I used to be pretty wicked at the game. Then my deck got stolen, TWICE! It took me freaking forever to get the cards back again, and by then the game had changed too much, and after a year of not paying attention, the entire game had mutated into something beyond what the creators thought originally.
I sucked 1 on 1, but 2 on 2 teams, whoever was with me got themselves one more win than they had before. Partly the reason why I sucked eggs was because it took me a good long while to set up the big boys, and when you don't have any way to cover yourself, you're left open in order to be targeted by the enemy. With teams of 2, my partner could block all of the incoming shots, and then stand-by and watch as I wreaked havoc on the enemy side. Back then, Dark Paladin and XYZ Dragon Cannon were some of the strongest cards, and it also helped that I had Jinzo, along with several other cards (like the 3 pieces to the Gate Guardian, and the Magnet things. The main reason why I stopped playing though, was because every person I ended up going against cheated. One match the little bugger infamous for cheating in the area had started the match early and didn't bother saying anything, not what the monster was, it's effect, nothing. Soon after it got beat, and some trap card he played allowed him to revive it if the opponent couldn't guess the name of the monster. Part of the problem there was that he never bothered saying the name (which in the rules you had to), nor did he bother letting anyone look at the cards at any point in time. I guessed the name and got fairly close, but the douchebag still revived the freaking thing. After that, I got up and left, and damn near decked him with a different definition.