Can appreciate just how great Kensho Ono was is this duel as Yuya and Yuri? He’s a terrific actor with great range of emotion. From happy to angry, from hopeful to despair. He’s truly gifted Japanese voice actor.

The idea that yuri, one of the fusion dimension’s strongest soldiers only has two fusion monsters is absolutely hilarious

if you ask me, Yuri won regardless of the results of the duel. Yuri's goal was to become Zarc and regardless of how the duel goes, that goal is achieved. so Yuri won in the end

Even if Yuri did have other fusions, I feel like he still would have summoned starving venom as he was trying to goad yuya into berserking more than anything.

The way Yuri basically makes Yuya slowly lose his sanity through his mocking and teasing was probably the highlight of this duel. Also when Yuya says that Yuri will lose all his life points, Yuri’s smile drops which was hilarious

I find it symbolic that Yuri's final card was 'Ridicule World'. In his last moments, Yuri would mock Yuya with his last breath as he knows he won; Yuya has embraced the darkness and a part of him knows he'll become one with him. While he didn't know that initially, it may be why Yuri said 'I'm glad that my first lost was to you.' because of the fact that Yuya has already lost his sanity and embraced the urge to become one with him, which is exactly what he wanted; To become 1.

The thing is, no matter who wins this duel, Z-arc will still be made whole again. The only way this wouldn't have happened is if it ended in a draw, and I'm not even sure that would work.

14:20 Misplay Reiji, for telling Yuya to only focus on winning

One thing to mention is this duel began after another really emotional duel: Yusho vs Yuri. After Leo Akaba noped out of his duel with Yuya and Reiji, literally locked them behind a steel wall and started throwing the bracelet girls into the Arc-V reactor, effectively killing them in front of Yuya, Yuya was about to lose his mind in rage before Yusho pinned him to a wall and tried to calm him down. Yuri then busted into the room after his own rampage and Yusho challenged Yuri to a duel to remind Yuya of the importance of entertainment dueling.

Yusho had just been made aware by Leo that the reality they were living in was fabricated and Yuya wasn't his real son and Yusho struggled with those feelings during the duel, but ultimately Yusho fought his hardest to help Yuya, even breaking through Yuri's OP Ivy Bind Castle.

However, Yuri managed to create a sadistic effect loop using his two aces where he'd repeatedly destroy them to knock down Yusho's LP over and over while Yuya and his friends were forced to watch until he finally blasted Yusho across the room with Starve Venom and carded him just to enrage Yuya. Yuri could have won the duel earlier, but he made Yusho's loss as painful and humiliating as possible and then laughed in Yuya's face. That's also why it was incredibly painful to Yuya to have to sacrifice Yusho's Smile World to protect himself.

Yuya was actually trying to discard Miracle in order to activate Break Away, we see him putting it towards his graveyard instead of his S/T Zone, so yeah he knew that he could use an Action Spell for its activation, it is just unfortunate that Yuri got Action Spell Advantage with Break Action, in fact if he got them reversed and Broke Evasion instead then yeah Yuya would have been able to do this. But definitely attempting to activate Evasion in that scenario absolutely was a misplay since it just negates one attack while his Trap would end the Battle immediately and then negate the opponents effects for the rest of the turn and all

A big thing with early ARC-V was pointing out how xyz monsters not having a lvl doesn’t mean they are lvl 0; so Yuri’s trap stealing Yuya’s monster with the lowest level stealing Dark Rebellion instead of Odd-Eyes that actually has a level is shenanigans.

I love this duel. It’s Yuya’s voice actor vs yuya’s voice actor while yuya’s voice actor and yuya’s voice actor are also there, and at the end of the duel, a character with the same voice actor as Yuya appears

I think another reason Yuri went Starving Venom right off the bat was because to facilitate the awakening of Z-ARC. The presence of the D-dragons throw Yuya berserk, and the more that are on the field the more he loses control. Yuri wants the merge to happen so he's using SV's presence to wane on Yuya's psyche right off the bat.

I think Yuri accepted his loss really well

“So then …. I lose “

[unhinged laughter]

At least he enjoyed himself lol 😂😂

I always though that yuri was the most similar to yuya just through his performative dueling, rather than yuya entertaining others yuri seemed like he was conversly entertaining himself

Yuri was a show stopper with how many duels he was in and won. Made the last half of the show barable to just see him destroy everything that stood in his way.

Wish we got more villains like that actually allowed to win duels and not just show up at the end to lose

A big thing I liked about this episode: Yuya's friends didnt actually help him not go insane. They said "Just focus on winning" which is what the people told Z-arc when he was a deultainer. What actually happened was Zarc stopped working against Yuya, and "focused on winning"
Thats why after the duel, Zarc was already in complete control without Yuya struggling. He was already in control during the duel, but still wanted to win.

Yuya was actually planning to discard Miracle as the cost for Break Away, but Yuri cut that down before he could, so... Blame Yuri for that, not Yuya.

Can’t wait for the eventual 2 hour long video analysis of Zarc’s steam roll of all of the Lancers and Allies

13:53 fun fact: he didn’t, that was his intent

If you read the dialogue it says that he was sending a spell to activate the trap, unfortunately Yuri destroyed the action spell right before...