Introduction to Link Monsters

Last Updated: July 21st 2022

General Introduction:

Link Summoning in Yu-Gi-Oh! CROSS DUEL has become a simple extension of Tribute Summoning, but building an entire deck around the mechanic is a necessity to being able to play with the mechanic optimally - especially with the limited card pool on release.

Link Monsters require a specific number of Summon Materials; Link 2’s require 2 tributes, Link 3’s require 3 and so forth. The number of red arrows on the card is indicative of its Link Rating.

Normally, Monsters would only count as 1 Summon Material however Link Monsters have two special strategies available to them to make summoning more powerful Link Monsters easier. Link Monsters can count as either 1 Summon Material or a number equal to their Link Rating. For example the Link 2 Trickstar Holly Angel can be counted as either 1 or 2 Summon Materials. This means you could summon a Link 3 Decode Talker using the Link 2 Trickstar Holly Angel and one other monster.

Link Arrow

Can be treated as 2 Summon Materials when used for the Summon of a Link Monster.

Other Monsters in your Deck, mostly those featured in the Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS anime and used by characters from that series can also be treated as 2 Summon Materials if they have access to the Link Arrows Unique Skill. This makes summoning boss Monsters such as Firewall Dragon just a tad easier - especially when they’re vital for its Master Skill.

You can also “Co-Link” one Link Monster with another when using it as a Summon Material. However this works a lot differently from the TCG and Master Duel implementation. When you summon a Link Monster, if you use another Link Monster as Summon Material, you can place that Link Monster next to one Link Marker on your new Monster. If the arrows match up between your two cards, then your new Monster will gain an additional effect - the Link Monsters DEF will be boosted by the ATK of the Co-Linked Monster. This gets around the major flaw of Link Monsters - being considered to have 0 DEF. Vital when Pierce skill and cards such as Block Attack and Shield & Sword exist.

This means a Firewall Dragon summoned using Decode Talker will have 2300 DEF, since you can match up the bottom-most arrow of Firewall and the top-most arrow of Decode Talker. However you couldn’t Co-Link Firewall Dragon and Trickstar Holly Angel, since none of their arrows point towards each other.

Firewall Dragon and Decode Talker both gain effects depending on the number of Link Monsters, and cards with the Link Arrow skill on your field and in your graveyard. Given a lot of the Link-related cards are SR and Above, a Link focused deck is one of the most inaccessible strategies to play Free to Play on Day 1.