Master Duel, the free-to-play game released this week on PC and consoles, skips all the cartoon nonsense and gets straight to the heart of the cards, Magic: The Gathering Arena style.

There isn’t any wandering around town challenging random cartoon characters to card battle.

Master Duel gives you a small collection of its more than 10,000 cards, walks you through basic game mechanics, and then sends you off to play.

You’re free to hop online and battle other players around the world or work your way through a series of single-player adventures cleverly crafted to help you learn both gameplay mechanics and the lore behind the cards’ eye-catching artwork.

Before you hop online, you’ll want to get some cards and build a deck, as the starter deck the game provides is incredibly basic and will get your ass kicked every time.

Ultra and super-rare cards wiggle a bit at first, letting the more basic cards be revealed first, teasing.

Some cards even come with keys that unlock Secret Packs, special time-limited card packs themed around particular cards or strategies.

Had I downloaded this free-to-play game only to several dozen card packs I would have been satisfied, but Konami also included card battles as well.

Build your deck from scratch, purchase a premade structure deck from the shop, or download a public deck recipe from the internet.

Once you’ve got a deck you’re comfortable with, hit up the Duel menu, where you can go online and get that fresh new deck completely destroyed in a single turn, as I did in my first online battle.

Once you get past the tutorials there is a series of challenges based around different card groups and deck builds.

Until Master Duel came out I was getting a quick fix from Rush Duel: Dawn of the Battle Royale, a game with a pointy-haired hero I care nothing about and a fast-paced gameplay variant that trades strategy for speed.