Changes
→Battle City
While heading to the hospital for Serenity's operation, Joey encounters a group of Rare Hunters. One of them, [[Seeker]], duels Joey and defeats him using "[[Exodia]]". The hunters beat-up Joey and take the Red-Eyes card. This makes him feel unworthy to be present at Serenity's operation. But Serenity refuses to take the operation until Joey arrives. Tristan manages to find Joey and talk him into coming to the hospital. Serenity is still angry at Joey for being late, but Joey manages to talk her into taking the operation. But while this on top of his loss to Duke Devlin, a capable but unranked duelist, would effectively seem to be Joey's fall from grace, a comeback was in the near future for him.
Joey finds Seeker on the first day of the tournament in an attempt to get a rematch, but is denied, so Yugi duels and defeats Seeker instead. He wins back the "Red-Eyes B. Dragon" card and offers it to Joey, but Joey insists that Yugi keep it. Despite losing the card, Joey goes on to defeat [[Espa Roba]], who had just deafeated the card's original owner [[Rex Raptor]], without it. He then defeats Yugi's old rivals [[Weevil Underwood]] and [[Mako Tsunami]], qualifying for the quarter-finals and gaining new cards that boost his deck considerably. He decided that early on, he only wanted to defeat strong duelists to qualify, rather than do things the easy way. This led him to go as far as challenging Seto Kaiba. Kaiba declined after he is informed of Yugi's location while hunting for the Egyptian God Cards. Although he is relieved about not facing Kaiba, he still acts tough and calls Kaiba a coward.
[[File:Joey possessed by Marik.png|thumb|right|200px|Joey possessed by Marik.]]
