Pegasus Ultimate Challenge

Darren Dunstan at the Pegasus Ultimate Challenge

The Pegasus Ultimate Challenge is a special Pegasus Challenge tournament held rarely at major official events. Throughout the tournament, Darren Dunstan, the voice of Maximillion Pegasus, announces rule changes that change the course of the duel.

Events

It was first held at the Yu-Gi-Oh! Championship Series Providence 2012, using the September 2012 Advanced Format Forbidden and Limited lists. The tournament was run using four Swiss rounds. Players who completed all four rounds undefeated won 40 Turbo Packs, five from each Turbo Pack series.

A second Ultimate Pegasus Challenge was held at the 2013 North American World Championship Qualifiers in Chicago, Illinois.

A third Ultimate Pegasus Challenge was held at the 2015 North American World Championship Qualifier in Nashville, Tennessee, with Jonathan Todd Ross as Marik Ishtar helping Pegasus call out rules.

A fourth Ultimate Pegasus Challenge was held at 2018's 200th Yu-Gi-Oh! Championship Series in Columbus, Ohio. Players won up to 16 Turbo Packs or Astral Packs depending on how many rounds they won.

Rules

Tournaments are conducted using the Advanced Format, with four Swiss-system rounds. Every few minutes, Pegasus, or another character voiced by a special guest, announces a change to the rules that players must abide by. Players finish resolving an ongoing chain, but any other time, including building a chain, the changes are applied immediately. These rule changes are not card effects, and cannot be negated. Rule changes can fulfil the activation requirements for optional effects, but are not treated as your opponent's actions. Rules can be an action to be performed once, or a lingering restriction that can last for a specified number of turns or until the next rule change.

Pegasus's rules

At the Yu-Gi-Oh! Championship Series Providence 2012, the following are the special rules Pegasus could announce.

• All players reveal the top card of their deck. You may play that card immediately, starting with the turn player.
• Both players play with their hands revealed.
• Destroy all monsters with five or more stars.
• Everyone discard a random card from their hand.
• Everyone stop and introduce yourself to the person sitting on your right.
• Lose 500 LP for each Spell and Trap Card you control.
• Shuffle your hand into your deck and then draw that many cards.
• Swap LP with your opponent.
• Destroy all monsters with 1500 or less ATK.
• If you had a card destroyed this turn, you may destroy one of your opponent's cards.
• Players cannot activate Spell Cards. (They could activate their effects.)
• Remove all cards in all graveyard from the game.
• Switch the ATK and DEF of all monsters on the field.
• Turn your deck over and then draw from the new top of the deck.
• You cannot attack unless you say "Yu-Gi-Oh!"
• All monsters become Normal Monsters with no effects.
• Destroy all cards on the field.
• Destroy all monsters.
• Destroy all Spell and Trap Cards.
• Destroy all face-up Xyz Monsters.
• Discard your hand and then draw that many cards.
• Everyone draw the bottom card of their Deck.
• If you have less LP than your opponent, Special Summon one monster from your hand to the field, ignore all Summoning conditions.
• Players cannot activate Trap Cards. (They could activate their effects.)
• Shuffle your Graveyard into your Deck and then put the top 15 cards of your Deck into the Graveyard.
• You must sing your Battle Phase.
• Destroy all Continuous Spell and Trap Cards.
• Destroy all monsters with 1500 or more ATK.
• Destroy all monsters with 4 or less Levels.
• No monsters can be face-down, flip all face-down monsters to face up and their flip effects are negated.
• Shuffle your Side Deck and then draw from that instead of your Main Deck.
• Swap monsters with your opponent. All of them.
• Turn all monsters face-down. They cannot be flipped up this turn.
• You can only activate cards on your turn.
• You can only play monsters with an ATK of 1600 or higher.

2015 additions

At the 2015 North American World Championship Qualifier, Pegasus could also announce the following rules.

• Choose a monster, a spell, and a trap card from your Graveyard and set them all onto your field.
• Each duelist must search his or her deck for any card, add it to their hand, and shuffle their deck afterward.
• All old rules become no longer in effect, and all players reveal their hands and face-down cards to their opponents.
• Choose a card in your opponent's graveyard and set it to your side of the field.
• Each duelist may draw up to two cards, but loses 1000 Life Points for each card he or she chooses to draw. The turn player decides how many cards to draw first.

Marik's rules

At the 2015 North American World Championship Qualifier, Marik could announce rules that included the following.

• All duelists must discard a card at random.
• For three turns, all monsters have "Jam" added to the ends of their names. When a "Jam" monster is destroyed, you can Special Summon it back to the field in Defense Position.
• For three turns, duelists can activate trap cards from their hands.
• By paying 1000 Life Points per monster, players may smite any number of their opponent's monsters and send them to the Graveyard. The turn player chooses how many monsters to smite first.
• Necrovalley is in effect for three turns. Cards cannot leave the Graveyard for 3 turns.