I played as a kid, but that was just mucking around with cards we saw in the show and pretending we were master duelists. What's the game like at a competitive level, from the perspective of a Magic player?
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EDH WBRKaalia of the VastRBW BChainer, Dementia MasterB Legacy 0Manaless Dredge0 RGoblinsR Standard RBWThe AristocratsWBR
i played as a kid too. it was fun, not as fun as pokemon tgc, but still good. but the new cards put into the game, for me at least, has ruined it. it used to be a lot hardher to win and more like magic in a way where you can mix and match a lot of stuff. but now the gamemakers practically make the decks. kinda like they do in magic. if you wat to try an different one than magic, i would say try pokemon... its more luck based and ca be sooo diverse... just on a side note
My big issue with YGO is that the players have a tendency to play "kangaroo court", if you're familiar with InQuest's few decent articles. It began because the players in the anime do the same thing. (Catapult Turtle destroys your Castle of Dark Illusion, crushing all your monsters.) Also, rarity is a lousy way to balance any game that doesn't have a limited format.
There's a reason this game came up with "Screw the rules, I have money!"
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Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
For the last year or so, I have been buying one booster pack every week for my 5 year old daughter . I'm going to give all of them to her on her birthday in June. Then her and I will figure out how to play together. The game might be degenerate at a competitive level, but hopefully it isn't at a casual level. I will be sure to post an update with my take on the game.
I've played that game before. The problem I have is that each card have different approach.... Meaning the discard is either by its own ability or it's a cost. In addition, I remember that they don't have a very unified rules which is a headache to me...
Yugioh is so incredibly bonkers right now. Stay far, far away from it. It's never going to get better and it's insanely pricey. Broken combo's and price aside the game's community is absolutely toxic. The rulings are so ****ing stupid that you're left with "but..it says it does this on the card.." moments that completely contradict written text so much it'll infuriate you.
On top of that Konami gives not two ****s about you, the consumer. Their prize support is terrible and they only recently elected spokespeople to at least try and defend their half ass reasoning and poor logic as a company.
They recently also started doing limited, which honestly isn't THAT bad. It's the only way i can stand the guy for longer than five minutes. But they still don't design their sets limited-in-mind. Instead they make entirely new steps, akin to M13 for limited purposes.
Stay away.
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By: ol MISAKA lo
Cockatrice: Infallible
Mhjames: mtgsalvation: I DON'T SEE HOW THIS CARD IS GOOD. I KNOW PATRICK CHAPIN USED IT AND WENT 8-0, BUT THAT WAS A SMALL TOURNAMENT. THE CARD IS TOO SLOW. YOU NEED TO MAKE SURE THE OPPONENT HAS A SPELL IN THE GRAVEYARD
i've never played yu-gi-oh so i can't tell you much about the card game but there is a ps2 game yu-gi-oh duelist of roses which i always found really fun. you can probably get it for $5 somewhere.
The format is fast and very combo oriented. Basically, it's like vintage in magic, but not as expensive to buy in. I personally like it, and it's really friendly to beginners because the decks do generally have a theme. It isn't entirely like that though, and the decks can vary rather largely between archetypes.
One thing I dislike though is that some of the rulings make very little since. Magic at least provides reasoning within the global rules texts. Yu-Gi-Oh just seems to pull most of it out from the where the sun don't shine. Also, don't expect much in the way of prizes.
Having immersed myself in the YGO metagame for the past 3 months out of sheer boredom, I can assure you that it is currently not a game that's worth putting any significant time or effort in to.
The format was actually fairly diverse with the september ban list and the card pool as it was - there were plenty of decks that could top, or even win championships. The March Banlist didn't really hurt much - what really blew the game up were the incarnate dragons that came out the second week of march.
People quickly realized that with the Incarnate Dragons (and the associated baby incarnates that were OCG promos) you could very easily make rank 7 xyz monsters by summoning them from the hand OR the grave - and rank 7 had a lot of somewhat overpowered effects due to the sheer difficulty of getting multiples out at once. Then you have the dragons' ability to tutor for other dragons when they get banished/exiled, which makes Treasured sword of the seven stars "Draw 2 cards" and gold sarcophagus a demonic tutor that also gives you another card in two turns. (if the duel lasts that long)
People then realized that since you almost never use your normal summon for the turn, you may as well use the tokens made by mecha phantom-beast dracossack and summon Light And Darkness Dragon, which is a walking decree of silence. They then looked back at the chaos dragon build from march 2012 and put in Eclipse Wyvern as an easy way to fetch both LaDD and Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon. They then saw that since you tended to discard a ton of dragons for their effects, that super rejuvenation (at end of turn, draw a card for each dragon that you've discarded this turn) would be better than their pot of greed analogue.
This has led to an unholy abomination of a deck full of monsters who give you card advantage no matter what zone they end up in; spit out rank 7 xyz monsters like no one's business, and draw more cards than ANT, and there is no single card (or even single two cards) that can serve as an effective counter to the deck's sheer force. To quote another person I've been seeing this with, "Your opponent could spit out a first turn yata-garatsu lock, leave with no cards in hand or on your field and skipping your draw, and (this deck) still has a good chance to OTK them in response."
tl;dr if you want to play YGO, either stick to battle pack sealed or wait until the september ban list comes and pray the dragons get hit.
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Top 16 - 2012 Indiana State Championships Currently Playing: GBStandard - Golgari Safari MidrangeBG RBWModern - Mardu PyromancerWBR RLegacy - Good Old Fashioned BurnR
I used to play this game when it first came out, then I stopped playing a while after Invasion of Chaos came out. I was not happy when UDE decided to restrict Magical Scientist to 1 earlier than they should have (in the OCG you were able to play Magical Scientist several months after IoC came out). So my Magical Scientist deck wasn't as good as it could have been, and I ended up going 4-4 at a regionals. Then I started playing again when the new card tins came out (Blade Knight, Command Knight, etc). Then I quit again.
Why is the SJ Slifer promo so expensive? I want one for my collection but not for that price.
Up to this point, Konami has been annihilating the meta every time they make a new structure deck. First came Dark Worlds. Then came Chaos Dragons. Now, we are faced with 2 new "over-powered" decks to deal with: Firefists and Mermails. Konami's definition of "balancing" the metagame boils down to banning all of the cards that are deemed to be an integral part of whatever deck is "powerful" this format. And then they repeat the whole process all over again in a few months after they decide to make ANOTHER new structure deck. This is basically the state of Yu-Gi-Oh ever since Generation Force ame out.
On the other hand, though, Casual YGO can be very fun provided you don't run into Mermails/Firefists this format.
Oh yeah, there's a group of friends of mine who sometimes plays Casual Yu-Gi-Oh! on Friday nights at my LGS. One of my friends runs a Dark Magician Spellcaster deck a.k.a. Yugi Motou's deck of course and another friend of mine runs Lightsworns and Amazons but he mostly plays MTG and Vanguard. Most people I know who play Yu-Gi-Oh! nowadays only play in Advanced Format with most Tier 1 decks worth up to $300+.
I was interested in building a Casual Combo deck in Yu-Gi-Oh! running Magical Scientist with Catapult Turtle to sac off Fusion Monsters to deal damage with Cyber-Stein and Blue-Eyes Ultimate, but I'm discouraged that it's going to be too expensive to put the whole deck together when I already have money invested in other TCG's, especially MTG at the moment. I don't see any interest in Advanced Format in Yu-Gi-Oh!, plus Synchro's and XYZ's kind of turned me away from the TCG itself.
I just checked on eBay for that Yu-Gi-Oh! deck I might build for Casual, Magical Scientist is about a $1 a piece, Cyber-Stein is only $10 a piece, same with Blue-Eyes Ultimate, and Catapult Turtle is dirt cheap as well too. Now I just need to get a decklist for it and see If I can get it going, I haven't bought Yu-Gi-Oh! cards in nearly 10 years so I'll need to relearn the game rules If I want to play but now I'm debating If I want to play it or not. Yeah I'll think about it for now...
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
Up to this point, Konami has been annihilating the meta every time they make a new structure deck. First came Dark Worlds. Then came Chaos Dragons. Now, we are faced with 2 new "over-powered" decks to deal with: Firefists and Mermails. Konami's definition of "balancing" the metagame boils down to banning all of the cards that are deemed to be an integral part of whatever deck is "powerful" this format. And then they repeat the whole process all over again in a few months after they decide to make ANOTHER new structure deck. This is basically the state of Yu-Gi-Oh ever since Generation Force ame out.
On the other hand, though, Casual YGO can be very fun provided you don't run into Mermails/Firefists this format.
Oh hey, how's the weather in February?
In all honesty, Fire fists and Mermails are good decks - before the march list, they'd almost be considered top tier. But in the current meta, a "good" deck will get your ass kicked from here to next week without fail. The incarnate dragons/Dragon Rulers can do everything either of those decks do, and does it faster and with more card advantage at the end of the chain.
I watched a fire fist player go up against dragon rulers last week. Game 2 the FF player goes set two backrow and one monster, pass; flipping soul drain and mind drain to prevent any dragons' effects from activating in the hand, graveyard, or banished zone. (which are the only places where they could activate.)
The dragon ruler player cast mystical space typhoon and won that turn.
This is the kind of thing that we not only have to accept, but expect to happen on a near-constant basis for the rest of the format, and likely most of next format. I'll be incredibly surprised if the ban list damages the dragon rulers more than limiting big eye or dracossak to 2 and 1 apiece respectively. So get your wallet ready and save your pennies, because this is the build you'll be playing for the next nine to fifteen months.
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Top 16 - 2012 Indiana State Championships Currently Playing: GBStandard - Golgari Safari MidrangeBG RBWModern - Mardu PyromancerWBR RLegacy - Good Old Fashioned BurnR
I played from age 10 to age 18; the game was a huge part of my life and I played it with a lot of my friends. We used to go to the local card shop and play in the Friday tournaments, and even spent an exceptional amount of time on IRC playing YVD (which was basically a free version of the game for the computer with access to any and every card). I ran a DARK/Fiend deck for the longest time (from Monarchs to Lightsworns) and always did very well against meta and non-meta decks, alike.
Then Synchros came out.
Synchros changed the way everyone played the game, going so far as to be necessary cards in every deck in the event that you got Creature Swapped your opponent's Tuner monster. So I said, "What the hell," and threw together an Extra deck (where Fusions and Synchros were kept) just because. I still did very well for a deck archetype that was not seen in top-tier lists, even holding my own against what became the first stages of the absolutely ridiculous OTKs that began to shape today's meta. Lightsworns, Blackwings, and Gladiator Beasts were the three big decks at the time. I disliked Synchros, but they basically became a necessity at that point to keep up with any other deck that ran them. Goyo Guardian was just a ridiculously powerful card (for example). Then Xyzs came out. I'm not talking about the XYZ Dragon Cannon cards, oh no. I mean the PoS black-bordered cards that changed the whole way the game was played. As soon as I saw those cards coming out, I said, "**** it, I'm done." I had absolutely no interest in re-learning how to play a game I had spent 8 years and hundreds, maybe even thousands of dollars playing up to that point only to have all of the time, effort, and money be worth absolutely nothing every time Konami either changed the Ban list, reprinted a ridiculously powerful and rare card as a common/lesser rare, or wanted to turn a profit by printing a completely new type of card that was necessary to obtain to even stand a chance of winning a game. If you want to play old school Yu-Gi-Oh! without Synchros or Xyzs, it can still be fun with friends. If you want to piss away a bunch of money only to have it bite you in the ass 6 months later, then competetive Yu-Gi-Oh! is the right game for you.
2011: Best Mafia Performance (Individual) - Best Newcomer
2012: Best (False?) Role Claim - Worst Town Performance (Group) - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - Best SK Performance - Best Overall Player
2013: Best Non-SK Neutral Performance
2014: Best Town Performance (Individual) - Best Town Performance (Group) - Most Interesting Role - Best Game - Best Overall Player
2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
2016: Best Town Performance (Group) - Best Town Player - Best Overall Player
Yeah I remember when I got into Yu-Gi-Oh! back in 2001/2002 when me and my friends were playing it in High School, it was around the time when either Legend of Blue-Eyes White Dragon, Metal Raiders, or Magic Ruler was the latest set. Me and my friends even used to have Duels in-between classes especially at lunch having a fun time playing
Yu-Gi-Oh! back then. I remember one of my friends beating me with Exodia on the last day of school when we graduated from High School together. Still didn't manage to beat him in Yu-Gi-Oh! but he got better and we kept in touch with eachother ever since playing other TCG's as well which I managed to go toe-to-toe with him at. He was my first rival in the TCG Genre and were also great friends as well. I remember the last Yu-Gi-Oh! deck I had being a Jinzo/Limiter Removal deck that I gave away on a whim cause I got fed up with the TCG's power creep seeing how broken CED and Yata Lock is.
From Legend of Blue-Eyes White Dragon up to Invasion of Chaos/Dark Crisis was the best time to play Yu-Gi-Oh! in North America. Now it's just terrible with the way Konami rotates out cards instead of sets that adds more power creep to the TCG. Some of my biggest issues with the Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG is that it has no resource system compared to TCG's like MTG that do plus it doesn't have a mulligan system either. That and OTK's (One-Turn-Kill) which is almost the equivalent of the kind of broken MTG decks back 20 years ago in the Alpha and Beta sets which spawned the infamous "Power Nine". Other problems consisted of a severe limitation of playable cards in specific expansions, the majority of Commons printed in the game are near useless including Uncommons. Even pull rates out of booster packs/boxes were worse than any other TCG I've played in recent memory. I still have a shoebox full of useless Yu-Gi-Oh! commons that I never really use at all that I thought about selling.
I remember there were hundreds of Promo cards that took years to get imported over to North America in Yu-Gi-Oh! because Konami was mainly releasing them in Yu-Gi-Oh! video games and in Shonen Jump Magazine issues with cards like Cyber-Stein and Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon. Speaking of video games for Yu-Gi-Oh! I still have my Forbidden Memories PS One game with the Memory Card for it incase I want to pop it in my PS2 to play and I also have Duelist of the Roses for PS2 which was insanely fun when I used to be into Yu-Gi-Oh!. I also remember when McDonald's used to distribute Yu-Gi-Oh! cards and 4Kids Music CD's back when the Pokemon phenomenon was still huge in North America. Yeah those were the days, I've been thinking about trying to archive some of the old decks I used to play in Yu-Gi-Oh! right before Konami/UDE enacted the Forbidden/Limited List. Some of those deck lists I think got lost in the old Pojo Forums before the current one that already exists today.
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
I'd like to offer a slightly different perspective, as someone who's kept his hand in (on and off) since the game started in the US.
Firstly, there is a site called Dueling Network that allows you to play the game for free online. It uses Flash and has some routing programs built in. No downloads required, free to join, et cetera. Their database has all the most recent cards (including spoiled/unreleased/Terminal/etc. cards). And the playerbase is fairly deep, so you can definitely find oponents easily. Basically, this site negates the money problem. (No, it's not Konami-official, but it's close.)
Second, the speed and power level is arguably closer to Legacy than Vintage. The fluidity/mutability of Archetypes and metas also bear a slight resemblance to Modern (which, admittedly, isn't the healthiest thing). Banning/unbanning cards every season definitely implies a problem. Still, Konami does seem be taking steps toward fixing this, albeit clumsily.
Thirdly, this isn't a game to play competitively (i.e. in tournaments). I play it casually (on DN, and very rarely in person). This was a hard lesson I had to learn, but it's key. All my YGO tournament experiences have been negative, and I generally feel like the "pro" players are the ones dragging this game down. At its best, YGO is just a distraction. This game doesn't take skill to play and games generally shouldn't take long. The people pretend otherwise are just ruining it, IMHO.
Fourthly, the rulings DO suck. I can't dispute that one. It's sad, too, because it just gives the game a feeling of faux complexity and inconsistency/incoherency that's totally fun sucking. were it not for this, the game would be much more newb friendly.
Fifthly, like a noted above, the community has issues. Between self-important "pros," confused/misinformed newbs, and other annoying player-types, it's easy to become infuriated with the community. Also, the failure of many players to realize that they're playing a broken game is very depressing. I watched a World Championship match and couldn't believe how stupid it looked and sounded, especially with commentators who pretended like the was strategic or skill-intensive.
Sixthly, there ARE those who remember that this is still a "children's card game". They're knowledgable enough to play correctly (and quickly), but still realize that the game itself should be taken lightly. I love these guys and mostly just keep my hand in with the hope of meeting them.
Seventhly, I'll offer a fairly controversial opinion here: The Extra Deck didn't ruin the game. Enablers may have, but then again I don't consider it ruined anyway (just extremely silly/casual). The Extra Deck added a new dimension to the game, from the very beginning. Players had to spend two or more cards just to end up with one big Monster. And it's still the same today (though the card disadvantage has been largely mitigated by numerous +1 effects). This line of play can be risky, so I'm all for the Fusion, Synchro, and Xyz Monsters being value engines. Plus, the toolbox element is pretty neat, kind of like the Wishes in Magic.
Eighth, a lot of the game's detractors bemoan changes that offend their sensibilities, without regard for their actual value. (The backlash toward Synchro and Xyz Monsters are two of the most obvious examples, but plenty more exist.) Don't take every negative thing people say about the game at face value. Far too many current and former players can't separate their wants and desires from what's objectively best for the game. (Think EDH playgroups, but on a global scale.)
Ninth, comparing this (or any other CG) to Magic is already stacking the deck (see what I did there?), IMHO. "Original and the best," and all that.
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I'm officially proposing we retire the word "insane" from the MtG vocabulary.
"The best way to be different is to be better" - Gene Muir
Firstly, there is a site called Dueling Network that allows you to play the game for free online. It uses Flash and has some routing programs built in. No downloads required, free to join, et cetera. Their database has all the most recent cards (including spoiled/unreleased/Terminal/etc. cards). And the playerbase is fairly deep, so you can definitely find oponents easily. Basically, this site negates the money problem. (No, it's not Konami-official, but it's close.)
I'm sure that once there's an official Konami version of Dueling Network for Yu-Gi-Oh! that it will require micro-transactions like with Magic Online where you pay digital money for cards to build your own decks for. Pokemon TCG Online does this using code cards in physical booster packs instead of using micro-transactions and Kaijudo is also doing the same for it's own digital variant as well.
Second, the speed and power level is arguably closer to Legacy than Vintage. The fluidity/mutability of Archetypes and metas also bear a slight resemblance to Modern (which, admittedly, isn't the healthiest thing). Banning/unbanning cards every season definitely implies a problem. Still, Konami does seem be taking steps toward fixing this, albeit clumsily.
When Yu-Gi-Oh! first started Konami/UDE didn't take into account that it would need a set rotation system for the game like other TCG/CCG's because at the time they didn't forsee the power creep that Yu-Gi-Oh! would cause with Chaos decks and Yata Lock which forced their hand into creating the Forbidden/Limited List which would soon be exclusive to the game's Advanced Format where they tried to solve this problem by rotating popular metagame cards instead of rotating out expansions dating back to the very first expansion being Legend of Blue-Eyes White Dragon. Unfortunately Konami/UDE's plan didn't work and Yu-Gi-Oh! still continues to stagnate.
What triggered Yu-Gi-Oh!'s power creep was that it had no resource system to pay the cost of it's own cards, sure there were Tribute Summons and Life Point Payments in order to play specific cards but you were still literally able to play every card in your deck for free for no cost whatsoever. Whatever the cost may have been was very minimal compared to how MTG has one of the most solid resource systems in terms of mana costs on cards by tapping your lands for mana which was then further improved in World of Warcraft TCG by playing cards based on the number of resources you have out in play (1 resource per turn) and whether or not If you needed to spend those resources to restrict or unlimit certain cards in your hand from being played a turn.
It's too bad that Konami and Yu-Gi-Oh! isn't learning from how Bushiroad is handling Cardfight!! Vanguard cause at least they've learned from Yu-Gi-Oh!'s shortcomings and flaws to make for a much more balanced TCG with a solid resource system on a much more affordable scale. In Vanguard any deck can win with a $200 or less budget but in
Yu-Gi-Oh! it's whoever draws the best hand and kills their opponent in one turn who has spent the most money on their deck (usually $400-500+) that wins. Yu-Gi-Oh! is the most expensive TCG in the Secondary Market and not very many people can afford to play it like they did back when it first came out in 1998 in the United States.
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
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WBRKaalia of the VastRBW
BChainer, Dementia MasterB
Legacy
0Manaless Dredge0
RGoblinsR
Standard
RBWThe AristocratsWBR
It's more degenerate than Vintage.
Emille, Seven-Sting Dancer Shalin Nariya
Made by me, if you ever need one made.
There's a reason this game came up with "Screw the rules, I have money!"
On phasing:
Duel Commander
URG [Primer] Maelstrom Wanderer [Primer] URG
Duel Commander Current Projects:
RGWMarath, Will of the WildRGW
BRXMogis, God of SlaughterBRX
RWxIoras, God of VictoryRWx
WBxAthreos, God of PassageWBx
Created By: DarkNightCavalier
On top of that Konami gives not two ****s about you, the consumer. Their prize support is terrible and they only recently elected spokespeople to at least try and defend their half ass reasoning and poor logic as a company.
They recently also started doing limited, which honestly isn't THAT bad. It's the only way i can stand the guy for longer than five minutes. But they still don't design their sets limited-in-mind. Instead they make entirely new steps, akin to M13 for limited purposes.
Stay away.
By: ol MISAKA lo
Cockatrice: Infallible
One thing I dislike though is that some of the rulings make very little since. Magic at least provides reasoning within the global rules texts. Yu-Gi-Oh just seems to pull most of it out from the where the sun don't shine. Also, don't expect much in the way of prizes.
I once had a Yugioh player at my old LGS ask me about Magic. I told him that it was what Yugioh wanted to be when it grew up.
The format was actually fairly diverse with the september ban list and the card pool as it was - there were plenty of decks that could top, or even win championships. The March Banlist didn't really hurt much - what really blew the game up were the incarnate dragons that came out the second week of march.
People quickly realized that with the Incarnate Dragons (and the associated baby incarnates that were OCG promos) you could very easily make rank 7 xyz monsters by summoning them from the hand OR the grave - and rank 7 had a lot of somewhat overpowered effects due to the sheer difficulty of getting multiples out at once. Then you have the dragons' ability to tutor for other dragons when they get banished/exiled, which makes Treasured sword of the seven stars "Draw 2 cards" and gold sarcophagus a demonic tutor that also gives you another card in two turns. (if the duel lasts that long)
People then realized that since you almost never use your normal summon for the turn, you may as well use the tokens made by mecha phantom-beast dracossack and summon Light And Darkness Dragon, which is a walking decree of silence. They then looked back at the chaos dragon build from march 2012 and put in Eclipse Wyvern as an easy way to fetch both LaDD and Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon. They then saw that since you tended to discard a ton of dragons for their effects, that super rejuvenation (at end of turn, draw a card for each dragon that you've discarded this turn) would be better than their pot of greed analogue.
This has led to an unholy abomination of a deck full of monsters who give you card advantage no matter what zone they end up in; spit out rank 7 xyz monsters like no one's business, and draw more cards than ANT, and there is no single card (or even single two cards) that can serve as an effective counter to the deck's sheer force. To quote another person I've been seeing this with, "Your opponent could spit out a first turn yata-garatsu lock, leave with no cards in hand or on your field and skipping your draw, and (this deck) still has a good chance to OTK them in response."
tl;dr if you want to play YGO, either stick to battle pack sealed or wait until the september ban list comes and pray the dragons get hit.
Currently Playing:
GBStandard - Golgari Safari MidrangeBG
RBWModern - Mardu PyromancerWBR
RLegacy - Good Old Fashioned BurnR
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Credit to Maelstrom Graphics for the sig.
Why is the SJ Slifer promo so expensive? I want one for my collection but not for that price.
Up to this point, Konami has been annihilating the meta every time they make a new structure deck. First came Dark Worlds. Then came Chaos Dragons. Now, we are faced with 2 new "over-powered" decks to deal with: Firefists and Mermails. Konami's definition of "balancing" the metagame boils down to banning all of the cards that are deemed to be an integral part of whatever deck is "powerful" this format. And then they repeat the whole process all over again in a few months after they decide to make ANOTHER new structure deck. This is basically the state of Yu-Gi-Oh ever since Generation Force ame out.
On the other hand, though, Casual YGO can be very fun provided you don't run into Mermails/Firefists this format.
Neku: Screw that!
I was interested in building a Casual Combo deck in Yu-Gi-Oh! running Magical Scientist with Catapult Turtle to sac off Fusion Monsters to deal damage with Cyber-Stein and Blue-Eyes Ultimate, but I'm discouraged that it's going to be too expensive to put the whole deck together when I already have money invested in other TCG's, especially MTG at the moment. I don't see any interest in Advanced Format in Yu-Gi-Oh!, plus Synchro's and XYZ's kind of turned me away from the TCG itself.
I just checked on eBay for that Yu-Gi-Oh! deck I might build for Casual, Magical Scientist is about a $1 a piece, Cyber-Stein is only $10 a piece, same with Blue-Eyes Ultimate, and Catapult Turtle is dirt cheap as well too. Now I just need to get a decklist for it and see If I can get it going, I haven't bought Yu-Gi-Oh! cards in nearly 10 years so I'll need to relearn the game rules If I want to play but now I'm debating If I want to play it or not. Yeah I'll think about it for now...
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
Oh hey, how's the weather in February?
In all honesty, Fire fists and Mermails are good decks - before the march list, they'd almost be considered top tier. But in the current meta, a "good" deck will get your ass kicked from here to next week without fail. The incarnate dragons/Dragon Rulers can do everything either of those decks do, and does it faster and with more card advantage at the end of the chain.
I watched a fire fist player go up against dragon rulers last week. Game 2 the FF player goes set two backrow and one monster, pass; flipping soul drain and mind drain to prevent any dragons' effects from activating in the hand, graveyard, or banished zone. (which are the only places where they could activate.)
The dragon ruler player cast mystical space typhoon and won that turn.
This is the kind of thing that we not only have to accept, but expect to happen on a near-constant basis for the rest of the format, and likely most of next format. I'll be incredibly surprised if the ban list damages the dragon rulers more than limiting big eye or dracossak to 2 and 1 apiece respectively. So get your wallet ready and save your pennies, because this is the build you'll be playing for the next nine to fifteen months.
Currently Playing:
GBStandard - Golgari Safari MidrangeBG
RBWModern - Mardu PyromancerWBR
RLegacy - Good Old Fashioned BurnR
Clan Contest 3 Mafia - Mafia Co-MVP
I played from age 10 to age 18; the game was a huge part of my life and I played it with a lot of my friends. We used to go to the local card shop and play in the Friday tournaments, and even spent an exceptional amount of time on IRC playing YVD (which was basically a free version of the game for the computer with access to any and every card). I ran a DARK/Fiend deck for the longest time (from Monarchs to Lightsworns) and always did very well against meta and non-meta decks, alike.
Then Synchros came out.
Synchros changed the way everyone played the game, going so far as to be necessary cards in every deck in the event that you got Creature Swapped your opponent's Tuner monster. So I said, "What the hell," and threw together an Extra deck (where Fusions and Synchros were kept) just because. I still did very well for a deck archetype that was not seen in top-tier lists, even holding my own against what became the first stages of the absolutely ridiculous OTKs that began to shape today's meta. Lightsworns, Blackwings, and Gladiator Beasts were the three big decks at the time. I disliked Synchros, but they basically became a necessity at that point to keep up with any other deck that ran them. Goyo Guardian was just a ridiculously powerful card (for example). Then Xyzs came out. I'm not talking about the XYZ Dragon Cannon cards, oh no. I mean the PoS black-bordered cards that changed the whole way the game was played. As soon as I saw those cards coming out, I said, "**** it, I'm done." I had absolutely no interest in re-learning how to play a game I had spent 8 years and hundreds, maybe even thousands of dollars playing up to that point only to have all of the time, effort, and money be worth absolutely nothing every time Konami either changed the Ban list, reprinted a ridiculously powerful and rare card as a common/lesser rare, or wanted to turn a profit by printing a completely new type of card that was necessary to obtain to even stand a chance of winning a game. If you want to play old school Yu-Gi-Oh! without Synchros or Xyzs, it can still be fun with friends. If you want to piss away a bunch of money only to have it bite you in the ass 6 months later, then competetive Yu-Gi-Oh! is the right game for you.
{мы, тьма}
2012: Best (False?) Role Claim - Worst Town Performance (Group) - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - Best SK Performance - Best Overall Player
2013: Best Non-SK Neutral Performance
2014: Best Town Performance (Individual) - Best Town Performance (Group) - Most Interesting Role - Best Game - Best Overall Player
2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
2016: Best Town Performance (Group) - Best Town Player - Best Overall Player
Yu-Gi-Oh! back then. I remember one of my friends beating me with Exodia on the last day of school when we graduated from High School together. Still didn't manage to beat him in Yu-Gi-Oh! but he got better and we kept in touch with eachother ever since playing other TCG's as well which I managed to go toe-to-toe with him at. He was my first rival in the TCG Genre and were also great friends as well. I remember the last Yu-Gi-Oh! deck I had being a Jinzo/Limiter Removal deck that I gave away on a whim cause I got fed up with the TCG's power creep seeing how broken CED and Yata Lock is.
From Legend of Blue-Eyes White Dragon up to Invasion of Chaos/Dark Crisis was the best time to play Yu-Gi-Oh! in North America. Now it's just terrible with the way Konami rotates out cards instead of sets that adds more power creep to the TCG. Some of my biggest issues with the Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG is that it has no resource system compared to TCG's like MTG that do plus it doesn't have a mulligan system either. That and OTK's (One-Turn-Kill) which is almost the equivalent of the kind of broken MTG decks back 20 years ago in the Alpha and Beta sets which spawned the infamous "Power Nine". Other problems consisted of a severe limitation of playable cards in specific expansions, the majority of Commons printed in the game are near useless including Uncommons. Even pull rates out of booster packs/boxes were worse than any other TCG I've played in recent memory. I still have a shoebox full of useless Yu-Gi-Oh! commons that I never really use at all that I thought about selling.
I remember there were hundreds of Promo cards that took years to get imported over to North America in Yu-Gi-Oh! because Konami was mainly releasing them in Yu-Gi-Oh! video games and in Shonen Jump Magazine issues with cards like Cyber-Stein and Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon. Speaking of video games for Yu-Gi-Oh! I still have my Forbidden Memories PS One game with the Memory Card for it incase I want to pop it in my PS2 to play and I also have Duelist of the Roses for PS2 which was insanely fun when I used to be into Yu-Gi-Oh!. I also remember when McDonald's used to distribute Yu-Gi-Oh! cards and 4Kids Music CD's back when the Pokemon phenomenon was still huge in North America. Yeah those were the days, I've been thinking about trying to archive some of the old decks I used to play in Yu-Gi-Oh! right before Konami/UDE enacted the Forbidden/Limited List. Some of those deck lists I think got lost in the old Pojo Forums before the current one that already exists today.
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
Firstly, there is a site called Dueling Network that allows you to play the game for free online. It uses Flash and has some routing programs built in. No downloads required, free to join, et cetera. Their database has all the most recent cards (including spoiled/unreleased/Terminal/etc. cards). And the playerbase is fairly deep, so you can definitely find oponents easily. Basically, this site negates the money problem. (No, it's not Konami-official, but it's close.)
Second, the speed and power level is arguably closer to Legacy than Vintage. The fluidity/mutability of Archetypes and metas also bear a slight resemblance to Modern (which, admittedly, isn't the healthiest thing). Banning/unbanning cards every season definitely implies a problem. Still, Konami does seem be taking steps toward fixing this, albeit clumsily.
Thirdly, this isn't a game to play competitively (i.e. in tournaments). I play it casually (on DN, and very rarely in person). This was a hard lesson I had to learn, but it's key. All my YGO tournament experiences have been negative, and I generally feel like the "pro" players are the ones dragging this game down. At its best, YGO is just a distraction. This game doesn't take skill to play and games generally shouldn't take long. The people pretend otherwise are just ruining it, IMHO.
Fourthly, the rulings DO suck. I can't dispute that one. It's sad, too, because it just gives the game a feeling of faux complexity and inconsistency/incoherency that's totally fun sucking. were it not for this, the game would be much more newb friendly.
Fifthly, like a noted above, the community has issues. Between self-important "pros," confused/misinformed newbs, and other annoying player-types, it's easy to become infuriated with the community. Also, the failure of many players to realize that they're playing a broken game is very depressing. I watched a World Championship match and couldn't believe how stupid it looked and sounded, especially with commentators who pretended like the was strategic or skill-intensive.
Sixthly, there ARE those who remember that this is still a "children's card game". They're knowledgable enough to play correctly (and quickly), but still realize that the game itself should be taken lightly. I love these guys and mostly just keep my hand in with the hope of meeting them.
Seventhly, I'll offer a fairly controversial opinion here: The Extra Deck didn't ruin the game. Enablers may have, but then again I don't consider it ruined anyway (just extremely silly/casual). The Extra Deck added a new dimension to the game, from the very beginning. Players had to spend two or more cards just to end up with one big Monster. And it's still the same today (though the card disadvantage has been largely mitigated by numerous +1 effects). This line of play can be risky, so I'm all for the Fusion, Synchro, and Xyz Monsters being value engines. Plus, the toolbox element is pretty neat, kind of like the Wishes in Magic.
Eighth, a lot of the game's detractors bemoan changes that offend their sensibilities, without regard for their actual value. (The backlash toward Synchro and Xyz Monsters are two of the most obvious examples, but plenty more exist.) Don't take every negative thing people say about the game at face value. Far too many current and former players can't separate their wants and desires from what's objectively best for the game. (Think EDH playgroups, but on a global scale.)
Ninth, comparing this (or any other CG) to Magic is already stacking the deck (see what I did there?), IMHO. "Original and the best," and all that.
I'm officially proposing we retire the word "insane" from the MtG vocabulary.
"The best way to be different is to be better" - Gene Muir
Cubes:
Modern Banlist Cube
Monocolor Budget Cube
I'm sure that once there's an official Konami version of Dueling Network for Yu-Gi-Oh! that it will require micro-transactions like with Magic Online where you pay digital money for cards to build your own decks for. Pokemon TCG Online does this using code cards in physical booster packs instead of using micro-transactions and Kaijudo is also doing the same for it's own digital variant as well.
When Yu-Gi-Oh! first started Konami/UDE didn't take into account that it would need a set rotation system for the game like other TCG/CCG's because at the time they didn't forsee the power creep that Yu-Gi-Oh! would cause with Chaos decks and Yata Lock which forced their hand into creating the Forbidden/Limited List which would soon be exclusive to the game's Advanced Format where they tried to solve this problem by rotating popular metagame cards instead of rotating out expansions dating back to the very first expansion being Legend of Blue-Eyes White Dragon. Unfortunately Konami/UDE's plan didn't work and Yu-Gi-Oh! still continues to stagnate.
What triggered Yu-Gi-Oh!'s power creep was that it had no resource system to pay the cost of it's own cards, sure there were Tribute Summons and Life Point Payments in order to play specific cards but you were still literally able to play every card in your deck for free for no cost whatsoever. Whatever the cost may have been was very minimal compared to how MTG has one of the most solid resource systems in terms of mana costs on cards by tapping your lands for mana which was then further improved in World of Warcraft TCG by playing cards based on the number of resources you have out in play (1 resource per turn) and whether or not If you needed to spend those resources to restrict or unlimit certain cards in your hand from being played a turn.
It's too bad that Konami and Yu-Gi-Oh! isn't learning from how Bushiroad is handling Cardfight!! Vanguard cause at least they've learned from Yu-Gi-Oh!'s shortcomings and flaws to make for a much more balanced TCG with a solid resource system on a much more affordable scale. In Vanguard any deck can win with a $200 or less budget but in
Yu-Gi-Oh! it's whoever draws the best hand and kills their opponent in one turn who has spent the most money on their deck (usually $400-500+) that wins. Yu-Gi-Oh! is the most expensive TCG in the Secondary Market and not very many people can afford to play it like they did back when it first came out in 1998 in the United States.
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta