setting up a Duel
From the main menu, Servers will let you set up a duel room for an online duel, while LAN + AI will let you do the same for LAN, and more importantly will let you duel an AI opponent.
The server locations are US West, EU Central, and Asia, with all but Asia having separate Casual and Competitive servers. People aren't particularly worried about their ping when playing Yu-Gi-Oh!, and EDOPro isn't swamped with traffic, so which server you pick isn't important in my experience. US West (Casual) seems to often be empty, in my experience.
On the servers screen, notice the Nickname box where you can change your display name. When it's time for the tournament, remember to put your duelsona's name here. On the other side of the screen, notice the checkboxes for Show locked rooms and Show started rooms. If you don't check the former, you will not be able to see duel rooms that require passwords. Check the latter if you want to spectate a duel already in progress. If you want to start a duel room, click Host.
One important thing about the list of available duels: it does not auto-refresh. New rooms do not get added to the list, and duels that have started don't get removed from it. To refresh the list, you must click the Refresh button at the bottom of the screen.
These are the settings you will want during the Cup of Greed. Most of these are default: the ones that aren't are the banlist, setting the duel to Best of 3 (a Match), and the Rule being set to Master Rule 1. Near the bottom, notice the boxes for a Password and Notes. For a note, you can put something like "Cup of Greed" to make your room easier to see. A password makes sure no one but your opponent will try to join.
If the system isn't letting you and your opponent duel, the first thing to try would be switching your Forbidden List to N/A.
Dueling an AI
To duel an AI, click LAN + AI, then Host.
For your duel settings, you will need to change your Forbidden List to N/A, and the Rule to Master Rule 3. The decks used by EDOPro's AI are all much newer than the 5D's era, so if you don't set your list to N/A the card pools used by your deck and theirs will clash. The AI are also only compatible with certain versions of the Master Rules, and Master Rule 3 is the oldest supported version.
Master Rule 3 has some important differences from MR1: The player who goes first doesn't get to draw (so they start with five cards instead of six), both players can control a Field Spell at the same time, and there's also a difference in how "priority" works.
Priority is a game mechanic I'm realizing I maybe should have explained before now, so uh... if you want to learn about priority, you can read about it here. Note the explanation on Ignition Effect Priority, which is the salient point. That "outdated example" works under Master Rule 1, but does not work under Master Rule 2 or later.
On this screen, click Local AI, and then the window on the right will appear, letting you choose the AI's deck. Now, EDOPro's AI is bad, but most of the decks use cards from ZEXAL and later, so the power level on many of them is extreme. You can also have the AI try to play one of your own decks, but then things get really nutty (the engine for an unknown deck is named "Feelin' Lucky" for a reason).
In terms of raw challenge, the difficulty on the AI decks goes something like:
- Normal Monster Mash (Difficulty: Story)
- Normal Monster Mash II (Difficulty: Story)
- Frog (Difficulty: Easy)
- Horus (Difficulty: Hard)
- R5NK (Difficulty: Nightmare)
- Dragunity (Difficulty: Nightmare)
...And they get harder from there. Normal Monster Mash is the weakest deck, comprising nothing but Level 1 Normal Monsters. I've seen someone else use Normal Monster Mash II and it's similar, but when I try to use it, EDOPro says the deck is illegal.
Frog isn't Frog FTK or Frog Monarch, it's just regular Frogs. In other words, it's GX-era Frogs with some 5D's-era cards. It can pump up its monsters with Wetlands and occasionally make a Dupe Lock, and the Froggy Forcefields (additional Mirror Forces) can spell trouble, but on the whole there's not much it can do to you. If you're going to test against something, I recommend Horus. Despite the name, it doesn't focus much on Horus the Black Flame Dragon, but is rather a generic Dragon beatdown deck, focusing mainly on Level 4 Dragons with 1900-2000 ATK. Don't feel bad about losing to it; when it draws well, it can be absolutely brutal.
One word of caution. While you can and should test out your deck against the AI, you should not let the AI guide your deckbuilding. None of these decks (that I've seen, anyway) have any way of responding to summons like Bottomless Trap Hole or Torrential Tribute, nor do they have any other kind of disruption or negation, like Solemn Judgment. If you play against the AI, you're going to get used to your plays being allowed to go through, which isn't going to happen with a normal opponent.
UPDATE: Dueling Yourself
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| Right: Hosting. Left: Joining. Behind: POG POG POG POG POG POG |
If you're dueling yourself, remember to set the Rule to Master Rule 1.
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