Joshua Schmidt

Joshua Schmidt, nicknamed Josh, is a German player and content creator widely regarded as one of the best and most accomplished players in Yu-Gi-Oh! history. He won the inaugural Master Duel World Championship in 2023 with his teammates Emre Kizilates and Jack-Rory Steenkamer. One year later, they came in second place, facing the exact same team in the finals as in 2023 (Jesse Kotton, Ryan Yu and Raymond Dai).

He has also won four YCSs (Madrid 2014, Prague 2017, Utrecht 2022 and Bologna 2023), participated in four TCG/OCG World Championships (2012, 2017, 2018 and 2019) and topped over 40 premier events.

He holds the following distinctions/records within competitive Yu-Gi-Oh!:

• Around late 2017/early 2018, he was briefly the player with the highest amount of premier event tops in the game before being overtaken by Galileo de Obaldia. Among European players, he still holds the record comfortably.
• He was the first and so far only European player with more than three YCS wins.
• He was the first and so far only player in the world with six World Championship participations across all categories (4x TCG/OCG, 2x Master Duel).
• His is the most followed Master Duel account among non-Asian players, with over 9,000 followers as of late 2024. Worldwide, only Tasuku Kobanawa has more.

As a player, he often gravitates towards Midrange-focused strategies, valuing consistency and utility over power. His arguably most iconic deck, especially in recent years, is "Runick", having achieved three of his five major wins with it. In total, he has piloted six different "Runick" builds to top cut finishes.

In early 2020, he received a one year suspension for supposedly having used marked cards at YCS Utrecht 2020. According to Joshua, this happened because his deck contained three old American copies of "Pot of Desires" that were much more bent than the rest of the cards in his deck. In the end, his suspension mattered little as all major in-person events were cancelled following the outbreak of Covid-19 just a few weeks later. He would eventually return to playing Yu-Gi-Oh! about two years later, following the release of Master Duel.
In 2022, he finished university and started doing Yu-Gi-Oh! content creation as a full-time job. He regularly streams on his Twitch channel, covering both the physical card game and Master Duel. He also has a YouTube channel where he mostly uploads stream highlights from Twitch, deck profiles and discussion videos related to the competitive game. As of late 2024, his two main channels have over 120,000 followers/subscribers in total.

He is also involved in the organization of the Challenger Cup, a series of semi-official Master Duel tournament that are hosted by various European and North American content creators.

In January 2024, he started a podcast called Heart of the Cast with fellow content creator Farfa, where the two talk about various topics related to Yu-Gi-Oh!. They also regularly invite guests, which have included various content creators and players.

TCG/OCG Tournament Decks[]

WCQ Europe 2024 (Top 64)[]

German Nationals 2024 (Top 32)[]

YCS Bologna 2023 (1st place)[]

German Nationals 2023 (Top 16)[]

YCS London 2023 (Top 32)[]

YCS Lyon 2023 (Top 16)[]

YCS Dortmund 2022 (3rd place)[]

YCS Utrecht 2022 (1st place)[]

WCQ Europe 2022 (Top 8)[]

YCS London 2019 (2nd place)[]

World Championship 2019 (9-28th place)[]

WCQ Europe 2019 (Top 32)[]

German Nationals 2019 (Top 64)[]

YCS Düsseldorf 2019 (Top 32)[]

YCS Milan 2018 (Top 16)[]

YCS London 2018 (Top 32)[]

World Championship 2018 (9-28th place)[]

Altergeist (Decklist Unavailable)

WCQ Europe 2018 (Top 16)[]

German Nationals 2018 (Top 4)[]

YCS Prague II 2017 (4th place)[]

YCS Rimini 2017 (3rd place)[]

World Championship 2017 (9-26th place)[]

True Draco (Decklist Unavailable)

German Nationals 2017 (Top 16)[]

YCS Prague 2017 (1st place)[]

YCS Bochum 2016 (2nd place)[]

YCS Rimini 2016 (Top 16)[]

WCQ Europe 2016 (Top 16)[]

German Nationals 2016 (Top 8)[]

YCS Rimini 2015 (Top 32)[]

WCQ Europe 2015 (Top 64)[]

German Nationals 2015 (2nd place)[]

YCS Bochum 2015 (Top 16)[]

YCS Madrid 2014 (1st place)[]

German Nationals 2014 (Top 64)[]

Deck unknown (Decklist Unavailable)

YCS Paris 2014 (Top 32)[]

YCS Berlin 2014 (Top 16)[]

YCS Turin 2013 (Top 4)[]

YCS London 2013 (4th place)[]

YCS Brussels 2013 (Top 8)[]

Battle Pack 2: War of the Giants Sealed Deck (Decklist Unavailable)

WCQ Europe 2013 (Top 64)[]

Deck unknown (Decklist Unavailable)

German Nationals 2013 (Top 32)[]

YCS Lille 2013 (Top 8)[]

Atlantean Mermail (Decklist Unavailable)

YCS Barcelona 2012 (Top 32)[]

World Championship 2012 (3rd place)[]

Inzektor (Decklist Unavailable)

WCQ Europe 2012 (Top 4)[]

YCS Leipzig 2012 (Top 16)[]

Duel Links Tournament Decks[]

KC Cup 2018 SEP (13th place)[]

Note: The KC Cup format allows players to change their deck for every single game. Because of this, the following decklist might not have been used in 100% of games:

Master Duel Tournament Decks[]

World Championship 2024 (2nd place)[]

World Championship 2023 (1st place)[]

World Championship Qualifiers 2023 (2nd place Area E / 13th place Global)[]

Note: The WCQ format allows players to change their deck for every single game. Because of this, the following decklists might not have been used in 100% of games:

External Links[]

• Twitter
• Twitch
• Main YouTube Channel
• VOD YouTube Channel
• Clip YouTube Channel