The popular mobile game Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Links recently kicked off its newest event, dubbed "The Destiny Board of Doom", on March 23. This event will run throughout the week, and features the final antagonist of the classic series --Yami Bakura.

This iconic villain can be pretty tough to beat when you face off with him. But we're here with some tips and tricks to help you deal with the evil spirit and his group of ghastly ghouls.

Tips for Beating Yami Bakura

Collect plenty of dice from other duelists

To participate in the Board of Doom event, you must be at least stage 4. In order to duel Yami Bakura, first you have to collect enough Ten-Sided Dice to challenge him. Ten Sided Dice are obtained by defeating other duelists in Duel World, and the amount you can win increases depending on how high your stage level is. You can also receive 10 additional Ten-Sided Dice twice a day.

How many Ten-Sided Dice you need to challenge Yami Bakura depends on what level he is, and increases with each version. Yami Bakura starts at level 10, which only takes five Ten-Sided Dice. But he has other versions at level 20, 30, and 40 -- each of which is unlocked after defeating the previous one. There is also a level 50 version which can only be unlocked once you've accumulated an unspecified amount of event points from dueling him.

Once you have collected 200,000 event points, Yami Bakura is unlocked as a playable character.

Pay attention to the time limit

Yami Bakura's "Destiny Board of Doom" ability does a number of things. It always allows him to go first, gives him the power to automatically win the duel at the end of the player's fifth turn, and lets him start with "Dark Necrofear" in the graveyard. However, this skill is negated when "Dark Necrofear" is no longer in the graveyard, and it cannot be special summoned from the graveyard either.

The first two abilities are the most important, and a well balanced deck is the best way to deal with them. Since your turns are pretty limited, starting with a bad hand could cost you the duel. At level 10, this time limit isn't much of a problem since Yami focuses on summoning weaker monsters -- but it becomes more apparent as his level increases. At higher levels, sometimes making even one wrong move is enough for him to defeat you.

Use monsters with high ATK and ATK boosting cards

Yami Bakura's deck is meant to stall time so he can proc his automatic win. With that in mind, a decent strategy is to summon monsters with high ATK as fast as possible.

For lower level monsters, "Jerry Beans Man" (ATK 1750/DEF 0) is always a good choice, as long as it isn't switched to defense mode. The spell card "Tribute Doll" is a good way to get a strong level seven monster on the field quickly, but it can't attack when it is first summoned -- so it's best to do this on your first turn if you're able to.

Using equip spells and other ATK boosting cards is a great method as well. Equip spells such as "Black Pendant" and "Gravity Axe Grarl" to boost your chances of surviving the fight. The spell card "Banner of Courage" is another card which may work in your favor.

Depending on your deck, you could also use a duelist with a skill which allows a field card to be played automatically at the beginning of a duel. For example, you might want to play as Seto Kaiba and use his "Peak Performance" skill when playing with a deck that centers around Dragon-Type or Winged-Beast-Type monsters.

Be wary of effect monsters

At stronger levels, Yami Bakura has a couple of effect monsters you should watch out for. When he's on the defensive, he likes to set "Electric Lizard". It's a good idea to use the "Stop Defense" spell card. But it's better to do this when you have no monsters on the field, or at least have another monster readily available in your hand -- in case he has set "Man-Eater Bug". Another wise choice in this situation would be "Order to Charge".

For a more direct approach to dealing with Yami Bakura's weaker effect monsters, "Wicked Flamberge Baou" is a beneficial equip card. "Baou" provides a 500 point ATK boost to one of your monsters, and can negate the effects of any monster destroyed by the monster which has it equipped.

When he's on the offensive, typically his strongest card is "Dark Ruler Ha Des", which can be a lot of trouble if you don't destroy it right away. 2450 ATK isn't too hard to deal with if you can get strong monsters and equip cards on the field fast. You could also lower its ATK with trap cards like "Curse of Aging".

The effect of "Ha Des" can be another problem. It allows Yami Bakura to negate the effects of monsters destroyed in battle with Fiend-Type monsters he controls, and is also a Fiend-Type monster itself.  So let's say you set a monster which can destroy other monsters by flipping or defeat in battle -- due to the effect of "Ha Des," your monster could get destroyed without getting to activate its own effect.

An alternate method to get rid of "Ha Des" would be to use a spell card like "Block Attack" or "Earthquake" to force it into defense mode, as it only has 1600 DEF. "Shield & Sword" would work to, if you want to do some damage to Yami Bakura's life points.

Be prepared to counter spell & trap cards

In addition to his special skill and annoying effect monsters, Yami Bakura has some irritating spell and trap cards in his deck as well. Watch out for spell cards like "Soul Exchange", "Enemy Controller", and "Exchange", which he plays to use your own monsters against you. Having cards like "De-Spell" and "Magic Jammer" in your deck could really help fight against these and other troublesome spell cards.

He also has trap cards like "Time Machine", which brings back one of his recently destroyed monsters to stall for time. "Nobleman of Extermination" is a great way to get rid of "Time Machine" before he gets the chance to activate it, and "Remove Trap" is always a useful spell card to have in your deck. If you feel victory in your grasp, the spell card "Timidity" can prevent him from setting spell or trap cards for a turn -- but can be a risky move due to the time limit.

If you have an affinity for Dragon-Type monsters, then "Stamping Destruction" is another fine choice to deal with spell or trap cards, and additionally deals life point damage.

Use his own strategies against him

Another clever move is giving Yami Bakura a taste of his own medicine by using monsters like "Dharc the Dark Charmer" or "Ghost Knight of Jackal" to take his monsters and use them as your own. This method also helps to save time, since you'll have monsters on your side of the field right away.

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There are plenty of other strategies to defeat Yami Bakura, but these are a few  of the most effective methods for dealing with this obnoxious occultist.

"Fear The Deck of Terror! The Destiny Board of Doom" only runs until April 2, so make sure to keep collecting Ten-Sided Dice and dueling  Yami Bakura while you still have the chance. There may not be a way to obtain some of his rare cards or unlock him as a playable character in the future.

With Shadowverse already hitting 2 million downloads, people are consolidating the meta and preparing some pretty powerful decks. And some of those decks belong to a complicated class called the Havencraft.

Out of all the crafts of Shadowverse, Havencraft tends to be the most strategic. You can play either to win or lose the game, leading to decks like Control Havencraft and Countdown Havencraft, plus a unique deck called Laelia Havencraft. 

But this type of deck can be hard to master. That's why we're giving you some tips on how to build and play a Havencraft deck for Shadowverse. Now, let's get started and learn about the power of the Countdown Amulets!

How to Play the Havencraft

I personally believe these are among of the most amusing decks to play. As my friends like to say, your opponents are literally waiting for the clock to run out. Havencraft, like Dragoncraft, has access to heavy-hitting creatures -- but there's a slight catch.

Can anyone tell me what these four creatures have in common? Yes, they are pretty badass looking, but more important is the fact that you can't just summon these guys. 

Out of all the Shadowverse classes, Havencraft has access to the most number of Amulet cards and cards that affect the Amulets. For those new to Shadowverse, Amulets are spell-like cards that take up a space for a minion but continually provides an effect until it is destroyed or removed. In the case for Eris and her Havencraft deck, most of her Amulets only come into effect when they are destroyed at the end of their Countdown. 

Now, let us return to those majestic creatures. As you can probably already guess, to summon those powerful creatures, you need to play their respective Amulet cards. Fortunately for Havencraft players, the basic Amulet cards are low in cost to offset the wait time -- plus you have access to more powerful Amulets with additional effects like shorter wait time, damage to opponents, and summoning multiple minions, though it costs more to play them.

But it would be a foolish thing for your opponents to just wait for their death, so decks like Swordcraft will rush you as soon as they can -- before the clock hits zero. Thankfully, Havencraft has some powerful support.

Eris is the high priestess of the church, and that mean she's got some pretty powerful allies. The spell card Hallowed Dogma and Sister Initiate both have the affects of reducing the Countdowns of the Amulets. While these are pretty basic cards, they are a staple in Havencraft decks. There are also other cards with Countdown reducing effects, so look around and experiment.

But even in the light, there is darkness -- and for those of the Havencraft, it's some powerful darkness. Havencraft is the only class that can easily gain access to Banishment effects, with one of the most used cards of the class being Blackened Scripture. Instead of most cards that "destroy" enemies and tuning them into shadows, Banishment completely removes the opposing card from play.

What's the difference you say? Well, now effects like "Last Word", which activate when destroyed, isn't activated as the opposing card was technically never destroyed. The only other class that has access to banishment would be Runecraft, and that's only if they are running Earth Sigil decks -- gifting Havencraft a pretty unqiue control ability. 

Control and Countdown Havencraft

These two deck types conform most to the designed play of Havencraft decks. By using Countdown Amulets to summon powerful creatures, while using destruction spells and banishment effects to clear the opposing board, Havencraft players can decimate the opponents.

As for the difference, Control tends to focus more on powerful creatures and spells to control the board, while Countdown focuses more on Countdown effects and cards to reduce the wait time to activate them faster.

Laelia Havencraft

This deck is pretty amusing -- and when playing against it, it's simply outrageous if you're not prepared. Laelia Havencraft decks are unique in that they don't use Countdown Amulets. Instead of devoting space to cards that don't benefit from Arch Priestess Laelia, they fill the space with high defense Ward minions.

You see, Laelia has no attack power, making a her a pretty useless minion -- except her effect changes all that. When she is in play, your minion's attack power is of no matter. as all allied followers will do damage equal to their defense -- including her. With most Ward Minions focusing more on defense, now your minions will hit as hard as they can block.

Card of the Craft

Instead of offering less than perfect card recommendations, I'd like to highlight one card that frustrated me the most from this craft -- that might give you a better idea of what mechanic you could build a decent dec around. I present to you...Hare of Illusions.

The Hare of Illusions is a 1-Cost, 3-Countdown Amulet that summons an amusing rabbit, called the Dream Rabbit. The creature himself doesn't seem remarkable, but that's because you can't see his effects. The Dream Rabbit comes with Ward (that's Taunt for you Hearthstone players) and a Last Word (when destroyed) effect that creates another Hare of Illusions Amulet.

A really annoying deck will keep forcing you to attack these rabbits while recreating them through their effects. All the while, Eris will be building up an army of Holywing Dragons to completely annihilate you. Ugh....

Look for more Shadowverse guides in the future. Visit the Shadowverse website for more details about the game, or visit the Shadowverse Portal for more information on specific cards.

Till next time!

In observance of Thanksgiving, the third wing of Hearthstone's adventure expansion, League of Explorers, will not be launching this Thursday, but will be made available next week. In the meantime, Blizzard has already released eighteen new cards throughout the first two weeks of the expansion, and Hearthstone's dedicated community of deck builders have already slammed some new brews for players to try out.

Trogg Shaman

Shaman has been something of a dormant class in Hearthstone's otherwise dynamic meta. In spite of Blizzard's attempts to offer cards for viable Shaman decks (the recent collection of Totem cards from The Grand Tournament stands out especially), the class's Overload feature continues to hold it back from reaching Legend status.

With the latest slew of cards, however, came the Tunnel Trogg. This minion's low cost and positive reaction to Overload seems to have been the last missing piece to a powerful, well-balanced Shaman deck. Hearthpwn.com user DarkClaw20 makes use of this new one-drop minion, as well as the new Jeweled Scarab, in this incredible Overload deck.

Raptor Rogue

Unlike Shaman, the Rogue class is notorious for featuring multiple overpowered archetypes since Hearthstone's release. This has lead to numerous nerfs in the past, leaving Rogue virtually unplayable more than once.

Fortunately, the League of Explorers has brought us the Unearthed Raptor. This prehistoric critter copies the Deathrattle effect of any friendly boarded minion of your choosing. Not a day out from the raptor's release, RDIFB crafted an exceptional deck around this minion. Featuring cards like Loot Hoarder, Piloted Shredder, and Dr. Boom, there's plenty in this brew for the Unearthed Raptor to work with.

Aggro Druid

Despite this deck not featuring any cards from League of Explorers, it's making a killing in the current meta. The mana curve is a bit heavy for an aggro deck, but it makes up for this with cards like Innervate and Druid of the Saber (the latter coming from The Grand Tournament). This allows for creatures like Piloted Shredder and Fel Reaver to get an early drop. And of course, like any contemporary Druid deck, Savage Roar and Force of Nature both make an appearance for a deadly combo.

What decks have you been playing since League of Explorers launched? Have any new brews of your own you'd like to share? Sound off in the comments below!