Throwing hands with Yami Yugi/Atem in seasons 1 through 4 is always a Mistake since he doesn’t just convincingly beat you in card games. Most people know that Season 0 the Spirit of the Millenium Puzzle would kill you with a soda machine for fucking up his order at Burger King, but in the revised manga Yami has to read you to absolute filth every turn of the game while he is destroying you. He will act shocked and surprised just to flip over a facedown card and start talking about how desolate your outfit is.
Yami Yugi beats on people thematically. Better hope your character arc is just “generic villain,” because the worst that happens to you is that you catch a trading card body and get sent to the Shadow Realm. If there is anything remotely memorable about you he will stall out the duel just to drag you for it. Does your deck draw a lot of cards? Tough shit, now you draw all of the cards until you die from it. Did you kick a dog on the way to the match? He summons Houndstorr, Master of all Dogs and kills you with his spell card “Feet of Fury.” If you talk badly about a trading card he takes control of it and has it specifically finish you off. Are you carnival magic themed? His Dark Magician clowns you with parlor tricks and he kills you with hats.
He fought a dude named Panik whose whole deal was scaring people and he spent the entire duel bullying him and talking about what a punk he was while Panik actively tried to kill him with flamethrowers. At the end of the duel he shot a turtle at his castle, made a joke about him being a coward, and sent him to the Shadow Realm. Weevil Underwood spent 4 seasons being a dickhead with a bug-themed deck, cheating whenever he could, but Yami would just make jokes about killing bugs the whole time and then beat him with whatever insect he slipped in his drink while they were at the Yu-gi-oh-dega. Yami Yugi has exactly two emotions- friendship, and tone-appropriate vengeance.
Did you do something actually bad, like turn his friends into rocks and try to possess his body while being a child trapped in a computer program for 15 years? He’ll roast you for being an incel the whole time, clown you for being 9, and use exactly 6 cards, one for each of his friends, to beat your ass, and then leave the way he came in. Yami Yugi custom-designs ass whoopings. He is like if the cosmic concept of karma played children’s card games and cheated at them to prove a point.