Looking back to when this thread was made, D. Rulers would have been in full swing then. I poked my head in at that time to see how the game had progressed, having dropped out of the game around the time of Tour Guide. I grabbed YGOPRO, at least, that what I believe I used. I don't think the Linux version was out then and I had to use Wine, but I could be wrong. But then, even the AI deck managed to completely destroy me with Dragon Rulers. It was just very discouraging to see, and I lost interest in the game for a while.
Lately, I've been getting back into things. I've been noticing how nice some of the new artwork has been, particularly the Kaiju cards. I looked at the past few formats, and it seemed that the game's been pretty good last year. I found YGOPRO on Android, and that has just been an amazing timesuck for the past couple of weeks. I've tried to recreate some of the newer (to me) decks from when they were at their primes (BA, Qli, PePe, Nekroz, RA), and tried playing with and playing against them with the really current stuff, and it's just amazing to see how fast and combo oriented decks are these days. The speed in which they can search and get things on the field gives me whiplash at times. I've seen how crazy it got during the start of the XYZ stuff, but I think it's struck a better balance these days.
I started off mainly playing Kaiju-based decks. At first, Graydle Kaiju and Yosenju Kaiju. Both have been very easy to pick and and very fun to play with. Lately I've moved to Zoodiac Kaiju and SPYRAL Kaiju decks. The former has been very consistent. Even at the (relatively poor) level I was playing at, I found myself winning a bit too often with this, at least against other non-Zoodiac decks. I'm pretty much hopeless playing against other Zoodiacs. I probably could get better at the deck over time, but it's been getting a bit boring when the combos don't vary much, at least at my level of play.
I've mostly been playing with D/D/D this week. Partly because I had heard good things, and the core deck looked cheap enough (<30-40 bones) to be appealing. Of course, I didn't think to factor in Extra deck stuff like Crystal Wing, PSY-Frame, and staples like Pot of Desires. Those sort of break the bank. Getting one together will probably cost up to 200. I think I'll stick to online play - physical cards are nice, but I'm not deep enough into this to where I would consider that sort of investment. Even if I was, I mean, they're paper cards; there's perfectly good 1000-dollar headphones to be buying, even if they are made from Fisher Price plastic, 70's wood wallpaper, and cellophane.
Anyways, I like that the combos in D/D/D are so varied, and I like the playstyle in general. I favoured more towards Control/Stun, or anything Anti-Meta, back when I was playing regularly, but it's been nice to play a deck that feels fast and combo-y as the mainstream stuff, but feels flexible and rewards careful play. Blue-Eyes decks have been fun too. Also, I remember running Darklords when they were not so good, and it's been great to see how good they are now.
Some of the resources that I found useful for D/D/D:
http://www.pojo.biz/board/showthread.php?t=1260809
https://www.reddit.com/r/yugioh/comments/5dznif/a_visual_guide_to_learning_ddds/
I like having something I can play in the evenings that can be quick and fun when I'm in the mood, but with just enough depth under the surface to keep me satisfied. Sure, it's a bit frustrating at times, and there's the 50 pound elephant in the room known as MtG, but if I really wanted to get into deep and complex gameplay, I'd be playing Go again.
