Yusaku managed to capture the mysterious lifeform as he chases after the Knights of Hanoi. In order to defeat them, he logs into the VR Space network, Link VRAINS, as Playmaker. He commenced a Duel, holding the lifeform as a hostage. However, the lifeform predicted that "Yusaku can’t win with his deck," and performed a certain action...
This episode contains the following tropes:
- Achilles' Heel: Cracking Dragon has an enormous 3000 ATK points and can't be destroyed by anything with a level lower than its level of 8. However, it has absolutely no DEF points, which leaves it vulnerable to Cyberse Wizard's effect, which switches it to defense position and allows Cyberse monsters to inflict piercing damage.
- Attention Whore: Go complains about Playmaker supposedly taking his spotlight.
- Awesome by Analysis: Playmaker guesses that Cracking Dragon wouldn't be destroyed by Cyberse Wizard's attack. Why? Because his opponent barely reacted when he used Wizard's effect.
- Big Damn Heroes: After last episode where Yusaku/Playmaker saved her from being erased, Aoi/Blue Angel returns the favor by launching his D-Board back to him with an energy lasso when he fell off.
- Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: The Knight of Hanoi experiences one, reminding Playmaker after the later summons Decode Talker that Cracking Dragon can't be destroyed by monsters with a level lower than eight; only to remember near the end that Link Monsters have no levels.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Subverted. Playmaker is able to summon Stack Reviver to the field without being wiped out by Cracking Dragon's effect because Stack Reviver's ATK stat is only 100, meaning Playmaker cannot lose more life points than Stack Reviver has ATK points (Playmaker had exactly 400 LP left at the time he Summoned it, meaning virtually any other monster would have cost him the duel).
- No-Sell: Cracking Dragon can't be destroyed by monsters whose level is lower than eight.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Playmaker dismisses the Knight of Hanoi upon the latter's defeat, in that he has no right to call himself a Duelist.
- Wham Shot: Playmaker Link Summoning Decode Talker for the first time.
- You Didn't Ask: The Ignis didn't mention skills when explaining speed duels because Playmaker told him to keep it short.
- Your Mind Makes It Real: The Ignis explains that taking too much damage in Link VRAINS will have adverse effects on a Duelist's physical brain that could potentially make them a brain-dead vegetable.
