The Yu-Gi-Oh! card game is a franchise that started in 1999 and gained more and more fans as it evolved and added more rules. 

However, as the game increased in complexity, all the new and complicated rules made the game difficult to learn. It started to push new and old players away from the trading card game and online games. 

On Sept. 28, Konami released Rush Duels in an update for “Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Links,” a mobile game that allows players to experience a faster version of the standard Yu-Gi-Oh! trading card game. 

Before the update, many players were curious or concerned about how rush duels would affect the game. Once the update was released, rush duels had its own division that was completely separate from speed duels.

The rules of Rush Duels are slightly different from the standard Speed Duels that “Duel Links” is known for. 

For Rush Duels in Duel Links, both players start with a deck of 30 to 40 cards, four cards in their hands and 6,000 life points instead of 4,000. When the turn begins, the player who goes first draws until they have five cards in their hand. 

Both players are allowed to summon as many monsters as they want by using normal summons and tribute summons, but other types of monsters like fusion, synchro, XYZ, ritual and link monsters can’t be used in your deck. 

When building your deck, the monster, spell and trap cards you have available are different from the cards in Speed Duels. To start, players are given brand new cards that can only be used for Rush Duels.

Players can collect new ones for their deck from the shop, card trader, or dueling against other players. 

The reason for this change is to give all players a fresh start and simplify the game for those who enjoy a less complicated way of playing, according to Konami. 

The artwork and text of the cards for rush duels are different with the text being split into two parts, the “requirement” for activating the card’s effect and the “effect” of the card, and the artwork taking up more of the card’s space. 

The new update has given the game new life, and the players, who didn’t know anything about rush duels, are now enjoying the new way to play. With more content on the horizon for both speed and rush duels, the player base will have a good amount of content to experiment with.