Yu-Gi-Oh Master Duel players are speed running through the current event by building self-burn decks and losing as fast as possible. The XYZ Festival event is live now through February 14, offering 2,000 Gems and over 30 legacy pack tickets for players who earn the maximum number of medals, which is 20,000.
Originally, 50 medals were given for losing, and 100 were given for winning. Instead of building a new deck for the event, since many of the decks in the current meta are banned for the event, players are self-destructing instead.
Players figured they could grind out the event medals and the maximum rewards faster by building self-burn decks. These decks contain spell and trap cards that require a payment of Life Points to use, so players can just play their full hand on their first turn and lose instantly. The idea is that the roughly one minute it takes to self-burn is faster than spending 5-10 minutes playing the game. The game has a surrender option, but surrendering negates all rewards, so players have to actually lose the duel.
The Master Duel subreddit is filled with posts about the self-burn decks, with most players finding the situation comedic. Some players are even building counter-decks that are filled with cards that give their opponents Life Points to try and prevent people from losing on purpose.
The situation got so bad that Konami updated the event rewards. While people still earn 50 medals for losing, the winner now gets 500 medals instead of 100, making it that much more rewarding to win. While some players will likely keep self-destructing, this was likely done to encourage people actually to play the event to win.
