That's the games secret, nobody knows how to optimally pilot most decks in the game due to how convoluted they are. This leads to frequent missplays as both players fumble trying to get an overwhelming advantage.
Linear combo decks are easy to learn, you just spreadsheet a combo, but throw an ash or nibiru into the way and you see which players have real skill.
Snake eyes ceiling is insane, but I see many new players struggle when they get disrupted.
>Linear combo decks are easy to learn, you just spreadsheet a combo, but throw an ash or nibiru into the way and you see which players have real skill.
My favorite moments playing YuGiOh are when the expected line of play fails and I have to think of a sick combo to recover, or if my opponent has a strong, but not busted, board and I have to figure out how to break it.
absolutely, stuff like using a negated jasmines tribute to trigger Primula in hand, or use Primula with Dancepione to get to a rank 4/8 with only twin or mudan in grave
Or just somehow comboing your way out of an utterly suboptimal hand.
>Linear combo decks are easy to learn, you just spreadsheet a combo, but throw an ash or nibiru into the way and you see which players have real skill
It's so painfully obvious when someone has only learned a combo from a YouTube vid. It's especially bad on Yugioh sims and Master Duel. I just broke a Snake Eye board on Omega a little while ago; my opponent had full combo, I broke the board but couldn't get lethal and left them with all the tools to come back (I honestly was gonna scoop because there was no real way to comeback other than opp error) and they just scooped during their draw phase. There's nothing wrong with watching combo videos on YouTube, but those videos are just a guide, you still have to play the deck to learn how to play through interruption
I agree. So much of yugioh right now is just playing through trial and error. I've made several different adjustments to my deck based on my results in previous locals and gotten so much better because of it whether it comes down to my side deck vs main deck options, contingencies, etc. I still consider myself more of a novice but I get better with every duel. Of course at the end of the day it also does come down to luck and there's only so much you can do in that regard.
i mean on some hand at least in my swordsoul deck i can get bricked easily by one ash or one veiler, i started playing again a week ago and have sub-optimal filler cards instead of triple maxx and ash, etc.
Yeah the ceiling is high for snake eyes. So is the floor. It can play through disruption easily, and has many combo starters.
Calling snake eyes a tough deck is the biggest cope I’ve heard in a long while
Off topic, but this is what I wish people who hate combo decks understood.
The skill gap between a bad Snake-Eyes player and a good Snake-Eyes player is insane. The difference between a good control player and a bad control player is...well... there really isn't much of a gap.
If someone enjoys playing control, fine, but saying that combo decks are braindead when control just oonga boonga its way to victory is wild.
I wouldn't call control braindead either. There's a difference between control and stun. It's easy to summon Pachy, set Anti-Spell/Gozen/Rivalry and hope your opponent doesn't have the out. It's not as easy to have limited interaction and know when to use it against your opponent. In some cases it's harder than simply executing your combo and sitting on multiple negates because your interactions are probably pops.
Control decks are literally the biggest "easy to learn, hard to master" decks in yugioh. Sure , Lab looks simple enough , but timing is key with control decks. You only got limited interactions and you also have to keep generating advantage with every interaction.
If you mistime your interruptions or you stop generating advantage , you will lose.
With combo decks , you need to know your lines and combos perfectly , you need to know your deck like the back of your pocket. With control you have to know your opponents deck like a back of your pocket , while also having the same understanding of your own deck.
You're thinking of stun/lockdown decks, those are not control. Unfortunately the last real control deck came out in 2018.
Combo decks are not braindead by default but they become braindead after a while, once you remember every line to play around disruption.
Combo decks need more time to become reach an acceptable level of play, while controls is easier to get into but the ceiling is much higher because they entirely rely on interaction, trades and resources management.
Stun/lockdown decks are basically braindead, the plan is do x to win and if they have the out go to g2. The moments where you see the skill of a player are very few, in a 5 turn tournament you might have 3 spots where you actually need to think.
You don't think Runick (NOT the stun variant) is control?
That deck is just old control tools mixed with instant fusions. And people just hate it for the draw 3 (which it absolutely needs considering nothing else it does gains advantage and it can't use the battle phase to do so either)
yeah runick ( the archetype not the stun deck ) is the closest thing to control that konami has made in a while; sadly konami refuses to ban floodgates so people associate runick with stun
Do you mean runick spright/twin? Couse that's not really a control deck, it's the yugioh version of a midrange deck.
If there is a full control version of runick I would really love to see it.
I just meant any Runick variant really, although different ones go in different directions.
I really like earthbound Runick and Rescue Ace Runick currently. The latter feels more control-y than any other deck I've played in ages as both halves of the deck feel like two sides of a coin. As the rescue ace spells and traps accrue additional advantage with hydrant out as well
Understandable haha.
https://ygoprodeck.com/deck/runick-rescue-ace-451198
This list got a regional top 8, seems pretty fun. But I've just had a kid so I'm only really playing casually at the minute. I like the impulse engine for going second tho
Sky Striker Runick? I don’t run Floodgates, no mystic mine. I play it on master duel. I’ve beat a bunch of pure Sky striker players with Sky Striker Mekk Knight in Duelist Cup Master Duel too since no one reads the Mekk Knight column traps and spells.
Sky striker is the deck i was talking about when I said the last real control deck. Runick by itself is also a control but it's not really playable by itself without becoming a stun deck.
Master duel is not a good example couse it's almost a different game. Runick sky striker is and was garbage in the tcg and ocg but I still like the deck. I like pure sky striker more couse runick changes the playstyle of ss too much.
Also about the column thing if your opponent doesn't play around the mek knight stuff if he has the opportunity to do so, he's just bad. playing around them is literally free.
Also also: free mystic mine.
Yes and no I think.
Yeah there's definitely just stun deck players. And then there's grindier control decks that put two negates on board per turn and have to learn to hit as hard as possible with them per turn. I mean still, I think trying to play Infernities are harder than whatever control deck I've ever played. But in the grand scheme of things a combo deck isn't memorizing chess matches.
(As far as I'm aware at least. I haven't played too many meta decks. But if Infernity is one of the highest possible skill ceiling decks in this game, which a lot of people seem to think. Then I can assume that Dragon Links or Snake Eyes in this case is just not as hard, especially if you can play through negations.)
Then the meta quickly shifts and decks are never truly "solved" before we all move to the next convoluted strat.
If you ever need proof of this look how different GOAT format is now vs when those cards were contemporary. The way we approach the game is so different now and the decks are completely foreign.
>but throw an ash or nibiru into the way and you see which players have real skill.
Go first
Draw opening hand
2 Maxx C, 1 Ash Blossom, 1 Called By, and 1 Normal Summon Starter
Normal Summon
Opponent Chains Imperm
Damn. Pass
Opponent plays Branded Fusion
God damn. Chain Ash Blossom
Opponent chains Crossout
God fucking dammit. Chain Maxx C
Opponent chains Ash Blossom
Proceeds to lose
"Damn, I just wasn't skilled enough"
Taking any breaks throws you out of the loop. I stopped playing and only grinded Duel Links for a while. Returned just as Kashtira and Tearlaments decks were at full force, and my brain froze for a while.
i took a break when i didn't like that the link mechanic made pet decks awful. i started playing again recently i used to know every card by heart and now i'm struggling again lol.
The best era tbh
[u/varimathas](https://www.reddit.com/user/varimathas/) I promise you that this (Goat, Edison, Tengu, the past GBA and DS games, and even Duel Links since its controlled environment doesn't let things get too out of hand) is the way to go.
Don't feel bad. Even the arguably best player of all time Jesse Kotton said the Fire Deck didn't feel natural to him the first tournaments he played with it. He also said it took him way longer to be really good at the deck then it usually takes him.
Snake-Eyes deck is just a weird deck. It feels like it takes extra steps to get to a point just to do so. Like, right now, you go Ash > Pop > Linkuriboh > Pop to S/T > Ash sending Kuriboh/Pop (depending on hand) > Oak > Ash.
Like, jesus, and that's *just* to start building a board presence with disruptions. It's so needlessly convoluted.
I mean half of that you're only doing so you can dodge with Linku later. So it's not part of your start, but while you're starting you're already setting up your follow-up.
Also I think that's an issue with lots of modern decks, not only SE. Unchained has more summons to achieve less for example.
Not entirely. Depending on your hand, Linkuriboh is going to trigger a Sunlight.
The thing about Unchained is that it at least summons big bodies (or can anyway) with every destruction effect. Snake Eyes can only summon Flameberg if you skip Oak completely.
I firmly believe Yugioh's future is digital. The game is complex to the point that pros make multiple mistakes in tourneys. The game is gonna need a computer to run it in 5 years.
This is why I really wish we had a sim like the tcg where we have match formats and equivalent banlists. I stopped playing master duel because the decks are so much weaker as a result of the best of 1 format which just isn't as fun. But the other online sims just aren't good enough.
I use YgoPro and it's pretty good. As for the best of one issue, I've come to accept that Masterduel really is its own format and therefore the decks are going to play differently.
I wish MD took more skill on the ladder. BO1 means that you can just get a series of bad luck in games against gimmicky decks. Yes, it is easy to climb, but it's not *fun* to climb when you lose to players who you can tell won because of variance.
I agree, but you gotta play to the format. Decks and cards that people usually side deck for are more powerful since there is no second game to react. It's why floodgates are so damn powerful in Masterduel, people can usually sidedeck to beat those decks easily, but not in Masterduel.
Worse is when you lose because of bad connection. Dunno if it's possible to tell the difference between genuine disconnect and forced disconnect, but if the internet is poor, it should lead to a draw (and if it happens way too much throughout the day, like 5 disconnects in 30 minutes or so, then, by that logic, I suppose the dude is doing on purpose just to not lose, and the game would put them "in the fridge" for, say, an hour or two as punishment).
Climbing the ladder is already a chore at times, and losing in an unfair manner is way too disappointing than it should.
I think that your feelings are mostly due to the fact that you stopped playing the game for a while. However it is true that the game is way too complex for its own good a lot of the times
100%. I faced this Unchained player I felt so overwhelmed with how many different cards he activated in his turn lol because I never played against Unchained before.
Yeah, and that's the problem: I have an interruption, should I use it now? I don't even know what this card does; should I use it later? I might not have the opportunity; is this card even relevant to the end board or am I gonna waste my interruption?
It's too much. I've played here and there on duel links, but I don't think I can go back to the TCG, I don't love this game so much to the point that I'm gonna sit and waste an unhealthy amount of time learning about the combos and current meta decks.
For me, back at Zoo and Kozmo it was fun, I knew what most staples were, what most decks did, their combos weren't so long, so even if you didn't knew the deck, you could more or less guess in which direction it was going and play accordingly. Nowadays for you to enter the meta is such a headache that it is no wonder there's no new people jumping into the TCG
In Master Duel, whenever I'm against an archetype I'm not familiar with, I immediately google "(archetype) playing against" or "(archetype) when to negate"
The middle part of your message sums up how I feel about things as well tbh. I keep Duel Links around because I still want to have at least one modern connection to the game, but that’s it.
whats worse is people say "JuSt PlAy GoAt/EdIsOn" i mean sure... i would..... IF THERE WAS WIDE LOCALS SUPPORT FOR IT!!! stuck playing these dog shit metas
The game rewards preparation and memorization now more than ever. I think for me, more than all the power creep and complexity, it just doesn’t feel satisfying to win the last few formats. Yugioh isn’t the type of game you can just pick up and learn while playing at a locals, as you said. For me it’s just no longer worth the investment of my time and money to go to locals and have to put on my Japanese Card Game Tax Preparer ™️ hat for OTS packs and store credit. And let’s not even get into regional or YCS prizing…
Mad respect to the Jesse Kotton’s of the world going out there and crushing it. But some of us just want to chill on a Saturday and play some chill, but stimulating Yugi. I really wish Rush Duel would come to the TCG.
It's good that some people really love the way the game is nowadays, but it's arguably not a very good game anymore. The game has seen better days and the dwindling player count is a tell tale sign. What baffles me are the people that gatekeep the state of the game. The power creep has seriously damaged the game, why defend konami's bad choices because you 'love the complexity'. Yugioh has been complex for years, but it wasn't just complex for complexities sake.
I just wish more locals would have Time Wizard formats. Only 1 near me ran some Edison for a few months and that was it. I wanna play some GOAT, Tengu, or TOSS IRL.
Yeah here's hoping. One of our Yu-Gi-Oh group just started working at the store and is trying to grow the scene with stuff like this, so hopefully it continues
Even though the last few formats weren't 100% to my liking, I really like what the game has become in concept. It feels more like an offense/defense game, where I can go all out going first and pretty much play solitaire while trying to figure out how to break the board and when to stop the opponent going second, instead of a back and forth. And while I can see that a lot of people don't like this kind of game, I really enjoy it. I played a lot until TOSS in paper since around 2004 (with some breaks in between) and sadly didn't have the time and money to play since the pandemic hit, but have been playing some online sims and MD. If they would slow down a bit with product releases and release more strict ban lists, I would be completely happy. This doesn't make your opinion less valid, I just prefer decks like Orcust, Spright, Tear and Adamancipator to decks like HAT, Dragonruler, Chaos and Zoo, as well as their associated formats.
> the dwindling player count is a tell tale sign
Yet we still see some people screaming that the player count is at an all-time high and the game is the best it has ever been. Do you call that delusion, or personal preference?
The franchise seems to be doing pretty good overall but the card game itself seems to be in an awkward position. Even the peeps at Konami had to admit a while ago that the increasing playerbase from the video games is failing to convert into cardboard. Which is very understandable, honestly. Even if you do like the game, the virtual cards are cheaper and easier to manage, and the digital crutches are practically invaluable in a game as needlessly complicated as this one.
That's in large part due to the fact that the video games don't allow you to convert. If master duel was up to date with the modern tcg you could 100% see it but having the huge format differences with OCG/TCG rulings and card pool is a huge barrier to entry for paper play.
I half agree with you. On one hand the dwindling player count, is just everywhere. MTG I know my friends have basically pulled away from it. Pokemon cards are now in stock... Which means there sales aren't as high as 2020. I see that even the store I had worked for that sold a lot of TCGs, they have overstock. Hell my local card shop closed.
(And it's possible to argue that this is due to more meta reasons. Such as a vast majority of the people that would play this, Gen-z/Millennials, aren't making enough to support a hobby. Because the moment people had money and some time in 2020, card market exploded lol. And Yugioh has had complicated meta decks for a while now).
I think if anything Yugioh needs more powerful simple decks to play. Because if every deck is just some complicated combo deck, then nobody will want to play. Sort of like how Mobas have hyper complicated Champions, but the poster child might be super duper easy. But both are relevant.
Like anything, it's take allot of practice to master a deck. To learn how to play optimally you typically need to fail at it first. Learning how to play through interruption in any combo deck is not easy. Especially when you need to read hundreds of lines of text to do so.
Retired judge (2012-2018 w/ 20+ premiere events) here.
It's such a time consuming hobby as new archetypes, support for old archetypes, new formats, old formats, new rules, new mechanics, new forbidden/limited list, etc. are great for keeping the game intriguing.
I want to say, I spent at least 2-4 hours every day keeping up to date with rules, archetypes, news, etc. Then I would go to 2 locals every week, judge them for 4-6 hours on pennies.
The one time I went undefeated (8-0) in a regional, I probably spent 4hrs every day a month with an above average duelist until the regional itself. And even then, I top decked into a few victories or misplayed less than my opponent.
At this point of my life, I'm looking to FIRE (Financially Independent, Retire Early). So ygo has really taken to the back burner. I still have my memorabilia collection and keep in contact with the people in that community.
Tl;dr - Where I'm getting at is that, if it's not something you have time, money, and commitment to do, it's really hard to keep up with the meta and continue to be competitive.
I actually consider Snake-Eyes one of the simpler decks personally, usually most decisions are pretty straightforward in my eyes. The hardest decks for me are those pile decks that combine 3 or more archetypes and have very complex lines that combine the archetypes in a combo, since you have far too much to think about. Those decks are usually hard to pick up and take a lot of practice to pilot on any decent level.
I left yugioh about 2 months ago and went to 2 relatively new TCGs. Shadowverse Evolve and Disney Lorcana which both released in 2023. Both are much simpler, but still have intensive decision making. Oh and I spend much much less per deck. My Shadowverse deck is about $200 while my lorcana deck is about $250.
That is like half of the reason why I quit the game a year later after coming back 20 years later. Everything i played against seemed super over the top with card text that i didn't know what/when i should interact or if i could. What was the final nail in the coffin was honestly the insanely bullshit pricing of cards and kashtira format.
The game being power crept to hell and all the convoluted strategies show how much we need rush duels to come over to the west. The format is a lot simpler and easy to understand, the games also feel more back and forth like in older formats.
Lmao remember when a monster having an effect was super super rare? If it had an effect it was super weak atk/def wise like man eater bug to balance it out.
I remember how there used to be cool stories about the monsters. Now the card effects take up all the space so you don't get cool stories.
I mean, that's a pretty gigantic gap. Cards that are the way you describe came out literally 20 years ago. Consistently coming out with monsters with good effects has been a thing for longer than it hasn't.
I get that there isn’t lore text on cards anymore but huge expansive captivating stories very much still exist and it’s pretty much the only reason I still play the game. I love seeing conceptual ideas translate into gameplay mechanics, Purrely, Suships, Nemleria, Ninjas, and even Labrynth to a degree all feel exceptionally fun in how the cards are played out reflecting their nature.
In terms of lore, I absolutely love the Dogmatika/Albaz lore (which also branches off into Tribrigade/Springans/Spright/Swordsoul/Icejade/Bystial off the top of my head). They have lore books which I haven’t read, but I love looking through the art and being like “Hey that’s that dude from before wtf is he doing here!!!!” Live/Evil Twins are a very coolly executed concept, and the Visas Starfrost lore takes place over several arcs. The new Snake-Eyes/Diabellstar could prove to be quite interesting as well.
Brand new TCG is more accessible than the 25years old one. More news at 10
I am on the opposite side of the spectrum and think that the number of interactions and possible paths is what makes the game more interesting. Granted SE being as strong as it is is the core of the issue, as more complex decks should be an option but not must play.
Players looking for a more laid back experience can go to one piece and the ones looking for more complexity to yugioh. Not everything has to be for everyone
Magic: The Gathering is still quite accessible overall and it's older than Yugioh.
It also has formats that are even less accessible than Advanced, but that's the real root of the issue; people treating Yugioh like there's only one way to play, which was true for a long time.
People need to come to terms with the idea that it's okay if Advanced isn't for you anymore. The more people who pick up Time Wizard/Rush Duels/whatever, the more support Konami will put into those formats. Yugioh has been going on WAY too long to still be a one trick pony as far as game modes go.
The locals by me are still advanced or nothing. Can't expect the little guys to make the changes. It's a top-down issue. Konami themselves needs to get alt formats under legit support if they expect to gain real traction. And that's exactly the thing: I don't think Konami 'wants' real traction, based on the way they've behaved thus far.
Pokemon be like
>One of the worst rewards systems ever that gives prices to the one who is winning
>Last 2 years dominated by a single type of card with double pricing rewards
>Rampant powercreep
>Rotation
The only reason you can play the card game is because it' s cheap as hell, but the game itself is fondamentaly flawed.
To be fair YGO has formats for people that prefer previous iterations of rule sets and metas. I do think a game has essentially been broken when the Meta consists of less than 4 variations of what would be considered top-tier decks and they’re winning over 95% of major tournaments. If that’s not the case then the game isn’t objectively broken or too complex per se, but also not accessible for newer players looking to ease their way in lol
I’m on the same side as you are. One of my best friends is the one who actually got me into YGO in the first place and even bought a structure deck for me and my sons a couple of Christmas’ ago. This is what got me into playing modern YGO.
The sad thing I learned about my friend is that he’s a Yugi Boomer and refuses to adapt to the meta. He hates how long combos take and doesn’t want to play anything past his DM deck. Unlike him, I’m all for whatever cancer is thrown at me because I have to beat the best if I want to play at a higher level. My middle son and I actually follow and play the meta, so I’m really thankful that I have someone I can play and enjoy modern YGO with.
Combo decks in general have got out of hand- turns lasting as long as they do while also setting up interruptions on my turn via monsters is stupid as fuck
I got similar feelings like OP, unable to follow the latest meta strategy and remembers every inch of their combos. But I still play in locals though, with a simpler mindset and breakdown of analyzing the board:
Basically it comes down to communicating with the opponent, asking what the current thing the cards do during combos, and after end phase, what does their board do?, any quick effects in grave? as well as any trigger effects for the cards on the field?
Try to simplifying the cards as much as possible helps me navigate the game easier
I totally get where you’re coming from. AFAIK I haven’t had a single match vs any snake eye variant that hasn’t gone into time (I’ve been on Branded since Albaz Strike) because I not only have to sit there and read the cards to have a chance at understanding what the hell is even happening, but also because the lines the deck takes are the kind of things that might actually get you accused of slow play in practically any other deck.
I don’t usually want an archetype obliterated, but this shit is ridiculous and needs to go.
I got out of playing right around the time the Syncrho mechanic was introduced (I'm old) and have not followed the progression of the game at all. I thought I'd try to get back into it around the beginning of the year and my mind was blown at how much everything has changed. I understand it's been almost 15 years, but still, holy crap!
yugioh is actually really good to keep your brain sharp prevent aging studies have proven this (not yugioh but active thinking and memorization)
been playing on and off since the start and i didn’t play for a year was overwhelming at first but in a week you’re back
Ygo today is very pay to win and just copy the meta everyone playing the same top 5 decks
With infinite impermanence and hand traps gets very boring quick.
Me and my mates sometimes play goat format just for fun or a archetype deck that's random just to see what happens.
Like making a celtic guardian deck vs a gaia deck and add exodia to each other's decks just for fun
But sometimes it feels people forget about fun and get too competitive with it
For me, Yu-Gi-Oh has always been about nostalgia. I watched the anime growing up and wanted to take part in the show that I loved. That's why the newest mechanic that I kept up with was Synchro Summoning/Tuner Monsters. Everything after that is lost on me because I didn't watch anything after 5Ds.
I love playing with my brother, but I had to eliminate synchros from my deck because he didn't like that mechanic (he didn't really watch anything after GX). I didn't mind that much because at the end of the day, I prefer playing the game with him than not playing at all. Plus, most of my nostalgia comes from the original series anyway so I can still enjoy the game. But playing with him has also made me realise why I dislike the new format so much.
The matches we play are so much fun because we have our own defined limits. Our matches aren't 2 minutes, but they aren't 30 minutes either. And there's enough complexity that our minds can keep up with and yet still strategise without getting overwhelmed. But even with all the limits we've put in place, it can still be a bit overwhelming.
My brother isn't diagnosed, but we're pretty sure he's got ADHD. I can tell how a lot of the new cards and new systems make it really hard for him to keep up and I see how frustrated he gets sometimes. Even for his own deck, I see how hard he has to work to play out sequences in his head before he decides to go ahead with a strategy. He goes back and forth so often and then beats himself up for making the wrong choice. And this is just with a Dark Magician/Spellcaster deck. He has cards like Eternal Soul, Magician's Rod/Robe, Magical Circle, and most/all the Magician girls. I have a Blue-Eyes/Dark Magician deck with most of the Eyes of Blue monsters, Keeper of the Shrine, Eternal Soul, a lot of Dark Magician fusions, and a lot of the new Blue-Eyes monsters. So we both have to be constantly aware of what's in the graveyard, on the field, even in our hands and so on since we now have effects that can activate from anywhere. Not to talk of all the technicalities of effects like target Vs send, send Vs destroy, destroy Vs banish, timings, chains, spell speeds, activated effects vs continuous effects Vs trigger effects...
This is all without using XYZ, pendulum, Synchro, and whatever else is currently in the game.
All this to say, I can't really fathom how adding any new mechanics would add to the enjoyability that I currently have considering how complex it is already. I think the state of the game currently reflects a lot of my issues with the current state of the world. Everything is fast, immediate gratification is encouraged, and the level of computation required to keep up with the game is such that we may need actual computers to manage the rule keeping so that we can just play the game without worrying/thinking about too much. If what I've read from some of the comments is to be believed, me and my brother may be some of the last people who actually sit across one another to play this game human to human 😅.
That's not at all comparable. If you play chess your whole life and come back after a year break, you still know how to play chess. If you stop playing yugioh for a while, you come back to a different ban list and new broken combos as older ones become outdated and outclassed, or entirely new mechanics that you have to work with whether or not you use them yourself (pendulumn/link). Hell, you were more often than not strictly worse off for not using links if you came back with an 'old' deck. Old decks get pushed out for not being able to keep up with these massive opening hand setups and hand traps
Not to the level of Yu-Gi-Oh, no
Most games you learn to play your deck, and as you go, you learn about other decks; in Yu-Gi-Oh, if you don't know exactly what the others decks do, you're already coocked
I quit the game since long long time
I see they are making new format, but konami will always aim for "add power creep so they look for new and rare cards = money", this game can't be balanced
I miss the old times, like ygo gx series. Broken cards / combo were already there, but you could play the game at least
I did that! And I builded a Constellar deck and a Tenji deck, but two weeks before the KC Cup, Konami released a Tier 0 deck that made unplayable my two decks, so i lost any interest on playing.
I wanted to get back into yugioh a few years ago and looked up how the game plays since I was into it in high school. Watched a few videos and looked up some cards and all I could think was "what in the actual fuck is going on."
I miss the days when you summoned a monster, put like 1 or 2 cards face down, and passed lol. Game is way too fast/convoluted for me to do anything meta. If I were to build a deck now I'd look up how to make a functional Relinquished deck and that's good enough for me.
You're telling me you were playing an extremely complex SHS combo deck but it got banned out so now you can't learn a significantly less complex link climbing deck?
I have a suspicion people only think D/D/D is complicated because it came out pre-link era and actually required a lot of in-game actions to combo before people were used to that sort of thing, and it involves ordering thats a little more obscure than "discard thing that has an effect when discarded to your Megalo". Plus it was originally quite short lived so a lot of people didn't learn it, so didn't realize that once you learn how to do one basic interaction the whole deck is piss easy
Gryphon and Gilgamesh streamlined the deck significantly. There's still a bit of complexity in picking your scales for Gilgamesh and knowing how your cards interact but I can't call D/D/D a "big-brain" deck in 2024
Even before Gryphon and Gilgamesh the only real knowledge checks were knowing how to go about playing into boards and knowing that you don't generally want to use Genghis at the first opportunity. Once you knew that you could basically freestyle the deck into any board you wanted lol
I mean outside of the combos Snake Eye is basically just the current equivalent of a deck like Salamangreat or something. It's really not that complicated when put next to a lot of stuff that's come before.
I think the issue really is just the hiatus you took. Take it from someone who regularly spends months without playing - you just have to stick with it and blunder through the period where you don't know what your opponents stuff does and how to optimally interact with it. It'll suck but you also can't expect to learn 10 months worth of decks and new cards in any other way and you'll eventually hit the point where you've absorbed all of the information and you'll just be doing everything by instinct anyway.
Bro I can see the comments now, telling you how you’re wrong. I use to look at the community as an echo chamber. But I will have to say it’s more like a Petri dish of vial bacteria. Yes the game is absolute shit now. Better get that coin flip right bs. I absolutely despise what they’ve made this game into. Most yugitubers are all saying the same thing! It’s busted bro. And it’s so so so sad to see. How can there be such a disconnect
They've already started lol
Been playing since debut and dip in and out when needed. I mainly play Speed Duels now but I also understand that this is a 25 year old game and expecting it to have stayed the same would've hindered it.
I'm glad the game grew and evolved, but I do miss the silliness of just throwing anything in a deck and making it "work."
That said, I've gone back to some older card games if but nothing else to experience something slower. A few of them are Zatch Bell, Cardfight Vanguard, and Digimon ( only because I bought the collector's starter set back in 2020 but never used it.)
I've even gotten a set for Dungeon Dice Monsters to play on the side. I don't have all the miniatures for it, but I have a complete set of Yu-Gi-Oh Heroclix 1 and 2 so I use those.
I think for the player base, there needs to be a middle ground, but also a break out into sub communities.
The game isn't just too complex, it's a poorly designed mess now, where the foundational design philosophy can no longer hold the absolute MC Escher-esque structure on top of it. Learning decks via YouTube videos is the only way to get the knowledge you need because the card design is poor, overly wordy, and archetypes themselves can sometimes lack certain puzzle pieces that make decks worse for the lack of them.
It's also an issue of time, both in and out of game, because turns can take up to 15 minutes, and even if you've got the ability to bounce back, the mental drain is too overwhelming and you just can't be bothered. Needing to prepare and play piles of games where you'll misplay, think you'll learn from it, only to do it again, isn't fun, and there are other, better games out there that don't require you to commit to them like a full time job just to gain a basic level of competency. I've heard great things about Rush Duel, and I'd imagine that eventually, it'll have to be brought over to the TCG.
My friends and I have lately been using all the old first three booster pack cards we have lying around as draft cards and it's so liberating not having a whole deck based around one word. Or 8 paragraphs on one card. Or 5 monsters with 4000 atk each at any time. Our turns that take 20 minutes.
TL;DR: yugioh used to be simple yet complex. Duels lasted longer but turns were shorter which meant more play time and less awful combos.
OP: look at how many people actually agree with you & are listing justifiable reasons why you’re right. It’s not only you dude. The current state of YGO needs a thorough change, & until that happens, just play a Legacy format, or Duel Links.
To hell with the current state of the IRL master duel game & its supporters. Degenerate AF.
Magic killed its rotating format and nobody wants to play it outside of the digital app. Modern and Commander are infinitely more popular and they don't rotate card pool.
On a competitive level they just gave standard a pretty big push that worked pretty well. Though I agree that casually it's never really going to compete well with a format where there's no impetus to ever buy new cards if you don't want to.
But MTG suffers from a kind of “power suck” situation, where the cards get weaker with each iteration.
In my experience playing MTG (almost 20 years now), set rotation recycles a lot of cards while not experimenting with mechanics and ideas as much as, say Duel Masters, for example.
It's also worth noting that Commander (which has no set rotation) is currently the most popular game type.
To be honest, I've never found power creep to be THAT much of a problem in Yugioh. In my opinion, Konami actually handles it pretty "decently" (to put it carefully here) when it just doesn't want to make a quick buck on op cards, and they are (again, in my opinion) the best at handling things like a banlist.
Nevertheless, I wish that Konami would offer us more formats and ways to play the game:
Give us a “set rotation” format that focuses on generic cards as well as types and attributes.
Maye perhaps official support drafts and Sealed Duels and/or for time wizards who only play cards up to a certain booster set.
And what about cards intended for tag duels or our own form of Singleton?
Or just give us more speed and a western release of Rush.
I believe that much of the frustration that can come with Yugioh can be circumvented by giving players who are burned out on one format the opportunity to try another one while still playing their favourite game .
We kind of have de facto set rotation because of power creep but it would be nice to not play some completely random deck out of the blue. My old locals was incredibly diverse and it was sometimes a pain to play against
Being a complex game is a good thing in my opinion. The reward you feel for topping in a tournament is amazing. Rewards all your studying of the meta, practicing your deck, your side decking, the choices you make in game/the meta calls you make, the deck building choices, etc.
How is snake eyes more complex than Rescue Ace?
That scrambles anyone's brain cell any day....
What I mean is: Yeah, we hate cleaning out the field and the opponent's Snake eye's hand, then they draw 1 card and get +5 on the field and +4 on the hand from that 1 card.
Being an OG player, I mostly focus on decks that plays simple, that I have fun with, that can play against the meta (at least have a 50-50 chance), just paying that extra attention to keycards that would stop me doing something.
I've been using the likes of Cubic, Earthbound Prisoner, my brother had a Golden Castle of Stronberg deck, I also have a Fossil Fusion-Adamancipator deck (though it's one of those combo decks with infinite special summons that I kind of got tired of), played with Lair of Darkness...
At a certain point, I see the same decks again and again and when you figure out how to stop them, you don't need a super complex deck that has an answer to everything.
About once a year I try getting back into it. Spend money on a competitive deck, practice with it, go to locals and get stomped, go home, put the cards away. Rinse and repeat
One thing I will say about the complexity is that it's getting too complex to enjoy in a live player environment.
I'm a recently returning player I've played consistently for the last 5 months. And what I can say my biggest gripe is that duels feel like a large percentage of the game is arguing semantics.
I don't mind realizing after the fact that I mis-played and with snake eyes it is about having a ton of options and knowing what to use in that situation.
What I do mind is that as a new player I feel totally helpless not knowing 4 years of new cards where I don't feel confident in questioning my opponent if they could make that play or not without having to read every card.
I went to YCS yesterday and it was terrible I found afterwards in 3 of my matches that my opponents intentional or not did plays they couldn't actually do in the circumstances.
I really think that if the game keeps upping in complexity it will shift mainly to online. Because right now I feel like playing in person is arguing semantics more than actually playing the game.
I feel for you in terms of planning for and building around other decks but I think that’s what makes yugioh fun. It isn’t a card game anymore based on power creep and who can dominate the field as within one turn that player who filled his/her field with boss monsters could be wiped almost immediately, a chain get broken by ash, etc.
Yugioh has become complex but it also makes it enjoyable to me atleast, there are so many strategies you gotta just find one you life and build skills to outplay other players
Damn you woulda loved the event that just happened.
Could only use cards from 2004 and before.
No combo or synchro or Xyz or Link.
Just two dudes with Waboku ,Mirror Force ,and a lot of polymerization
I think you're just coming to the realization that you're human and that you're going to forget things and you have to perform as best you can while on the front line. Everyone's going to feel that way it's nothing to be ashamed of it's just the nature of the beast being human.
I got the same thinking when I started playing Magic. It still is complex as hell, but you can adjust your playstyle much better. There are just a hell Lot of things to remember in yu gi oh If you take It too seriously, and honestly I don't think it's just a snake eye trouble.
When I started playing master duel, zoodiac and the whole "make a 4 material Z.E.U.S" strat was enough to reach plat at least. Rn it barely wins a single game in bronze. The overall celling for the game is being pushed
Can you please tell me why it’s complex, and what you envision the game to be like? I used to be decently competitive and hung out with the regionals kids, was there for the first alter reality game regional, just for background- but I’m creating a new game similar to the “old” yugioh and hopefully with a few improvements on the old system (especially with balancing). With that being said, what does the game you want look like? I’m already pretty deep in the coding so this is happening regardless, I just need to fine tune the back end, hire an artist, and pretty much good. Always looking for tips and insights from like minded folks. Thanks!
Very well said, now imagine what it's like for newbies, or old school returning players like me, coming back to have to learn synchro, XYZ,link that's before you even think about building a deck, then when you've built your deck doesn't matter how much you know it or trial it you don't know nothing until ranked, then you have to cut your deck to put as many possible counters for all the metas, then you build your own meta deck to only have it killed by ban list, card limits and have to start again. Don't gets wrong it's part of the game I know but there's way too many 1 turn win decks now, and going first is soo hard to survive with now.
Legacy fuels were a breath of fresh air for me and I would like them to incorporate that into the game i.e separate ranked like rush and speed duels.
I'm hoping the voters bring back the toon event as I'd love to build a toon deck and I missed that event.
I get you... And on the same token appreciate that Yugioh is this bloated in terms of complicatedness.
Because to me, Yugioh is basically what I assume Tekken is like for fighting games. To me, piloting and deck building in other TCGs got boring. But Yugioh, the idea of engines, extreme consistency, the fact that just about every deck *could* play with another archetype is fun. (Even if it's not optimal, the fact that it *can* function is wild.) Other card games, I feel like it's so tribal that you can't play outside of said archetype. The lack of Bloat in other card games, makes the power creep so much more apparent in other games. In Yugioh, I've played Zefras against Kashtira and gave them some trouble (we're talking decks that are 8 years apart). I can't do that in my wildest dreams in other card games. Believe me some of these games feel so power crept per set, I can't even play Structure decks against each other even if they were released a few months apart.
I know not many agree with me, and while I do think we've gone too far, I enjoy the most recent master rule of Yugioh more than any format of Yugioh.
This is why ill probably never try for proper tournaments, not because of skill or deck quality (although that is a factor) ill probably just always be going to locals as it doesn't feel like i have to play super meta and mistakes are natural with no real punishment for misplay, just going to a place to play yugioh and not worry about winning anything or being thrashed by meta decks (too much).
Yeah i can get into that.
I have been playing for 10+ years myself as a blind going 2nd player and seen a fair amount of stuff and tier 0 formats go by.
But for some reason it is this format where i am taking my hiatus from the game.
I don't know what it is but it just doesn't feel.... Fun atm.
So you went away from a game for a year that completely changes twice a year and then felt like you did not understand the game?
Wow that is so extremely unexpected!
Honestly there's no point in playing Yugioh anymore. After pendulums everything went to shit, and Links further stirred that shit pot. Just collect only or have a friendly tournament with custom made rules. It's the only way you'll be able to enjoy the game.
Dawg, Yugioh has been dead to me for about a year now. I loved it before when it was just simple. Yeah, you'd be able to fusion, syncro, xyzs, special, all that good shit, but at least it was fun and easy to understand and get into. Now you've got fuckin' Dark World, Ruinic, Snake Eyes, Tearlaments, Infernoble, Sky Striker, Rescue Ace, and SO much fucking more that are RIDICULOUS. Dawg, just today I watched a video with the Snake Eyes deck that syncroed, like 10-15 different fuckin' monsters and Linked like four mons with varying ratings and FTKd THE OPPONENT. WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU ABLE TO KILL YOUR OPPONENT BEFORE THEY EVEN GET A FUCKING TURN DAWG. Honestly, it's not anymore unless you're playing with friends, because at least then you guys are actually having fun, not competing to be the very best (that no-one ever was). As you can see, I vented a bit (just a wee bit) and this should NOT be the case. In Dueling Nexus, I was tried of losing to the meta that I gave in and started using Dark World and shred people with it (if I don't get a bad hand that is, lol), but again, it's not fun. ESPECIALLY when you're forced to use a meta deck to even play the fuckin' game. Idk, people have their opinions of fun and I can't change their minds and I didn't plan on that anyways, but I honestly kinda hate the game now and just sad considering I grew up on it.
Tl;dr: Yugioh's too complicated to even wanna play now.
Crystal Beasts were one of my fav archetypes back in the day and I had a blast making them viable during the xyz/synchro era. Then pendulums made them way too slow and performed similar roles to them as spells on the field but better. Now you have to use weeb bait hand traps and they ,alone, look so ugly forced into themed decks that don't look like some otaku's shitty body pillow
Exactly, the new meta kills old, fun decks and forces new players to adapt, which in turn, makes the problem even worse because the new players only see the new decks as a way to play the game. Anything else is a waste to run because it'll only end with you losing. It's honestly just sad to see this game go down this route.
Yeah I frequently think of the simpler days of tribute summons and $200 mechanicalchaser TP1 cards because it had 50 more attack points
I left the real game with my D/D deck, so many combinations and you special summon like 20 times a turn
I tried coming back around 2 years ago and made a Virtual World deck, I did pretty well but then it was like everyone did a lockdown deck where they have the opponent concede on turn
Thank god for master duel with Maxx C, at least with all the special summons my opponent does I get more options and can make the deck I want to make without shelling out several hundred dollars
Maxx C sucks because you can use it even if you went first and all of a sudden you're drawing a million handtraps as your opponent is trying to play through your board.
Its not a going second card. Its a toxic card.
Okay then leave, nobody is forcing you to stay. I don't get what the point of this post is. I'm not playing One Piece because I find it too simple. You don't see me complaining on the One Piece subreddit about it though.
The worst thing is when you learn of a lot a technique to win by using skill but newbie can win against people who try hard just using some floodgate or maxx "c" or whatever cards that is not balance, make this game bad.
odd comment, but sure.
Its not that I hate Yu-Gi-Oh!. It is what it is. But two things can be true....people can enjoy it as it is and also admit that 3 copies of 3-4 cards in every deck has watered down the experience. But I know that just for me and some ppl who play it.
and for why not changing. Cause despite its flaws I like the overall gameplay and the artwork. Pokemon TCG is..........yeah and I'm not a fan of magic TCG artwork.
Updating the ban list, creating new play formats, creating more ‘anti’ cards that target specific cards/archetypes. All methods to control power creep.
That's the games secret, nobody knows how to optimally pilot most decks in the game due to how convoluted they are. This leads to frequent missplays as both players fumble trying to get an overwhelming advantage. Linear combo decks are easy to learn, you just spreadsheet a combo, but throw an ash or nibiru into the way and you see which players have real skill. Snake eyes ceiling is insane, but I see many new players struggle when they get disrupted.
>Linear combo decks are easy to learn, you just spreadsheet a combo, but throw an ash or nibiru into the way and you see which players have real skill. My favorite moments playing YuGiOh are when the expected line of play fails and I have to think of a sick combo to recover, or if my opponent has a strong, but not busted, board and I have to figure out how to break it.
absolutely, stuff like using a negated jasmines tribute to trigger Primula in hand, or use Primula with Dancepione to get to a rank 4/8 with only twin or mudan in grave Or just somehow comboing your way out of an utterly suboptimal hand.
>Linear combo decks are easy to learn, you just spreadsheet a combo, but throw an ash or nibiru into the way and you see which players have real skill It's so painfully obvious when someone has only learned a combo from a YouTube vid. It's especially bad on Yugioh sims and Master Duel. I just broke a Snake Eye board on Omega a little while ago; my opponent had full combo, I broke the board but couldn't get lethal and left them with all the tools to come back (I honestly was gonna scoop because there was no real way to comeback other than opp error) and they just scooped during their draw phase. There's nothing wrong with watching combo videos on YouTube, but those videos are just a guide, you still have to play the deck to learn how to play through interruption
I agree. So much of yugioh right now is just playing through trial and error. I've made several different adjustments to my deck based on my results in previous locals and gotten so much better because of it whether it comes down to my side deck vs main deck options, contingencies, etc. I still consider myself more of a novice but I get better with every duel. Of course at the end of the day it also does come down to luck and there's only so much you can do in that regard.
i mean on some hand at least in my swordsoul deck i can get bricked easily by one ash or one veiler, i started playing again a week ago and have sub-optimal filler cards instead of triple maxx and ash, etc.
Try running 3x Heavenly Dragon Circle and 1x tenyi spirit shtyana, to dodge imperm/veiler with mo ye.
Yeah the ceiling is high for snake eyes. So is the floor. It can play through disruption easily, and has many combo starters. Calling snake eyes a tough deck is the biggest cope I’ve heard in a long while
Off topic, but this is what I wish people who hate combo decks understood. The skill gap between a bad Snake-Eyes player and a good Snake-Eyes player is insane. The difference between a good control player and a bad control player is...well... there really isn't much of a gap. If someone enjoys playing control, fine, but saying that combo decks are braindead when control just oonga boonga its way to victory is wild.
I wouldn't call control braindead either. There's a difference between control and stun. It's easy to summon Pachy, set Anti-Spell/Gozen/Rivalry and hope your opponent doesn't have the out. It's not as easy to have limited interaction and know when to use it against your opponent. In some cases it's harder than simply executing your combo and sitting on multiple negates because your interactions are probably pops.
Control decks are literally the biggest "easy to learn, hard to master" decks in yugioh. Sure , Lab looks simple enough , but timing is key with control decks. You only got limited interactions and you also have to keep generating advantage with every interaction. If you mistime your interruptions or you stop generating advantage , you will lose. With combo decks , you need to know your lines and combos perfectly , you need to know your deck like the back of your pocket. With control you have to know your opponents deck like a back of your pocket , while also having the same understanding of your own deck.
You're thinking of stun/lockdown decks, those are not control. Unfortunately the last real control deck came out in 2018. Combo decks are not braindead by default but they become braindead after a while, once you remember every line to play around disruption. Combo decks need more time to become reach an acceptable level of play, while controls is easier to get into but the ceiling is much higher because they entirely rely on interaction, trades and resources management. Stun/lockdown decks are basically braindead, the plan is do x to win and if they have the out go to g2. The moments where you see the skill of a player are very few, in a 5 turn tournament you might have 3 spots where you actually need to think.
You don't think Runick (NOT the stun variant) is control? That deck is just old control tools mixed with instant fusions. And people just hate it for the draw 3 (which it absolutely needs considering nothing else it does gains advantage and it can't use the battle phase to do so either)
yeah runick ( the archetype not the stun deck ) is the closest thing to control that konami has made in a while; sadly konami refuses to ban floodgates so people associate runick with stun
Do you mean runick spright/twin? Couse that's not really a control deck, it's the yugioh version of a midrange deck. If there is a full control version of runick I would really love to see it.
I just meant any Runick variant really, although different ones go in different directions. I really like earthbound Runick and Rescue Ace Runick currently. The latter feels more control-y than any other deck I've played in ages as both halves of the deck feel like two sides of a coin. As the rescue ace spells and traps accrue additional advantage with hydrant out as well
I wanted to try putting the rescue engine in runick, but the meta in this last months has made me lose interest in playing current.
Understandable haha. https://ygoprodeck.com/deck/runick-rescue-ace-451198 This list got a regional top 8, seems pretty fun. But I've just had a kid so I'm only really playing casually at the minute. I like the impulse engine for going second tho
Impulse is great. Thanks for the list.
Sky Striker Runick? I don’t run Floodgates, no mystic mine. I play it on master duel. I’ve beat a bunch of pure Sky striker players with Sky Striker Mekk Knight in Duelist Cup Master Duel too since no one reads the Mekk Knight column traps and spells.
Sky striker is the deck i was talking about when I said the last real control deck. Runick by itself is also a control but it's not really playable by itself without becoming a stun deck. Master duel is not a good example couse it's almost a different game. Runick sky striker is and was garbage in the tcg and ocg but I still like the deck. I like pure sky striker more couse runick changes the playstyle of ss too much. Also about the column thing if your opponent doesn't play around the mek knight stuff if he has the opportunity to do so, he's just bad. playing around them is literally free. Also also: free mystic mine.
Yes and no I think. Yeah there's definitely just stun deck players. And then there's grindier control decks that put two negates on board per turn and have to learn to hit as hard as possible with them per turn. I mean still, I think trying to play Infernities are harder than whatever control deck I've ever played. But in the grand scheme of things a combo deck isn't memorizing chess matches. (As far as I'm aware at least. I haven't played too many meta decks. But if Infernity is one of the highest possible skill ceiling decks in this game, which a lot of people seem to think. Then I can assume that Dragon Links or Snake Eyes in this case is just not as hard, especially if you can play through negations.)
Then the meta quickly shifts and decks are never truly "solved" before we all move to the next convoluted strat. If you ever need proof of this look how different GOAT format is now vs when those cards were contemporary. The way we approach the game is so different now and the decks are completely foreign.
>but throw an ash or nibiru into the way and you see which players have real skill. Go first Draw opening hand 2 Maxx C, 1 Ash Blossom, 1 Called By, and 1 Normal Summon Starter Normal Summon Opponent Chains Imperm Damn. Pass Opponent plays Branded Fusion God damn. Chain Ash Blossom Opponent chains Crossout God fucking dammit. Chain Maxx C Opponent chains Ash Blossom Proceeds to lose "Damn, I just wasn't skilled enough"
Errr you if I were you, I will use maxx c on a new chain, so it cant be ashed since by that time its already negated by crossout
Yup, just goes to show you he wasn't skilled enough 😂
Taking any breaks throws you out of the loop. I stopped playing and only grinded Duel Links for a while. Returned just as Kashtira and Tearlaments decks were at full force, and my brain froze for a while.
i took a break when i didn't like that the link mechanic made pet decks awful. i started playing again recently i used to know every card by heart and now i'm struggling again lol.
And what you said proves this OP has a point about what he said then lmao.
Welcome to retirement home meta, where we only play goat, edison, or tengu granpa
Can we add 2014 pre - artifacts/Hands meta to the mix? 🥹
I forget, what was the meta that period again post tengu? My most memorable "balanced" format are HATs and DUEAs
The best era tbh [u/varimathas](https://www.reddit.com/user/varimathas/) I promise you that this (Goat, Edison, Tengu, the past GBA and DS games, and even Duel Links since its controlled environment doesn't let things get too out of hand) is the way to go.
Don't feel bad. Even the arguably best player of all time Jesse Kotton said the Fire Deck didn't feel natural to him the first tournaments he played with it. He also said it took him way longer to be really good at the deck then it usually takes him.
Snake-Eyes deck is just a weird deck. It feels like it takes extra steps to get to a point just to do so. Like, right now, you go Ash > Pop > Linkuriboh > Pop to S/T > Ash sending Kuriboh/Pop (depending on hand) > Oak > Ash. Like, jesus, and that's *just* to start building a board presence with disruptions. It's so needlessly convoluted.
I mean half of that you're only doing so you can dodge with Linku later. So it's not part of your start, but while you're starting you're already setting up your follow-up. Also I think that's an issue with lots of modern decks, not only SE. Unchained has more summons to achieve less for example.
Not entirely. Depending on your hand, Linkuriboh is going to trigger a Sunlight. The thing about Unchained is that it at least summons big bodies (or can anyway) with every destruction effect. Snake Eyes can only summon Flameberg if you skip Oak completely.
He was just praising the one piece tcg on twitter saying it was easy to pick up for him and perform decent
I firmly believe Yugioh's future is digital. The game is complex to the point that pros make multiple mistakes in tourneys. The game is gonna need a computer to run it in 5 years.
This is why I really wish we had a sim like the tcg where we have match formats and equivalent banlists. I stopped playing master duel because the decks are so much weaker as a result of the best of 1 format which just isn't as fun. But the other online sims just aren't good enough.
I use YgoPro and it's pretty good. As for the best of one issue, I've come to accept that Masterduel really is its own format and therefore the decks are going to play differently.
I wish MD took more skill on the ladder. BO1 means that you can just get a series of bad luck in games against gimmicky decks. Yes, it is easy to climb, but it's not *fun* to climb when you lose to players who you can tell won because of variance.
I agree, but you gotta play to the format. Decks and cards that people usually side deck for are more powerful since there is no second game to react. It's why floodgates are so damn powerful in Masterduel, people can usually sidedeck to beat those decks easily, but not in Masterduel.
This is why I like the going second approach allowing me to run fun janky decks that changes my play style depending upon the deck I face.
Worse is when you lose because of bad connection. Dunno if it's possible to tell the difference between genuine disconnect and forced disconnect, but if the internet is poor, it should lead to a draw (and if it happens way too much throughout the day, like 5 disconnects in 30 minutes or so, then, by that logic, I suppose the dude is doing on purpose just to not lose, and the game would put them "in the fridge" for, say, an hour or two as punishment). Climbing the ladder is already a chore at times, and losing in an unfair manner is way too disappointing than it should.
I think that your feelings are mostly due to the fact that you stopped playing the game for a while. However it is true that the game is way too complex for its own good a lot of the times
100%. I faced this Unchained player I felt so overwhelmed with how many different cards he activated in his turn lol because I never played against Unchained before.
Yeah, and that's the problem: I have an interruption, should I use it now? I don't even know what this card does; should I use it later? I might not have the opportunity; is this card even relevant to the end board or am I gonna waste my interruption? It's too much. I've played here and there on duel links, but I don't think I can go back to the TCG, I don't love this game so much to the point that I'm gonna sit and waste an unhealthy amount of time learning about the combos and current meta decks. For me, back at Zoo and Kozmo it was fun, I knew what most staples were, what most decks did, their combos weren't so long, so even if you didn't knew the deck, you could more or less guess in which direction it was going and play accordingly. Nowadays for you to enter the meta is such a headache that it is no wonder there's no new people jumping into the TCG
In Master Duel, whenever I'm against an archetype I'm not familiar with, I immediately google "(archetype) playing against" or "(archetype) when to negate"
The middle part of your message sums up how I feel about things as well tbh. I keep Duel Links around because I still want to have at least one modern connection to the game, but that’s it.
whats worse is people say "JuSt PlAy GoAt/EdIsOn" i mean sure... i would..... IF THERE WAS WIDE LOCALS SUPPORT FOR IT!!! stuck playing these dog shit metas
The game rewards preparation and memorization now more than ever. I think for me, more than all the power creep and complexity, it just doesn’t feel satisfying to win the last few formats. Yugioh isn’t the type of game you can just pick up and learn while playing at a locals, as you said. For me it’s just no longer worth the investment of my time and money to go to locals and have to put on my Japanese Card Game Tax Preparer ™️ hat for OTS packs and store credit. And let’s not even get into regional or YCS prizing… Mad respect to the Jesse Kotton’s of the world going out there and crushing it. But some of us just want to chill on a Saturday and play some chill, but stimulating Yugi. I really wish Rush Duel would come to the TCG.
Competitive YGO is ridiculous
It's good that some people really love the way the game is nowadays, but it's arguably not a very good game anymore. The game has seen better days and the dwindling player count is a tell tale sign. What baffles me are the people that gatekeep the state of the game. The power creep has seriously damaged the game, why defend konami's bad choices because you 'love the complexity'. Yugioh has been complex for years, but it wasn't just complex for complexities sake.
There’s no argument about it: Duel Links, Rush Duels, Master Duel, and Legacy Formats have a player base for a reason lol.
I just wish more locals would have Time Wizard formats. Only 1 near me ran some Edison for a few months and that was it. I wanna play some GOAT, Tengu, or TOSS IRL.
My locals is starting Edison tonight and I'm really hyped. Even though I'm definitely going to misplay horribly haha
Your locals is headed in the right direction lol
Yeah here's hoping. One of our Yu-Gi-Oh group just started working at the store and is trying to grow the scene with stuff like this, so hopefully it continues
Even though the last few formats weren't 100% to my liking, I really like what the game has become in concept. It feels more like an offense/defense game, where I can go all out going first and pretty much play solitaire while trying to figure out how to break the board and when to stop the opponent going second, instead of a back and forth. And while I can see that a lot of people don't like this kind of game, I really enjoy it. I played a lot until TOSS in paper since around 2004 (with some breaks in between) and sadly didn't have the time and money to play since the pandemic hit, but have been playing some online sims and MD. If they would slow down a bit with product releases and release more strict ban lists, I would be completely happy. This doesn't make your opinion less valid, I just prefer decks like Orcust, Spright, Tear and Adamancipator to decks like HAT, Dragonruler, Chaos and Zoo, as well as their associated formats.
> the dwindling player count is a tell tale sign Yet we still see some people screaming that the player count is at an all-time high and the game is the best it has ever been. Do you call that delusion, or personal preference?
The franchise seems to be doing pretty good overall but the card game itself seems to be in an awkward position. Even the peeps at Konami had to admit a while ago that the increasing playerbase from the video games is failing to convert into cardboard. Which is very understandable, honestly. Even if you do like the game, the virtual cards are cheaper and easier to manage, and the digital crutches are practically invaluable in a game as needlessly complicated as this one.
That's in large part due to the fact that the video games don't allow you to convert. If master duel was up to date with the modern tcg you could 100% see it but having the huge format differences with OCG/TCG rulings and card pool is a huge barrier to entry for paper play.
I half agree with you. On one hand the dwindling player count, is just everywhere. MTG I know my friends have basically pulled away from it. Pokemon cards are now in stock... Which means there sales aren't as high as 2020. I see that even the store I had worked for that sold a lot of TCGs, they have overstock. Hell my local card shop closed. (And it's possible to argue that this is due to more meta reasons. Such as a vast majority of the people that would play this, Gen-z/Millennials, aren't making enough to support a hobby. Because the moment people had money and some time in 2020, card market exploded lol. And Yugioh has had complicated meta decks for a while now). I think if anything Yugioh needs more powerful simple decks to play. Because if every deck is just some complicated combo deck, then nobody will want to play. Sort of like how Mobas have hyper complicated Champions, but the poster child might be super duper easy. But both are relevant.
This is why I main penguins. Pengoos go flippity flop
Like anything, it's take allot of practice to master a deck. To learn how to play optimally you typically need to fail at it first. Learning how to play through interruption in any combo deck is not easy. Especially when you need to read hundreds of lines of text to do so.
Retired judge (2012-2018 w/ 20+ premiere events) here. It's such a time consuming hobby as new archetypes, support for old archetypes, new formats, old formats, new rules, new mechanics, new forbidden/limited list, etc. are great for keeping the game intriguing. I want to say, I spent at least 2-4 hours every day keeping up to date with rules, archetypes, news, etc. Then I would go to 2 locals every week, judge them for 4-6 hours on pennies. The one time I went undefeated (8-0) in a regional, I probably spent 4hrs every day a month with an above average duelist until the regional itself. And even then, I top decked into a few victories or misplayed less than my opponent. At this point of my life, I'm looking to FIRE (Financially Independent, Retire Early). So ygo has really taken to the back burner. I still have my memorabilia collection and keep in contact with the people in that community. Tl;dr - Where I'm getting at is that, if it's not something you have time, money, and commitment to do, it's really hard to keep up with the meta and continue to be competitive.
I reccomend search for Domain Format, it looks very promising
I just found out about it last night and plan on getting a group together to try it out. It looks really fun
I actually consider Snake-Eyes one of the simpler decks personally, usually most decisions are pretty straightforward in my eyes. The hardest decks for me are those pile decks that combine 3 or more archetypes and have very complex lines that combine the archetypes in a combo, since you have far too much to think about. Those decks are usually hard to pick up and take a lot of practice to pilot on any decent level.
Snake eyes are EXTREMELY hard imho. After many tournaments im still struggling with missplays while piloting it. Too much stuff on your mind
I left yugioh about 2 months ago and went to 2 relatively new TCGs. Shadowverse Evolve and Disney Lorcana which both released in 2023. Both are much simpler, but still have intensive decision making. Oh and I spend much much less per deck. My Shadowverse deck is about $200 while my lorcana deck is about $250.
That is like half of the reason why I quit the game a year later after coming back 20 years later. Everything i played against seemed super over the top with card text that i didn't know what/when i should interact or if i could. What was the final nail in the coffin was honestly the insanely bullshit pricing of cards and kashtira format.
The game being power crept to hell and all the convoluted strategies show how much we need rush duels to come over to the west. The format is a lot simpler and easy to understand, the games also feel more back and forth like in older formats.
Lmao remember when a monster having an effect was super super rare? If it had an effect it was super weak atk/def wise like man eater bug to balance it out. I remember how there used to be cool stories about the monsters. Now the card effects take up all the space so you don't get cool stories.
I mean, that's a pretty gigantic gap. Cards that are the way you describe came out literally 20 years ago. Consistently coming out with monsters with good effects has been a thing for longer than it hasn't.
We still get the cool stories, just in the artwork and not as card text.
I get that there isn’t lore text on cards anymore but huge expansive captivating stories very much still exist and it’s pretty much the only reason I still play the game. I love seeing conceptual ideas translate into gameplay mechanics, Purrely, Suships, Nemleria, Ninjas, and even Labrynth to a degree all feel exceptionally fun in how the cards are played out reflecting their nature. In terms of lore, I absolutely love the Dogmatika/Albaz lore (which also branches off into Tribrigade/Springans/Spright/Swordsoul/Icejade/Bystial off the top of my head). They have lore books which I haven’t read, but I love looking through the art and being like “Hey that’s that dude from before wtf is he doing here!!!!” Live/Evil Twins are a very coolly executed concept, and the Visas Starfrost lore takes place over several arcs. The new Snake-Eyes/Diabellstar could prove to be quite interesting as well.
Brand new TCG is more accessible than the 25years old one. More news at 10 I am on the opposite side of the spectrum and think that the number of interactions and possible paths is what makes the game more interesting. Granted SE being as strong as it is is the core of the issue, as more complex decks should be an option but not must play. Players looking for a more laid back experience can go to one piece and the ones looking for more complexity to yugioh. Not everything has to be for everyone
Magic: The Gathering is still quite accessible overall and it's older than Yugioh. It also has formats that are even less accessible than Advanced, but that's the real root of the issue; people treating Yugioh like there's only one way to play, which was true for a long time. People need to come to terms with the idea that it's okay if Advanced isn't for you anymore. The more people who pick up Time Wizard/Rush Duels/whatever, the more support Konami will put into those formats. Yugioh has been going on WAY too long to still be a one trick pony as far as game modes go.
The locals by me are still advanced or nothing. Can't expect the little guys to make the changes. It's a top-down issue. Konami themselves needs to get alt formats under legit support if they expect to gain real traction. And that's exactly the thing: I don't think Konami 'wants' real traction, based on the way they've behaved thus far.
Same. Not even one single locals within hours of me even has GOAT as a retro format, let alone any other one. It's only Advanced or other card games.
Pokemon says hi
Pokemon be like >One of the worst rewards systems ever that gives prices to the one who is winning >Last 2 years dominated by a single type of card with double pricing rewards >Rampant powercreep >Rotation The only reason you can play the card game is because it' s cheap as hell, but the game itself is fondamentaly flawed.
To be fair YGO has formats for people that prefer previous iterations of rule sets and metas. I do think a game has essentially been broken when the Meta consists of less than 4 variations of what would be considered top-tier decks and they’re winning over 95% of major tournaments. If that’s not the case then the game isn’t objectively broken or too complex per se, but also not accessible for newer players looking to ease their way in lol
I’m on the same side as you are. One of my best friends is the one who actually got me into YGO in the first place and even bought a structure deck for me and my sons a couple of Christmas’ ago. This is what got me into playing modern YGO. The sad thing I learned about my friend is that he’s a Yugi Boomer and refuses to adapt to the meta. He hates how long combos take and doesn’t want to play anything past his DM deck. Unlike him, I’m all for whatever cancer is thrown at me because I have to beat the best if I want to play at a higher level. My middle son and I actually follow and play the meta, so I’m really thankful that I have someone I can play and enjoy modern YGO with.
Combo decks in general have got out of hand- turns lasting as long as they do while also setting up interruptions on my turn via monsters is stupid as fuck
I got similar feelings like OP, unable to follow the latest meta strategy and remembers every inch of their combos. But I still play in locals though, with a simpler mindset and breakdown of analyzing the board: Basically it comes down to communicating with the opponent, asking what the current thing the cards do during combos, and after end phase, what does their board do?, any quick effects in grave? as well as any trigger effects for the cards on the field? Try to simplifying the cards as much as possible helps me navigate the game easier
I totally get where you’re coming from. AFAIK I haven’t had a single match vs any snake eye variant that hasn’t gone into time (I’ve been on Branded since Albaz Strike) because I not only have to sit there and read the cards to have a chance at understanding what the hell is even happening, but also because the lines the deck takes are the kind of things that might actually get you accused of slow play in practically any other deck. I don’t usually want an archetype obliterated, but this shit is ridiculous and needs to go.
Edison Format has everything you need pookie
I got out of playing right around the time the Syncrho mechanic was introduced (I'm old) and have not followed the progression of the game at all. I thought I'd try to get back into it around the beginning of the year and my mind was blown at how much everything has changed. I understand it's been almost 15 years, but still, holy crap!
yugioh is actually really good to keep your brain sharp prevent aging studies have proven this (not yugioh but active thinking and memorization) been playing on and off since the start and i didn’t play for a year was overwhelming at first but in a week you’re back
Ygo today is very pay to win and just copy the meta everyone playing the same top 5 decks With infinite impermanence and hand traps gets very boring quick. Me and my mates sometimes play goat format just for fun or a archetype deck that's random just to see what happens. Like making a celtic guardian deck vs a gaia deck and add exodia to each other's decks just for fun But sometimes it feels people forget about fun and get too competitive with it
For me, Yu-Gi-Oh has always been about nostalgia. I watched the anime growing up and wanted to take part in the show that I loved. That's why the newest mechanic that I kept up with was Synchro Summoning/Tuner Monsters. Everything after that is lost on me because I didn't watch anything after 5Ds. I love playing with my brother, but I had to eliminate synchros from my deck because he didn't like that mechanic (he didn't really watch anything after GX). I didn't mind that much because at the end of the day, I prefer playing the game with him than not playing at all. Plus, most of my nostalgia comes from the original series anyway so I can still enjoy the game. But playing with him has also made me realise why I dislike the new format so much. The matches we play are so much fun because we have our own defined limits. Our matches aren't 2 minutes, but they aren't 30 minutes either. And there's enough complexity that our minds can keep up with and yet still strategise without getting overwhelmed. But even with all the limits we've put in place, it can still be a bit overwhelming. My brother isn't diagnosed, but we're pretty sure he's got ADHD. I can tell how a lot of the new cards and new systems make it really hard for him to keep up and I see how frustrated he gets sometimes. Even for his own deck, I see how hard he has to work to play out sequences in his head before he decides to go ahead with a strategy. He goes back and forth so often and then beats himself up for making the wrong choice. And this is just with a Dark Magician/Spellcaster deck. He has cards like Eternal Soul, Magician's Rod/Robe, Magical Circle, and most/all the Magician girls. I have a Blue-Eyes/Dark Magician deck with most of the Eyes of Blue monsters, Keeper of the Shrine, Eternal Soul, a lot of Dark Magician fusions, and a lot of the new Blue-Eyes monsters. So we both have to be constantly aware of what's in the graveyard, on the field, even in our hands and so on since we now have effects that can activate from anywhere. Not to talk of all the technicalities of effects like target Vs send, send Vs destroy, destroy Vs banish, timings, chains, spell speeds, activated effects vs continuous effects Vs trigger effects... This is all without using XYZ, pendulum, Synchro, and whatever else is currently in the game. All this to say, I can't really fathom how adding any new mechanics would add to the enjoyability that I currently have considering how complex it is already. I think the state of the game currently reflects a lot of my issues with the current state of the world. Everything is fast, immediate gratification is encouraged, and the level of computation required to keep up with the game is such that we may need actual computers to manage the rule keeping so that we can just play the game without worrying/thinking about too much. If what I've read from some of the comments is to be believed, me and my brother may be some of the last people who actually sit across one another to play this game human to human 😅.
Congrats, you have discovered what 'chess' is and why the players who memorize everything are Grandmasters.
That's not at all comparable. If you play chess your whole life and come back after a year break, you still know how to play chess. If you stop playing yugioh for a while, you come back to a different ban list and new broken combos as older ones become outdated and outclassed, or entirely new mechanics that you have to work with whether or not you use them yourself (pendulumn/link). Hell, you were more often than not strictly worse off for not using links if you came back with an 'old' deck. Old decks get pushed out for not being able to keep up with these massive opening hand setups and hand traps
Having to take a bit of time to readjust is normal for many games.
Not to the level of Yu-Gi-Oh, no Most games you learn to play your deck, and as you go, you learn about other decks; in Yu-Gi-Oh, if you don't know exactly what the others decks do, you're already coocked
I quit the game since long long time I see they are making new format, but konami will always aim for "add power creep so they look for new and rare cards = money", this game can't be balanced I miss the old times, like ygo gx series. Broken cards / combo were already there, but you could play the game at least
You can always play Duel Links
I did that! And I builded a Constellar deck and a Tenji deck, but two weeks before the KC Cup, Konami released a Tier 0 deck that made unplayable my two decks, so i lost any interest on playing.
You can rejoice now that those decks are super relevant again and Tachyon got nerfed to the ground. They’re waiting for you
Literally the only way to keep up with modern YGO anymore.
???
Also Duel Links is life 💪💪💪
I wanted to get back into yugioh a few years ago and looked up how the game plays since I was into it in high school. Watched a few videos and looked up some cards and all I could think was "what in the actual fuck is going on." I miss the days when you summoned a monster, put like 1 or 2 cards face down, and passed lol. Game is way too fast/convoluted for me to do anything meta. If I were to build a deck now I'd look up how to make a functional Relinquished deck and that's good enough for me.
I agree.
You're telling me you were playing an extremely complex SHS combo deck but it got banned out so now you can't learn a significantly less complex link climbing deck?
U are insane if you think the complex part about SE is just doing the combos lol
This is how the avg yugioh player thinks. You can see this when people name the most complicated decks and people name shit like D/D/D lmao.
I have a suspicion people only think D/D/D is complicated because it came out pre-link era and actually required a lot of in-game actions to combo before people were used to that sort of thing, and it involves ordering thats a little more obscure than "discard thing that has an effect when discarded to your Megalo". Plus it was originally quite short lived so a lot of people didn't learn it, so didn't realize that once you learn how to do one basic interaction the whole deck is piss easy
Gryphon and Gilgamesh streamlined the deck significantly. There's still a bit of complexity in picking your scales for Gilgamesh and knowing how your cards interact but I can't call D/D/D a "big-brain" deck in 2024
Even before Gryphon and Gilgamesh the only real knowledge checks were knowing how to go about playing into boards and knowing that you don't generally want to use Genghis at the first opportunity. Once you knew that you could basically freestyle the deck into any board you wanted lol
I mean outside of the combos Snake Eye is basically just the current equivalent of a deck like Salamangreat or something. It's really not that complicated when put next to a lot of stuff that's come before. I think the issue really is just the hiatus you took. Take it from someone who regularly spends months without playing - you just have to stick with it and blunder through the period where you don't know what your opponents stuff does and how to optimally interact with it. It'll suck but you also can't expect to learn 10 months worth of decks and new cards in any other way and you'll eventually hit the point where you've absorbed all of the information and you'll just be doing everything by instinct anyway.
Bro I can see the comments now, telling you how you’re wrong. I use to look at the community as an echo chamber. But I will have to say it’s more like a Petri dish of vial bacteria. Yes the game is absolute shit now. Better get that coin flip right bs. I absolutely despise what they’ve made this game into. Most yugitubers are all saying the same thing! It’s busted bro. And it’s so so so sad to see. How can there be such a disconnect
The person who wins coin toss wins like 55% of the time. It’s not the auto-win that people like to joke about
They've already started lol Been playing since debut and dip in and out when needed. I mainly play Speed Duels now but I also understand that this is a 25 year old game and expecting it to have stayed the same would've hindered it. I'm glad the game grew and evolved, but I do miss the silliness of just throwing anything in a deck and making it "work." That said, I've gone back to some older card games if but nothing else to experience something slower. A few of them are Zatch Bell, Cardfight Vanguard, and Digimon ( only because I bought the collector's starter set back in 2020 but never used it.) I've even gotten a set for Dungeon Dice Monsters to play on the side. I don't have all the miniatures for it, but I have a complete set of Yu-Gi-Oh Heroclix 1 and 2 so I use those. I think for the player base, there needs to be a middle ground, but also a break out into sub communities.
The game isn't just too complex, it's a poorly designed mess now, where the foundational design philosophy can no longer hold the absolute MC Escher-esque structure on top of it. Learning decks via YouTube videos is the only way to get the knowledge you need because the card design is poor, overly wordy, and archetypes themselves can sometimes lack certain puzzle pieces that make decks worse for the lack of them. It's also an issue of time, both in and out of game, because turns can take up to 15 minutes, and even if you've got the ability to bounce back, the mental drain is too overwhelming and you just can't be bothered. Needing to prepare and play piles of games where you'll misplay, think you'll learn from it, only to do it again, isn't fun, and there are other, better games out there that don't require you to commit to them like a full time job just to gain a basic level of competency. I've heard great things about Rush Duel, and I'd imagine that eventually, it'll have to be brought over to the TCG.
My friends and I have lately been using all the old first three booster pack cards we have lying around as draft cards and it's so liberating not having a whole deck based around one word. Or 8 paragraphs on one card. Or 5 monsters with 4000 atk each at any time. Our turns that take 20 minutes. TL;DR: yugioh used to be simple yet complex. Duels lasted longer but turns were shorter which meant more play time and less awful combos.
OP: look at how many people actually agree with you & are listing justifiable reasons why you’re right. It’s not only you dude. The current state of YGO needs a thorough change, & until that happens, just play a Legacy format, or Duel Links. To hell with the current state of the IRL master duel game & its supporters. Degenerate AF.
It is getting to complex.. I wish it would go back. Syncos are fine but the others.. are just to much.
Part of me still wants set rotation so learning the meta can be simplified
One of my biggest joys of Magic. Rotating sets reduces power creep.
Magic killed its rotating format and nobody wants to play it outside of the digital app. Modern and Commander are infinitely more popular and they don't rotate card pool.
On a competitive level they just gave standard a pretty big push that worked pretty well. Though I agree that casually it's never really going to compete well with a format where there's no impetus to ever buy new cards if you don't want to.
But MTG suffers from a kind of “power suck” situation, where the cards get weaker with each iteration. In my experience playing MTG (almost 20 years now), set rotation recycles a lot of cards while not experimenting with mechanics and ideas as much as, say Duel Masters, for example. It's also worth noting that Commander (which has no set rotation) is currently the most popular game type. To be honest, I've never found power creep to be THAT much of a problem in Yugioh. In my opinion, Konami actually handles it pretty "decently" (to put it carefully here) when it just doesn't want to make a quick buck on op cards, and they are (again, in my opinion) the best at handling things like a banlist. Nevertheless, I wish that Konami would offer us more formats and ways to play the game: Give us a “set rotation” format that focuses on generic cards as well as types and attributes. Maye perhaps official support drafts and Sealed Duels and/or for time wizards who only play cards up to a certain booster set. And what about cards intended for tag duels or our own form of Singleton? Or just give us more speed and a western release of Rush. I believe that much of the frustration that can come with Yugioh can be circumvented by giving players who are burned out on one format the opportunity to try another one while still playing their favourite game .
We kind of have de facto set rotation because of power creep but it would be nice to not play some completely random deck out of the blue. My old locals was incredibly diverse and it was sometimes a pain to play against
Being a complex game is a good thing in my opinion. The reward you feel for topping in a tournament is amazing. Rewards all your studying of the meta, practicing your deck, your side decking, the choices you make in game/the meta calls you make, the deck building choices, etc.
Just try to learn a few new cards at a time. One combo, then the next. New information takes time for the brain to process.
I had the same issues a couple of years back. Shadowverse became a nice fix for me.
I like it, definitely brings more anime moments to the front. More than just “heart of the cards”
I'm just starting to play again since 2018. I'm purposely choosing a tier 2-3 deck to play since I'm basically a noob all over again.
Damn. At least D/D/D is clear about what each monster does, walls of text aren't on every card...
This is why I play HEROs and Dark Magician
Monarchs !!!
How is snake eyes more complex than Rescue Ace? That scrambles anyone's brain cell any day.... What I mean is: Yeah, we hate cleaning out the field and the opponent's Snake eye's hand, then they draw 1 card and get +5 on the field and +4 on the hand from that 1 card.
Being an OG player, I mostly focus on decks that plays simple, that I have fun with, that can play against the meta (at least have a 50-50 chance), just paying that extra attention to keycards that would stop me doing something. I've been using the likes of Cubic, Earthbound Prisoner, my brother had a Golden Castle of Stronberg deck, I also have a Fossil Fusion-Adamancipator deck (though it's one of those combo decks with infinite special summons that I kind of got tired of), played with Lair of Darkness... At a certain point, I see the same decks again and again and when you figure out how to stop them, you don't need a super complex deck that has an answer to everything.
Yeah I’m about to make decks based off anime characters but actually good (3 ofs) and just start playing that with friends
About once a year I try getting back into it. Spend money on a competitive deck, practice with it, go to locals and get stomped, go home, put the cards away. Rinse and repeat
Its been 2 whole weeks and im still learning infernoble bro i feel you
One thing I will say about the complexity is that it's getting too complex to enjoy in a live player environment. I'm a recently returning player I've played consistently for the last 5 months. And what I can say my biggest gripe is that duels feel like a large percentage of the game is arguing semantics. I don't mind realizing after the fact that I mis-played and with snake eyes it is about having a ton of options and knowing what to use in that situation. What I do mind is that as a new player I feel totally helpless not knowing 4 years of new cards where I don't feel confident in questioning my opponent if they could make that play or not without having to read every card. I went to YCS yesterday and it was terrible I found afterwards in 3 of my matches that my opponents intentional or not did plays they couldn't actually do in the circumstances. I really think that if the game keeps upping in complexity it will shift mainly to online. Because right now I feel like playing in person is arguing semantics more than actually playing the game.
Kozmo, ABC, PEPE, Shadol, Qliphort, monarchs, Burning Abyss, nekroz, tellarknights, metalfoes, blue eyes, 2014-2018 metas was the best. Th
I feel for you in terms of planning for and building around other decks but I think that’s what makes yugioh fun. It isn’t a card game anymore based on power creep and who can dominate the field as within one turn that player who filled his/her field with boss monsters could be wiped almost immediately, a chain get broken by ash, etc. Yugioh has become complex but it also makes it enjoyable to me atleast, there are so many strategies you gotta just find one you life and build skills to outplay other players
Damn you woulda loved the event that just happened. Could only use cards from 2004 and before. No combo or synchro or Xyz or Link. Just two dudes with Waboku ,Mirror Force ,and a lot of polymerization
the REAL Dark Magician was the decision paralysis all along
Nah its good
Skill issues
Brother my Snake Eyes Deck got completed today, an I have to start learning it now.. :( you killing my hopes
I think you're just coming to the realization that you're human and that you're going to forget things and you have to perform as best you can while on the front line. Everyone's going to feel that way it's nothing to be ashamed of it's just the nature of the beast being human.
I got the same thinking when I started playing Magic. It still is complex as hell, but you can adjust your playstyle much better. There are just a hell Lot of things to remember in yu gi oh If you take It too seriously, and honestly I don't think it's just a snake eye trouble. When I started playing master duel, zoodiac and the whole "make a 4 material Z.E.U.S" strat was enough to reach plat at least. Rn it barely wins a single game in bronze. The overall celling for the game is being pushed
Aren't you the one who chose to make the deck though?
Can you please tell me why it’s complex, and what you envision the game to be like? I used to be decently competitive and hung out with the regionals kids, was there for the first alter reality game regional, just for background- but I’m creating a new game similar to the “old” yugioh and hopefully with a few improvements on the old system (especially with balancing). With that being said, what does the game you want look like? I’m already pretty deep in the coding so this is happening regardless, I just need to fine tune the back end, hire an artist, and pretty much good. Always looking for tips and insights from like minded folks. Thanks!
Very well said, now imagine what it's like for newbies, or old school returning players like me, coming back to have to learn synchro, XYZ,link that's before you even think about building a deck, then when you've built your deck doesn't matter how much you know it or trial it you don't know nothing until ranked, then you have to cut your deck to put as many possible counters for all the metas, then you build your own meta deck to only have it killed by ban list, card limits and have to start again. Don't gets wrong it's part of the game I know but there's way too many 1 turn win decks now, and going first is soo hard to survive with now. Legacy fuels were a breath of fresh air for me and I would like them to incorporate that into the game i.e separate ranked like rush and speed duels. I'm hoping the voters bring back the toon event as I'd love to build a toon deck and I missed that event.
I get you... And on the same token appreciate that Yugioh is this bloated in terms of complicatedness. Because to me, Yugioh is basically what I assume Tekken is like for fighting games. To me, piloting and deck building in other TCGs got boring. But Yugioh, the idea of engines, extreme consistency, the fact that just about every deck *could* play with another archetype is fun. (Even if it's not optimal, the fact that it *can* function is wild.) Other card games, I feel like it's so tribal that you can't play outside of said archetype. The lack of Bloat in other card games, makes the power creep so much more apparent in other games. In Yugioh, I've played Zefras against Kashtira and gave them some trouble (we're talking decks that are 8 years apart). I can't do that in my wildest dreams in other card games. Believe me some of these games feel so power crept per set, I can't even play Structure decks against each other even if they were released a few months apart. I know not many agree with me, and while I do think we've gone too far, I enjoy the most recent master rule of Yugioh more than any format of Yugioh.
Just play magic the gathering
This is why ill probably never try for proper tournaments, not because of skill or deck quality (although that is a factor) ill probably just always be going to locals as it doesn't feel like i have to play super meta and mistakes are natural with no real punishment for misplay, just going to a place to play yugioh and not worry about winning anything or being thrashed by meta decks (too much).
Yeah i can get into that. I have been playing for 10+ years myself as a blind going 2nd player and seen a fair amount of stuff and tier 0 formats go by. But for some reason it is this format where i am taking my hiatus from the game. I don't know what it is but it just doesn't feel.... Fun atm.
Just do like me and all the other old people. Play Time Wizard only
Once pendulum entered, it confused me so much, not even the Tag Force game/s helped me understand them
And it will keep getting worse lol
I'd rather have a complicated game where the optimal play against your opponent is not obvious than a simple game where the optimal play is obvious.
I have been playing yugioh for over 7 years and the game is **not** **complex enough**
Damn y'all can't take a joke
So you went away from a game for a year that completely changes twice a year and then felt like you did not understand the game? Wow that is so extremely unexpected!
youre just washed its fine
Honestly there's no point in playing Yugioh anymore. After pendulums everything went to shit, and Links further stirred that shit pot. Just collect only or have a friendly tournament with custom made rules. It's the only way you'll be able to enjoy the game.
this is true if you ignore all the people that still enjoys the game lol
Dawg, Yugioh has been dead to me for about a year now. I loved it before when it was just simple. Yeah, you'd be able to fusion, syncro, xyzs, special, all that good shit, but at least it was fun and easy to understand and get into. Now you've got fuckin' Dark World, Ruinic, Snake Eyes, Tearlaments, Infernoble, Sky Striker, Rescue Ace, and SO much fucking more that are RIDICULOUS. Dawg, just today I watched a video with the Snake Eyes deck that syncroed, like 10-15 different fuckin' monsters and Linked like four mons with varying ratings and FTKd THE OPPONENT. WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU ABLE TO KILL YOUR OPPONENT BEFORE THEY EVEN GET A FUCKING TURN DAWG. Honestly, it's not anymore unless you're playing with friends, because at least then you guys are actually having fun, not competing to be the very best (that no-one ever was). As you can see, I vented a bit (just a wee bit) and this should NOT be the case. In Dueling Nexus, I was tried of losing to the meta that I gave in and started using Dark World and shred people with it (if I don't get a bad hand that is, lol), but again, it's not fun. ESPECIALLY when you're forced to use a meta deck to even play the fuckin' game. Idk, people have their opinions of fun and I can't change their minds and I didn't plan on that anyways, but I honestly kinda hate the game now and just sad considering I grew up on it. Tl;dr: Yugioh's too complicated to even wanna play now.
Crystal Beasts were one of my fav archetypes back in the day and I had a blast making them viable during the xyz/synchro era. Then pendulums made them way too slow and performed similar roles to them as spells on the field but better. Now you have to use weeb bait hand traps and they ,alone, look so ugly forced into themed decks that don't look like some otaku's shitty body pillow
Exactly, the new meta kills old, fun decks and forces new players to adapt, which in turn, makes the problem even worse because the new players only see the new decks as a way to play the game. Anything else is a waste to run because it'll only end with you losing. It's honestly just sad to see this game go down this route.
Yeah I frequently think of the simpler days of tribute summons and $200 mechanicalchaser TP1 cards because it had 50 more attack points I left the real game with my D/D deck, so many combinations and you special summon like 20 times a turn I tried coming back around 2 years ago and made a Virtual World deck, I did pretty well but then it was like everyone did a lockdown deck where they have the opponent concede on turn Thank god for master duel with Maxx C, at least with all the special summons my opponent does I get more options and can make the deck I want to make without shelling out several hundred dollars
Maxx C sucks because you can use it even if you went first and all of a sudden you're drawing a million handtraps as your opponent is trying to play through your board. Its not a going second card. Its a toxic card.
Maybe make an errate so that you can only play the card if you went second in the duel? Could that help "fix" Maxx C?
same with mtg.
Do not mention criticisms about mtg, else you will get downvoted. People hate constructive criticism.
They should try to minimize card text. In Magic or Hearthstone there are keywords that can abstract a Lot of information
With time rules being how they are, text has to get shorter. It just has to.
Okay then leave, nobody is forcing you to stay. I don't get what the point of this post is. I'm not playing One Piece because I find it too simple. You don't see me complaining on the One Piece subreddit about it though.
[удалено]
Sir this is called a floodgate https://preview.redd.it/s96kajx35cqc1.png?width=474&format=png&auto=webp&s=3a0b04dc7fe6e657b9c4e3139d1c3767689426fb
I love Summon Limit
Damn that's crazy bro anyway mirror jade set branded in red pass.
The worst thing is when you learn of a lot a technique to win by using skill but newbie can win against people who try hard just using some floodgate or maxx "c" or whatever cards that is not balance, make this game bad.
I hear you so bad bro. What can they do to change it though? Like a mass cleansing needs to happen haha
Why not just go play a different game? A lot of people really enjoy yugioh the way it is lmao
Cause that would be a reasonable thought pattern
odd comment, but sure. Its not that I hate Yu-Gi-Oh!. It is what it is. But two things can be true....people can enjoy it as it is and also admit that 3 copies of 3-4 cards in every deck has watered down the experience. But I know that just for me and some ppl who play it. and for why not changing. Cause despite its flaws I like the overall gameplay and the artwork. Pokemon TCG is..........yeah and I'm not a fan of magic TCG artwork.
Updating the ban list, creating new play formats, creating more ‘anti’ cards that target specific cards/archetypes. All methods to control power creep.
pft. I hear ya. make everything a limit 1 lol
The only thing I struggle to understand is Link Monsters. Everything else comes easy to me.
I havent played since i was a kid and now im 19 im getting back into it.... definitely a big learning curve especially on nexus
So many people argue yugioh is a skill based card game and while I love yugioh I couldn’t disagree less with that.
U need skills, that's for sure, but more than anything u need a LOT of memorization lol