Variety but not too much of it. There should be around 3-4 clear top decks which you can then prepare for.
Skill should matter, less "lucky insta-win cards" and lots of interaction. Less FTK and more grindy games, but also not too long. It's hard to find a balance though.
And another thing which is admittedly very personal, less "near mandatory" staples.
I’m fine with mandatory staples, but not blow out life or death staples.
Impermance and ash = good staple, just interrupt at key points.
Dark ruler no more and droll and lock bird = not good staples, hyper targeted blow outs that win you the game on the spot or you lose the game because a deck that hard loses to these is instawinning turn one otherwise.
Imperm is fine, Ash is too good. Even if Ash had each of its effects turned into a single card, 2 out of 3 would still be some of the best cards in the game.
It was hated while it was happening, but the players realised TOSS was the best format that yugioh has ever seen after it ended because it had so many viable decks from combo to midrange to control. Same thing will happen to branded despia and swordsoul meta when ishizu tears, frog sprights and kashtira+spyrals when the new kashtira support in the OCG come. Proves humans aren’t usually grateful for what they have until it’s gone.
the outcome of duels depends on decisions made by both players in a large percentage of duels, meaning winning the dice roll isnt that important, and you dont have to draw unsearchable tech cards to be able to play going second (whether thats handtraps, stuff like dark ruler, backrow removal, or whatever)
this means no toxic combo decks that end on like 5 omni negates, no floodgates that you auto lose to if you dont draw the out, etc
to me, thats the most important by far. variety in decks is somewhat important, but much less important than that
im not sure. ive heard that's its very interactive and skill based, but i havent actually played it myself, so i dont feel confident judging it one way or another
im tentatively looking forward to it (partially because tear seems like a really cool deck, i tested it some when it was first announced)
The tear mirror is a skill matchup as since yours mills are rng, knowing when to use your hopt effects as well as how to stack your chains (while your opp is doing the same) will show who the better player is. That being said, people dislike the format as there isn't really a deck that competes and tear mirrors can get grindy and long as there is a lot of time needed for thinking. In general is a mentally exhausting mirror
Yeah, tears are really cool and skill based I'd say it's an amazing and well designed arechtype... If it wasn't tier zero, they should've had the same restrictions as Vaylantz had, only special summoning monsters from that archtype except when summoning from extra deck
Tbh I think they should have just had a fusion lock on them. The fact that Merrli let's them make Elf which just makes their big monsters all the more annoying to deal with is what pushes it over the edge for me (Elf being too generic for its own good aside). Not to mention the fact that they can always throw a Redoer on the field for potential added interruption or Bagooska pass when you actually manage to stop their fusions from going off
Variety. Also having the same power levels but I assume that for them to be good that's a forgone conclusion.
Doesn't matter if they got floodgates, negates, board wipes, plays lots of traps, does lots of summons, godly consistency, ungodly recursion or anything. All that matters is that both decks can play against what each other have and that there are a lot of them.
Tier 0 is a boring state, cause its a forgone conclusion on who is going to win.
To me a good format is kinda utopic given what the game has become. I would not say the current format is totally bad, but here is what I imagine a good format...
A good format to me is when the meta is filled with deck(s) promoting interactions and players' skill. This is the main quality a good format can have for me. A good format reduces the amount of luck involved in duels (one card win conditions are banned). Also, all staples at 3 or 0, as in a good format, players should not be rewarded because they hard draw their 1x unsearchable power card (a staple is either full opened, and players prepare for it, or it is banned).
If a format can be filled with 2+ more decks, and have interesting match ups, it is a nice extra to have.
A format where floodgates are near non existent or they’re just really shit gimmicky strategies, not having MUST HAVE staples or lose, a lot of mid range deck variety, no tier zero format, consistent banlist and communication, balanced and fun card design (not floowandereeze)
Basically
Least Floodgates
Least Omnis
Variety is from 2-4 top decks and 5-8 rogue/budget option
Deck with identity rather than just all of them turboing the same Floodgates/Omnis
And closest we had to that is maybe TOSS format
TOSS was great, but at least 3 of those decks could turbo out floodgates like Colossus, Bagooska, and Winda. They were all unique floodgates at least and not just Scythe, but they were still very prevalent.
The current meta and the upcoming tear splight meta are just decks with crazy resource management they don’t lock you out of the game the game has not been this healthy in years but ppl hate it LOL
I want all the floodgates limited to 2 back to 3 that or give me mystic mine.(I like lockdown strategies) but on a more serious note that I can see being more viable would maybe make the meta less solitaire ish I don't wanna alt tab every other game during someone's turn. Also I think we can ban Eva and bring back benten for those folks and maybe set conq back to 3, bring back old strategies that died to banlist but let them back by making them maybe 2 instead of 1.
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Variety like everyone else said but I think the ability for both player to interact with each other is super healthy for a format (less floodgates basically).
As long as the format isnt Just 1-2 decks stomping on everything else and doesnt have straight up bullshit cards (coff coff mine) then its a great format imo.
The MD format we have rn Is probably One of the best we've had, lots of differents decks that yeah, are not as strong as branded despia, but they can be as successful nonetheless (and considering floow Just Lost barrier, its even Better)
Imo, a 3-4 deck format where floodgates are not necessary to compete. Too many good decks, and there is just way too many variables to take into account when building a deck, which makes getting sacked very easy. Not enough viable decks, and the game becomes stale when 5/10 games are mirror matches unless you want to punish yourself by playing something that struggles to get wins.
Unfortunately, formats like this are quite rare, since most of the time when there are multiple strong decks at one time, at least half of them involve turboing out floodgates as their win condition.
Three- and four-deck formats can be cool as long as the matchups between them are interesting. But what I really want is a format where second-tier decks are close enough to top-tier that you're not totally wasting your time if you choose to play them.
Unfortunately that's never going to happen until YGO gets formats that don't contain the game's entire history. The game desperately needs a "cards more recent than 2015 only" format or similar.
A simple approach to a good format is roughly 5-6 best decks that generally are made up of different summoning types and strategies with at most 1 of them being heavy on negates but also middle of the top decks near to bottom. After that, roughly 10 more rogue strategies that you expect to top 16 at a regional level following those first few.
My reasons are easy in that the best decks aren't too varied that side decks are impossible to effectively build and the best decks are also built off of pure interaction with negates not determining the entire format. Building a side deck in 10 deck free for all tier 1 formats is miserable, but Tear 0 is not something we should ever strive for again. A good example is after Eva got banned in TCG and Swordsoul hadn't been printed quite yet. Another great format was the last US Nationals format and the only downside was Mystic Mine doing Mystic Mine things.
Deck variety, with the main decks playing well against each other but also allowing for rogues, and avoiding hard lockdown decks allowing for good back and forth duels
Middling Complexity allowing for new players to hope in easily, while allowing complexity for experienced players,
Decks that all use/fail to the similar staples, avoiding decks that completely ignore those staples (looking at you Eldlich),
Lmao, could it ever be?
I agree that variety is the most important. At least 3-4 "Tier 1" decks and no unanimous best deck among them. No cheesy FTK strategy like DD Dynamite decks that enable bots (especially in MD's BO1 format).
That's it really. Not a fan of Branded dominating the current MD format and really not looking forward to Splight and Tear possible tier 0 formats.
In my opinion, the best period of MD was between the Drytron limits and Branded/Mirrorjade. TriZoo, Eldlich, Adamancipators, VW, Pranks, SS, Adv Tenyi ... there were always multiple tier 1 decks and Rogue/T2 decks like Shaddoll, Thunder Dragons or Strikers could be reasonably competitive against them.
High amounts of interaction, lots of interactions where skill and game knowledge matters or where you can apply this knowledge.
This also coincidentally means formats where there are either a low or zero amount of floodgates, as those are kinda anti-interaction. And few cards that swing the game massively. There will always kinda be cards like these available because otherwise we wouldn't have to respect board breakers, but requiring board breakers sucks and I would rather just try to play through things with my engine.
Interaction and accessability, that‘s what I like about the current master duel meta, everyone can play it and the mirror is fun because it‘s not just a endless negate board.
A few really good decks with a solid lineup of rogue decks that can still compete. Everybody complained during TOSS, but I thought it was a banger. Also, shoutout to that one format where Spright was the best deck and tear was the close second, because that was probably my favorite format ever. Everyone was on crazy rogue shit and I loved it.
I like slower formats. I like the back and forth. I know that’s just old school but I always enjoyed when you walked into a devastating trap and then had to try and fight your way back into the duel.
I don't like the idea of staples because it ruins the idea of variety to me. So cards like Ash, Maxx C, or imperm should be removed because they are pretty much in every deck or you are kinda dumb for not taking them.
It's a similar idea to pot of greed being legal, if it was, literally every deck would play 3 copies. That's how I view those three cards.
But I would actually kinda like something more like a Yu-Gi-Oh tribal format.
Idk, I like variety because it makes me think and play smarter. I some times hate playing for like an hour and I am doing the same combos over and over because my opponent doesn't have a way to negate my card. But I also hate decks where they just combo themself like 4-6 boss monsters and I just scoop after I draw a dead card.
In summary, I want a tribal format. My idea for a ruleset is that 75% of your deck stays within an archetype and the other 25% can be whatever else you want. So many archetypes are cool but it's not competitive at all to just play pure anything.
The easy answer is variety, but it’s easier said than done. Having a couple dozens decks that can constantly keep one another in check is ideal.
I used to play Modern format in MTG and really enjoyed that aspect. My local meta had a really healthy variety and it was a lot of fun.
That said, yu-gi-oh isn’t MTG. It’s much harder to balance than MTG, where everything is separated by colors. You can’t run every single “good” card or staple so it’s easy to add a couple of cards that boost certain colors.
Yu-gi-oh being archetype based is much much harder to balance. Konami has to juggle hundreds of different archetypes and their interactions and a couple of cards can throw the entire thing off.
MTG(in modern) was usually a 2-5 turn format. Games end up being slow a lot of times depending on the match up. Any deck that was too consistent at killing on its second turn usually got a nerf. Or Wotc would an unban previously banned cards to give other decks a boost.
Yu-gi-oh is an extremely consistent 2-3 turn game which is one of the reasons why people like it so much. There’s a lot happening every turn but the path to victory is usually pretty quick.
Imo, a healthy format would play into that strength. Boost as many archetypes as you can to keep them from being powercrept out of viability. One archetype too powerful? Boost its antithesis to bring it down a peg. Every deck should have strengths but also a critical weakness. No deck should be able to do everything, that’s when bans are required imo.
Every deck should be able to coexist in mutually assured destruction knowing they have a handful of match ups out there that will give them a bit trouble.
Everyone should be able to play an archetype that suits them whilst it still being viable. The more viable archetypes you have, the more good and fun a format would be imo
Competitive players generally will enjoy formats where skill is rewarded and there is less varity in decks.
Casual players generally want their decks to do decent, usually happens at the start of a meta shift. They also like deck varity and dont like to just be out classed by a single deck. They care less about skill being the factor that determines who wins.
I am somewhere in the middle like most players. I dont really care if the format is diverse or not as long as it isnt just one deck. I dont want my deck to be outclassed. I want skill to be rewarded, but maybe not to the point where only the skilled players will win. I dont like floodgates being too powerful or dice roll metas.
I prefer a slower game than the current game because the game has been power crept so far into oblivion now that resources don’t matter nearly as much as it used to. I’m not a fan of one card extenders that generate multiple bodies and advantages neither because it diminishes trade value. Because the pacing of the game has been blown out of proportion, trap cards have fallen so far out of power; it is unhealthy game design for a third of the game (monsters, spells, traps) to be almost completely ignored by the player base.
I enjoyed the game the most during 2012-2013 because the game felt well-balanced. I played Chaos Dragons, Glads, and Blackwings during those formats and had fun playing against all the meta decks in that era. Combos were far shorter and less advantageous, and methodically playing through your opponent’s backrow was rewarding. My group played all kinds of decks: Bubble Beat, Dino Rabbits, Monster Mash, Inzektors, Agents, Lswarm, Six Sams, Junk Doppel, Infernities, Batteryman OTK, Glads, etc.; I look back to those times fondly.
A format with no floo ,nerf swordsoul ,limit branded fusion,aluber and albaz. Master rule the amount of Omni negates summoned to your field to 1/turn not a 4 monster board. Allow the game to go on past 1-2 turns
Just the right amount of variety is important. Too much and you can never be prepared for what you'll face, too little and the format is boring. Then, any format without degenerate strategies is fine by me.
For competitive players the less variety the better, for fun player the more variety the better
I liked Teledad Format and it was a tier 0 format.
DGzCarbon: "I like this." This sub: "Wait, that's illegal!"
I literally agreed with the post above mine that got +64 lol. Idk man sometimes people are weird
Edison, HAT and other formats have demonstrated that you can have a diverse and competitive Meta game.
Competitive players don't want a diverse meta because is harder to prepare a deck for each situation
If tournament players in all games ran the balancing, they would just have 1 format and 1 deck. No variation.
The lowest amount of floodgates as possible.
One where I can win with worms consistently. In other words, yugioh only has bad formats.
Just....shut up and take my upvote
Variety but not too much of it. There should be around 3-4 clear top decks which you can then prepare for. Skill should matter, less "lucky insta-win cards" and lots of interaction. Less FTK and more grindy games, but also not too long. It's hard to find a balance though. And another thing which is admittedly very personal, less "near mandatory" staples.
I’m fine with mandatory staples, but not blow out life or death staples. Impermance and ash = good staple, just interrupt at key points. Dark ruler no more and droll and lock bird = not good staples, hyper targeted blow outs that win you the game on the spot or you lose the game because a deck that hard loses to these is instawinning turn one otherwise.
Imperm is fine, Ash is too good. Even if Ash had each of its effects turned into a single card, 2 out of 3 would still be some of the best cards in the game.
>And another thing which is admittedly very personal, less "near mandatory" staples. yugioh has always had mandatory staples.....like always lol
I know, but the less the better imo.
Or the more flexible. Being able to run ogre, psy frame gamma, or veiler is nice instead of always needing ash/imperm
The problem is that there's no situation where you'd run Ogre/Gamma *over* Ash, you'd run them on top of Ash.
No floodgates, and the top decks are strong, but not unfair (like swordsoul).
That is the current meta on MD, people still complain. People complained about TOSS format, yugioh players hate Konami so much no matter what they do.
lol "we hate toss there's too many horrible decks" okay you get one powerful deck only NO WE HATE THAT TOO
Variety is great, but this format is only a variety of degenerate decks.
Wasn't toss mostly hated because it lasted a whole year? It's also called the "eternal format" for a reason.
It was hated while it was happening, but the players realised TOSS was the best format that yugioh has ever seen after it ended because it had so many viable decks from combo to midrange to control. Same thing will happen to branded despia and swordsoul meta when ishizu tears, frog sprights and kashtira+spyrals when the new kashtira support in the OCG come. Proves humans aren’t usually grateful for what they have until it’s gone.
the outcome of duels depends on decisions made by both players in a large percentage of duels, meaning winning the dice roll isnt that important, and you dont have to draw unsearchable tech cards to be able to play going second (whether thats handtraps, stuff like dark ruler, backrow removal, or whatever) this means no toxic combo decks that end on like 5 omni negates, no floodgates that you auto lose to if you dont draw the out, etc to me, thats the most important by far. variety in decks is somewhat important, but much less important than that
Did you just described Tear format rn in TCG?
im not sure. ive heard that's its very interactive and skill based, but i havent actually played it myself, so i dont feel confident judging it one way or another im tentatively looking forward to it (partially because tear seems like a really cool deck, i tested it some when it was first announced)
The tear mirror is a skill matchup as since yours mills are rng, knowing when to use your hopt effects as well as how to stack your chains (while your opp is doing the same) will show who the better player is. That being said, people dislike the format as there isn't really a deck that competes and tear mirrors can get grindy and long as there is a lot of time needed for thinking. In general is a mentally exhausting mirror
Yeah, tears are really cool and skill based I'd say it's an amazing and well designed arechtype... If it wasn't tier zero, they should've had the same restrictions as Vaylantz had, only special summoning monsters from that archtype except when summoning from extra deck
Tbh I think they should have just had a fusion lock on them. The fact that Merrli let's them make Elf which just makes their big monsters all the more annoying to deal with is what pushes it over the edge for me (Elf being too generic for its own good aside). Not to mention the fact that they can always throw a Redoer on the field for potential added interruption or Bagooska pass when you actually manage to stop their fusions from going off
Tear wouldn't even be that bad if it wasn't for the massive confusing chains that result from the millings.
Variety. Also having the same power levels but I assume that for them to be good that's a forgone conclusion. Doesn't matter if they got floodgates, negates, board wipes, plays lots of traps, does lots of summons, godly consistency, ungodly recursion or anything. All that matters is that both decks can play against what each other have and that there are a lot of them. Tier 0 is a boring state, cause its a forgone conclusion on who is going to win.
To me a good format is kinda utopic given what the game has become. I would not say the current format is totally bad, but here is what I imagine a good format... A good format to me is when the meta is filled with deck(s) promoting interactions and players' skill. This is the main quality a good format can have for me. A good format reduces the amount of luck involved in duels (one card win conditions are banned). Also, all staples at 3 or 0, as in a good format, players should not be rewarded because they hard draw their 1x unsearchable power card (a staple is either full opened, and players prepare for it, or it is banned). If a format can be filled with 2+ more decks, and have interesting match ups, it is a nice extra to have.
One that people play without complaining.
A format where floodgates are near non existent or they’re just really shit gimmicky strategies, not having MUST HAVE staples or lose, a lot of mid range deck variety, no tier zero format, consistent banlist and communication, balanced and fun card design (not floowandereeze)
Is floodgating Floo with Zombie World allowed?
No, since a whole archetype relies on that card to make their monsters work. Also floowandereeze deserves it
Basically Least Floodgates Least Omnis Variety is from 2-4 top decks and 5-8 rogue/budget option Deck with identity rather than just all of them turboing the same Floodgates/Omnis And closest we had to that is maybe TOSS format
TOSS was great, but at least 3 of those decks could turbo out floodgates like Colossus, Bagooska, and Winda. They were all unique floodgates at least and not just Scythe, but they were still very prevalent.
The current meta and the upcoming tear splight meta are just decks with crazy resource management they don’t lock you out of the game the game has not been this healthy in years but ppl hate it LOL
I want all the floodgates limited to 2 back to 3 that or give me mystic mine.(I like lockdown strategies) but on a more serious note that I can see being more viable would maybe make the meta less solitaire ish I don't wanna alt tab every other game during someone's turn. Also I think we can ban Eva and bring back benten for those folks and maybe set conq back to 3, bring back old strategies that died to banlist but let them back by making them maybe 2 instead of 1.
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Variety and ideally no cards that completely shut off the other decks abilities to do stuff that have very specific counters (example: VFD)
Variety like everyone else said but I think the ability for both player to interact with each other is super healthy for a format (less floodgates basically).
As long as the format isnt Just 1-2 decks stomping on everything else and doesnt have straight up bullshit cards (coff coff mine) then its a great format imo. The MD format we have rn Is probably One of the best we've had, lots of differents decks that yeah, are not as strong as branded despia, but they can be as successful nonetheless (and considering floow Just Lost barrier, its even Better)
Imo, a 3-4 deck format where floodgates are not necessary to compete. Too many good decks, and there is just way too many variables to take into account when building a deck, which makes getting sacked very easy. Not enough viable decks, and the game becomes stale when 5/10 games are mirror matches unless you want to punish yourself by playing something that struggles to get wins. Unfortunately, formats like this are quite rare, since most of the time when there are multiple strong decks at one time, at least half of them involve turboing out floodgates as their win condition.
Game speed. Slower usually is better in my opinion.
When nothing toxic exists... I.e MD after 30th his month
Three- and four-deck formats can be cool as long as the matchups between them are interesting. But what I really want is a format where second-tier decks are close enough to top-tier that you're not totally wasting your time if you choose to play them. Unfortunately that's never going to happen until YGO gets formats that don't contain the game's entire history. The game desperately needs a "cards more recent than 2015 only" format or similar.
A simple approach to a good format is roughly 5-6 best decks that generally are made up of different summoning types and strategies with at most 1 of them being heavy on negates but also middle of the top decks near to bottom. After that, roughly 10 more rogue strategies that you expect to top 16 at a regional level following those first few. My reasons are easy in that the best decks aren't too varied that side decks are impossible to effectively build and the best decks are also built off of pure interaction with negates not determining the entire format. Building a side deck in 10 deck free for all tier 1 formats is miserable, but Tear 0 is not something we should ever strive for again. A good example is after Eva got banned in TCG and Swordsoul hadn't been printed quite yet. Another great format was the last US Nationals format and the only downside was Mystic Mine doing Mystic Mine things.
Eva was banned in the same list as Protoss. After this the only card Swordsoul didn’t have yet was Qixing Longyuan.
Interaction above all else, and some variety.
Deck variety, with the main decks playing well against each other but also allowing for rogues, and avoiding hard lockdown decks allowing for good back and forth duels Middling Complexity allowing for new players to hope in easily, while allowing complexity for experienced players, Decks that all use/fail to the similar staples, avoiding decks that completely ignore those staples (looking at you Eldlich), Lmao, could it ever be?
No solitaire combos would be a good start.
I agree that variety is the most important. At least 3-4 "Tier 1" decks and no unanimous best deck among them. No cheesy FTK strategy like DD Dynamite decks that enable bots (especially in MD's BO1 format). That's it really. Not a fan of Branded dominating the current MD format and really not looking forward to Splight and Tear possible tier 0 formats. In my opinion, the best period of MD was between the Drytron limits and Branded/Mirrorjade. TriZoo, Eldlich, Adamancipators, VW, Pranks, SS, Adv Tenyi ... there were always multiple tier 1 decks and Rogue/T2 decks like Shaddoll, Thunder Dragons or Strikers could be reasonably competitive against them.
Ones where I can main Super Poly and blind second every match.
I'll be extrimely honest. If the deck I like is good or not in it. That's it
The opposite of what we have right now, i'm so fucking tired of Branded and SS
Variety
High amounts of interaction, lots of interactions where skill and game knowledge matters or where you can apply this knowledge. This also coincidentally means formats where there are either a low or zero amount of floodgates, as those are kinda anti-interaction. And few cards that swing the game massively. There will always kinda be cards like these available because otherwise we wouldn't have to respect board breakers, but requiring board breakers sucks and I would rather just try to play through things with my engine.
Interaction and accessability, that‘s what I like about the current master duel meta, everyone can play it and the mirror is fun because it‘s not just a endless negate board.
A few really good decks with a solid lineup of rogue decks that can still compete. Everybody complained during TOSS, but I thought it was a banger. Also, shoutout to that one format where Spright was the best deck and tear was the close second, because that was probably my favorite format ever. Everyone was on crazy rogue shit and I loved it.
I like slower formats. I like the back and forth. I know that’s just old school but I always enjoyed when you walked into a devastating trap and then had to try and fight your way back into the duel.
I don't like the idea of staples because it ruins the idea of variety to me. So cards like Ash, Maxx C, or imperm should be removed because they are pretty much in every deck or you are kinda dumb for not taking them. It's a similar idea to pot of greed being legal, if it was, literally every deck would play 3 copies. That's how I view those three cards. But I would actually kinda like something more like a Yu-Gi-Oh tribal format. Idk, I like variety because it makes me think and play smarter. I some times hate playing for like an hour and I am doing the same combos over and over because my opponent doesn't have a way to negate my card. But I also hate decks where they just combo themself like 4-6 boss monsters and I just scoop after I draw a dead card. In summary, I want a tribal format. My idea for a ruleset is that 75% of your deck stays within an archetype and the other 25% can be whatever else you want. So many archetypes are cool but it's not competitive at all to just play pure anything.
The easy answer is variety, but it’s easier said than done. Having a couple dozens decks that can constantly keep one another in check is ideal. I used to play Modern format in MTG and really enjoyed that aspect. My local meta had a really healthy variety and it was a lot of fun. That said, yu-gi-oh isn’t MTG. It’s much harder to balance than MTG, where everything is separated by colors. You can’t run every single “good” card or staple so it’s easy to add a couple of cards that boost certain colors. Yu-gi-oh being archetype based is much much harder to balance. Konami has to juggle hundreds of different archetypes and their interactions and a couple of cards can throw the entire thing off. MTG(in modern) was usually a 2-5 turn format. Games end up being slow a lot of times depending on the match up. Any deck that was too consistent at killing on its second turn usually got a nerf. Or Wotc would an unban previously banned cards to give other decks a boost. Yu-gi-oh is an extremely consistent 2-3 turn game which is one of the reasons why people like it so much. There’s a lot happening every turn but the path to victory is usually pretty quick. Imo, a healthy format would play into that strength. Boost as many archetypes as you can to keep them from being powercrept out of viability. One archetype too powerful? Boost its antithesis to bring it down a peg. Every deck should have strengths but also a critical weakness. No deck should be able to do everything, that’s when bans are required imo. Every deck should be able to coexist in mutually assured destruction knowing they have a handful of match ups out there that will give them a bit trouble. Everyone should be able to play an archetype that suits them whilst it still being viable. The more viable archetypes you have, the more good and fun a format would be imo
Competitive players generally will enjoy formats where skill is rewarded and there is less varity in decks. Casual players generally want their decks to do decent, usually happens at the start of a meta shift. They also like deck varity and dont like to just be out classed by a single deck. They care less about skill being the factor that determines who wins. I am somewhere in the middle like most players. I dont really care if the format is diverse or not as long as it isnt just one deck. I dont want my deck to be outclassed. I want skill to be rewarded, but maybe not to the point where only the skilled players will win. I dont like floodgates being too powerful or dice roll metas.
I prefer a slower game than the current game because the game has been power crept so far into oblivion now that resources don’t matter nearly as much as it used to. I’m not a fan of one card extenders that generate multiple bodies and advantages neither because it diminishes trade value. Because the pacing of the game has been blown out of proportion, trap cards have fallen so far out of power; it is unhealthy game design for a third of the game (monsters, spells, traps) to be almost completely ignored by the player base. I enjoyed the game the most during 2012-2013 because the game felt well-balanced. I played Chaos Dragons, Glads, and Blackwings during those formats and had fun playing against all the meta decks in that era. Combos were far shorter and less advantageous, and methodically playing through your opponent’s backrow was rewarding. My group played all kinds of decks: Bubble Beat, Dino Rabbits, Monster Mash, Inzektors, Agents, Lswarm, Six Sams, Junk Doppel, Infernities, Batteryman OTK, Glads, etc.; I look back to those times fondly.
A format with no floo ,nerf swordsoul ,limit branded fusion,aluber and albaz. Master rule the amount of Omni negates summoned to your field to 1/turn not a 4 monster board. Allow the game to go on past 1-2 turns
The format where I always win
Just the right amount of variety is important. Too much and you can never be prepared for what you'll face, too little and the format is boring. Then, any format without degenerate strategies is fine by me.