you see this kind of statement really makes MTG players look bad in diplomatic relations with players of the worlds other Trading Card Games. I am sorry, but just because you feel that your game is "more mature" does not mean that it in fact actually is. You are still playing a game where you invest hundreds (if not thousands if you play Vintage) of dollars on cardboard. Now while your game may have a bigger rule book than many other trading card games, and have a more developed professional circuit than most other trading card games... that does not give you the right to belittle other trading card games. Cause you know what? To the entirety of the rest of the world that does not play trading card games, those of us who do play trading card games, are ALL immature people who play childish games... regardless of the game it happens to be.
Yugioh requires less strategy and skill in deck construction and play. If you count the players on this board you'll find many who started on Yugioh and moved to MTG. Therefore I think my statement about Yugioh being MTG on training wheels is pretty factual. Also I don't think I belittled Yugioh or its players in any way.
Maybe I'm just the Kim Jong-il of diplomatic relations with players of the worlds other Trading Card Games.
I have to agree with Cyrax777, there is a certain amount of sex involved when selling both magic and yugioh, teenage boys subconsciously buy sex.
Here's Dark Magician girl from yugioh:
And because magic is trying to become more and more like yugioh, here's something that'll be in M10 :
Alluring Siren
May the best "cardgame" win.
Well, that Dark Magician Girl isn't an official Yugioh card. There are a couple that are a bit suggestive, though. Of course, the non Japanese versions edited out cleavage and the second and third ones were scrapped entirely.
Nothing grinds my gears like a topic full of misinformation about Yu-Gi-Oh. As someone that played Yu-Gi-Oh for two and a half years (not just a little bit, I'm talking tournaments every single weekend), I can definitely tell you that the Yu-Gi-Oh scene is dead. I don't know a single person that still plays it. All the big forums and websites are either dying or dead. At my local Wal-Mart (I love Wal-Mart, shut up :mad:), Magic is almost constantly sold out (seriously) and Yu-Gi-Oh just piles up on the shelves.
Also, that picture of Dark Magician Girl that was posted is a fake card. This is the latest reprint of Dark Magician Girl. It's a little sexual, but only if you like really hot electrical sockets.
Yu-Gi-Oh card prices are absolutely ridiculous. Until it was reprinted recently, Gold Sarcophagus, probably the most useful card ever printed, was $4000.00. $30.00 for Elspeth, Knight-Errant is a freaking bargain compared to when I played.
I hate to sound arrogant, but you don't want to debate me on Yu-Gi-Oh versus Magic. No mana system. No color wheel. No consistent rulings or judges or decisions. You think cascade is "random"? You have no idea.
Gold Sarcophagus was $4,000, and they reprinted it? That's worse than reprinting Black Lotus!
But I just wanted to note that here in Canada, I don't notice any mass market stores like Wal-Mart or Target selling Magic: the Gathering. It's only in gaming stores, comic book stores, and sports card stores. But Yu-Gi-Oh can be found in drug stores and department stores. So apparently it must be more popular, at least here.
Gold Sarcophagus was $4,000, and they reprinted it? That's worse than reprinting Black Lotus!
But I just wanted to note that here in Canada, I don't notice any mass market stores like Wal-Mart or Target selling Magic: the Gathering. It's only in gaming stores, comic book stores, and sports card stores. But Yu-Gi-Oh can be found in drug stores and department stores. So apparently it must be more popular, at least here.
This says more about Canada being a Bizarro version of the US than anything else. just kidding. I love Canada; it has much better strip clubs.
Seriously though, I think all the talk of yugioh going away is overblown. Look at the Pokemon card game; it has sales that are much worse than yugioh and is still around. Cards are cheap to make so things would have to get really bad before they stopped selling them.
Seriously though, I think all the talk of yugioh going away is overblown. Look at the Pokemon card game; it has sales that are much worse than yugioh and is still around. Cards are cheap to make so things would have to get really bad before they stopped selling them.
There's a huge difference between Pokemon and Yugioh! When the TCG fell to its very pit during the end of Wizards control and when the anime was in shambles, Pokemon always still had the videogames, which began the entire fad. Maybe the television show helped the TCG rise to popularity, but it always came down to the videogames... and Pokemon, the RPG, is NOT dead at all. Every time they come up with new monsters, you could expect TCG sales to jump as well.
Yugioh! has nothing going for it. The TCG is the main course. The anime may have helped boost its popularity but it always came back down to the TCG and the TCG rules, structure, and just about everything is crap. The only thing good about it was the foil processing and the effects. When Yugioh! TCG dies, it will not have the extra insurance Pokemon TCG did. When it dies, it'll be dead and there won't be anything that could ever revive it.
Well, there certainely is a reason why Upper Deck dropped Yu-Gi-Oh for WoW TCG. The first continues to fall as the second continues to rise, taking its share on the same spoils than MTG. But for now, no doubt that Magic is the most popular TCG in every big country.
I concur, Upperdeck is pouring a lot of time and effort into WoW, seemingly to the detriment of shriveled-up cash cow that was Yu-Gi-Oh. WoW also has support through tie-in promotions with the videogame to keep it kicking, not that it need that sort of thing, it could still be a mainstay in the industry, IF it's handled right.
Unfortunately I wont get to play the WoW TCG much unless it does pick up again, it really is a good game, it's sort of like if Magic had an illigitamate child with D&D I imagine it'd look sort of like WoW...
Also, the card base is gigantic; they have been printing cards for about 10 years and none of them rotate out EVER. The only time a card can't be played is if it is banned or restricted.
so its like legacy, cool
they dont try to gip you with the rotation thing.
I have to agree with Cyrax777, there is a certain amount of sex involved when selling both magic and yugioh, teenage boys subconsciously buy sex.
Here's Dark Magician girl from yugioh:
as far as whats popular, i saw yugioh cards at the local green backs (99 cent store). almost picked up a few boxes but i figured that meant the game was on its last legs.
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I don't know about in the US, but I've been told Magic is by far more popular outside of the US than it is in the US. (in places such as Japan, Korea, China, etc) I don't have a source for this information, and Wikipedia doesn't seem to have any of the info as far as I can tell.
umm seeing how one game is dead now this topic seems pointless....
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I will play what wins, not what is convenient. Personal preference is nothing, The win is all that matters. I will netdeck at every opportunity, but I will not let that stifle my creativity. Style points do not appear on tournament reports. A good deck with an incompetent pilot is nothing more than a dressed up match win. I will crush my opponent mercilessly, and expect no less from him. Victory is its own reward, The prize is just a bonus.
Legacy is dying
I concur, Upperdeck is pouring a lot of time and effort into WoW, seemingly to the detriment of shriveled-up cash cow that was Yu-Gi-Oh. WoW also has support through tie-in promotions with the videogame to keep it kicking, not that it need that sort of thing, it could still be a mainstay in the industry, IF it's handled right.
Unfortunately I wont get to play the WoW TCG much unless it does pick up again, it really is a good game, it's sort of like if Magic had an illigitamate child with D&D I imagine it'd look sort of like WoW...
Actually, Upper Deck was forced by court order to give up Yugioh, since they were found guilty of printing counterfeit cards. That was the entirity of the dispute between them and Konami. Of course, unlike Konami, they did try to have consistant rulings, certified judges, actually had a forum, and established a rating system similar to Magic. Since Konami has none of that, the tournament scene has been majorly hurt. Konami does have a list similar to oracle that explains rulings on specific cards, but two cards with pretty much the same text can actually function differently and many interactions make even less sense than the comprehensive rules Magic has.
so its like legacy, cool
they dont try to gip you with the rotation thing.
what does dark magician girl do? (in magic terms)
what did that card do?
as far as whats popular, i saw yugioh cards at the local green backs (99 cent store). almost picked up a few boxes but i figured that meant the game was on its last legs.
Dark Magician Girl gets more attack power for every Dark Magician in your graveyard. It's one of the many explicit support cards for an otherwise useless vanilla. Yugioh has quite a few cards that are literally useless other than powering up some other card. At least in the case of Dark Magician Girl, it was a reasonably good vanilla for its time when it wasn't playing the support role.
I will play what wins, not what is convenient. Personal preference is nothing, The win is all that matters. I will netdeck at every opportunity, but I will not let that stifle my creativity. Style points do not appear on tournament reports. A good deck with an incompetent pilot is nothing more than a dressed up match win. I will crush my opponent mercilessly, and expect no less from him. Victory is its own reward, The prize is just a bonus.
Legacy is dying
That's totally misleading. Upper Deck never made any sets anyway. Yugioh cards have always been made by Konami. Upper Deck was just a distributor and tournament organizer outside of Asia. Konami is now distributing the cards itself and running its own tournaments.
In terms of sales, YGO is OFFICIALLY (As in, Guiness book of records recognised) the most popular card game/TCG. Google it.
I play it as well as mtg.
-They are still making new sets.
-The UDE-Konami Shift hasn't made as much of a difference as people on here are making out. There are still tournaments (which are attended by LOTS of people. Hobby League = Constructed FNM. Shonen Jump Championship (SJC) = Pro Tour. They are attended by AT LEAST as many people as their MTG counterparts.
-There are only 2 formats, "Legacy", and "Vintage". The top tier cards in "Legacy" are crazy expensive. Luckily, the best cards get reprinted out the wazoo. The "Power Howevermanythereare" are really cheap to buy because "Vintage" is so undersupported.
-More scope for crazy plays (No mana curve = 5 zero-mana sundering titans getting hit by an instant-speed zero-mana plague wind....on turn 2)
-Less scope for crazy combos (When every deck has a "Zero mana destroy all enchantments" card in it....)
-Limited doesnt exist. Ok, prereleases are sealed, but they fail completetely because the sets are 100% designed for contructed play.
And yeah they're the core differences
YGO is officially more popular than mtg in terms of sales
In terms of sales, YGO is OFFICIALLY (As in, Guiness book of records recognised) the most popular card game/TCG. Google it.
I play it as well as mtg.
-They are still making new sets.
-The UDE-Konami Shift hasn't made as much of a difference as people on here are making out. There are still tournaments (which are attended by LOTS of people. Hobby League = Constructed FNM. Shonen Jump Championship (SJC) = Pro Tour. They are attended by AT LEAST as many people as their MTG counterparts.
-There are only 2 formats, "Legacy", and "Vintage". The top tier cards in "Legacy" are crazy expensive. Luckily, the best cards get reprinted out the wazoo. The "Power Howevermanythereare" are really cheap to buy because "Vintage" is so undersupported.
-More scope for crazy plays (No mana curve = 5 zero-mana sundering titans getting hit by an instant-speed zero-mana plague wind....on turn 2)
-Less scope for crazy combos (When every deck has a "Zero mana destroy all enchantments" card in it....)
-Limited doesnt exist. Ok, prereleases are sealed, but they fail completetely because the sets are 100% designed for contructed play.
And yeah they're the core differences
YGO is officially more popular than mtg in terms of sales
The prereleases suck because there are tons of commons that a literally useless useless to open because the need monsters with "X" in their name or named "Y", which don't exist in that particular set. The prereleases are 5 packs of the newest set to build a 20 card deck. There's also monsters that don't matter at all, but wreck prerelease games because there's almost no removal printed since the game is eternal.
In terms of sales, YGO is OFFICIALLY (As in, Guiness book of records recognised) the most popular card game/TCG. Google it.
Got any proof there?
The popularity of the game is going down by all reports, while it might have been more popular, I doubt that is still the case.
The game isn't designed well enough to stand the test of time, for the reasons you yourself mention.
For reference, the only sales figures I can find on the entire internet are Diamond distributors figures from May.
TOP 25 GAMES
Based on Total Retail Dollar Sales of Products Invoiced in May 2009
Dollar Rank Quantity Rank Description
1 10 MTG TCG ALARA REBORN BOOSTER DIS
2 1 WORLD OF WARCRAFT CMG SPOILS WAR BOOSTER PACK
3 34 WOW TCG ARENA GRAND MELEE DIS
4 30 POKEMON TCG PLATINUM RISING RIVALS BSTR DIS
5 19 YU GI OH TCG RAGING BATTLE BOOSTER PACK DIS
(ARB intro packs are 9, fat packs are 16, DvD is 17, SoA booster boxes are 19, and "YU GI OH TCG DUELIST PACK YUSEI 2009 DIS" is 20)
Considering how few packs are in yugioh booster boxes...yes, they are not selling as much as Magic is.
I've just seen Magic cards for sale in a mass-market store here in Canada now. The Giant Tiger in my neighborhood has a glass case with a lot of Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh... and one box of Conflux boosters. They're charging the same price for a Yu-Gi-Oh booster (very low) and an M:tG booster (way overpriced), though, so I'm not sure they'll stick with Magic for very long.
I live in Central New York. The school I used to go to was dominated by Yu-Gi-Oh!, with a few MtG players here and there. I resented Yu-Gi-Oh!. In my opinion, Magic: The Gathering is a much more complex game. WOTC keeps it refreshed. Others think that it's just them gyping the players. It really isn't. In Yu-Gi-Oh, most cards stay legal forever. MtG rotates, forcing players to innovate (oh no!) and make better adjustments to their decks as new cards come out.
There are many stores near me. The largest one, which runs numerous MtG events, sells much more Magic the Gathering than Yu-Gi-Oh!. There is far more players at FNM,MNM, Legacy Night, Draft, and Prelease than at any Yu-Gi-Oh! event. The other store, which is slightly smaller, but in a more crowded area, won't even run Yu-Gi-Oh! events, because it doesn't sell at all. The owner even admits it.
In conclusion, both Magic: The Gathering and Yu-Gi-Oh are fine Trading Card Games, but MtG is played much more often. The fanbase for Yu-Gi-Oh is dying, and it doesn't even need the trading card game to make money. It makes much more money off of Video Games, Manga and Cheesy Animé Episodes. The original episodes were pretty decent, but the new ones are just dumb, corny, and don't reflect much about an actual Card Game.
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Just an average Friday Night Magic:
-4th Match Starts-
We sit down, shuffle 'em up, and it's time to decide who goes first.
Opponent: -Rolls a 1 and a 2- "Low Roll?"
Me: -Oblivious- "Ok!"
Me: Rolls Two 1s. "I'll play first."
i think that Yu-gi-oh gets more overall sales simply because 10 year olds who watch the shows are a massive consumer base. Answering the question, id say yugioh will last as long as they manage to keep the cartoon going, while magic will last as long as people still play tcgs.
however, when it comes to organized tournaments and competitions, magic is faaaaaaar and away more popular. Not just in attendance, but in prizes too.
I suspect that this is because competetively, the no-resource mechanic that yugioh runs by (and now the "synchro summon" mechanic) is, if not inherently broken, very likely to create extremely quick, "best" decks
Because there are no resources required, cards cannot be "limited" to some decks, all cards that come out can be thrown in any deck
Because there are no resources or colors, it is difficult to print removal or control that is good while not being used in every single deck
Because there are no resources, combo is very difficult to balance
And when speed is all important, one deck tends to dominate. Its like if legacy was only super aggressive aggro, the most aggressive deck wins out.
checking around a couple weeks back, from the tournaments ive seen that "tengu synchro summons" makes up ~60% of top20s, even more of top10s,apparently it's been that way for months
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Modern UWUW ControlUW UGWSpiritsUGW GHardened ScalesG WGRUKiki PodWGRU [RIP]
Nothing grinds my gears like a topic full of misinformation about Yu-Gi-Oh. As someone that played Yu-Gi-Oh for two and a half years (not just a little bit, I'm talking tournaments every single weekend), I can definitely tell you that the Yu-Gi-Oh scene is dead. I don't know a single person that still plays it. All the big forums and websites are either dying or dead. At my local Wal-Mart (I love Wal-Mart, shut up :mad:), Magic is almost constantly sold out (seriously) and Yu-Gi-Oh just piles up on the shelves.
Also, that picture of Dark Magician Girl that was posted is a fake card. This is the latest reprint of Dark Magician Girl. It's a little sexual, but only if you like really hot electrical sockets.
Yu-Gi-Oh card prices are absolutely ridiculous. Until it was reprinted recently, Gold Sarcophagus, probably the most useful card ever printed, was $4000.00. $30.00 for Elspeth, Knight-Errant is a freaking bargain compared to when I played.
I hate to sound arrogant, but you don't want to debate me on Yu-Gi-Oh versus Magic. No mana system. No color wheel. No consistent rulings or judges or decisions. You think cascade is "random"? You have no idea.
I agree with you.
In terms of gameplay, MTG is about 800 times better. The amount of interactions are staggering.
The thing about Yugioh, is yes, guiness recognized them. (here)
But really, most sales of Yugioh are just people messing around.
I took an informal survey at my local target for 3 days. Of the people buying packs, most fit in the "I just wanted to see how the game has changed" category.
Yugioh is better selling. Not the better game. You can build stupid fun decks in magic, and actually play them FOR FUN. can't do that in YGo. Do that, and some jerk with a scrap deck (yeah, I'm that jerk) will kick it's *** and Tell you to go home. Also, the card interactions in Yugioh are much dumber. I can name pretty much any Yugioh card, what it does, and if it's worth even thinking about. Also, what sets it was in. Magic is cool because of the fun factor.
If it's any comparison:
Photon shockwave pre-release at my local store (outpost 2000) had 26 attendees
Innistrad sealed pre-release at the same local store: over 50
Yugioh requires less strategy and skill in deck construction and play. If you count the players on this board you'll find many who started on Yugioh and moved to MTG. Therefore I think my statement about Yugioh being MTG on training wheels is pretty factual. Also I don't think I belittled Yugioh or its players in any way.
Maybe I'm just the Kim Jong-il of diplomatic relations with players of the worlds other Trading Card Games.
Pokemon
Yugioh
Magic
I got this information from a guy who works at alliance game distributors (cause I work at a comic shop) so I'm pretty sure it is accurate.
Well, that Dark Magician Girl isn't an official Yugioh card. There are a couple that are a bit suggestive, though. Of course, the non Japanese versions edited out cleavage and the second and third ones were scrapped entirely.
Also, that picture of Dark Magician Girl that was posted is a fake card. This is the latest reprint of Dark Magician Girl. It's a little sexual, but only if you like really hot electrical sockets.
Yu-Gi-Oh card prices are absolutely ridiculous. Until it was reprinted recently, Gold Sarcophagus, probably the most useful card ever printed, was $4000.00. $30.00 for Elspeth, Knight-Errant is a freaking bargain compared to when I played.
I hate to sound arrogant, but you don't want to debate me on Yu-Gi-Oh versus Magic. No mana system. No color wheel. No consistent rulings or judges or decisions. You think cascade is "random"? You have no idea.
But I just wanted to note that here in Canada, I don't notice any mass market stores like Wal-Mart or Target selling Magic: the Gathering. It's only in gaming stores, comic book stores, and sports card stores. But Yu-Gi-Oh can be found in drug stores and department stores. So apparently it must be more popular, at least here.
Oh, and both Yu-Gi-Oh and Magic are sold quite heavily in Wal-Mart and Target out here in Tennessee...
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This says more about Canada being a Bizarro version of the US than anything else. just kidding. I love Canada; it has much better strip clubs.
Seriously though, I think all the talk of yugioh going away is overblown. Look at the Pokemon card game; it has sales that are much worse than yugioh and is still around. Cards are cheap to make so things would have to get really bad before they stopped selling them.
we get like 3x as many people for yugioh at our local store
i played like twice and hated it
There's a huge difference between Pokemon and Yugioh! When the TCG fell to its very pit during the end of Wizards control and when the anime was in shambles, Pokemon always still had the videogames, which began the entire fad. Maybe the television show helped the TCG rise to popularity, but it always came down to the videogames... and Pokemon, the RPG, is NOT dead at all. Every time they come up with new monsters, you could expect TCG sales to jump as well.
Yugioh! has nothing going for it. The TCG is the main course. The anime may have helped boost its popularity but it always came back down to the TCG and the TCG rules, structure, and just about everything is crap. The only thing good about it was the foil processing and the effects. When Yugioh! TCG dies, it will not have the extra insurance Pokemon TCG did. When it dies, it'll be dead and there won't be anything that could ever revive it.
I concur, Upperdeck is pouring a lot of time and effort into WoW, seemingly to the detriment of shriveled-up cash cow that was Yu-Gi-Oh. WoW also has support through tie-in promotions with the videogame to keep it kicking, not that it need that sort of thing, it could still be a mainstay in the industry, IF it's handled right.
Unfortunately I wont get to play the WoW TCG much unless it does pick up again, it really is a good game, it's sort of like if Magic had an illigitamate child with D&D I imagine it'd look sort of like WoW...
so its like legacy, cool
they dont try to gip you with the rotation thing.
what does dark magician girl do? (in magic terms)
what did that card do?
as far as whats popular, i saw yugioh cards at the local green backs (99 cent store). almost picked up a few boxes but i figured that meant the game was on its last legs.
Thanks to Spiderboy4 of [High~Light Studios] for the awesome sig.
Personal preference is nothing, The win is all that matters.
I will netdeck at every opportunity, but I will not let that stifle my creativity.
Style points do not appear on tournament reports.
A good deck with an incompetent pilot is nothing more than a dressed up match win.
I will crush my opponent mercilessly, and expect no less from him.
Victory is its own reward, The prize is just a bonus.
Legacy is dying
Actually, Upper Deck was forced by court order to give up Yugioh, since they were found guilty of printing counterfeit cards. That was the entirity of the dispute between them and Konami. Of course, unlike Konami, they did try to have consistant rulings, certified judges, actually had a forum, and established a rating system similar to Magic. Since Konami has none of that, the tournament scene has been majorly hurt. Konami does have a list similar to oracle that explains rulings on specific cards, but two cards with pretty much the same text can actually function differently and many interactions make even less sense than the comprehensive rules Magic has.
Dark Magician Girl gets more attack power for every Dark Magician in your graveyard. It's one of the many explicit support cards for an otherwise useless vanilla. Yugioh has quite a few cards that are literally useless other than powering up some other card. At least in the case of Dark Magician Girl, it was a reasonably good vanilla for its time when it wasn't playing the support role.
Their tourneys are cancelled and didn't they say they arn't making any more sets? Sounds dead to me...
http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/14341.html
Personal preference is nothing, The win is all that matters.
I will netdeck at every opportunity, but I will not let that stifle my creativity.
Style points do not appear on tournament reports.
A good deck with an incompetent pilot is nothing more than a dressed up match win.
I will crush my opponent mercilessly, and expect no less from him.
Victory is its own reward, The prize is just a bonus.
Legacy is dying
That's totally misleading. Upper Deck never made any sets anyway. Yugioh cards have always been made by Konami. Upper Deck was just a distributor and tournament organizer outside of Asia. Konami is now distributing the cards itself and running its own tournaments.
I play it as well as mtg.
-They are still making new sets.
-The UDE-Konami Shift hasn't made as much of a difference as people on here are making out. There are still tournaments (which are attended by LOTS of people. Hobby League = Constructed FNM. Shonen Jump Championship (SJC) = Pro Tour. They are attended by AT LEAST as many people as their MTG counterparts.
-There are only 2 formats, "Legacy", and "Vintage". The top tier cards in "Legacy" are crazy expensive. Luckily, the best cards get reprinted out the wazoo. The "Power Howevermanythereare" are really cheap to buy because "Vintage" is so undersupported.
-More scope for crazy plays (No mana curve = 5 zero-mana sundering titans getting hit by an instant-speed zero-mana plague wind....on turn 2)
-Less scope for crazy combos (When every deck has a "Zero mana destroy all enchantments" card in it....)
-Limited doesnt exist. Ok, prereleases are sealed, but they fail completetely because the sets are 100% designed for contructed play.
And yeah they're the core differences
YGO is officially more popular than mtg in terms of sales
The prereleases suck because there are tons of commons that a literally useless useless to open because the need monsters with "X" in their name or named "Y", which don't exist in that particular set. The prereleases are 5 packs of the newest set to build a 20 card deck. There's also monsters that don't matter at all, but wreck prerelease games because there's almost no removal printed since the game is eternal.
Got any proof there?
The popularity of the game is going down by all reports, while it might have been more popular, I doubt that is still the case.
The game isn't designed well enough to stand the test of time, for the reasons you yourself mention.
For reference, the only sales figures I can find on the entire internet are Diamond distributors figures from May.
(ARB intro packs are 9, fat packs are 16, DvD is 17, SoA booster boxes are 19, and "YU GI OH TCG DUELIST PACK YUSEI 2009 DIS" is 20)
Considering how few packs are in yugioh booster boxes...yes, they are not selling as much as Magic is.
Twitter
There are many stores near me. The largest one, which runs numerous MtG events, sells much more Magic the Gathering than Yu-Gi-Oh!. There is far more players at FNM,MNM, Legacy Night, Draft, and Prelease than at any Yu-Gi-Oh! event. The other store, which is slightly smaller, but in a more crowded area, won't even run Yu-Gi-Oh! events, because it doesn't sell at all. The owner even admits it.
In conclusion, both Magic: The Gathering and Yu-Gi-Oh are fine Trading Card Games, but MtG is played much more often. The fanbase for Yu-Gi-Oh is dying, and it doesn't even need the trading card game to make money. It makes much more money off of Video Games, Manga and Cheesy Animé Episodes. The original episodes were pretty decent, but the new ones are just dumb, corny, and don't reflect much about an actual Card Game.
-4th Match Starts-
We sit down, shuffle 'em up, and it's time to decide who goes first.
Opponent: -Rolls a 1 and a 2- "Low Roll?"
Me: -Oblivious- "Ok!"
Me: Rolls Two 1s. "I'll play first."
however, when it comes to organized tournaments and competitions, magic is faaaaaaar and away more popular. Not just in attendance, but in prizes too.
I suspect that this is because competetively, the no-resource mechanic that yugioh runs by (and now the "synchro summon" mechanic) is, if not inherently broken, very likely to create extremely quick, "best" decks
Because there are no resources required, cards cannot be "limited" to some decks, all cards that come out can be thrown in any deck
Because there are no resources or colors, it is difficult to print removal or control that is good while not being used in every single deck
Because there are no resources, combo is very difficult to balance
And when speed is all important, one deck tends to dominate. Its like if legacy was only super aggressive aggro, the most aggressive deck wins out.
checking around a couple weeks back, from the tournaments ive seen that "tengu synchro summons" makes up ~60% of top20s, even more of top10s,apparently it's been that way for months
UWUW ControlUW
UGWSpiritsUGW
GHardened ScalesG
WGRUKiki PodWGRU [RIP]
I agree with you.
In terms of gameplay, MTG is about 800 times better. The amount of interactions are staggering.
The thing about Yugioh, is yes, guiness recognized them. (here)
But really, most sales of Yugioh are just people messing around.
I took an informal survey at my local target for 3 days. Of the people buying packs, most fit in the "I just wanted to see how the game has changed" category.
Yugioh is better selling. Not the better game. You can build stupid fun decks in magic, and actually play them FOR FUN. can't do that in YGo. Do that, and some jerk with a scrap deck (yeah, I'm that jerk) will kick it's *** and Tell you to go home. Also, the card interactions in Yugioh are much dumber. I can name pretty much any Yugioh card, what it does, and if it's worth even thinking about. Also, what sets it was in. Magic is cool because of the fun factor.
If it's any comparison:
Photon shockwave pre-release at my local store (outpost 2000) had 26 attendees
Innistrad sealed pre-release at the same local store: over 50
That should tell ya something.