Edison Format Singles

Overview

Just because you’ve got design ideas for a bunch of archetypes and series doesn’t mean new, smaller ideas won’t keep popping up, with inspirations ranging from random YouTube videos, to old or unreleased cards, and even current events in the Yu-Gi-Oh! fandom. The singles here were all designed with Goat Format in mind, perhaps supporting cards from this era of Yu-Gi-Oh!, but all designed to be of an appropriate power level and simple enough for this era.

Metal-Armoured Ryu Kokki

Evolve: “Ryu Kokki”

Requirement: Send 1 “Metalmorph” equipped to it to the GY

① While this card has material, it is also treated as a Machine monster, it gains 400 ATK/DEF, and it is unaffected by your opponent’s Spell effects. ② If this card would be destroyed, you can detach 1 material from this card instead. ③ If this card destroys a monster by battle while it has no material: You can attach that destroyed monster to this card as material.

I came across a Reddit post showing off China’s censored Duel Links art for Great Mammoth of Goldfine, with more examples in the comments. One of those examples was Ryu Kokki, which immediately seemed to me like a Metalmorph version of the original. And the idea was too good to pass up.

Rather than follow the TCG standard of a rather bad Effect Monster that can Special Summon itself from the Deck, I opted to go for an Extra Deck mechanic for evolving Ryu Kokki into its Metal counterpart. I came across Reddit user Ray_V_Xyz‘s Evolution Monsters a month or so ago while in the middle of figuring out a similar mechanic playing in the same design space. To summarise, Evolution Monsters are intended to represent upgraded versions of other monsters in a similar manner to cards featured in early Yu-Gi-Oh! like the Moth series, Aged counterparts, and Metal counterparts. They use 1 listed monster as material, and can be Evolution Summoned by satisfying any additional requirement listed next to the material. They also have similarities with other existing types of monsters:

• Like Xyz Monsters, they are placed on top of the monster used as material.
• Similar to Gemini Monsters once Gemini Summoned, an Evolution Summoned monster is treated as the same game object as the material it gets placed on. For example, if a monster equipped with an Equip Spell is used as material for an Evolution Summon, the Equip Spell treats that Evolution Monster as the same card, and so stays equipped to it.

For full details on how Ray_V_Xyz designed Evolution Monsters, see his Reddit post here. Given their more streamlined design for the Summoning mechanic, as well as the well designed frame that solved a number of issues I was running into at the time, I figured it would be easier to use that than to re-invent the wheel again. I sent him a message on Reddit and he said it was fine for me to use it. As I don’t have Photoshop, I had to redo the text fields in GIMP, but I think I got pretty close.

As a Metal counterpart, using the Metalmorph-equipped base monster as Evolution material and sacrificing Metalmorph as the requirement was a no-brainer. Reframing the Evolution Cost as an Evolution Requirement was the only tweak that I made to the Evolution Monster mechanic itself. My reasoning for this is that if Evolution Monsters need a cost paid in order to be Evolution Summoned, rather than a requirement satisfied, that cuts off design spaces for non-cost requirements (e.g. the material destroyed a monster by battle that turn) that could work better for some Evolution Monsters.

Effect-wise, I wanted to replicate anime Metal monsters becoming Machines immune to magic, as well as Magic Metal Force granting a flat 400 ATK/DEF rather than Metalmorph’s 300+ ATK, so it gains those benefits while it has material (i.e. its metal armour) attached. But since it’s only partially covered in Metal, I figured letting the armour (and those benefits) fall off would be interesting, so I added the effect of being able to detach its material to avoid destruction and causing it to revert back to its base Zombie form, as well as being able to turn a monster it destroys in battle into fresh armour like a skull-based Zombie might cannibalise corpses to rebuild itself. I’ve marked it as intended for Edison format, so hopefully all of that together doesn’t make it or Zombie decks too strong for the format.

Metal-Armoured Ryu Kokki is based on Ryu Kokki and the Metal counterpart series. Its art is Ryu Kokki’s Chinese Duel Links art that censors the skulls on its body using metal armour, with the background replaced with Wasteland re-coloured to mimic Zombie World, but with the trees re-coloured to resemble Metal-Armoured Ryu Kokki’s armour. All of the card art was sourced from Yugipedia, except Ryu Kokki’s Chinese Duel Links art, which was sourced from this DeviantArt account that posts censored Chinese Duel Links art, since Yugipedia didn’t list it as one of Ryu Kokki’s artworks. The final card image was created in GIMP using my art for Metal-Armoured Ryu Kokki and Ray_V_Xyz’s Evolution Monster card frame, borrowed with permission, but modified in GIMP to restore the editable text fields, as GIMP can’t edit Photoshop’s text layers.

The Restless Grave

① Activate this card by paying 800 LP, then target 1 monster in your GY; Special Summon it in Attack Position and equip it with this card. When this card is leaves the field, destroy the equipped monster.

While testing other designs for Goat format, it’s made me sad that all of the monster revival cards printed at the time were either banned (Monster Reborn), limited (Premature Burial, Call of the Haunted), or not great (Archfiend’s Roar). So I got the itch to retrain a couple.

The Restless Grave is intended to be a Premature Burial retrain that cannot be abused by returning it to the hand and activating it again. Where Premature Burial only destroys the Special Summoned monster if it is destroyed, The Restless Grave destroys it anytime it would leave the field. This one I originally designed with Goat format in mind because I was sad that Premature Burial was banned, but I forgot that Premature Burial was still only Limited in Goat format, so I guess it’s relegated to being aimed at Edison format. If you print it off to use in your own casual games for Edison format or any retro formats after Edison, I’d recommend having its Limitation status match that of Call of the Haunted, since they’re essentially Spell and Trap equivalents of each other. So, for Edison format, The Restless Grave would be best Limited to 1 copy per deck.

The Restless Grave is based on Premature Burial. I created its artwork using the art for Premature Burial and Foolish Burial.

Details

Development: January 2025 – May 2025

Latest Errata: August 2025

Format: Edison Format

Made With: GIMP, www.cardmaker.net

Copyright

Yu-Gi-Oh! is the creation of Kazuki Takahashi and the property of Studio Dice / Konami. All copyright for Yu-Gi-Oh! goes to them. My custom cards are fan cards I designed based on various inspirations from Yu-Gi-Oh!, as well as other media properties and real life inspirations. All copyright for my cards’ non-Yu-Gi-Oh! bases go to the appropriate creators as noted above.

All card artworks and anime images used in my custom cards’ artoworks were sourced from yugipedia.com for Yu-Gi-Oh! card arts, from the appropriate source media or wikis for cards inspired by other media properties as noted, or from stock image websites as noted, and as such, I do not own them. All images used were then edited and combined in GIMP as outlined under each card. Their rules text follows a hybrid of the original Japanese cards’ numbered effect formatting, and the Problem-Solving Card Text format used for English-language cards, using the most recent cards as examples. The finished card images were created using www.cardmaker.net.