Yu-Gi-Oh Master Duel is pretty annoying to play these days. A small number of very strong decks are taking over the game, and the company that makes it, Konami, isn’t banning the right cards to make things better. Plus, building a strong deck that can compete is getting more and more expensive as new card sets come out.

Players are getting fed up, and fewer people are playing the game on computers. Konami really needs to fix these issues to get players back. But in the meantime, there’s a way you can still have more fun playing the game.

First, let’s talk about the main problems. Yu-Gi-Oh Master Duel’s issues mostly come from three specific decks that are very popular right now: Maliss, Ryzeal, and Mitsurugi. You don’t need to know all the details about these decks, but they all have a few things in common: they are super powerful, can do many different things, and are very hard to stop once they get going.

If you’re playing against one of these decks, you usually need two things to win. You have to win a coin flip before the game starts so you can go first. Then, you need to draw exactly the right cards to set up your own cards and also have enough ways to stop your opponent’s moves on their turn. If you go second, you’ll likely lose. If you can’t stop your opponent’s first moves, you’ll lose. Even if both of those things go your way, you might still lose because these decks are so flexible they’re ready for almost anything.

These decks became so strong because of many complicated choices made over the last year or so. But in Master Duel specifically, a big part of the problem is that the game hasn’t really changed them with its ban list. In other versions of the game, like in Japan and Korea, these powerful card sets were brought in slowly. Older, stronger cards were limited, and newer, more flexible but less powerful cards took their place.

Master Duel, however, brought in all these decks at once, not in smaller steps. And right now, very few of the main cards in these decks are limited in any way. This means players can use both the super powerful cards that start big plays and the flexible cards that make decks work smoothly, all in one incredibly strong and consistent deck.

For most players, there are usually two ways to deal with this. You either build one of these strong decks yourself, which means spending a lot of in-game money or even real money to get the rare cards needed. Or, you quit the game and come back later when the game is more balanced. It’s easy to see why many players have chosen to quit, and the game has seen fewer players every month for nearly a year now.

But there’s a third choice, and it’s something many Master Duel players might not want to hear: you need to play, and you need to lose a lot. The best way to do this is to start playing with a “pet deck.” For those who don’t know the lingo of card games like Yu-Gi-Oh, a pet deck is a deck that isn’t the strongest or most popular, but it’s one you really enjoy playing. Maybe it has a fun way of using cards, or you like the pictures on them, or you just think the card names are funny. When you “pet deck,” you stick with that deck, even knowing it probably won’t be the best deck out there.

For me, that deck is called Live Twins. I’ve spent almost a year playing only a Live Twins deck. Part of it is because I think the idea behind them – a group of thieves who pretend to be online video streamers – is really cool. But mostly, it’s because the way the deck plays feels very satisfying to me. I tried out the deck in the game’s practice mode and immediately loved how it worked. And here I am, almost a year later, having played thousands of games with it.

Right now, with the current strong decks, I lose a lot. I win a little over 60% of my games overall, but when I play against a Ryzeal, Maliss, or Mitsurugi deck, that win rate drops to about 10-15%. Live Twins isn’t a super strong deck, but it’s not terrible either. It has some flexibility and ways to mess with your opponent’s moves. However, it falls apart if your opponent can stop more than one of your cards, and it can sometimes get bad starting hands.

But it’s fun. Even when I’m losing, it’s so much fun that I can’t really get mad about it. And I’m learning a lot as I go. By sticking with this one deck for so long, I’ve learned exactly what it’s good at and what it’s bad at. I know every card in my deck very well, what they do, how they work against most other decks, and when it’s just better to give up the game.

I’ve also become a better player because of it. When I first started playing Live Twins, my skills weren’t very good, to say the least. I made many mistakes, my deck wasn’t built well, and when things went wrong, I didn’t know how to fix them. Now, I’ve made my deck as good as it can be by playing, losing, and trying new things. I can now think of ways to come back and win even in games that seem impossible.

These skills also help me when I play other decks. I recently put together an Orcust deck, which is much stronger than Live Twins but still not as powerful as the top three decks. After a few rough starts, I’m beginning to feel comfortable with it. But I keep going back to Live Twins because I enjoy it so much.

And, even though I don’t win often against those super strong decks, I am starting to win against them more and more. It’s still a very tough match, but many people play these strong decks because they feel they have to, not because they know the deck well or even like playing it. A lot of it still comes down to pure luck, but with a good hand and everything else being equal, a good, dedicated Live Twins player can beat a bad or uninterested Maliss player. It often takes some really smart and focused plays, but you can beat Maliss in Master Duel, and it feels great when you do.

I understand why some players feel like they can’t keep playing the game as it is now. Winning is much more fun than losing, and if you’re losing many games in a row and don’t want to play those three frustrating decks, it feels like your only choice is to stop playing and hope things get better later.

However, I think the best way to make Master Duel fun for yourself isn’t to quit or to give in to the popular strong decks. Instead, it’s to find a way to have fun and learn, even when you’re losing. There are over 10,000 cards in Master Duel, with many different kinds of decks to choose from. You’re almost sure to find something you enjoy playing if you look around a bit. And someday in the future, when Konami finally fixes the main problems with Master Duel’s popular decks, you’ll be a better player with a deck you love that might actually be able to last more than a turn or two.