They come to me in my dreams now.

Hundreds of them. Tiny blue demons with death-filled fangs: some carry axes, some rush recklessly, and others, the worst of them all, are mechanical abominations: shells of the goodnatured fairies they once were.

Last week when I wrote up the first reader challenge, I had no idea as to the number of responses I’d receive. I suspected that perhaps I had underestimated the level to which Yu-Gi-Oh! players enjoyed the prospect of a challenge mixed with free swag when, scant hours after the challenge was posted, my inbox was already bulging with submissions. After just 24 hours, over 150 Mokey Mokeys were running amok in my inbox, patiently waiting their turns to be sifted through and judged for one thing, and one thing only:

Brutal killing efficiency . . .

A lot of really interesting approaches were taken. Some tried equips, using Axe of Despair, Mage Power, and United We Stand, often special summoning Kozacky and Gigobyte to the field to add to the overall “terror by cuteness” theme. Others special summoned far larger monsters and then used Riryoku to pump up Mokey Mokey. One of the most interesting solutions from one reader involved setting Magical Merchant, forcing it to flip to trigger its effect, and then discarding three of almost every monster in the game in order to fuel a huge Deal of Phantom to give Mokey Mokey a massive attack boost.

The most popular highly-successful tactic, though, was what many competitors dubbed “Mecha–Mokey Mokey.” Setting DNA Surgery on turn 1, Mokey Mokey would be converted to a Machine type monster on turn 2 and could then have its attack multiplied to ridiculous levels with repeated Limiter Removals. In fact, the Magical Merchant Mokey Mokey used this strategy as well and was the most successful of the basic Mecha-Mokey Mokey entries, clocking in at over fourteen million ATK!

But fourteen million just wasn’t enough. Out of the 400–450 entries I received, just under a dozen entrants managed to infinitely enrage Mokey Mokey, pumping him up with endless loops to literally boundless proportions. How did readers do it? Let’s look at winning entrant Joseph Q-M’s explanation:

The first turn, you draw to have six cards in your hand. Then you summon Mokey Mokey, leaving you with five cards, and you end your turn with Pwnzor laughing uncontrollably at the pathetic move.

Next turn you'll show him a thing or two. You draw, bringing your hand up to six cards. You play Painful Choice and select three Dark Magician of Chaos, The Little Swordsman of Aile, and Sacred Crane. It does not matter what your opponent picks, as your next card played will be Graceful Charity. You discard what your opponent chose with Painful Choice as well as, say, a Dark Magician.

You still have six cards. Then you play Pot of Greed, increasing your hand size to seven cards. Then you prepare your combination of doom. You activate the spell card Spell Economics, bringing you down to six cards in hand. Next you activate Soul Release, bringing you down to five cards in hand, removing all three Dark Magician of Chaos and The Little Swordsman of Aile.

You activate Triangle Power on your Mokey Mokey, increasing its power by 2000 so it is at 2300. You have four cards left in your hand. You then activate your trump card, Dimension Fusion. This card special summons all three Dark Magician of Chaos and The Little Swordsman of Aile. You select Dimension Fusion, Triangle Power, and Soul Release. You then activate Triangle Power, boosting Mokey Mokey to 4300 ATK. You also activate the effect of the Little Swordsman, tributing each Dark Magician of Chaos to boost its ATK. This removes Dark Magician of Chaos from the game. (Even if you didn't have Soul Release to do it anyway, hehe.)

This starts an "infinite loop": you activate Dimension Fusion reviving the DMoCs, get back your Triangle Power and Dimension Fusion, then power up Mokey Mokey with the Triangle Power, sacrifice the DMoCs to Aile, activate Dimension Fusion, revive the DMoCs and start the combo all over again.

Thus your Mokey Mokey strikes with Infinite Anger Eruption Attack dealing an infinite amount of damage to your opponent. Not only does Mokey Mokey gain infinite ATK, so does the Little Swordsman, and together they strike the opponent, Double Infinite Slash!

Pretty impressive! Joseph Q-M from Cincinnati, Ohio was the first entrant to submit an infinite solution, so as per the contest rules, he has earned his place as the first Metagame Reader Challenge winner! The other infinite loops were a bit different: they often substituted other sources of ATK in the place of Triangle Power, and Hysteric Fairy sometimes stood in for Little Swordsman to give a method of tributing the Dark Magicians. All but one submission at this level used Dark Magician of Chaos to create an infinite loop.

The one that didn’t? It instead used Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning, Banisher of the Light, Rush Recklessly, and two Primal Seeds. On turn 2, Graceful Charity was used to get some tribute fodder for Black Luster Soldier and it would be summoned, as would Banisher of the Light. An infinite loop would then be formed, wherein Banisher of the Light would remove Rush Recklessly from play after resolution. It would be brought back with one Primal Seed (which would then itself be removed), and used again. The second Primal Seed would then retrieve one Rush Recklessly and the other Seed, and the combo would be repeated until Mokey Mokey just couldn’t take it anymore and hurled himself across the table at Pwnzor’s forehead. Ouch.

So, those are the results of the first Metagame.com Reader Challenge! Now that everyone’s got a feel for how stuff works, things are going to get even harder next week, so study up and keep your wits sharp. I’d like to send out a big thanks to everyone who did all they could to enrage a Mokey Mokey of their own! I’m sure the little guy appreciates it.

Thanks for competing!

-Jason Grabher-Meyer