Europe's Best Yu-Gi-Oh! Player Rates Classic Magic Cards | Staple or Stinker? 

haha right...I think playing LoRT really helped. While different games with very different resource and combat systems, the stat lines per mana are pretty similar. LoRT is MTG if MTG had auto lands and every creature had vigilance and haste. But YuGiOh feels like a fundamentally different way of having a creature centric TCG.

@@mattm7798 My favorite way to describe yugioh is imagine you just played 4 turns each in 2 turns instead. It's a back and forth battle for board control and supremacy most of the time. This happens in other games, but you also spend like 4 turns doing basically minimal interactions (which is exactly how a yugioh turn starts out doing, effectively).

@@mattm7798 yeah 100%. old yugioh was *sorta* reminiscent of the pace of modern magic, but back then the design was so simple and the strategies so underdeveloped that no matter what era of yugioh you played, it is inevitably very difficult to transfer your game knowledge to magic. LoR and HS are muuuuch much more similar in comparison and a lot of the ways you would evaluate card strength in those games carry over almost entirely to mtg, with only some minor differences like color diversity and identity.

@@mattm7798 I'd just describe yugioh as.. vintage with no mulligan, and consistent burn decks are banned.

Probably why he is a good card player. 😆

Definite +1 on this one. Also how Josh took us through his thought process - absolutely impressive!

Agreed. He was great at analyzing the cards.

Yup, dude showed a lot of expertise

+1 had exactly the same feeling

yeah well deducted. I think Hearthstone tempo really translates well into magic tempo

"how does combat work?" killed me after he diagnosed a few of the cards so well

@@elidwor1856 lol fair. To be fair understanding combat between games is weird with how different combat between yugioh and magic are

I think it's because of how anal yugioh is about wording that has helped him understand the intent of the card while also having played Hearthstone and Runeterra to understand the stats slightly better.

He became yugioh master duel world champion after your comment lmao

@@LeonIsLate I mean, he won 4 YCS in total and topped 40 events. He probably is one of the top3 yugioh players of all time. Guy certainly doesn't neeed a promising magic career

For sure, there's a reason this guy's arguably the best western yugioh player

If only people just played her on 4... Much more common for it to come out turn 1 or 2 in legacy

@@professorgvd And if it's played on turn 4 it's instantly followed by wheel effects and similar to force card draw.

I found it so upsetting (in a good way) the whole time I was editing this! Like how does this one person who does not know what an artifact is assess magic cards better than the entire magic community 🤯 Josh is truly a master 👌

@SPAMisgood7 The burn

The only unfair part is he has to gamble on if a 4/5 for 4 is at least decent stats because he’s seeing it in a vacuum.

@@ThePigKnight i mean to a certain extent the vanilla test always exists and by that test it goes plus (albeit very marginally)

​@@RMSLtnick sure but the point is more that he's unaware of the test to begin with. He's basing his knowledge of stats off other games, but magic could be significantly above or below rate compared to those for all he knows. Also there's the whole thing about having unlimited tokens, double blocking and all this other magic specific stuff he has no clue about.

Yeah, what really impressed me about this wasn't just "yeah this card is a very efficient, effect laden piece of kit" it was also "I can see this being core in these decks for this reason"

Sheoldred was also heavily underated by a lot of people including pros. And this guy just understands that it wins the game all by itself.

I feel like once you reach a high enough level in one tcg you cn usually have a decent enough understanding of any card game once you know the games main rules. Like I went to my first ever MTG event last weekend playing for the first time in a draft event where my only experience in a game similar is me being a top player in Eternal, which is like a baby MTG refugee center for ex Hearthstone players. I did ok for someone who'd never touched MTG before. I won 2 games out of 6.

@@saphired02 he just remembered all the bad memories of getting floodgates

@@saphired02 I've been out of magic for a while, and just a glace tells me that this card is wild. Solid blocker, tons of life swapping, a color that can easily bring it back, deathtouch in case they DO have a massive beater early, and a color that commonly includes efficient cards for draw that have a downside of life loss, which is entirely negated by her.

A lot of people saw the series during prerelease and thought it was absolutely too slow, but look at where it is now!

🤣 that's actually very funny!

​@@CardmarketMagicon which complexity-basis do you choose the cards?

@Ziri lan we try to focus on cards that were either severely underated or overrated in their standard environment and to specifically select cards that can be evaluated without having to know of other cards (for example, splinter twin or Inverted of truth)

@@CardmarketMagic Tarmogoyf would fit that since it took pretty long for it to take off but that would probably too easy

It’s also clear he thought about how common removal is in the game when comparing them because one is a trigger and one is etb.

That feel when a person who doesn't even play Magic recognizes power creep instantly.

​@@ThePigKnight Well in yugioh parlance, both would be trigger effects, except Siege Rhino would be "When this card is summoned" while Sheoldred would be "When you/your opponent draws a card(s)".

@@mansman2167 They are both triggered abilities in magic as well. Siege Rhino's is just referred to as an etb (enters the battlefield) ability for extra precision in description.

@@Blackmystix what's the spell speed on etb effects?

Damn that would be hella entertaining. Hope this comment travels to the top.

This is interesting idea, but with how much cards magic has this might be too complicated to pull off just because guest would need to learn so much to even know where to start building. Maybe having constructed or draft with non magic pros would be good to hear they thought process. It could be a whole tournament event. Film video for each deck construction and each match + maybe even prizes at the end. Or having certain pool of cards and guest having to figure out how to build the best deck out of that pool.

Holy crap that's genius. I hope someone does that at some point

​@@cryptorcd9352 I think having them play draft would be nice since its a limited card pool so it wouldn't overwhelm them too much I think

Make em play sealed, less card pool, no format shenanigans, just have em Crack a booster box and make something g give em basics tho

Yeah he was seriously impressive. I could not believe it the whole time editing, the guy who does not know what an artifact is is better at assessing magic cards than the whole magic community 😅

Magic pros are right to be skeptical of any big creature that doesn't do something the turn it drops until they can actually test it in the meta. Rhino at least always gets its ETB off. It's just that Sheoldred is insane if she sticks and, being a 4 mana 4/5, dodges enough cheap removal spells to be worth playing. Still, she's best when you've used cheaper threats and discard to ensure she gets time on the board.

Well there was no 'Medium' option here. He knew that the card was either great or bad. And I think most magic pros would figure out that Shelly should be playable at least.

@@MaSolSC2 it's also so context dependent which isn't a big part of these evaluations. MonoBlack or BlackX is INSANE right now and Shelly wouldn't be thought about as highly if the curve before and after was not so good and such a good fit. Yeah this is never a bad creature but the fact it is format defining in standard has a lot to do with other cards like Invoke, Trespasser or Lilli.

Yeah but 8 years of power creep.

Definitely agree

same

My Favorite is the gameplay videos

Yup. I'd love to see players from as many other card games as possible show up here. I still think that 1 out of the 5 cards should be an intentional "bait" card that sees play in fringe decks, but has never seen *widespread* play. Shuko or Cephalid Illusionist are great examples of super strong combo pieces in a top tier legacy deck, but they're awful on their own without the very specific support they have within that deck. Telling the "challenger" that there's one bait card before they start and revealing their score at the END would lead to a lot of tension where they might be second guessing previous picks, or wanting to change their evaluation as they go.

Ohhhh, that would be great!

I’d say go for it, he’s got some pretty chill streams. He’s pretty charming and analytic. He’s got a YT channel for analyzing cards, deck, and game states, but he’s not really a content creator like a full on Yugituber, but in terms of strategy game players I’d say Josh is probably among top 3 in the western Yu-GI-Oh player base right now.

His yugioh content is my favorite. He is very analytical there as well. It was hilarious how he was analyzing and explaining Magic cards so well, but wasn't sure how combat works 😂😂 He never fails to impress me.

I agree, but then why did he bring up fetchlands for kudzu? Fetches were never legal when kudzu was standard legal

Sheoldred is a staple in pioneer and explorer in mtgarena. There was also a time where Siege Rhino is a staple in modern. The other cards were not used in any format...

Thank you! That's very nice of you to say :)

Isn't an artifact pretty comparable to a Continuous Spell in YGO?

@@aryst0krat I suppose that’s true. I had equated them more to enchantments, because that feels more like a 1:1. It’s really how different the mana system is and how that affects tempo that would likely be confusing to any player coming from YGO.

​@@dagonhydra Yeah mana system confused him lil bit I think. In ygo, people usually gain immediate advantage by playing continous spell for whatever reason, then combo off. Magic probably can't do that because mana, so playing artifact with nothing else to back it up atm is a waste. Ain't no way ygo player playing continous spell and pass either, mind you.

@@adewilyan8030 You underestimate how hard a generaider deck can brick

@@Aquilenne lmao good point

We actually just talked today about bringing him back

@@CardmarketMagic awesome!

Yeah its rough that it got printed into a standard format with such a definingly powerful 4-drop already there ;p

We'll be posting an interview with him on our article insight page :)

Escape to the wilds is a great one! 😃

huh. i would've never guessed that it was banned

Escape was a meme card in its own deck until all the broken stuff got banned from standard and resolving it became good enough.

The AI Generated card series is the best, but this is a close second :)

You are absolutely correct, easily one of the top 3 players in the west rn.

Thank you for making an exception and sharing your thoughts :) I was also completely blown away when editing this that the guy who has to ask what an artifact is analyzes MTG cards better than most MTG players! 🤯

Thank you! 😃 and indeed, thoralf is a great host!

Adanto vanguard has already been added to the list of cards we take from when making these :) I feel like it's a little too easy though because it's so obviously powerful 🤔