How To BREAK a Trading Card Game 

Hello Fellow Anarchist! Would you be willing to try out a Card Game I've been working on? Kind regards, Michael

I actually have to disagree with this point, while zoodiac was broken many of the actual XYZ weren’t that powerful and actually pretty weak, their strongest XYZ monster was just open sports and quick affect pop, what made them broken was specifically the XYZ themselves being able to be used as material, if that was the case every single one of them would be balance with the exception of broadBull ( And that’s only because the beast warrior type has been supported a lot recently

Also if cheating the mechanic is what made them broken, mask heroes, Tri-brigade would have bands

and now we got Ishizu Tearlaments

Yugioh is tearalaments not zodiac Zodiac beast as an archetype is fine the only problem is molmorat/ratpier.

Completely the opposite.zoo format was pretty fun

limitation brew inovation and the feeling of being rewarded when achieving " the thing"

Same!

While I agree with the sentiment I would point out they screwed up badly when V started, so many infinite combos were created and we’re off the rails presumably because the people designing for V didn’t even give a crap about standard. valkorion being one of the most Blatant examples of course they got the group back together at the end of v banding or fixing infinite combos to not work and currently in Vanguard overdress it seems the designer actually looking at standard and avoiding infinite combos Also I would like to put out magic and Yu-Gi-Oh figure this out way faster than Vanguard

I’ll try to use a wider variety in the future! MTG is the one I know best, it’s been around the longest and has the most cards, so it was the easiest to pick examples from

Magic's also managed to hit basically every possible permutation of brokenness over its long lifespan as well. Engines? Not only did it invent the concept, its made more than I can count. Uneven exchange? Done it so many times its actually kind of funny. Avoiding costs and restrictions? There's entire deck archetypes built around it. Just plain stupid? OH HI THERE OKO!

OK while I agree somewhat, Yu-Gi-Oh would be an unfunny and boring game without it special summons, Yu-Gi-Oh try to have a resource system with tribute summons, and no one used it because it’s a cost even if the tribute summons were Bigger also special summon exist in the earlier stages of Yu-Gi-Oh and it didn’t break the game, fusions and rituals are literally that , why is the problem of “special summon” only now pointy to even though it’s existed the entire game special summoning isn’t a problem designing around it is hints a lot of balance special summoning monsters are usually pointless unless you use them to summon a bigger monster with another monster as material (as this is pretty much how Yu-Gi-Oh add cost to their bigger monsters, for the most part)

@@empireyouth5791 I wasn't saying Special Summoning in general is a problem, it is when you special summon without an actual cost to that summon. The biggest offenders are actually cards that summon more from the deck or summon themselves purely based on current board states, especially when those states are ones you would end up at in the normal state of play eg. "If you have a (insert archetype) monster on the field you can special summon this card" or "If this card is sent to the graveyard you can fusion summon using cards from hand/deck/field/grave" without any downside to that special summon. Any cost avoidance strategy needs to be carefully considered before a card is designed with it, and Konami didn't consider them carefully for a very long time. Therein lies the issue with YGO as it has developed, first really shown in the CED and Tele-DAD decks over a decade ago.

@@matthewkeeling886 I don’t think “ if you have ( insert archetype) Monster special some of this card” or “ if you’re using this card the way you intended (such as fusion material) gain advantage” is problematic design. These only become problematic designed to win access to generic para full tools are available such as Nero fiber, Savage dragon, access code talker. basically the problem isn’t back end (monsters summoning themselves is elite an archetype or if doing set an archetype well) it’s front end (allow you to use those cards to create generically overpowered cards) this is why I think the xyz era was one of the most balance in terms of architect designs. Well they had a lot of the stuff there wasn’t any powerful and generic extra deck threat that wasn’t archetype locked. Instead they were weaker but more toolboxes meaning for pushing game they were kind of pointless. The only exception to this rule during the time from the top of my head is silence honor ark, and even then it was easy to play around although really powerful

@@empireyouth5791 Whereas I find it the other way around, too many toolboxes that rely on the extra deck monsters for end effect mean that you have a limited ability to design those cards, which are YGO's "standout feature". Cut down on the self starting toolbox approach and you can keep the generics in the extra (which are needed for the decks with less support, which often have no native monster in there). There is absolutely a power level issue with those extra deck monsters (especially with Link 1-2s) but the overuse of main deck special summons homogenizes the card design considerably and enables a lot of the degenerate plays. There is a balance point somewhere in the middle, which the Synchro and XYZ eras were pretty good at maintaining, though they did frequently end up with extra deck spam decks (blackwings, karakuri, wind up, plant, etc.) pendulum era decks on the other hand went bad in both directions and Links failed to fix it due to poor design. I would say the main deck self summons (and fusion from deck cards or Extra Deck monsters that special other monsters) need downsides (reduced stats, negated effects, summon locks, etc.) in order to keep them contained. One card combo starters are a major design failure, no matter if they are confined to an archetype or not, and a lot of those are removed if a single downside is added to their summon effect.

Couldn’t have said it better myself Matthew great points

Well you’re not normal summoning anything else since Yata is taking your normal each turn. But considering the time period, the yata player probably had a few other Chaos bosses in the deck somewhere. And it would only take 3 hits to kill. Considering you could play 3 chaos sorc + BLS. Its pretty unlikely that all your copies are so low that you deck out first.

you have to remember, CED also inflicted 300 dmg for every card sent to the grave. Assuming 3 cards in the hand, a monster and two backrow (regular for the time) CED, Sangan and 2 backrow for the attackign player, that's 13 cards x 300, so 3900 dealt there. Just shy of half. Plus the attacking player can still draw, so they could boost him later with equips or other monsters later in the duel so as to speed things up. Monser Reborn was also a thing, so any stronger than yata monster in either grave could be pulled for free for easier grinding.

Far and away from the truth. Different formats go through different metas, but most do in fact have a few deck archetypes that are viable. And the older the formats are the harder it is for a pure control deck to actually be viable. Control in mtg is defined as a deck having a lot of answers to your opponent while their deck usually has only a handful of actual win cons. The analog for lockdown in mtg is actually called "stax", these types of cards restrict your opponents' ability to take game actions or severely limit what their actions can do. Cards like Thalia, Winter Orb, and of course Smoke Stack.

Given when this video was released, he wouldn't have expected the definition of full lockdown being released in YGO.