Addressing the Attack on Yu-Gi-Oh! by  

A mention of hand traps in the tutorials would be nice since those are such a fundamental part of the game that so many newcomers don't seem to engage with.

Learning yugioh isnt the first step. Its learning how to learn yugioh. Its too overwhelming if ya take all arcehtypes in at once

Yes exactly. the lack of formatting in card text is ridiculous. bullet points, keywords, symbols, colour coding, or literal anything else to make it easier than reading a giant wall of text would help the game so much and it woudnt even reduce the actual complexity of playing the game.

I’ve been playing ygo on and off since the first structure decks. Modern ygo is like learning a language. The first time I ever learned a “modern” combo deck, full power guard dragon link, it took me ALL my brain power, AFTER watching the combo tutorial, to do the combo once. It’s like practicing writing the same paragraph over and over. If you do that enough, you learn the structure of the sentences (combos) and become “fluent”. Once your “fluent” in ygo, you can pick up new words and phrases relatively easily. If your not tho, playing ygo feels like conducting a multi-million dollar business deal in Mandarin. Your just trying to get through each sentence, while your opponent has already locked you into a 10 year contract that will ruin your life forever. The hardest part of ygo is understanding where you lost, becuase it’s WAAY sooner that it appears.

As far as people saying Magic is harder than YGO, Magic does have the potential to end up in EXTREMELY complex board-states that would be more complicated, BUT... 99% of the time you're going to find YGO more complicated simply because there are more things going on at once, and that's even before looking at complex rulings like missing timing, soft vs hard opts, inherent summons, and more.

23:24 I get that his chat helped him a lot through the entire process, but a lot of his suffering was also made by the fact his chat gave him SALADS as his second deck. Like the only things worse might have been a pendulum combo or full Dragon Link. Like the progression from “4-ish summons Dragonmaid” to full Jammer-Accesscode link climb is insane to suggest to a new player.

The skill floor is just nuts. I remember trying to get into it years ago and it legit took me like 3 or 4 attempts of just sitting there with my 3 structure deck build to stay engaged long enough to read my cards and goldfish a few combos out. Playing with strangers felt terrifying because I preemptively felt bad knowing I'd basically have to sit there for like a minute everytime they showed me a card just so I could try to read and comprehend it.

Duel links was supposed to be the entry point for yugioh, but it was so successful that it kinda became its own thing, and now it has skills that are 3 pages long. I myself got into the tcg from duel links, and I didnt get overwhelmed at all, since DL gave me the opportunity to learn the basic rules and mechanincs of the game, learning the new summoning types and decks gets a lot easier in that situation.

I remember trying to teach prank kids to a friend on MD and I remember thinking: there is LITERALLY no way for him to know what one for one or parallel exceed are, how are you supposed to figure anything out by yourself? master duel should at least let you see a "pro" deck list and replays of a card you own to see how to use it

I am a DM yugi boomer and I picked the game back up with Master duel. I learned literally everything playing blue eyes for a year ☠️

It would be cool and helpful for new players if when you buy a structure deck in the game you unlock a solo gate that teaches you the deck a bit.

i actually went and replay that worlds match he was using as an example and it’s actually pretty insane, he played through 2 hand traps and had to eat a 3rd but got more steam cuz he apparently drew into block dragon off of saryuja but still say that all the guy can do is sit and watch and that his opponent won from the start

I'm always grateful that I was into Yugioh from the very beginning. I can't imagine hopping into the game fresh in modern times lol. Yugioh is indeed a hard game to learn for a new player, hope this Rarran guy gives the game another chance, once you learn the game it can be very fun.

There isn't really a definite solution that'll make Yugioh mainstream approachable - at least, the modern version - because the game's identity is built around being so explosive and dynamic that you don't have to wait several turns to make your deck's big plays.

I feel like he came in with a bad mentality from the beginning, and the fact that he didn't watch anything his opponent did and didn't then acted surprised when he got countered, yeah I'm not really surprised he didn't like it and honestly I'm not too bummed out he didn't want in. Master duel is more of a vehicle to play yugioh then a way to actually learn yugioh. Playing in person with a person you can actually talk to is a much better experience, and he wants a multi-player experience where you don't actually speak to the other person (hs, runeterra, magic arena) and yugioh just really doesn't lend itself well to that

Eldlich was the first deck I ever learnt to play Yu-Gi-Oh! again and I was able to win quite a few duels but it did take me a while to fully understand the deck. And I am proud of the chaos I’ve caused

Kudos for not just complaining “omg this card is 2 colors with so many big words!” Like others do. Then proceed to use one of maybe a dozen card examples (that see no play) which do actually have a ton of text.

I honestly think the best way, but not the fastest, to learn Yugioh is to do an accelerated progression series thing with someone who knows the game. Of course the fact that this is a fan-made format, you'll have to play on a 3rd-party platform is an issue.

I started playing Marvel Snap recently and really like how it handles the new player experience. It divides the cards into 3 pools, and you have to get all cards in a a pool before you access the next one. You only play against people in the same pool as you while climbing the ranked ladder, so you don't know which cards your opponent has pulled but you know what the potential of their deck is. With the amount of cards and archetypal dependencies present in Yugioh, it's not really possible, but it might be fun to curate some smaller pools.

I'm not sure if anyone else does this, but whenever I make a new deck, the 1st thing I always do with it is to take it out into Solo Mode to try to learn the combos and how it works, then once I have an idea on how it works, I go into Casual to try against other decks, and like after a couple or so days of testing in Casual and some adjustments, then I'd try it out in Ranked.

I only started playing YuGiOh since Master Duel released. Before then, the only card game I played was Legends of Runeterra. YuGiOh is by far the hardest card game I've played, playing Hearthstone sometime later and only ever skimming the rules of Magic, but in the same sense its not even the rules of YuGiOh that make it difficult. It's the cards. In YuGiOh, you have to grasp that every archtype does something different. You don't just say "Oh I can play this card so I will" in every deck. You don't play Dual Avatar the same way you would Fluffal, even if they're both fusion decks. And I think that's what I like the most. In a game where both players are playing something different, they're still playing the same game. Technically. edit: I also played Duel Links, forgot about that. Only Blue Eyes though.

I entered master duel barely knowing anything and decided to watch videos to learn and became the average player in a week but due to my early idiocy had to make a new account to compensate for new knowledge, however when I got my friend into it my existing knowledge made it far easier for them to learn things. Dude instantly got attached to runick naturia.

I said it in his video and i'll say it here, his chat SABOTAGED him by suggesting salad. Someone should've just sent him a numeron ftk list and say "Here you go, read the field spell and its associated cards, click go second, win game"

I audibly shouted in terror when they suggested Salads. The starter deck that's best for new players imo (aside from Dragonmaid) is the Galaxy-Eyes one because it is Big Punch: The Deck Edit: I took a second look at the main deck of the structure deck and correction: it looks like buns. Zombie and Gaia look alright, and Pend Mag is cool but can be overwhelming

the argument "i played all my card turn 1" is hilarious to me because thats why i like yugioh personally yes you can play your whole hand turn 1 but you don't have to, in my eyes this is yugioh "resource system", and i prefer this type of gameplay, you can either dump your whole hand and go all out or play considerably in case your opp can break your board, rather than having cards sitting on your hand until like turn 5 to play it

I just learned this game from duel links and RU-vid. I did not know what tuners where and what the extra deck was. I learned from trial and error along with just learning the words on the cards which greatly helped. Now I think I’m decent I’ve reached platinum in Master Duel a couple times with a handful of decks I’ve had. I played in the LCS a couple of times to test my meddle in a lower power format. Quite the nice time I’ve had in this game

It is kind of scary when content creators, some of which are judges have a hard time keeping up with card effects and rulings due to the complexity of the game. If there is no set rotation then I think Konami supporting older formats so newcomers can actually play and build up their knowledge from learning basics in Goat Format, to Edison introducing Synchros and beyond until players are comfortable with the current format.

For the record, I started playing yugioh for the first time when master duel came out. I had no friends playing it with me. Game was confusing as fuck, but it was also very fun to learn. I managed to take the utopia structure deck (with no crafts, onomat, dragonrar) and utopia double myself to plat 1 going second exclusively (I think by the end of the first season). It is ‘possible’. It did help that the game was full of people like me at that time.

I think starting with a combo deck helped me since I already knew to memorize the synergy between cards

if they added older formats to master duel that would be actually so fun

I've seen little to no discussion about this since the game releases, master duel need the exact quiz,puzzle and loaner deck feature as duel links, i had so much fun solving puzzle back in duel links and hearthstone

Honestly, watching Progression, History, and Jank from Cimoooooooo for like half a year yo a year before jumping into MD helped immensely with my comprehension of modern Yugioh lol

People don't know how hard is Yu-Gi-Oh is

It's always so hilarious to watch new players get into the game

To anyone who is new to yugioh: i HIGHLY recommend playing the GBA games such as world championship 2006 or duel academy rather than master duel I know to regular yugioh players thats gonna sound ridiculous but i genuinly think that since the pace of those games are a bit slower but the cards are advanced enough to let you learn such things as special summoning with cyber dragon, burn decks and type/attribute boost effects that i think if you understand the cards and decks in those games, you will have a MUCH easier time learning modern decks in master duel

Part of the issue here is that he went in almost like he didnt want to play the game. If you dont want to read your cards, or you dont want to look at your deck before a match and try to figure out what your deck does of course your going to struggle. Your not doing yourself any favors by just jumping into matchmaking against an opponent whos just trying to win while you dont know what your cards even do. Its like jumping into a game like overwatch with no knowledge at all and expecting to understand all the heroes immediately. He acknowledges that the game is difficult and overwhelming but doesnt take the time to try to minimize that for himself. If he looked at his deck even without a guide and went "Who is my boss monster and how am i going to get him out?" thats a great starting point to understanding what your cards do. Even if your not using them optimally feeling like you have a handle on your deck means that when you get in game you really only have to focus on what your opponent does. He seemed to just jump in and try to learn everything all at once and thats a losing formula for 99% of players. Yugioh does a poor job at teaching you how to play but if you feel like your not understanding the game you have to slow down and break it down to understandable parts yourself. It does reach a point where if your unwilling to try to learn, that is on you as the player. I wish yugioh did have a better system for learning the game. Ironically i think one of the better systems was the Legacy of the Duelist story mode. While not the best game in the world it starts you off simple and slowly introduces new mechanics as you progress. Its you makes you play a variety of different decks so you can learn the overall mechanics and see how they apply to different decks as opposed to just learning a single deck and that one decks combo routes. Its not going to make you and incredibly competitive player but by the end youll have a decent understanding of how yugioh works as a game.

I like how he went first multiple games in a row and got cooked, then 2 minutes later jumps to the conclusion "going first wins you the game".

I think that a lot of the points he's trying to make are kind of softened when he intercuts them with footage of him showing, "So I didn't read any of the rules or any of my cards, I'm just clicking buttons WHY IS THIS GAME SO COMPLICATED"

Starting with just one deck is a big way of doing it in the learning phase. I started master duel with only very base knowledge of how to play, so i started with the Utopia structure deck, played it a bunch, then upgraded it to be vastly stronger. Eventually i branched out and tried new things.

Oh there is this dish that a lot of people likes these days, oh let me cook it without guide or help, oh it taste bad, it's not for me! idk why these people recommend it! (that's how I see it) even pro players use guides and helps from others to play certain cards. his reasons for not having fun isn't justifiable, it's like he's trying to hate the game so people will stop recommend it to him!

I've always said this, play duel links first. The ai in that game is relatively compotent enough to give you a challenge. But most importantly, there's a world for each yugioh anime, so you slowly learn all the summoning mechanics as opposed to getting them all shoved down your throat. THEN play master duel, it's not an easy jump, getting used to the 5 spaces on the board was kinda hard but it's way easier than just jumping into master duel.

"I'm gonna play yugioh" Every yugioh player: Does he know?

You can tell someone to “read their cards” but at the same time having to read an essay on each card in your deck is extremely overwhelming and at times having to read the card multiple times. Alternative formats are basically not officially supported by Konami. I like Speed Duels but my local card shops don’t even sell those cards.

Rarran's video might be the worst thing I've ever sat through in my life. It was like watching someone try to play chess by throwing their pieces at the opponent's face, and then complaining that they didn't win.

The best Solo Mode deck in MD is the digital bugs one that actually runs Imperm and Maxx “C”, but it does nothing going first.

My honest reaction to Rarran's experience: Joel

I got back into the game right around Pepe’s tier 0 status. I watched a few duels during duelist alliance format, and while I started to see patterns, and shaddoll construct’s image was burned into my head, I didn’t really know what was going on. I knew the mechanics when I was a kid, I had graduated from playground ygo and had a full power chaos yata lock deck, but I was still young and had a 60 card pile where I threw everything that looked good in. Even young, I understood how crazy special summoning and drawing was, but I hadn’t fully realized how good weaker monsters with strong effects were. Honestly, to me at the time, the best way I got back into the game was with rock stun. I could strap on my helmet to play, so I didn’t have to memorize combos, but at the same time I got used to my opponent’s cards. Stun helped slow down the game to a pace where I could understand it easier. The more I played, the more I understood the power of interrupting my opponent’s plays, and even against decks I hadn’t yet played I started to understand where I should be stopping my opponent. It really wasn’t long where I was able to start playing less monkiflip decks and start using combos. Idk, maybe I still had a decent grip from my previous days, and while Pepe was insane, the games speed wasn’t like it is today up to that point. But it really didn’t seem very intimidating for me. I had never seen a synchro summon, but that and xyz weren’t too hard to get, and pendulum seemed ridiculous to me as a new player who didn’t understand the sheer amount of investment required and needing multiple cards to make plays, but I got it pretty quickly. Your knowledge base builds up quickly, and everything builds on each other. Now I can look at new cards and maybe I don’t immediately know optimal combos, but I see how they play and their goals. The game takes some investment, but I feel that it’s exaggerated how crazy it is to learn especially for someone who played as a kid. Yes, you have to do a lot of reading. They could clean up card text with bullet points and key terms like “untargetable: monster” or “(Hard OPT)” before an effect similar to quick effect. But I love the complexity of cards and the vast cardpool, it allows for so much creativity and combos. Dude should’ve started with like barrier statue stun. Or some sort of control deck. It may make games more one sided, but simplifying the game state really helps make low investment non combo plays. Of course the game is gonna seem impossible if you’re not even reading your own cards that you’re playing, even before you load up a game, and acting like the YGO bots that we saw in farfas tournament that clicked any and all effects and summoning anything that glows without paying any attention. Dude was intentionally handicapping himself too. I’m not saying you need to play with another RU-vid coaching you. I didn’t need someone else to coach me. But it’s 2023, the internet exists. Even pro players will look up combos online to understand optimal plays. The least he could do is watch one of the many tutorials/gameplay videos on RU-vid in order to understand. By refusing to even try, he all but guaranteed he would have a bad time. There are legitimate criticisms to be said about ygo and the new player experience. The cardpool is so huge and cards are huge walls of texts, and there are SO many mechanics. It took me like two years to finally understand missing the timing. For a childrens card game, that’s ridiculous. I also think there should be more formats available, like edison, for those who enjoy slower formats. Konami should REALLY include that in master duel bc SO many new players want that slower level of gameplay. But dude wants to completely turn off his brain and play. It’s a competitive card game. I don’t want to be too defensive, bc master duel is a disaster rn. The cardpool has WAY too many degen combo/ftk enablers that are banned in standard play. I don’t understand that. But he could’ve made more of an effort. At the end of the day, yugioh is not for everyone. Dude has some legitimate criticisms, and we need new players to thrive. But I don’t think this guy would even like Edison or other legacy formats. He doesn’t really seem to enjoy the game on a fundamental level. And that’s okay! To each his own. But we need more options.

I play both Vanguard and Yu-Gi-Oh, I enjoy playing both a lot. That being said, I had a massively easier time learning Vanguard than I did Yu-Gi-Oh. I learned both the same way by the way. I watched their associated animes, and after binging several episodes of their respective series. I understood how the game worked. For Yu-Gi-Oh, I got slammed instantly (my first deck was synchron cause I thought Yusei was cool), I was able to do a few things here and there sometimes but it was rough most of the time. As for Vanguard, I picked Gear Chronicle (still my main to this day), my first build before I invested in better cards was a Time Leap and bottom deck control hybrid. I didn't win a lot, obviously, that being said due to how much simpler Vanguard is compared to Yu-Gi-Oh, the basic interactions that my baby brain thpught of while deck building by myself ended being correct and I made WAY LESS mistakes and some people didn't believe it was my first time playing the game. I literally replied "I watched character play this deck, he did this thing, I did it too but with thus card instead of that card cause I thought it would be cooler" TL,DR: Yu-Gi-Oh is fun, but you have to work a lot harder than most other card games to get to that level of enjoyment. And that is a turn off when your game is this cool, but severely overwhelming.

Ironically enough his experience with Yugioh is the same experience I had with Shadowverse (anime Hearthstone core with some major differences). Just a consistent not understanding of what my opponent was doing. I also did try hearthstone and if my memory isn't playing tricks I had a similar experience.

The way the guy in the video approached the game feels very reminiscent of new players approaching fighting games. He played through the tutorial to get the basics down, played the computer to get used to the game, but then once he got to actually playing other people, that’s where it went down hill. Both fighting games and yugioh require time and practice to get better at, as well as possibly referring to some outside sources to help, and this could even be applied to games he’s familiar with like MTG, Hearthstone, and others card games like that. I think it’s just a matter have how much effort do you really want to put in to actually get better and get to a point to where you can say you’re having fun, and honestly, the guy really didn’t seem like he was actually that invested in learning the game. It felt like he did it just for clicks rather than genuine interest. That’s just my opinion though

I think the gap inbetween how much you know about the game and how much you could know about the game is absolutely interesting and understanding that only through time you’ll begin to understand what exactly you can learn

ive been playing yugioh for a year already, i still dont know how pendulum summons work also what does co linked mean?

Hot take: You can definitely learn Yu-Gi-Oh by yourself. In my case I started with Legacy of The Duelist in PS4. I liked the game and eventually got the all the trophies. A few years after that I got Legacy of the duelist link evolution, again I got the platinum throphy. When MD was released I finally started playing regularly against real players and rather quickly got better, I even got to plat 1 the month before diamond was introduced, and the best part is that it was 100% F2P. I agree that Yu-Gi-Oh is hard but is very satisfying to become at least decent at the game.

I hard agree with farfa's takes at the end. An edison ladder in MasterDuel would honestly be the best thing ever.

I love how structure decks actually do come with a combo guide though

It is complicated mechanically but not in a way that makes it difficult to learn. Either that or Legacy of the duelist gave me the equivalent of a high school education in Yugioh.

I would argue that YuGiOh is not actually that complicated, but more like it gives new players information overload. There are a lot of things that do a lot, they don't know what those things are or how they interact with the rest of things they don't know, they have no idea of what of that is good, what and how to counter or not even how to properly read it. You don't really have to know all of them 12.000+ cards in the game, but for new players, thats what it looks like

What I dont understand is why did he decline coaching from another youtuber but is OK with letting chat coach him when he wanted the 'new player experience'?

I recently started playing yugioh starting pretty much from scratch. I bought 3 Crystal Beast structure decks and watched Neshy’s video on how to build play a deck with them. I was coming from magic so I new yugioh’s reputation for long combos and 2 turn games. I did lots of practice hands by myself, went to a local, and went 2-2. I was surprised by how frequently my games went for 4+ turns. In my experience it wasn’t that hard to learn the game. Some of the fine details of how the game works I don’t/didn’t really understand (chain blocking and missing the timing threw me for a loop). Then I went to my second local and played against super heavy samurai lmao

18:00 I played MtG, in the 90's, never touched YuGiOh, jumped into Master Duel last week, and have had 0 problems. Milano and Team APS were my outside help, been watching for a month, and they talked me into MD via video. It's complicated, but it's a joy for me- I am a Dragon Dice player, and Ttrpg dm. Both skills translate as far as pushing through the mire of rules timing, and exploration within a framework. Great game you all have!

I started as a newbie playing duel links alone then convincing my friends to play it too. I was fueled by nothing but duel logs and a dream but eventually figured out what cards are good and bad and now I literally sometimes have to tell my opponents how their own cards work.

This is why I'm genuinely excited for rush duel in duel links. If, and a big big if, konami succeeds in implimenting rush not as a cash grab but its own format I will see hope. So far even as a well seasoned player I myself haven't been able to involve myself in this format, simply cause of how limited rush has been outside of Japan. The potential for a new player base is HUGE here and should be supported by anyone in the yugioh community that wants to keep this game alive

Before MD, i just played tag force GX. It's pretty hard to understand the new mechanics and cards. It took me 1 month to learn it, but it feels so good when i catch up to the meta.

10:30 I started playing with Master Duel and when I recently learned to play Blackwings I had to use a combo guide for the first 15-20 games until I felt comfortable enough with how each card works with each other for me to stop using the guide (and I probably do suboptimal combos anyway). When I first started, my friend who's a veteran of the game recommended me Sky Striker after I pulled Kagari out of my first Master Packs because he said I'd love the mechanic of switching between different Link-1s (which is true) but I'm most thankful that this was the deck I learned yu-gi-oh with not for that, but because it wasn't really complicated in the monster combo side of things (the most complicated combo of my first "polished" version of the deck was a Halq line that involved either normal summoning a tuner Handtrap or stealing one with Widow or Shark and ending on 5.3k Accesscode by climbing with Selene). PS: Regarding card text, that's one of the first things I told my friend about it, after reading so different types of card text from so many different card games I played, no other card text was that confusing to me after first reading it that Yu-gi-oh text. And it wasn't Endymion or anything like that (although we eventually got there because memes) but still, there's so many conditions and summoning methods and moving pieces that it gets to you as a newcomer and you don't get anything.

At the 5:00 mark, he says the text needs to be changed and that is 100% correct. The problem-solving card text was a nice step in the right direction but they could do so much more. As an example, if text is in red it would be a cost. So like trade-in would have red text saying “Discard 1 lvl 8 monster;” Green could be like continuous effects or something I don't know. Or he’ll have symbols too. They have them for spells and traps (continuous and quick play) why not incorporate them into the text? There’s just so much room for that to change and go, and I fully agree bullet points are goat’d.

Hey, solo mode is great if you actually play it to the end. I literally learned yugioh from basically 0 by completing solo mode first. I still remember when I went against plunder patroll and my jaw hit the floor, plunder teached me how links work, vut you have to reach that level first, which took me about a week or so. My point is: solo mode is fine, but people just don't play it. There are some completely pointless missions, like element sabers, but also some fun ones, like the monach one. Listen... if a beginners reach the monach gate, they will learn a thing or two. I think they should eliminate some dumb gates and replace them with relevant meta decks from the past

as someone that came back into the game a while ago, the hardest thing for me was to relearn the game. specifically all the new mechanics i missed out on: xyz, pendulum, and link summoning. after that, the best deck that helped me out the most was Marincess of all things, and it's sad, to me, that there isn't a Marincess structure deck because it helped me understand link climbing, and the combo line is very low skill ceiling to the point where even, imo, Rarran could learn it

i started playing yugioh, by just going to online simulators and just playing decks during the quarantine, I knew all the main rules and read all my cards. When playing my deck it suddenly clicks what i have to do and everything just starts happening. When i look at a new deck i read the cards and get some gameplan going and if i dont understand it i check some decks and do some test hands

Meanwhile I learned how to play YuGiOh by watching Arc-V then immediately getting the Magician of Pendulum structure deck in MD Imagine my shock when I learned Stargazer and Timegazer have completely different effects in the game compared to the anime

I learned Yu-gi-oh around the beginning of last year after being bored of magic for so long. It was pretty hard to get the hang of and I had to fight my friends to try it. Needless to say we all love it

One of the things that blows my mind about Yugioh is things like missing timing. How tf have you worded your card effects so badly that they can just not work?

20:00 - Great addition was the blue text to the activatable effects, I think they could go one step further is that they could hide the non activating effects. If they want to take it further, they can add a lil button or two at the bottom for show all effects, show GY affects, show banish affects etc...

I think the batchest emote alone should rightfully chase away new and old players

As someone that plays both Yu-Gi-Oh and magic Yu-Gi-Oh is indeed a lot more complicated, you can always look up combos and stuff on RU-vid to get the basics of a deck but playing an actual game knowing matchups is a whole other story

I would love Masterduel to add to add a permanent "old school" mode... My friends who played back 15, 20 years ago would all hop on and play with me, and even look into modern yugioh. I think it would be a great addition. Or even a mode that restricted every card in the game except the first era, and slowly released the cards over time... add Synchros in after a year, then XYZ after 3 years... and basically have a 2nd game state for people to try getting into Yugioh again like it was from the beginning. Idk, just fun ideas I guess.

I got into this game about a year ago by myself, purely because the deck I wanted to play was Plunder Patroll. I will 100% recommend picking up this deck in Master Duel to anyone trying to learn the game. It gets completely destroyed by Tearlaments but it teaches you so much about the game without being too complicated

Honestly my favorite thing about yugioh is that it’s complex. There was so much to learn when I first started - it always felt like there was something new to explore.

I would love to see someone like farfa or coder absolutely lose their shit trying to coach Rarran

my start was back in 2003-2004 yugioh so I understand this as someone just coming back, the most fun I had was when I found a video talking about rank 10 trains and playing duel link and learning about Bujin, they aren't the most complex omni negate lock out that the meta may be now but it is enough to get me to mid to high gold sometimes plat. mostly because of my comfort with the deck itself. I am also a veteran magic player that usually day 2's in the modern format and i can 100% say the yugioh is so much more complex.

As someone who did a break from Dragon Ruler Format to Gouki Format i was crazy overwhelmed when i came back and somehow fought back but it took like a year to learn the game

Idk he refused to do more Solo mode. While ygo is still very complex i think he missed a step by refusing to do more of the solo mode.

I just dont get why there arent formats in master duel. Just put in like goat, or some later synchro era and another with xyt, sth like that. And then recommend new players those. Just so they are 1. Not so overwhlemed by the sheer anount of cards and different types, 2. So they can learn a slower game and get eased into combos and stuff and 3. So they can just learn basics while enjoying the game and not be preoccupied with reading a 10 page essay every turn.

I for one started masterduel during it's early days with only knowledge from the anime (DM~Vrains) and it was okay, or at least manageable for me. I Googled for the easiest deck for newcomers and went with eldlich as my first deck, eventually switched over to better decks and started playing regularly. I think starting with simple trap decks are probably the best way to learn card mechanics and interaction, since if you are new you probably couldn't make a turn 1 board with that many interactions, and with trap decks you would at least have as many interactions as your set cards, and with enough games you will eventually learn the choke points of certain decks you play with.

I recently introduced a friend to a local to show him what yugioh is about in real life (he started on master duel with crystal beast), and it was incredible to see that even when he was destroyed, he wanted to learn more and understand how to get back up from this situation with new knowledge. He told me that his goal was to defeat me with a deck he would build without my help, and now he give a try to dark world as an introduction to heavy combo based decks. It's maybe a bit hard to say that, but even when the skill cap is heavy, you'll still find people to climb that mountain because they see beauty in mecanics 😊

I know for me what help me learn the game somewhat was during the first synchro event I tried the stardust deck and watched a replay of some one playing the deck and I looked at his combo lines and imitated them. That help me get an understanding of how the deck worked and made learning the game some what easier.

Ok is it just me or are other games confusing as hell. I feel like in any of the other card games I have to be thinking five turns into the future and manage my resources way more. Sure there are less cards but I have never been confused by Yu Gi Oh game in the way I am confused by "One card pass and in 10 turns I will win" way of thinking

I remember getting Yugioh Millenium Duels on PS3 because I loved it growing up after moving away from the game. I knew what synchros were from watching 5Ds, but had no idea how to build a deck to even beat hard mode. Getting back into the game again when covid hit, it took me literally two months to relearn the modern game and understand how to even play let alone build a deck. That wasn't even the weird little nuances and timing rules, and card phrasing, and problem solving text. Understanding combos, and how to set up end boards. One of the biggest barriers was competitive players lingo and even understanding what phrases they said actually meant and how effects paired with certain lingo.

also youtube video deck guides/simple combos, whatever, are what i usually rely on

For me, the problem of beginners is based on those two points : - The will to learn beyond expectations of what the game should be compared to other games - The ability to recognize the extreme difficulty of the game and abide by the ways to overcome it, which is relying on external sources YGO is a fun game, as long as you understand most of the intricacies. This is why I liked the comparison you did one day with fighting games : At entry you are presented basic actions and combos, but you gotta learn the frame data, the matchups, the interactions, the advanced combos, the prios, you gotta optimize your knowledge to have the full experience and not get stomped continuously. Do not get me wrong, the game has issues as well but one of the biggest mistakes people can do is taking Master Duel as training grounds. Either you’re gonna learn jack shit by playing the tutorials, either you’re gonna get obliterated by a fully fledged Dragon Link combo in silver tier. This game isn’t meant for that, not in that way at least. You want to get into the game ? 1 - Begin by getting rid of the thought that « game is stupid, my opponent summoned 43 monsters with 3k attack turn 1 ». It’s not about complaining about what he does, it’s about knowing in what ways you can pierce through his plays cause I can insure you, NOBODY would play the game if it was just vomit your hand to win. 2 - Find someone to help you. From the basics to more complex plays, you NEED the coach. 3 - Have the will to learn and be patient. Game is hard. Even top players commit unintentional chet, make terrible misplays. You WILL taste defeat, but that also means you create more experience for you to learn from. 4 - Pick a simple strategy to begin with. We like to joke about « Normal Aleister » but Invoked is one of the best decks to start with. From there you can go towards other decks while having a decent understanding about phases, Soft Once per Turn and Hard Once per Turn, Damage step effects, negation, timing, targeting and non targeting removal, the importance of the graveyard, activated effects vs continuous effects, and even your first own floodgate in Caliga. 5 - Practice. This kinda goes with the Will to learn. By playing/watching people play, you will discover how other strategies work, what they are based on, expanding your knowledge and your ability to go against more and more decks. You could do so in MD but I HIGHLY recommend using an emulator like Dueling Book or even Edopro and its clones so you don’t have to wait in order to test some cards you don’t have. 6 - Do not be afraid of losing. 7 - Enjoy the game. No, really. Find your sweet spot. Want to compete with and against meta decks ? Want to duel casually with and against « bad » decks ? Want to fight in older format ? Want to not play this damn game where Merlii milled Agido, Kelbek, Sulliek turn 1 for the 4th time today and go touch grass instead to not fall into depression ? Go for it. At least you tried to understand and did not spit at the game for not meeting your expectations while you were barely scratching the surface

It feels so weird cause when people like this show a high level game and just go “I don’t know what’s happening do you??!?!” I always feel like “yeah I do know what’s happening, if you want I can help walk you through it step by step. And since this is tournament level stuff, after a couple times you will have an idea of how most games can play out”. It really is like learning another language. Yes, if you come in too hot with everything at once it’s overwhelming, but once you can understand even just some of it, it becomes much more clear and concise.

I guess I got into yugioh at a good time because I started on duel links when it first released so the power level was specifically tailored and while some cards text were long there wasn’t a whole lot you could do. It actually got me excited to play the TCG because I thought holy crap I can make my deck bigger and have better cards, and while it was a steep learning curve still, I was already accustomed to a more modern way of playing yugioh. I’ve not seen a comparable product from Konami since then

The TCG definitely needs to format effects better. Like bullet points for the effects and the conditions under or above where the effects are. I used a Blue-Eyes deck for a while now and only recently realized why Blue-Eyes Abyss Dragon's effect doesn't work sometimes. It's cause in order to activate ANY of its effects a Blue-Eyes White Dragon must be on the field or in the grave. At least figuring that out makes it easier to get out Chaos MAX fast.

ranran is me when i tried the vaylantz deck in the duel trial. i had no idea what the fuck i was doing.

I absolutely agree it's incredibly complicated and complex. Especially if you want to learn specific rulings especially on your decks interactions with other decks in the meta. Maybe even special off meta rulings. It's like needing a whole ruling book at all times. Magic is just mana drop, castt sol ring, maybe a single mana card idk. Theres obviously strategy and conplex rulings but Yu-Gi-Oh will always be the hardest game to get into now. Personal example: my gf and i play commander wirh our friends every weekend off work and it's so much less stressful than her and i plsying Yu-Gi-Oh wirh each other and she'll get stress out about it incredibly fast and that's us playing modern formats with a combo fest. We stick to magic and also convinced our friends ti get in to Yu-Gi-Oh with us but we play edison snd have significantly more fun not nostalgia but genuinely just because its the right amount stress i guess.

34:30 Farfa refers to playing the first few turns as "The illusion of gameplay." I would like to point out that this is just "Gameplay." It might be the illusion of competition, but you are physically performing the actions of the game. It IS gameplay.

When I started Yugioh I played in the speed dueling format in duel links but there is also rush duels which is an even simplified version of speed dueling, just those two formats is a great starting point for new players to learn the basic of the game, with rush duels (minus the fact you can normal summon multiple times per turn + draw till you have 5 cards in hand), and speed duels to learn the combos of more modern Yugioh (minus the character skills), but I do completely agree that the learn curve is insane for players who just pick up the game with no third party info (especially if they are playing the TCG and not OCG) (the change to structure decks I completely agree with though, but maybe they should add combo instructions as well )

Farfa is such an amazing entertainer by being able to understand what performance he should be giving. The guy can be funny and silly with also giving a thought-out opinion depending on the situation he's in. That's freaking poggers

I understand that the game is complicated. The only reason I know how to play as well as I do is because I played for so long. HOWEVER, I will say that he went in with the worst mindset you could have for getting into anything. He seemed to have written the game off at the very start of the experiment he was doing.

I remember my first time playing yugioh by sticking to only madolche, because that deck is what ropes me in. Since then i feel fairly confidence with my yugioh knowledge, but thatks also because i actively reading rulings and forums. It’s not easy to get into yugioh, but imo, it’s very rewarding.

i stopped playing right before the release of Link monsters, like maybe a week or so before their release. my "best" deck i had built was an ice barrier deck that was obv not good even for its time. i however enjoyed playing it. after master duel dropped, i decided to pick the game up again. boy was it an experience. the basic tutorial wasnt anything i didnt already know. however, learning the "meta" and how new cards interacted, and which ones were included in nearly every deck was such a huge blow to the face about how much the game changed in the years i stopped playing. ive since gotten used to it and can play alot of decks well, and even learn combos after some practice with new cards but i also have the experience of knowing the game. i have gotten into more looking up deck lists and getting a good idea of what to build and going from there, to change it to my liking and not fully netdecking. ive somewhat tried getting friends and even family members that are both new to the game and stopped around the time i did and still havent gotten anyone to pick it up so we can play. TLDR: yugioh needs to make at least master duel new user friendly with different formats to simplify the game before introducing decks like swordsoul or kashtira.