Seto 3 concepts

Seto 3 is a unique duel that is much easier with some decks and much harder with others. This paste explains how the distribution of cards in your deck affects your win rate.

- You can expect to lose to Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon almost every time if your only way of beating it is Raigeki (Exception: You have 12+ dragons, 10+ thunders, and 6+ equips). Since BEUD is so common (57% likely to appear on turn 1 and 4% to be played as a topdeck), your win rate will usually be very low (20-30%) with decks that have only Raigeki for removal.

- Being able to semi-consistently make a monster with 4500+ ATK (or 4000+ ATK in Mercury) is better than any combination of monster removal magics/traps. Having combos such as MBD + Megamorph and Skull Knight + Megamorph + Dark Energy dramatically increases your win rate. Your deck may be able to make 4800 THTDs as well if you have 2-3 Megamorphs and lots of big dragons, thunders, equips and Umis to go with them. Decks with semi-consistent BEUD killers are usually 70-80% to win even without removal. Decks with the strongest possible removal but no BEUD killers are about 62-72% to win.

- If you have only 1 removal in addition to Dark Hole/Raigeki, you'd rather it be DCJ than Widespread Ruin. If you have 3 additional removals, all combinations of WSR/DCJ are about equally valuable (however, 3x WSR is much better for every other Final 6 opponent).

- Since you typically need to play a magic or trap to beat Seto, having "filler" magics and traps such as Sogen, Magical Labyrinth, and Acid Trap Hole improves your win rate more than any monster that isn't a dragon/thunder/DM/SK/Zoa/MBD/Gaia (sometimes). This is primarily because you can toss these magics along with Raigeki, DCJ, or Umi, allowing you to draw additional cards on your next turn. You can also set them to bait Harpie's Feather Duster, although this is usually a bad idea if you don't have Widespread in your hand because you can instantly lose to BEUD if he doesn't play HFD.

- With many decks, playing Umi turn 1 on Seto might decrease your chance of winning but still be the correct play because of how quickly you can win (if he doesn't play BEUD) or lose (if he does play BEUD). A similar dynamic occurs when you play Umi turn 1 and Seto sets a Widespread -- attacking into the trap speeds up the duel tremendously, but it may decrease your chance of winning.

- MBD by itself has limited value on Seto 3 because it usually cannot survive against an opposing MBD, B. Skull or 3000 ATK monster past the 3rd turn of the duel. It gets Shadow Spell'd or Raigeki'd because it doesn't magic lock those monsters. If you get a slow duel where Seto 3 is setting backrow, MBD will only help you if Seto's strongest monster on the field is Gate Guardian. However, MBD is still better than any card except Megamorph in most circumstances.