firstrateduelist | KC: White Dragon Card Shop

While perusing the locations dotted along the Greed Ring, you find yourself stopping in front of what looks like an ordinary storefront. A quick read of the shop name makes you wonder, really: what's the deal here? What does "KC" stand for, and who would open a card shop in the Greed Ring?

Doesn't seem very greedy does it?

Little do you know the power in these walls...

Maybe today's one of the days where there's a dressed up draconic mascot outside, holding a box of miniature boosters! Judging by the height, it's gotta be an Imp in there.

"Hey, hey! Free samples! C'mon, take one or else the boss is gonna kick my ass."

You take one of the packs, unlabeled as it is, and crack it open with little difficulty.

Inside are five common trading cards from a game you aren't even familiar with, along with a business card sporting a white dragon with glowing cyan markings.

Kaiba Corporation: White Dragon Card Shop

Purveyor of the only Card Game Worth Learning
Duel Monsters

Seto Kaiba, owner
Contact: XXX-XXX-XXXX | UN: DragonMaster

If you flip it over--

Currently hiring counter staff, stockers, and potential Duelists.
Training will be provided for beginner Duelists.
Contact Mr. Kaiba for more details.

Do you enter? Has your interest been sufficiently piqued? Pass the threshold and learn a new game. Buy some packs. Maybe you'll even find something powerful enough to defeat the Blue-Eyes White Dragon! (doubtful, but nothing ventured, nothing gained.)

The shop is cozy, made cozier by the dark colors, with gold inlaid in the walls to match the high-class aesthetic of Greed despite the shop being new and small. Still, it interests you, doesn't it?

If the owner is at the counter or milling about as he sometimes is, you'll feel mildly compelled to partake in the cards, and then not-so-mildly compelled to learn the rules of Duel Monsters. Thankfully, he's perfectly content with explaining the different rulesets and even has a book describing them for sale. Seems like his enthusiasm for the game feeds your own.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

firstrateduelist

Penny Sleeves - Thin sleeves meant to be used as minimal archival in order to prevent surface scratches for your cards. Rare cards that you don't intend to use competitively should still be handled with care, as the thin plastic is not meant to withstand play, and trying to play with such flimsy sleeves would probably end in the cards sliding out anyway.

Card Protectors (No Design) - Sturdier and made to protect collectible cards, while still remaining flexible. The finish is matte making them easier to use for table play, but (eventual) Duel Disk play might be prohibitive. These are the sleeves you want to use to protect your cards in general, and they're big enough to be combined with the penny sleeve.

Duel Monsters Rulebook - Contains several usable rulesets for the game, including Duelist Kingdom rules with explanation of Field and Type advantages, Expert Rules including Tribute Summoning, and Dimension Duel Rules. (warning: KC: WDCS is not responsible for the inherent risk of Dimension Duels. What does that mean? Shut up is what it means.)

Deck Boxes (Multi-Color) - Store your deck when not in use, or keep a few on hand to store your growing collection! The deck boxes are made of genuine leather and hand-dyed, then detailed with an embossed KC Logo as seen on the entrance sign.

Duel Disk v2 - A wrist-mounted holographic device which will, in time, produce three-dimensional effects to enhance the Duel Monsters card game. The Disk is kitted with holographic technology at the outward flat of the blade, which project monsters, spells, and traps played on its five card zones. Solid Vision and the Duel Disk hardware are of Seto Kaiba's invention. At current, the cards do not communicate with the technology, so purchasing a Duel Disk comes with a promise that the technology will work soon, and the v2 Duel Disks can still interact with his standalone v3 for demonstration purposes.

From:

firstrateduelist

KC: WDCS currently offers THREE booster packs. Each booster contains 7 cards in different rarities. The structure includes 5 commons and 2 rares, with the predicted rates of each rarity included below:

Rare - Guaranteed* 1 in every pack
Super Rare - 1 in 5 packs
Ultra Rare - 1 in 10 packs
Secret Rare - 1 in 15 packs

*There is a chance that your guaranteed rare will be replaced with a higher rarity, therefore granting you a possibility of up to 2 high rares. However, it's also more likely to get 2 regular rares.

Playing Value of Rarities

Rare - Cards that are worth putting in low-level decks, but which may not find much use in better decks. Some diamonds in the rough exist, nonetheless. This would include cards like "Magician's Rod", or "Eternal Soul."

Super Rare - Cards which have inherent usage in higher-level competitive decks. This includes "Dark Magical Circle", "Raigeki", or "Lightning Storm". They usually serve to bolster more powerful cards.

Ultra Rare - Standout cards around which a high-level competitive deck is often constructed. While Ultra Rare cards exist which boost other Ultra Rare cards, this is generally where you'll find your deck identity, such as with "Dark Magician", "Red-Eyes Black Dragon", or the much less common "Exodia" cards.

(NOTE: None of the cards are holographic. However, the text of each card is debossed and colored based on their rarities, the colors of which are indicated in the text up there ha ha ha. Commons are regular black text and not debossed!)

BLACK booster packs contain cards which relate to "Dark Magician", "Dark Magician Girl", and "Red-Eyes Black Dragon". The cards that can be pulled from this set can be used to create control decks that are consistent in pulling from the deck and facilitating fusions, or hitting the opponent with a variety of effects that lock them down. There are cross-fusions between all three of these, so you can make a deck primarily focusing on "Dark Magician", "Red-Eyes", or "Dark Magician Girl". "Eye of Timaeus" is also included, because why not?

GREEN booster packs contain cards which relate to "Gravekeeper's" and "Trap Monster" builds. "Gravekeeper's" cards use field control, specifically through the use of "Necrovalley", which prohibits cards from being taken from within the Graveyard (except for the "Gravekeeper's" player, for which exclusions apply). "Trap Monster" decks center around cards such as "Guardian of Apophis" and "Merciless Scorpion of Serket." While these two deck types don't entirely interact, the theming for the cards harkens back to Ancient Egypt, via names, design elements, and the like. the boosters make up for the general lack of synergy by containing Equip Cards and field clearing cards such as "Power of the Guardians", "Harpie's Feather Duster", and "Lightning Storm". In fact, Green is the most heavily weighted towards non-monster cards such as Spells and Traps.

RED booster packs contain cards which relate to "Gaia", "Occult", and "Exodia" builds. "Gaia" decks make use of Warrior type "Gaia" and dragon type "Curse of Dragon" retrains meant to overwhelm the opponent and deliver crushing blows with devastating high-attack Fusions. It's a deck type best played best during the second turn of a duel to achieve an OTK. "Occult" cards revolve around lockdown and disruption strategies meant to limit opponent moves, while attempting to foster a condition in which the "Destiny Board" setup which combines with the Field Spell "Dark Sanctuary" can spell out "DEATH" in five turns and automatically win the duel. Much like this is the "Exodia" build, which can be played 1 of 2 ways: Collecting all 5 pieces of Exodia in order to win the duel automatically, or using alternate cards to summon "The Unstoppable Exodia Incarnate". Secondary cards in this set include hand boosting spells such as "Pot of Greed", "Card of Sanctity" and "Graceful Charity". It also includes cards like "Witch of the Black Forest" which can be used to pull monsters from the deck to the hand.

As a note, RED packs are very special indeed. Due to its nature, the Exodia related cards in this set are at a 2x rarity disadvantage, meaning that 1:30 packs may contain a single Exodia card (all 5 individual pieces, "The Unstoppable Exodia Incarnate", "Exodia Necross", or "Exodius the Ultimate Forbidden Lord" as an example). Additionally, each individual piece of Exodia (arms, legs, and head) are limited to one copy each per deck. This is why RED has Exodia as a tertiary build without any further boost like GREEN has with spells and traps.

Edited Date: 2025-09-28 02:10 am (UTC)

From:

firstrateduelist

Think you have what it takes to work in Seto Kaiba's card shop? COLLECT 10,000 CARDS AND THEN COME BACK TO APPLY!!!

Nah just apply here, if you like, he needs people. Imps suck.

From:

firstrateduelist

What is this?

-- This is a card shop, just like it says, silly! Kaiba does do other things on the side, but as a certified workaholic, he's been feeling restless and has decided to put his venture capital into buying a building in Greed in order to share the game he cares about (read: has been loadbearing mental health since he was younger)

Why Greed?

-- Ripping packs for that sweet sweet dopamine hit is actually incredibly in line with the idea of Greed: It's glorified gambling, and the pull rates in packs have been lowered because this is Hell, so it'll be even harder to pull a cool card. Sorry, Hell is supposed to be hard-mode, and Seto Kaiba is just like this.

Do I have to do the dreaded MATH to sort my odds?!

Absolutely not! This is run on the honor system, and I'm not here to tell you of, just be reasonable. Getting a playset of Dark Magicians will take time, and Exodia is extra rare on purpose.

You didn't post any card lists, how do I know what the rares/SRs/URs are?

I did the legwork in sorting out aces and deck identity cards in order to make it easy for casuals to google card archetypes/builds! Typing in "Red-Eyes deck" will yield some results, all you have to do is make sure there's no Synchro (white), XYZ (black), Pendulum (weird design with red and blue arrows), or Link (blue) cards in the side deck, Kaiba didn't make those cards.

No contemporary summoning mechanics?! Lame, what can I do?

Aww, don't be that way! Many contemporary decks focus on Fusion Summoning and/or Ritual Summoning! While DSOD did create support for older archetypes and intro Dimension Duels, it did not touch on any other summoning methods, therefore Kaiba has no point of reference and would not create them. Duel Links might be a crazy little party but this is a little less weird.

Oh, right. What's with the disclaimer on Dimension Duels? Ominous...

Great question! Because we're in Hell and the magic is real, Dimension Duels really do drain your spirit energy for monster summons and damage. This is in part due to Kaiba's passive ability to make games follow rules he sets forth in his proximity, so it really only works while he's close enough to work as a conduit.

Fun fact: The v2 Duel Disks work in his proximity as well, not just because they're communicating with his v3. He hasn't fully realized the extent of it but will once the shop's open long enough.

What's Kaiba's passive ability about?

Within close proximity, Kaiba exerts a passive influence on people called "Gamer Impulse." His Info page details more here, but the long and short is that as long as he's within range, games must follow the rules set forth. And you'll want to! This impulse can be fought, but feel free to blame any influence on Kaiba's overbearing personality and strong will! Gamer Impulse, and the location of the shop being in Greed might also make you more inclined to chase that pack rip dopamine, so if he's on the counter, beware!

Okay, back to the cards: Drop the Forbidden List!

Gurl didn't u see I put Pot of Greed in the packs? CONGRATULATIONS! No banlist! We're in the Old Wild West, just keep it reasonable! Although there isn't a ban on play sets of Pot of Greed, as I said there's the honor system to consider. Instead of a play set of Pot of Greed, consider mixing it up and using Graceful Charity or Card of Demise!

The only cards that are limited are any relating to Exodia, which are limited to a single copy in each deck, if you can even PULL THEM.

I actually want to build a deck but google isn't helpful enough!

No problem! ICly Kaiba is offering assistance with deckbuilding which we can use as a way to thread, and OOCly, there's a comment below for your burning questions! Keep in mind, I'm a filthy casual, not a sweaty dragon, so my advisement isn't from a competitive standpoint. My competitive deck is Gravekeepers and full format sucks my soul out so I play Speed Duels primarily.

Also, Kaiba's an abrasive teacher, but he's doing this because he wants to have people who play his game with him.

HEY WAIT A MINUTE! Kaiba doesn't own the rights to Duel Monsters, that's Industrial Illusions' intellectual property!

Oh BOO FUCKING HOO! Pegasus isn't here to whine about Kaiba taking over his card game and distributing it.

More seriously: owing to the fact that Blue-Eyes has such rigorous support in the DSOD film, I headcanon that he acquired I2 quietly some time after Pegasus' death by enucleation, which is why his very special dragons have very special support. It's him. He's in charge of making the cards now. MHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

What currency is legal tender? *w...waggles eyebrows?*

This is Greed, not Lust, you degenerate. Kaiba accepts cash only, but he will allow bartered favors and contracts for cards.

Just, uh. Don't trade your soul to the dragon. The reward is not as good as it seems, and you might trigger something unfortunate in his brain chemistry.

(if you do want to trade part or the entirety of your soul to Kaiba for cards, let me know. This will trigger an entire Character Arc for him)

When are the v2 Duel Disks gonna work?

Whenever Kaiba learns how to imbue them with demon magic, or creates a way for the cards to connect to the Disk appropriately without his server data and digital infrastructure. Until then, they only work when he's running exhibitions or in proximity to them.

If someone makes a contract with him including part of or their entire soul, he will begin to earn the power to manifest the infrastructure he needs. But also something bad might happen. Then again, maybe not! Don't worry about it!

Hey that's even more ominous than Dimension Duels...

:)

Um...okay. Well, I see some tables in there. What's that for?

Kaiba has play tables that you can rent for any game, not just Duel Monsters, but Duel Monsters is the point of the tables, really. It's hourly, but they can be rented for groups over longer chunks of time.

He'll also use those tables for duel tutorials. dueltorials. and he'll run classes periodically for how the game works.

Feel free to challenge him, if you've put a deck together. It'll amuse him greatly!

From:

firstrateduelist

Have something you absolutely must ask that wasn't covered? Hit me up! This can be about the card shop itself, or anything relating to the card game or Kaiba's role in any of this, up to and including any deals you might want to make.

From:

firstrateduelist

So you wanna contract for some cards, eh? Okay, sorry you're poor but whatever. Feel free to offer a deal here and I'll respond with whether Kaiba would take it.

The first full soul deal here will be important, so I do ask that whoever goes that way be prepared to thread out the consequences. Also bear in mind, selling your soul in full with no specific conditions will gain you 24 packs a week. It really isn't worth it.

Conditions for trade and merchandise received are flexible. He'll accept favors to work at the shop, as well as IOUs, but due to the nature of the contract, you won't be able to renege on the IOU. He calls for that favor and YOU GOTTA DO IT. That's the power of magic, baybee!!! Also Kaiba will stare at you through your bedroom window if you try and cheat him.