Likely one of the most recognizable faces of Yugioh Youtube, Alex Cimo is a Yugioh player who got his start on YouTube with Tech Tuesday videos discussing potent cards for the format at the time and some standard Yu-Gi-Oh duels. His profile slowly grew, helped by creating the Yugituber Grand Championship, which featured the big-names of Yugitube duking it out in a tournament with varying rulesets from 2015-2020, and exploded with his How To Play Yu-Gi-Oh in 3 Minutes!
video.
2020 would see him start doing weekly series of duels with various other Yugitubers. These include:
- Progression Series: The first of these, Cimoooooooo and Nyhmnim open the main-sets of yugioh cards in chronological order to slowly improve their decks and play against each other. Has since gone to a Season 2 with modified rules and the introduction of side-sets.
- History of Yu-Gi-Oh: Playing against MBT, the duo face off playing major meta-decks in Yu-Gi-Oh history, where the loser of the previous week must dawn the "Shirt of Shame". On hiatus as of January 2024, when the latest episode covered the competitive scene in early 2020 just before the COVID-19 Pandemic disrupted it for several months to follow.
- History of Jank: A spinoff of the above also with MBT, where they instead play lesser known decks of varying quality from the game’s history and the loser of the previous week wears the "Jank Tank". On hiatus as of January 2024.
- History of OCG: A variant of the series, launched on February 2024, where Cimo and MBT explore how the game developed on the other side of the Pacific, starting from the game's very infancy when Early-Installment Weirdness was at its prime.
- History of Jank: A spinoff of the above also with MBT
- Sealed Showdown: Facing off with TheRJB0, they play by opening various sets and can only use the cards opened in that specific episode. Put on indefinite hiatus as of May 17, 2023, though RJ's comments in a later video imply it's outright canceled.
- Auction Series: Against ruxin34, the duo bid on various Yu-Gi-Oh Items and then build a deck using cards they pull from them. Notably the only series not done in chronological order. On indefinite hiatus as of March 23, 2022, but was briefly brought back following donation incentives in late December 2022.
- Sealed Saturdays: Versus House of Champs, both play starter or structure decks from a similar time period against each-other. Was cancelled in January 2022, owing to burn out from both parties.
- Guess That Card!: An Oddball in the Series where instead of dueling, Cimo tasks a different Yugituber each episode with guessing what card he's thinking of by asking him ten different questions in order to win $100. Status is currently up in the air.
- Master Duel Masochist: Cimoooooooo plays Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel with the bare minimum of cards required from purchasing Master Packs and he can only obtain new cards from another Master Pack or legacy pack after winning a duel.
- Edison Encyclopedia: In-depth analyses of popular Decks in the fan-maintained Edison format (April 2010, mid-Synchro era)
His channel may be found here.
It’s time to Trope:
- Character Catchphrase: "What's going on, guys? It's Cimo!" happens at the start of every single non-series video of his.
- Chair Reveal:
- Cimoooooooo does this in the Retro pack 2 episode of Progression Series Season 2, embracing being the villain for bringing the infamous Magical Scientist FTK to the episode.
- Does it again in The Shining Darkness episode of Season 2, playing the similarly notorious Frog FTK.
- Comeback Mechanic: Season 2 of the Progression Series incorporated the chance for a 3 or more match loss streak player to ban 1 card from the series for each loss, better preventing a steamrolling of the opponent.
- Complacent Gaming Syndrome: Gets Discussed at times with some of the notorious Game-Breaker formats:
- Dark-Armed Dragon format, to the point of including one episode with a wheel where every deck was a variant of the Dark-Armed Dragon deck.
- Also and demonstrated with the infamous "Dragon Ruler" Format where they were the overwhelmingly dominant deck, with only Prophecy and Evilswarm being able to reliably contest their power by floodgating them out of the game. Further shown with "Dragon Ruler 2.0" format where they were still overwhelmingly dominant, but more decks now stood a fighting chance.
- In Season 2 of Progression, when Cimo and Gage make it to the GX era, they decide to ban Chaos Emperor Dragon so as to avoid this, though both still wind up having a rotating series of pet decks they favor in each era.
- Crazy Enough to Work: The decks featured in The History of Jank will often fit this trope, varying from obscure cards rarely seen elsewhere, unusual variants of meta strategies, or decks utilizing later banned cards in unusual ways.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: The Gold Series 2 episode of the Progression Series has a text rant from the editor as they admit to recycling their pun from the previous Gold Series episode.
- Massive Multiplayer Crossover: The main purpose of the Yugituber Grand Championship series, bringing together the many Yugitubers to compete against each other.
- Medal of Dishonor: The “Shirt of Shame” for History of Yu-Gi-Oh and “Jank Tank” for History of Jank, which are worn by the loser of the previous week in each respective series.
- Obvious Rule Patch:
- Episode 41 of the Progression Series implemented two: to follow the Traditional banlist at the time of a set’s release and to give the loser a current to the era tournament pack. This was in response to Cimoooooooo’s infamous Blackwing winstreak.
- Season 1 also featured times where they “hall of famed” some particularly broken cards, most notably Magical Scientist and Painful Choice.
- The Judgements of Season 2 serve as this. While initially intended for being at the end of each era, complaints about Imperial Order would press them to do one mid-GX just to ban it. They also took the time to make wild card common to wild card promo instead.
- Another Emergency Judgement occurs after both play Frog FTK to ban Substitoad in order to take the deck off the table.
- Yet another happens to who else but Magical Scientist, which notably happens earlier than in the first season due to Nyhmnim‘s particular crazy Xyz pulls.
- Retreaux: The Retro Pack episode intro and vs screens are done using a psuedo 8-bit style. This would be replicated for the intro of Retro Pack 2, but oddly not for the vs screens.
- Self-Imposed Challenge: The Master Duel Masochist series is one big version of this, deliberately playing with the bare minimum to build a deck.
- Shout-Out: MBT’s cardbacks do this a lot. Such as Deltarune themed card backs most times he plays Dark World.
- Take That!:
- The sponsored ad for perennial YouTube sponsor NordVPN in the Xyz Infernity episode has Cimoooooooo engage in Hollywood Hacking to try and fix the Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel May 2022 banlist.
- He frequently expresses his dislike of buying sealed Yu-Gi-Oh! products because of his belief that it's a waste of money and regularly encourages his viewers to just buy the single cards. Of course, this doesn't stop him from making opening videos anyway to both give the viewers a taste of the pack opening experience without making them spend money and also to support his local Yu-Gi-Oh! sellers.
- Tempting Fate:
- When he buys a Mystery Box to prove how worthless they are, the tone completely changes when he pulls a Shonen-Jump Prize Cyber-Stein, and ends the video by joking about suddenly needing a bodyguard. In actuality, the video was staged weeks in advance, with Cimo borrowing the Cyber-Stein from a friend of his.
- In one of the most memorable moments in the History of Yu-Gi-Oh, Cimoooooooo correctly predicts what cards MBT has ready that could allow for a One-Turn Kill and plays Swords of Revealing Light to prevent it, only for MBT to draw a Mystical-Space Typhoon and use the predicted cards to win the game as he guessed.
- When he buys a Mystery Box
- This Is Gonna Suck: A very common sentiment from the GX episodes of Sealed Showdown, given that the era was infamously full of terrible cards and forces the creation of some very bizarre decks.
- Training Montage: Parodied with the Factor sponsorship ad, which has Cimo exercising while also reciting crucial Dragon Ruler strategies and plays.
- Visual Pun: To the point of Running Gag, MBT’s card backs will be related to the deck he’s playing that week.
