Am I off the mark but buying gems seems like a really bad investment?

Not off the mark at all. You're better off just playing the game to get more gems. There are a couple of events coming this month where you can earn like 3k each, as well.

Buying gems is only for whales. There is no small investment in the gem shop. Either you whale out or get nothing. Its a complete scam pricewise, mostly there for ppl who want to make the new meta deck without grinding (and royal rare fiends, god bless them for making this game f2p friendly)

Yea it sucks.

I purchase bundles every now and then cause MD is how I play and i don’t buy packs nearly as much as i used to if at all. I just chase singles of cards i like visually

Unless you really play a lot and have the money, it's not the way. The special offers are okayish I guess but the standard ones are only for whales and content creators. Just do dailies and events.

The bonus packs are good imo. You will get to a certain point when gem income slows down. So you have to start scraping URs you don’t need or saving a lot.

The game gives you events that always gives like 3300 gems, so you have that along with weeklies. I’ve only bought gems when on sell, but a lot of people spend money on this game.

I have 17 full built decks and been playing since day 1. Mine has been from the start of Trizoo-snake eyes.

If you don’t have issue with slow deck building and not having many decks, you will be fine in the game.

I've spent maybe £60 on the game since release, which is more than fair for 2 years of entertainment...I'd spend a lot more on it if it wasn't such a giant ripoff. You can't even pay to get good cards, you could feasibly buy 6000 gems and only get three dog shit URs out of it. The whole economy in this game is a mess really

konami in a way is fair to players when giving gems it takes a while from doing dailies and the occasional events but just dont buy gems its not worth imo

Yeah buying gems from Konami... is not a good investment

If you don't mind replaying the early game (and grinding multiple accounts). Making a second/third account to make more decks isn't the worst option (because grinding gems becomes quite slow once Solo Mode runs out)

Or, cut out the grinding. Buy a starter/re-roll account. They're dirt cheap. Looking at one now, 30k gems for $3 USD (with 150 UR and SR dust)

As someone that has spent a considerable amount of money on this game (500+ USD), the default gem prices are shit. Never buy those. The discount/deal ones are if you are willing to spend money on this game.

Note: MD is very F2P friendly and usually without spending any money at all you can usually make roughly 7k gems in between each new pack release if you do events/dailies consistently.

I'd say it's not necessary to spend money on the game, but if you do want to (which is completely fine), then those deals are the way to go. I'd say other than those deals, it's not worth it.

I bought once one of these "good deals" that were 3k gems. Got a couple URs out of the packs I opened and said to myself I'd never waste money like that again.

Oh yeah, never buy gems from the normal stock. When they have special deals like the welcome pack or occasionally they have other ones it's an okay deal but yeah, you can make plenty of gems just playing the game its not worth it

It is a bad investment, just buy a bot that complete solo mod and make new accounts to try different decks, you easily get 30k gems and arround 200 ur materials per account

well paying for ANY in game product is a bad investment

the sale gems are actually a good price. off sale? they are fucking horrible never buy gems outside of the sales

Limited offers are passable, the rest is garbage.

The rewards system does not benefit people making pet decks without playing for a long time.

Right now the best way to play is start off with 1 engine card and trade hand traps until you either get halted or win the war of attrition. It does seem like loading up on hand traps is the ideal high win scenario.

Yeah it’s not worth it last year I spent around $1,000 and got like 2 or 3 meta decks.

I bought some gems so I could keep up with getting the cosmetics, as you always know what you're getting from that purchase

I’ve spent more on this game than I’d like to admit (still not that much in comparison to most people) but as someone who’s on a very limited budget, it’s only been worth it to me in the cases where I get special bundles and got extremely lucky with how many UR I pull. Playing the game is the better way to go about it. I grinded out with SwordSoul for awhile so I could build my Snake Eyes and Live Twins deck. But I did have to drop a little cash. I wish I hadn’t at the end of the day. It sucks how expensive it is to play this game rather it’s MD or the TCG.

I've put some money into the game. Under $100 in mostly gift cards/free credit. It didn't feel that significant. Versus Duel Links, when I used to play that, where $1-10 would go really far

I've come to realize that in MD you're either a mega whale or you're f2p. There's no reason to be a budget spender or even a whale by lower standard. You're either going super hard or you just play normally

I don't spend a dime in this game, because you are not buying what you want, you are buying a CHANCE to get what you want and that's scummy asf. Gachas and loot box games i'll never see the color of my money.

Only these are correct, the rest is overpriced and purely a scam.

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Why the fuck are there "free" category gems in a literal real money purchase?

Anyways yes the gems are a ripoff. But not necessarily for the reasons you think it is, Master Duel has an extremely inflated price for lots of cheap cards and a hard cap to expensive cards that effectively make them cost the same.

You know that S:P Little Knight people are talking about? It's sold at over a hundred bucks for one copy in the TCG. Trade-In? A common sold for like idk 15 cents. Both of these cards have the same value in MD, 30 UR dust. And you can bet your luck will be bad enough for those gems to be forced to craft a lot.

Like for $30 to get 4000 gems I literally could buy my real Infernoble Adventure deck on TCGplayer which at least has like 10 deck specific URs just off the top of my head. What 4000 gems got me in MD wasn't even like 1/5 of the Labrynth cards I was trying to pull. Meanwhile some Kashtira Snake Eyes player probably spent less than I did in MD for a deck worth way more than mine.

I only buy on sales like that. Otherwise I just play.

If you wanna spend money then getting gems on sales is your best opportunity compared to the regular prices. Imo they’re still pretty expensive though, game is pretty f2p friendly but it is a time investment, gotta log in everyday and play a game or 2 to get your daily mission wins. Events happen I believe every month you get about 3k for “completing” them

I only buy the deals if I buy, period

Okay personally gonna day no because of a few reasons story lines gives you a lot of gems.think of it like so much money to quickly level up or grind hard for a week until your just waiting on that last 30UR. Just link it to a konami account so you don't waste money

Yes when the game came out I had 50 dollars in Google play money so I bought both thinking it's fine I can build whatever I want with that I think I git like 4 urs of archetypes I've never heard of that were ass and just dismantle and made like blue eyes or dm lol I was new to yugioh who knew they would come back

I played for daily mission and events, and monthly i get around 8k.

Is it bad investment? No, not if you can spare that much and doesn't wanna spend time grinding

Buying gem for a chance to get the card you want is always a bad investment.

Only worth thing to buy is welcome packs but even those are expensive af. They do reset them. Just take your time on building decks.

So look. Most gacha games aren't F2P, so you're forced to struggle or buy cheap products to benefit.

Masterduel on the otherhand is very F2P compared to most gacha games so you don't need to struggle in game to benefit. However, actually making purchases are completely overpriced compared to other gacha games.

I would assume you are missing Extra-Deck UR cards, and not main deck UR or hand-traps UR cards, right? I would also assume that you have completed all of Solo mode, as it gives you 12,000+ gems completing it. (if not, go for it first, those gems can help you with the missing cards or UR dust)

I'm not sure on the number of 'missing' UR cards that you are looking for. If it's only a few, I agree with the others in this thread to grind it out with the upcoming monthly events.

The biggest bait in this game is the FOMO to get the cards now rather than wait to collect the resources. Don't feel yourself compelled to make the best deck on 'day 1', you can still use alternative cards to play in Ranked in the meantime.

No you're not off the mark. Gems are so outrageously expensive that the "deals" Koonami puts out look like normal prices. On top of that, the amount of UR's you get on average from a 10 pack are a complete ripoffs, especially when you consider how many UR's decks nowadays require (even discounting staples).

It is a bad investment. 10 ur is basically 10 dollars. 

I really don't get their business model here, they are really forcing f2p on 99.5% of the playerbase. Instead, they could do something like premium pass for 3-5$, which gives 300 URcp and 3k gems or something, so many people would buy that, but since it's a once in 3 months purchase, the whales will keep buying the expensive deals.

Yes. You will get enough

As someone who has bought way too many gems in the past I agree with your statement

It really is. I’m the same way, I don’t mind spending some money in mobile games. But the gem value in master duel is one of the worst I’ve ever seen, and I’ve spent $400 on some games. If it was better value, I would buy more

it is bad investment, i got sucked in ebcause i needed last card in my dinomorphia..

You pretty much hit the mark on its head lol its only worth if you play competitively or your making content and actually make the money back from videos

yeah, you could buy a whole indie game or waste it on random crap that you will eventually unlock by playing normally... it's a tough choice.

that being said, spending every once in a while just to support the game is not that bad

If 1000 gems would be $1, I wouldn't mind it.

It would be acceptable to toss them a couple bucks here and there for a couple pulls.

But their normal pricing is absolutely absurd, even the special sales are beyond reasonable.

$10 can't even get you a single 10 pack pull, piss off.

Over 40+ decks here, completely f2p. all i will say is doing dailies and events are the most important when farming gems. And as long as you at least log in every day you can get away with only playing every 2-3 days (as missions stack)

Tho it's honestly such a slog when you want gems and you have to wait for next day or wait for next event (once a month fuck my life) unless you are that one psychopath that actually sits through solo modes (i speedrun them but read stories, still boring af for a measly 200 gems)

I've been so tempted to just get the damn gems with money but it's honestly such a waste, and on top of that, packs not having a guaranteed UR per pack is ridiculous.

Also running 2 accounts feels and feels more resourceful at first but now I'm here doing double the work and every time an event i hate comes or i pull a royal / multiple UR i need on other account i want to punch a wall.

So no unless you are actually insane or really well off just stay away from feeding this money hungry company more. They already leech off of tcg and duel links, the least they could do is focus more on the game quality and experience than fucking money.

But oh well.

Don't buy waste your money Sincerely, a non streamer with 1.5k hours of master duel since release

I honestly only buy the ones on specials and even then its more of a desperate move if i REALLY want the cards , ur better off playing normally and doing events .

You are correct they recently removed some better packs to add worse ones as well

I buy gems to support the game. I've gotten enough enjoyment that I think it's worth it.

Don’t buy gems unless you are doing it to support the game developers. I haven’t bought a single gem and have 4 fully built decks with a lotta UR’s. You will have to grind out the seasonal and events, or wait for them to refresh. Doing all the solo gates will net you a decent amount of gems as well.

You get 10k+ gems a month from doing dailies and finishing half of each event, there is no reason to spend money.

It's not worth it unless it's some anniversary deal. Like $8 for 2500 gems isn't bad if you have the spare pocket change, but you can only do that 3 times ever, even if they bring it back. It's still not a great investment, but it's mostly worth it if you happen to have some extra money to spend.

It's not a good investment...it's more about what you are willing to pay for your entertainment

Personally, I've never bought gems before because I never saw the need for myself, since MD is f2p friendly. Anyways, everyone can spend their money on whatever they want or like.

If your a new player do the duel training in solo, at the end you'll have 9000+ gems. Then Google Yu-Gi-Oh cards that unlock multiple secret packs, there should be a Reddit post where the first card is marshmallow fielding, make those cards, then Google master duels secret packs, then goto friends and add a friend code to get sword soul, if you can do 2 brilliant, but after doing the secret packs go through the solo doing as many of then with your own sword soul deck and only doing the loaner deck duels if it gives you an element token. When you reach a point where you can't progress make a deck and keep going as you'll likely have about 15000 gems after you redeem your missions , which you use to make your first deck

But make sure you do the packs that have about 15UR as you'll have a higher chance of getting UR's to trade in or probably a full deck with the latest cards.

Made a full purrelly deck loaded with 3 max 3 ash 3 veiler and 3 inperm. Lost to a few cards but after ranking I was back to about 5 too 6000 gems after redeeming the missions again

1000 gems is like 2 days worth of work for me so... yeah, not worth it at all

Your scenario is exactly what the average player uses the gem store for. Many of the people on this sub have been playing for 1 to years or since launch so they don't mind waiting to collect URs because they probably have several decks to play in the meantime while they save up...

 So take advice with a pinch of salt. 

I like to have options, and during the first year or so I spent some money every other month if there was something I wanted outside of gems gotten for free. To me its not a bad purchase. There's no yugioh scene in my country. There's no locals. This is how I get to play the game. I work full time, I play a couple other games so being able to just login whenever and enjoy the game is a good enough reason for me to buy those gems. I'm not expecting a massive ROI on a videogame. The only return I want is fun. The prices are also for rhe most part, region specific, and priced at a premium regardless, at that. They are expensive outside of sales promos, yes. But only you can decide for yourself if it's worth it.

I don't know why anyone would buy gems. I've played all meta decks since the game released and have all the stables as 100 % free to play.

I just do alts during events, each can usually build a new deck when paired with duel pass and other resource acquisition.

My rule of thumb when it comes to masterduel gems is that 1$ should be at least a pack. So I would take these (I already did)

When the game launched, the gem sales were really good. Now they are just whale bait. You’re are better off grinding events and playing lower ranks which gives you like $50+ worth of gems

The way I see it: daily log in gets you 20 gems, dailies get you 125 (3x40 + 5 from live duel).

That's 145 gems/day.

Considering 1 dollar doesn't get you even that, it's a joke.

Avg pack of yugioh in real life is like $3.50 and on master duel 140 gems is $2.29 for me. As for pulling good cards I almost feel like master duel has better rates for rarity can't tell ya how many times I've bought a booster box and gotten shit from it granted real life does have the added benefit of physical cards and the resale of cards and 3rd party markets and the ability to single chase but let's be honest unless u have the luck of the cards to pull the best cards from packs real life yugioh is way to damn expensive

The gems should be half the price they're going for. £5 for not even 4 packs is disgusting and is crazy that physical packs are cheaper in some cases (I've paid just over £4 for 4 physical packs before). Plus, physical packs don't fill half of it with crap you don't need like secret packs. I've only ever put Google Play credit into this game I get off Surveys and it's never gotten me anything.

Such things are never worth it. Real money to buy imaginary money? What's the up side?

It’s your money, use it how you sees fit.

Don't give these ghouls money

Bro will never find me paying for gems

It's extremely bad. Gems are waaaaay overpriced.

If gems had 4 times the spending power Master Duel would be a much better micro transaction game.

It's better to just keep making new accounts and building a new deck you want to try out from scratch than to buy gems.

Konami will see this as people making multiple accounts as a problem and not that the game is a TERRIBLE value.

I wish we had another game like Duelist Legacy or a paid version of Master Duel that has all the cards up to its release date.

But KOMoney wants to milk it's playerbase.

it is. BEFORE April they had gem packs that where actually good 'value'. I guess they didn't have enough money for their money fort because those got discontinued. so no, don't buy gems better yet don't play this game, its garbage. Bo1, maxxC at three, a banlist that's outdated as soon as its posted. and everyone ffs action 1 so you get no dailies done.

It is. You get gems extremely easy and fast. The game is very generous. If you struggle with gems, then you are just very bad at spending it. Admit it.

If you want to play 10 different decks and have to open every new pack, it's your own fault. In that case, go for it. Spend some money.

At this point you might as well purchase one of my day one accounts. I have about 10 good decks(including meta ones), account level 31, a few royal urs,9000 gems, 411 UR crafting points and a few rare accessories.