It's the first Duelist Kingdom quarter-final match, and Yugi is facing Mai Valentine. His friends wish him luck, but Yugi is unsure if he can trust Yami Yugi after seeing how ruthless he was against Kaiba. He deliberately holds him back, which causes Mai to gain a nearly insurmountable lead. (The Japanese version has Yami Yugi solely focused on dueling Pegasus and not take Mai seriously as a result.)
With Mai's Mirror Wall, a continuous trap that halves Yugi's monsters' attack, and Shadow of Eyes, which forces any monsters Yugi plays to be in Attack Mode, Yugi must focus on the duel at hand and trust the spirit if he's going to win.
This episode contains examples of:
- Bond One-Liner: In the dub, when Mai destroys Yugi's Gaia the Fierce Knight, she quips, "Looks like nice Gaias finish last."
- Dub-Induced Plot Hole: The whole subplot of Yugi holding Yami back as he's afraid of Yami going all out makes little to no sense, considering that it is very clearly Yami who is dueling (though this could be excused as Yami being so held back by Yugi that even when transformed he's not at the top of his game), with the dub going as far out as adding in scenes from later episodes to make it look like Yami is asking to help Yugi. In the original, Yugi's far more focused on trying to reach and battle Pegasus, which results in him being countered at every step by Mai.
- Worf Had the Flu: Mai gains a huge lead because Yugi was distracted from dueling her at his best.
