Yu-Gi-Oh! Forbidden Memories 15-card drop FAQ (October 2023)

Yu-Gi-Oh! Forbidden Memories 15-card drop FAQ (October 2023)

Q: What are you trying to do?
A: Beat the 15-card drop mod of Yu-Gi-Oh! Forbidden Memories as quickly as possible without using RNG manipulation. FM uses the same cards as the Yu-Gi-Oh TCG but has different rules.

Q: What's the 15-card drop mod?
A: You win 15 cards per duel instead of 1. That's it.

Q: What rules are different?
A: The main one is that you must play exactly one card per turn. However, you can fuse monsters to make stronger ones and equip them with magic cards on the same turn. A single summon is often a combination of 3-5 cards from your hand. At the start of each turn, you draw until your hand has 5 cards. Because of this, it's often useful to "toss" less useful cards. Also, high-level monsters do not require tributes to summon, so cards such as Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon (4500 ATK) and Gate Guardian (3750) are nearly unbeatable without magics and traps.

Q: What are you playing on?
A: ePSXe, an emulator for PS1 games.

Q: What is the world record?
A: 1:10:13 by Azura.

Q: What do you look for in a starting deck?
A: The main requirement is an equip that works on Twin-Headed Thunder Dragon. That can be Dark Energy, Beast Fangs, Invigoration, Dragon Treasure or Horn of Light. These all power it up by 500 ATK and DEF. It's about 20% to get one of them. I'd also like to see Raigeki, Umi, at least 1 Dragon, at least 1 Thunder, and good early-game fusion material, but I'll settle for slightly less. You always start with exactly one equip magic, one field magic, one of Dark Hole/Raigeki, and 37 monsters.

Sometimes I'll take a deck without a THTD equip as well. In general, my criteria for starting a run is one of these:
- 0 dragons, 1 thunder, Raigeki, THTD equip
- 1/0, Raigeki, equip
- 1/1, Dark Hole, equip
- 1/2, Raigeki, no equip
- 2/1, Raigeki, no equip
- 3/3, Dark Hole, no equip (basically never)

Q: What are the icons on the left?
A: From top to bottom: number of dragons, thunders, equips, Umis, Widespread Ruins, Dragon Capture Jars, Megamorphs, Meteor B. Dragons, Skull Knights, Raigekis and Dark Holes.

Umi changes the field to sea, which powers up THTD and other Thunder/Aqua/Fish monsters by 500 ATK and DEF. Widespread Ruin is a trap that destroys any attacking monster. Dragon Capture Jar is a magic that destroys all enemy dragons.

Megamorph is one of the two best cards in the same. It's an equip card that powers up any monster by 1000 ATK and DEF. The other best card is Meteor B. Dragon (3500 ATK/2000 DEF), which I will add to the tracker if I'm lucky enough to win it from Meadow Mage. MBD beats or ties every card in the game except Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon, since its Sun guardian star gives it 500 extra ATK and DEF against Gate Guardian.

Q: What is the calculator at the top?
A: A spreadsheet that shows the rough chance that I beat the final 6 duelists with my current deck in one try. The Final 6 is a massive difficulty spike that punishes any unprepared player. In a speedrun, you usually need a lot of luck to survive here. The difficulty is best shown through the odds that each duelist leads their most powerful card:

Sebek: 44% to lead Metalzoa (3000 ATK/2300 DEF)
Neku: 48% to lead Skull Knight (3150/2750 in Yami field)
Heishin: 49% to lead Gate Guardian (3750/3400)
Seto 3: 57% to lead Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon (4500/3800) (!!!)
DarkNite: 28% to lead Meteor B. Dragon (3500/2000)
Nitemare: 28% to lead Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon (4500/3800); has every powerful monster card

Q: What is your strategy?
A: Build the deck around Twin-Headed Thunder Dragon and its power-ups. If you get a lucky enough run, you can do this without doing any additional farm duels. You're mainly hoping for lots of dragon and thunder drops early in World Tournament, and then several good magic drops from Pegasus (Dragon Treasure/Umi), Isis (Dragon Treasure/Umi/Widespread Ruin) and Kaiba (Dragon Capture Jar). If you get a trap, you can go for an A-TEC against Pegasus, which drops Megamorph and all the other best magics and traps.

After that, try to win duels quickly and minimize time deck editing. Many times I'll take a big risk on a late-game duel in order to save time.

Q: What is an A-TEC?
A: A duel rank that requires you to extend the duel and perform a variety of specific actions before winning. The route I use is 15 fusions, 0-3 cards remaining, 1 face-down play, 4 effective attacks, 1 equip, 1 pure magic, 1 trap, 9+ turns, and <7000 LP remaining.

An effective attack is when you attack an opponent's ATK position monster and deal damage.