Master Duel Exposed a BIG Problem in Yu-Gi-Oh 

I think they should add special areas lobbies for “time periods” DM, GX, 5Ds etc where you can only use cards that were available and around during that time period

I think you’re confused about the issue some of us “Yugioh boomers” have with the game. It’s not that it’s overwhelming or that we don’t understand the mechanics. It’s that it’s simply not fun to sit for 10+ minutes waiting for your opponent to finish their turn just so they can set up an unbreakable board. Sure, I know about staple hand traps and flood gates and Kaijus but it’s boring to built decks and play decks whose whole objective is to not let your opponent play, whether it’s because we set up the unbreakable garbage or because we stopped them from ever doing anything through the use of hand traps, Kaijus, or floodgates. I don’t want to negate everything! That’s garbage. I want to see what your deck can do! I want a back-and-forth game that’s fun and interactive. Not this “I win in one turn” garbage or I have “infinite disruption”. I can built these decks too. I know how to play them. I know how to succeed with them. It’s not that it’s overwhelming. It’s that it’s BORING and only truly successful in a “pay to win” environment. It’s not that I can’t win with these broken decks. It’s that I don’t want to. However, I don’t care that others enjoy that! I don’t want other’s fun taken away simply because I and many others don’t enjoy it. All I want is for them to expand the casual and solo environment. Then everyone can play the game as they wish and everyone gets rewarded for playing the game we all collectively love. The “hardcore” community, on the other hand, simply wants the game to only exist as they see it and to only be rewarding to those who share their vision of what this game ought to be. That’s where the imbalance is.

My favourite duels are the ones that take 5-10 (or even more) turns. The back and forth of the duel is what I enjoy the most.

I feel like hand traps like Ash Blossom are like HM Slaves in Pokémon. Unfortunately you need them in your team, even though they take up a slot and only have one use. Basically, Ash Blossom is Bidoof.

The amount of cards that “cannot be effected by card effects” which includes effect monster, traps and magic cards is obscene

I'm a returning player after many years and at first I was delighted with how much nostalgia I had for these cards. I was also really getting into the new cards and sets. I learned xyz, pendulum, fusion and synchro. Spent a bit of money to finish a couple decks, completed the solo missions and really expected myself to go long term with Master duel. Lasted about a week or two. The insurmountable vibe breaker for me was what many have mentioned, one turn game meta, maybe two turns... It just flies in the face of everything I've come to expect from any strategy or tcg. The back and forth is supposed to be the fun part. One good thing that came from it though. My desire to play a back and forth strategy game inspired me to pick up mtg again. Few months into that now and still picking up steam.

I don’t think this is a “Yugi-boomer” issue, but a casual player vs competitive player. I’m pretty sure you could take an old competitive player from GOAT format or Tele-DAD format and they’d have the right mindset to learn the new decks and matchups fairly quickly. A casual player no matter what time era probably isn’t going to understand the other decks and have the mindset to learn the meta and how to beat it.

When master duel was announced we were told you could ay TCG and OCG, having its own banned list means you don't get either. Also, elitism and gate keeping from my experience are more common in yugioh than other tcg communities and I really don't understand why. I came 2nd at locals with cubics, then I was told by several other players why my deck is just a "fun deck" and it sucks. I mean, I came 2nd out of about 30 people and the guy that won who was playing tri-brigade thought it was cool I did so well. If my deck isn't good in someone else's because I find it fun, I don't care, why play without wanting to have fun, makes no sense to me

As one of the yugi boomers, I'm willing to adapt to everything except the long ass turns. I've had multiple... MULTIPLE players take more than 10 minutes on their first turn. I stopped playing around the synchro era, and I'm caught up on everything, but I can't waste that much time just to lose. Especially when I'm just running a pretty basic deck. Hand traps are decent counters, but they actually add more time to the duel. This has been the most I've spent with YGO in a decade, but I can't keep watching the same combos take that long.

As a casual player/“yugi-boomer” duel links, when released was great for the nostalgia and fun of not having to study and try so hard. Links clearly has evolved into now being a much more modern type of game play. With master duel I had to learn the newer mechanics like link summoning and pendulum cards and their purpose in the game. I don’t mind the relearning but as stated it was overwhelming at first, but now thru trial and error I’m currently having fun trying build decks and learning how to work with and around these new mechanics in the game. For yugi-boomers that just want to play a casual game with not as huge of a learning curve duel-links is the way to go, but for wanting to expand the game to what it is today master duel is a best bet.

I just think it’s kind of ridiculous how 1 player can take 10 minutes comboing, and then when it’s the other players turn they just surrender because they can’t deal with negates.

The most frustrating thing with Master duel is that it seems like you are actively discouraged from playing the cards you like and seem fun to you. It feels like you have to use the same cards and strategies as everybody else if you want to win. It feels discouraging like I am being punished for the parts of the game that I like, making fun and wacky deck builds, experimenting, and seeing what works with cards that appeal to me. Being told I just need to get good just makes me feel small and feels like I am being told that I have to play the way everyone else does and that my way is wrong. It's not really master duel's fault. It was just really jarring going from duel links where lots of things and silly goofy decks could be viable, to whatever the current master format is.

Both sides have their points. On one hand, you can't expect to have the game stay stagnant for 2 decades just so that you can enjoy "Classic" Dark Magician Vs. Blue Eyes. On the other hand, the meta has gotten so bad that it forces people to compromise on their playstyles and are forced to dedicate 9 slots in their main deck for handtraps just to play the game. Staying true to your playstyle while being capable of competing is very hard.

I think MD's separate banlist has revealed that there's some cards that don't need to banned anymore, and that there's a few cards that should never see the light of day ever again.

For years now Yugioh has had this fixation with efficiency that ends up detrimental to the experience. This is not fault of the players being as competitive as possible, but of the game itself enabling this kind of stuff. Feeling like you can lose immediately and easily if you don't super build the board turn 1, or don't fill up an OTK or a bunch of negators/interruptions just as quickly. Sure it might be technically balanced and interactive, but only for the most hardcore players that know how to counter/maneouver such levels of establishment. The game needs a bit of leeway against the looming sensation of "this is already an unwinnable situation and it is the start of my first turn going second". That is a big turn off for people that expect some back and forth to be possible at the very least even when running semi competent casual build. The most competitive players far from recognizing that issue, act like filthy casuals are just being dumb. Tolerance would be a good start among players if nothing else. It is a tough thing to solve though since decades of powercreep has been kind of a natural process one can't just undo.

The last era of yugioh I played in before master duel was the early xyz era. I personally think the game was a lot more fun before pendulum and link monsters came out. The power creep was already bad in the xyz era, but I still back then and enjoyed it. The best era of yugioh was when it actually felt like a game where you could grind for card advantage and feel like you outplayed your opponent to win. Long combo first turns into setting up a board just aren't something I see as fun? Like even if hand traps exist, it's just silly and honestly takes too long. The only way I can have fun on master duel while still winning is playing a gren maju/danger deck because I feel like I can compete against meta decks without having to combo combo combo for 10 minutes to play the game

I'm guessing these reasons are partially why konami is planning on implementing different game events or different play styles. And yes, I've been saying this for years, there SO many different ways to play this game and meta-competitive-consistent is not the only way to go. There are 10-11k cards out there, let's use more card varieties in our decks please. 1: We need to separate competition from casual. 2: We need to separate certain types of deck builds. 3: We need more emphasis on games that aren't 1-2 turn and encourage more than just one strategy decks. Competition is important, it has a purpose, it needs to be played. However, it does NOT need to be played 24/7. Every single deck does not need this type of build. There are no prizes to be won if you play competitively every single day. There are no trophies. There is no magazine article. There is no fame to claim. Bragging rights goes as far as you can throw them, and you can't throw what you can't touch.

I'm coming from an "old school" perspective I left right when pendulums were introduced and coming back into master duel was really a shock. My opponent gets away with like 30 summons first turn and im just like "oh boi a Lyla I can mill 3 for my first turn sweet!" it feels like every deck is as long and painfully slow to play against as an exodia deck. No hate on the hobby I will always have a soft spot for yugioh but the way it is now aint for me. Increasing the speed of the game (at least in the way konami did it) comes at the cost of slowing it down significantly for the opponent. I just wish I could play a game that last more than 5 turns.

Now I know what the meta elitists remember me of. There was a guy in the university's dormitory which we once played magic with, yep once. He started to play a deck which either kills you in turn 1 (where you can't do anything, magic has resources to handle with) or has to surrender and he actually wondered why we didn't play with him anymore. He was utterly confused, that was the only funny thing about it.

I do think Legacy of the Duelist did a far superior job of walking lapsed players through the different summoning mechanics, and offered a lot more single player content for them to take their time getting a feel for their decks.

Another thing Master Duel has brought to light is how different OCG players are to TCG. In the TCG, stuff like Maxx "C" is banned. In the OCG, they had it at 3. There were no issues with it being at 3 until TCG players started playing with the OCG banlist in Master Duel. The same was true for That Grass Looks Greener. The OCG also has a different meta. The way TCG players look at the game is different than the way OCG players look at it and I'm sure that if OCG players started playing with the TCG banlist, they'd find a way to break it like how TCG players found a way to break the OCG banlist.

As someone totally new to the game, there's definitely a steep learning curve! Though I think the solo mode helps quite a bit with learning from scratch. I found Magic easier to get into, but even that took 6-12 months to start getting comfortable with playing.

It's a little discouraging because I was so excited to see the Monarch cards and Gladiator Beasts I'd tried (and failed) to collect as a kid finally playable AND with additional support over the years, and playing them IS super fun ... In solo mode. I didn't expect to win with those decks, I'm hard stuck in bottom Gold and that's fine, but nothing is more frustrating than losing a duel without getting to even play the game or worse: resorting to negating everything my opponent does with the Fivehead No Fun Allowed Zombie card and the like. A duel for me was always a fun back and forth discussion between two people who liked the monster pictures printed on their cards, and now I only get that in solo mode, or playing against irl friends who are super casual like me.

In my opinion, right after xyz monsters were introduced was the most fun time for YuGiOh. There was a lot you could do with decks and could be creative in ways other than figuring out how many omni-negates and hand traps you can fit in your deck, but it also wasn't too limited like T-setting and ending turn. OTKs were around but not super common, and sometimes it was possible to make a comeback

I guess my issue is somewhat of a middle ground. I've been playing since the game's beginnings, so I guess I'm kind of a Yugi-boomer, but at the same time, I try everything that comes out mechanics-wise. I love a lot of modern decks, and play a few with some long combos of my own. Even a couple hand traps, though not as many as people think I should. My problem is that most decks are just a pile of different engines. It's taken a lot of what I felt the soul of the game is. Everyone tries to win as fast as possible without interacting with the opponent, and it takes away what makes it a "duel". You can't have a "duel" without two participants. Like a good swordfight, always moving back and forth, parry, thrust, parry, with the person on the back foot constantly changing. Only in this case, replace swords with cards. My favorite duels are ones where both me and my opponent can get out awesome monsters and have them clash. Yeah we try to counter each other and make sure they can't play some of their major threats, or overpower what threats they do get out, but it's always a clash, always a different game each time. Doesn't matter how new or old the cards are, we just play, and more often than not have an even, engaging match. I do understand that the meta plays differently, though. And if I ever do decide to play competitively, I'll probably just build something I already like in a more meta state. It's just about the best I can do.

I think having more formats to play would def help alot! The xyz festival was fun, but things like goat, or some other early format (ranked or unranked doesnt matter) with special boosters to get the cards you need for that format would help get more players to keep playing. I am kinda scared that if konami doesnt use the time right many will just stop playing before they release all the content

My biggest problem as a Yugioh "boomer" has been that in the past, if I was able to stop an opponent's combo at a key point their combo would be done. But nowadays, even while playing Traptrix, I'll negate or destroy, or flip opponent's monsters face down and its like it doesn't even phase them, the combo gets a new route but it still goes on. Decks like Tri brigade Lyrilusc, Trick Star, Prank Kids, Drytrons, and Eldlich just don't care that you stopped one of their cards. They'll use another card effect that gets them another card and then be able to summon out all of their cards once again. Its so extremely frustrating that I can have Traptrix Sera, Raflessia, Floodgate Trap Hole, Grave Diggers Trap Hole, and Ash Blossom in my hand, or some other variants and I just simply can't stop their combos from going off after expending everything. Maybe I'm a boomer for these thoughts but I have so much fun in silver through gold ranks but the second I hit plat, which I can do in a day or two, I get bodied over and over by these unstoppable combos. Its just so demoralizing. And don't get me started on those boards that get set up and can negate everything, though its kind of like what I'm doing with my deck. One thing I actually think is a massive positive for this game nowadays though are hand traps. It sucks going second and having no options to stop your opponent from bringing out an unstoppable board. At least with those you have a fighting chance.

Honestly, I feel a lot of veteran/current players like to meme on people who are new to the game or came back from the game from the older sets. They like to rag on people for finding things like summoning your whole deck in the first turn or cards with essays as the effect description. And then they make fun of people for "being afraid" of the new cards. But lets look at your videos and other youtubers videos for example, people just genuinely have more fun watching you duel with old structure decks for a reason, its more entertaining than watching someone shuffle their deck and summoning 500 cards for 10 minutes just for one turn. I think its a shame speed duel didnt take off and rush duel probably would never come to the states. I think its the same reason why a lot of other TCGs dont take off because they just become so complicated that its offputting for new players to get into. But yea...honestly I find the people who meme and get really toxic on people who find the game confusing is a really bad look on the community

I agree with some of the comments I’ve seen that the game has a steep learning curve and there’s too many cards, and there’s also the fact that a lot of the big decks are “speedrun the game and end it turn 1” or “don’t let your opponent do anything” and I personally do not like the lack of interaction that can happen to those people who don’t know all the meta. Tbh this is what pushed me to other games, especially the ones that have resources for their own cards like mana in MTG because that can slow down the game a bit more and allow people to play a bit more than just one turn.

As someone who's just poked their head back into Yugioh, I will say I have some gripes about it's design compared to other card games, but also things I like about it. Probably the biggest issue I see with it is that it's extremely hard to look at a pile of cards as a new player and have any idea how they are supposed to interact and what plays are good. Because so many searchers and special summon effect give you access to such a wide pool of cards, like your entire deck or graveyard, there are so many branching paths of card interactions and it's hard to know what to value or easily tell what route can continue or lead to a good finishing state. The different archetypes and summoning mechanics also require different resources and interact fairly differently. Even coming from my last point of reference, which was the 5Ds video games, combos and interactions are much more sprawling and there's a lot more searching, special summoning spam (although six samurais did kind of get near current levels of resource spam and recycling) and such. Comparatively, if you understand the basics of magic, you can often assess a pile of cards relatively quickly. Low cost beaters for aggro all can be judged roughly on power vs mana cost and they usually share the same kinds of bonus effects like haste to hit earlier or block prevention to push damage through defenses. Even synergistic decks don't usually require specific card interactions and due to very limited searching options, you can't count on two specific cards being together to interact unless you're a combo deck dedicated to getting that one 2 card pair together. Instead most cards act relatively independent of each other and along the same shared power/resource standards (card advantage gain, mana cost, power/toughness, etc...). This is part of why drafting works in Magic and is such a supported game format. It's very easy to assemble a pile of functional cards by just picking out cards that work on the same axis (low cost damage for aggro, stall/counters/removal for control, card advantage for midrage, etc...). On the other hand, once you get ahold of the decks, I do like how Yugioh decks give you a lot of options. Lots of searching and recycling means you have a number of options and routes you can take depending on the situation. The extra deck also allows for you to run powerful boss monsters and toolkit options that you always have access to without them both clogging your main deck. There's a reason why few Magic decks play very high cost boss monsters and that's because you have to run them main deck and outside dedicated turbo or cheating out decks, they are dead in hand for a long time and may be useless all the way till the game ends. Meanwhile toolkit cards being run main deck in Magic means you may never have that out to the opponent's big boss monster or combo because you didn't draw it.

This video is very appreciated. I just picked up Master Duel yesterday and so far it's a ton of fun reliving the game. I was a highly competitive players many years ago in Michigan, US (Shonen Jumps/YCSs/Nats, etc). My grasp on the game is quite lose but I can pick up on things fairly quickly. That being said, I haven't actively played in well over a decade and have to spend a significant amount of time even reading all the cards getting thrown my way. When I was active and a player really wanted to play their favorite archtype - even if insufficient competitively - my group always encouraged them to adjust it to be as strong as it could. We talked about strong, splashable staples and discussed synergy. Folks wouldn't necessarily win, but they would have more fun feeling like they had a chance. The biggest thing I can say that pushed away players was a toxic metagame scene. Yes, the decks were frustrating for people to play against, but it was the personalities/presentation of the upper-level players that made folks turn away from the game. Sadly, some things never truly change. All I ask can is that anyone who reads this does their part to encourage someone else to enjoy the game in their own way while also helping better that person. At the end of the day, more people playing means the game lives on, and that lets us all keep the fun memories so that we can come back in another 10-20 years and keep on dueling. 💗👊🏾 🃏

Sounds like Master Duel has a potential, but could be the final nail in into the game's coffin. The game supposed to have fun decks, but now it's tournament level decks everywhere instead. If you don't draw a hand trap, your opponent might be playing a game of solitaire going through their entire deck, or just put out all the boss monster that negate my entire game. Problem is, there's a lot of things that are not fun to play against, and there's also too many things that are supporting those cards to bring out early. I think it's not the player's fault for being bad if they didn't even get a turn to play at the first place. Since there's not much in Master Duel outside of ranked play, people will start facing there with the crazy combos and turn them away from the game forever. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

Without going too deep into the list of gripes, the biggest one I'd love to see is simply splitting up different effects onto different lines, in the order of (alternate) summoning conditions>ETB effects>triggered effects>activated effects. It'd make looking through a card I haven't seen before for the information that matters in the moment MUCH quicker.

Master Duel is great. It's helping me understand the Hand traps and the pendulum and link form of the game. I've always been afraid of playing at local card shops because since I'm not too familiar with how a lot of cards work then I'm afraid of being told hey you can't do that and you can't do this. So in here I'm actually learning. So hopefully I can break out of my shell and play at some locals.

Yugioh is the most broken, unfair, unbalanced TCG, and thats why players love (or hate) it. The game balance philosophy of yugioh seems to be "if everything is broken, then nothing is". This has lead to literal FTKs being considered sub-optimal strategies because, even though they can win before your opponent gets a chance to play, they're still not considered meta because it's only slightly less consistent than a regular strategy that can already pseudo-FTK your opponent anyway. As the saying goes in YGO "if it doesn't do anything unfair, then it's not a good deck".

As someone who was fluent up into GX, I was overwhelmed when I first started master duel and got very frustrated. The play seemed very unfair at points and honestly still does. I think the point about pointing people to resources is s great one because the only reason I don't get as upset, frustrated, and can continue to play the game is because I watched people on RU-vid use and explain the different, newer methods of playing.

think part of the problem is when i bring this up, a lot of ppl immediately think im talking about 2005 yugioh of dark magician vs blue eyes. But i just want pre-pendulum era with xyz, synchros, and fusions. The game was diverse but nowhere near as complicated and long and oppressing and 'forcing-you-to-play-10-handtraps' as it is now. Sure there were certain 'long' decks, or 'complicated' cards or some handtraps, but nowadays it feels like its EVERY deck and EVERY single card.

I got into MD and I understand the mechanics the special summons and all that. My problem is that if I don't get a hand trap in my hand at the start of the match then I gotta wait 15 minutes for the enemy's combo to end and get FTK without even being able to play. I don't mind long games and losing as long as I'm having fun, but if I wait that amount of time only to lose without making a move it just plainly kills my mood.

Idea for a casual format: one card is limited to 3, the rest are limited to only 1. It basically turns the game into the anime. Rarely did a deck in the show run more than 1 of any particular card (unless it was something like blue-eyes). Makes combos more meaningful, shortens turns, and makes the game have more turns.

As someone who picked up master duel as a nostalgia game, I think the mentality to talk to new players should be more about finding the fun in the new mechanics. I took the dragon deck at start purely for blue eyes because using it sounded fun. After playing with it for a while I started looking into the blue eyes support cards and some of the new extra deck monsters. The first time I was able to use one of my extra deck monsters to good effect in a way my main deck couldn't accomplish it clicked for me what was fun about modern yugioh. Once I had found that it became easier to be okay with stuff like needing to run maxx c and ash blossom all the time because using those cards to survive meant I got to do the fun part on my turn. Granted I'm a long time magic player with a fairly competitive mentality so optimizing decks and playing to win appeal to me, and I think with ranked as the core experience it can alienate casual players who don't feel the same desire

Master Duel also exposed the solitary nature of playing with yourself which I am guilty of if your opponent doesn't have the handtrap or the necessary cards to break your board and you are forced to scoop because what else are you supposed to do.

As someone who played from 2002-2015 I was entrenched for a long time and it is really hard for me to enjoy modern yugioh. I think the reason I have been able to stay so long has been older formats like goat and edison. If Yugioh had a format system similar to magic were you could play with older eras of cards It would make me want to play much more. I hope I can get back into modern yugioh one day, but If I was playing older formats all the time that would be more realistic.

The last time I played Yugioh was Tag Force 5D's. So far, I really enjoy Master Duel. I learned a lot about things I thought so complicated, such as hand traps, combos, meta deck etc. As a casual player, I like dragon decks and have no plan on making meta deck just for the sake of winning. It's possible to win in Platinum using favorite deck rather than the meta one. Furthermore, it's more enjoyable as a player and rewarding if somehow we could beat those strong decks. There are more updates to come, so let's just enjoy the ride and keep on making creative decks!

They need a casual mode, so you could actually try out different cards and decks without having to waste your points. It would also be cool to see people be more creative with their decks. I played yesterday and no joke every deck I faced was a blue eyes deck

I came in as a Yugi Boomer, GX being the last gen I was familiar with. Got very confused in a few matches so I watched a RU-vid video on a deck built around Relinquished, which was my favourite card as a kid. I was able to actually win most matches with this deck until I got to the meta tiers but it was great for me to see these decks properly once I had my own footing. So I started to learn more about the game and the meta and the new mechanics by playing this one and being able to duel properly. I think that is a solution.

People saying "Yuigoh is fine you just need to get good" and "handtraps are a necessary evil" in the same sentence is a complete contradiction. I've been watching this channel for years and I've played competitive yugioh since the start of the game. I know yugioh in and out. The state of the game has really just gone to shit. That's why people who are returning to yugioh now with Master Duel are complaining. It's nothing new. We've all been complaining about how the game has gone downhill since pendulums came out, it's just that now the common casual person can see the struggle too with Master Duel being available for everyone F2P

A thousand times this. Thank you for saying this. I started with yugioh way back at it's inception, but the local scene died and I then went to magic. I remember the magic community being very helpful and willing to help me get into their game. I actually found this channel because of the video with TCC. I don't play Yugioh, but I like the way you guys do things and I like being somewhat informed on other card games. I have been trying to fight on reddit saying that the community should not be so harsh toward "yugiboomers". Blue eyes is the games most iconic monster and it is offered as starter deck option in master duel. Many people want to and will play it, so I don't get how hating on them is productive. Seems to me the community has it's way of thinking and don't want any new blood or ideas. I was trying to explain if you want to grow a community or game it is up to the enfranchised players to take criticism and try to guide and explain to newer players. Instead I just see mostly hateful opinions toward noobies, and enclosed in group. The game really needs more formats, and playlists where you can earn rewards. Many new yugioh players say "play duel rooms" well some people don't have friends to play with and also you don't get anything from playing duel rooms. Currently I just see the yugioh community as immature compared to other TCG communities and games, and it is a big turn off. If they want their in club they can have it cause where I play I like to get new players interested in the game not make them want to quit for trying to have their version of fun.

I understand both sides and I always wondered what an additional format would provide for yugioh. Like how Mtg has Standard, Modern, Legacy, EDH, etc. If yugioh has like an old school format, I think it would attract lot of older players.

As what many of you would call a "yugi-boomer." My favorite rendition of of Yu-Gi-Oh was when the (original) monarchs were really strong. I have been playing Master Duel and have been enjoying playing it mostly. What is most overwhealming is not the 'new' mechanics, but rather the sheer amount of monsters with multiple effects popping off in rapid succession, and trying to read everything and understand what is happening. Overall, I do think the game was more enjoyable when turns didn't take that long and negates were only from counter-traps. The powercreep is bigger than I've seen in any other game.

I'd love to see a format or two dedicated to more casual/non-meta/random shenanigans. Everyone seems to agree that the most entertaining duels are the ones where it's a real back and forth battle where you're in dreadful excitement of what happens next. Why can't we get more of that? I think what they could do is set up a format that basically has a reverse banlist, I.E. a list of cards that you can only use. They could list a dozen or so different archetypes you can use, and then maybe like 100 generic/non-archetype specific cards. Then, every few months or so they can change things up. I think this could be really good, especially for new players, because you don't have to get absolutely cheesed by drytrons or eldlich or whatever, and because the card pool is much smaller, new players can kinda have an idea of what they're up against. It also would be nice for many people because only non-meta archetypes are being used, the often overlooked decks, idk like simorghs or furhires, can get some time in the limelight and who knows? Maybe you'll find a new favorite archetype.

This is similar to my problem with Rhythm games. When people see someone pop off and then they get off the cabinet saying they sucked just because they didn’t dull combo the song looks bad. When I pop off on a game I see people watching I often invite them to try the game out and put them on songs that a newbie could play and show them how to play. I’m new to Yugioh and it’s overwhelming but the friendly guides on staples and Kaiju have helped me immensely. As a community for anything people need to be willing to step up and be helpful to new players if they want it to be successful

im a new player and i love the game and the complexity! the only real advice i gotten before starting was a deck recommendation. otherwise just playing the game straight via solo mode and then looking for a good deck to start with for PVP was pretty straight forward. konami definitely did something right with solo mode imo- but i feel like i had an easier time getting in because i had 0 preconceptions of the game via the anime or past experience.

Firstly, I really love Master Duel. I don’t feel that I’ve ever had this deep an understanding of the game. It’s really renewed my love Yugioh. Coming back to the game after ~18 years, running into negate negate negate, burning trap and magic cards left and right…it feels like Tiny Tim trying to take on Rocky. Even worse is running into games that end in the first or second turn after watching someone link summon nonstop for 10 minutes. There’s just nothing fun about it, and I’ve attempted to play deck builds like this, and even in winning this way…I still don’t find it fun. I feel dirty. I largely like and appreciate “Nugioh”: XYZ, rituals, synchro, even pendulum to a degree (cause poly fusion rarely payed off how you wanted it to back in the day)- but I really think link monsters are way too overpowered and need a limit to how many monsters can be summoned in a turn…and some negate cards are just too easy to summon, use, and abuse each time the other player tries to counteract at all. I’m pretty sure I’m back for the long haul, as a Yugioh player, but at times it starts to feel like you’re playing chess with a regular setup, but your opponent has all queens, only because Konami didn’t tell them, “No, dawg, that’s cheap af.”

They need to make it so that players can create rooms with custom banlists and make them available for other players as templates (so you don't have to create one from scratch). I think they're already working on this as you can see that the banlist is already configurable, it's just that only the standard one is available for now. This way each player or group of players can continue doing their thing.

Great message to the community. Alot of people on the internet can become angry over opinions. An opinion is a opinion. There's a old saying. If you have nothing nice to say, you should say nothing at all. Constructive Criticism instead of hurling abuse. 💪 Positive message Paul.

I feel like when konami releases the "classic" game mode into master duel that the majority of players will flock to that casual format, similarly to how most players in MTG abandoned standard and play commander. I'm not sure what that would mean to the future of the game, but I hope it forces Konami to embrace alternative formats.

The current way the game feels is like a literal quickdraw duel: whomever gets their pistol drawn and fired first, simply wins. There's no back and forth, it's just OVER. (Except it takes 15 minutes for them to play.) As a "Yugi-boomer" (barf) I want to have a sword fight! I want every opportunity to have my opponent on the back foot, just as much myself. I want to feel like there is stakes, a struggle and a earned outcome. Being beat by a deck that fully shuts down any sort of competition or struggle, just bores me.

So many of the problems that you've mentioned right now have a fix in the form of formats for the game but the lack of updates in the game so far is kind of insane

Some actual PvE would help this game dramatically. That way, new players could get accustomed to the game and dive into ranked when they feel ready But more importantly, there NEEDS to be alterior methods for grinding gems than PvP. Contrary to popular belief, people actually do love grinding but ya have to give them different stuff to grind and actually give decent rewards *sometimes*. Right now, 99% of the gems you earn will have to come from PvP so new players are FORCED to jump into those shark infested waters called Ranked as the duel room stuff is trash on a trash can Bruh where are the "Win in 1 turn" challenges from previous games? Hell where is the Unranked Random que like from Link Evolution? The duel rooms are so combesome i hate them lol

I wanted to try Master Duel. I took a 15 year hiatus from the franchise and Duel Links taught me a bit of the new mechanics. The sheer size of the card library in Master Duel is an amazing concept to me. It’s just too much going on, mechanics wise, for me to devote that much time to learning. Before picking up Duel Links, I had only played Forbidden Memories and the Gameboy Advance game set it Battle City. Things are so different now. I do enjoy seeing people pull off incredible wins, but I can’t justify the time personally.

I feel like alot of the bigger problems have to do with connection issues and turns taking so long. The time limit per turn could be shorter

With Konami already confirming that MD is gonna be it's own meta, not gonna reflect the OCG/TCG, then I think the game needs to cater to the more casual or less ultra-competitive players, like Duel Links did. So with that, I think MD needs to crackdown on things like unbreakable floodgates and infinite omni-negates, so that it doesnt turn a lot of people off. I know theres gonna be the "GeT GoOd, NoOb!" crowd and that doesnt make the experience more enjoyable. It makes it feel like a chore.

Solo mode with the loaner decks kind of does a decent job of teaching how modern Yu-Gi-Oh plays. They you have structure decks you unlock. The complex interactions are a bit harder to pick up but in general if you just pick an archetype you get the synergy without thinking too hard.

I stopped playing the game during the 5Ds era because I thought synchros were too much. In hindsight, synchros were probably the best new mechanic introduced into the game since they still allowed some level of interaction between players to counter them. XYZ summons were definitely an issue due to their speed, pendulums even more so. I don’t even know what links are for. The fact that the game has transitioned into ‘hand traps’ means that the a core component of ‘playing a card face down’ is almost pointless as it slows you down too much. It very much is a new game these days, and anyone trying to get back into it shouldn’t go in with any expectations of nostalgia. I guess it’s more fun now because of all the crazy combos you could do, but that fun is a literal one way street since your opponent either has a counter in hand or just loses on turn 1.

I got into yugioh forever ago in high-school after watching the anime and I played through legacy of the duelist a few years ago and master duel seemed really appealing to me. My biggest issue with it has been, as someone not familiar with all the archetypes and long combos, just getting a better understanding of all the new mechanics and how they interact with one another. I played through all of solo just fine with both the loaner and custom decks, but it really doesn't prepare you for anything past gold in ranked.

What I find most fun about this game is that, at first glance, it really seems crazy and it really feels like you’re losing first turn. Monsters feel too strong and sometimes almost invincible. But then you slowly learn actually cards are always designed to have at least few ways to defeat or weaknesses. A lot of people say they liked the game in syncro or xyz era but even at the time, solitaire was already a thing. Infernity with Doom Dragon and Ogre Dragon plus 2 Barriers and a Break is pure nostalgia don’t you think?

This isn't just an issue of learning to run the outs. When your opponent goes first you HAVE to have your out in your STARTING hand. You don't have the opportunity to draw into your outs eventually over the course of multiple turns. I'm a combo player. I love pushing my deck as far as it can go, so YGO keeps me around simply by virtue of continuing to give me tools to craft those combos with. Despite my enjoyment of running the decks that make 10 minute plays, it's VERY obvious that this is an unhealthy meta. There's no more any back-and-forth and almost never will anyone walk away from a Bo1 match feeling like both decks were able to give it all they had. I'd also argue that making those long, crazy plays is less gratifying now. Those plays are a dime-a-dozen. Instead of getting opponents who are genuinely excited to see what you're doing, everyone either complains about the wait or just scoops. Those combos aren't special anymore, they're just another day at the office.

What I've been saying for the past 10 years is that special summons should be limited to about 3 or 5 per turn, but that's just me 🤷

I mean, the difference between even pre pendulum Yu-Gi-Oh and current Yu-Gi-Oh is like difference between speed chess and regular chess. Or go and 5-in-a-row. Exept even crazier. In MTG handtraps work because you see how much mana opponent has left, and can strategize around it's colour. In Yu-Gi-Oh you have only card count for info. Also in MTG you usually can respond to spell with your own spell, like opponent pings creature, but you add +1/+1 for it to survive. Here negating monster effect in hand is sorta hard. Also amount of special summons and deck searches in Yu-Gi-Oh is kinda ridiculous. All without any resource to cap it, like mana. That, and the fact that people just can't do chivalrous thing and stop using something which is agreed upon being op is the reason the game is in such poor state.

2006-ish would be the year I bought my last card. Cimo's progression series and history of YGO brought me back to the game when the pandemic locked us at home. Took me a lot of studying and many episodes to understand the new mechanics and I still don't understand Tri-brigades or Elditch. I have not ever pendulum summoned or link summoned effect monsters. Somehow the hours I spent watching Cimo's channel could translate to some idea of how to play the game when Master Duel released. I still haven't spent a single cent on a card, virtual or paper, since 2006. The success: I'm gold 2 rank on MD just by running dailies and building up my Blue-Eyes deck. I could still totally see how overwhelmed any yugi boomer like me would feel returning to the game. MD definitely needs a classic mode for GOAT format or 2004 Chaos decks. Update: made Platinum 5 on 17 Feb 2022!

I’m one of those overwhelmed people. I’ve tried to get into Yugioh on and off for a couple of years because there’s certain archetypes I like the art and mechanics for (Aromage, Odd Eyes, Dragonmaids) but not only is the game really difficult to get into, none of the archetypes I enjoy feel like they’re even close to being able to do anything about these insanely boring 10 minute turn decks. It’s such a turn off sitting down to play and not getting to play for upwards of 30 minutes because of decks like these. I WANT to enjoy Yugioh, but it’s really hard to…

My all time favorite deck is lightsworn, back when i was active it was so much fun to play. Now when i try to play and have fun im just sitting there for 10 minutes watching my opponent

It would be cool if master duel had a weight class system, the more powerful/strong the card is, the higher the 'weight'. Creating a total power level for the deck so you get matched with other decks w/similar power level

I really like Yu-gi-oh and im an older player that left n came back. Master duels has shown me that I dont like when a card game is over on the first turn, I dont think its a healthy thing for a game. I think of a game like hearthstone, its much slower and based on strategy, but there is still meta decks that exist. The decks that win first turn and then negate any answers should stay in ranked and maybe in a seperate mode, but there should definitely be a casual mode, and a mode for different rule sets. I played cardians and I think they are a perfect example of taking 10 years to construct a board just to create a semi-decent first turn result, and its definitely cool to play, but its not as fun as the Duel Colosseum in World Championship 2008. You go against a character with a random structure deck and see who can come out on top. If the people who wanna play those decks like dragonmaid, sky strikers etc. then I think that should exist, but if one exists, the other should too.

I love Master Duel. I'm an old school yugioh fan and I remember feeling similarly overwhelmed when Synchros first came out. Master Duel's Solo Mode is helping get me up to speed again. Now I'm looking at things to play to counteract the popular things. I've liked Solemn Judgement. I prefer Infinite Impermanence over Effect Veiler, for example. Just on principle of the fact that Infinite Impermanence is a Trap Card and this is the sort of things Trap Cards should do. One of the things I was considering for some form of countermeasures (knowing that only luck can save you from an OTK on the first turn of the entire duel) was Prohibition. If you know an archetype well enough, and you aren't beaten on the very first turn of the duel, would a Prohibition or two be enough of a hindrance just long enough to give you a chance at victory? It's all very vague and it depends on the archetypes, but I'll try it out on Master Duel some time. I hope you folks might consider playing around with that too.

I loved Yu Gi Oh when I was younger I still love watching certain content of it. The biggest problem I have with "new" Yu Gi Oh is that it feels like the effects and cards got so much stronger and they have little to no downside to it. Its not like I dont understand the effects or what they do, I just dont understand how to play around certain stuff. In the "early days" you could play around certain powerful cards and outplay your oponent with smart decisions you made. If i can not win by making the right move instead of having the more powerful cards (atleast thats how i experience it, im up for debate) its no game for me. For me personaly it stopped when certain synchros got to strong the idea of synchros was amazing I love xyz too it gives more option and spices things up but the cards got way too powerful compared to where the game came from. Graveyard is no big border anymore so many "search the deck" cards i am only able to win if my oponents have the worst starting hand possible. (sorry for bad english)

As a returning Yugioh player, I wish there was alternative formats which limit the card pools, maybe cards that are only available until certain year or certain era (DM, GX, 5DS, etc). Let players use decks and against decks that are familiar to them first, then let them discover newer cards themselves slowly. Blackwing or Six Samurai are the best decks 5DS players know, and when they spend all their gems building those decks just to realize those decks aren’t as powerful agains Drytron, Tri-Brigade, etc, they’re going to feel weak/powerless and just wasting their gems. I wish those players could duel someone with the same cardpools and banlist and let them have fun first with yugioh that they know and they are familiar with before they’re ready to build some Drytrons and Tri-Brigades.

I remember playing yu-gi-oh with my parents when I was a kid, and although I'm having a LOT of fun breaking boards and OTKing with Cyber Dragons, part of me misses the old speed yu-gi-oh played at which gave it a slower tug of war feel then the current quick draw/ all out speed the game currently plays at, I do have fun negating my opponents combos with hand traps, but that feels more luck based and like a panic response sometimes, where as field traps felt more cunning and felt even cooler to counter trap than using a hand trap on a hand trap.

Actually I’ve actually learned a lot from playing master duel. I used to play purely for fun (and still do) but I never fully understood the “meta” but I was slowly getting closer with the TCG like I would use Ash, Niburu, ETC, but because of MD yugioh content creators have become a lot more abundant and because of how free2play friendly MD is I was able to get a lot of first hand experience with all the common meta cards like MaxxC, forbidden droplet, cross-out, etc. and I would like to thank MD for giving me that opportunity

I've been playing in some capacity since day 1. Most of the problems this game has now aren't much different than the problems the game has always had. Outlandishly busted cards dictate the playable card pool which is a decimal point of the total card pool. Newer decks and cards just hold up a microscope to those problems (or turn it up to 11, for the boomers). The game has never been casually playable outside a circle of friends where everyone agrees to not play the worst the game has to offer. Flood gates, resource loops/starvation, auto-win cards, every deck staples and meta/anti-meta cards filling out half the decks, etc. Yeah, those were early 2000s problems as well as a 2010s problem and a 2020s problem. The extremeness of a lot of the problems always traces back to how Konami makes cards and runs the game. Power creep and disparity isn't a consequence of time like in most games. In Yu-Gi-Oh, it is intentional and manufactured. Why try to balance the game under a power ceiling with every release when you can just power creep every card in the game out of relevance? One is easier. This is why it feels like in spite of diversity every playable deck type is busted beyond words. That's because they are, as were all the decks they kicked down the tier ladder, and the ones those decks replaced, etc. The game mechanics vs reality haven't aged well either and this is a purely modern problem. This isn't a 1 summon and pass game anymore. This is a double digit summon every turn game. The game rules were never adjusted to cap summons or card activations. Hence why every single card released now has a hard OPT instead. These 10 minute turns are there because Konami has never changed the rules and put a limit on special summons.

A few of my friends got me into yugioh again a few years back. I played a lot when the show was first out, and I stopped around when GX came out. I got back into it during XYZ with a utopia deck and recently again back in 2020. I wasn't a big fan of the newer mechanics but as I built and played different decks that had cards with these newer mechanics I had to learn them and honestly now it seems crazy that things like links and synchros were so hard to learn because they are pretty easy to understand. I think it does take some playing to learn but yugioh is such a fun game that it makes it worth it to keep playing.

I'll keep saying it, if the only way to keep up with the meta is literally slamming the same cards that take up half your deck then YGO has a problem. Its like playing a fighting game where everybody has the same hitboxes for their normals.

I agree that both sides have become pretty hostile to each other. And as far as the advice to "get good" goes, that literally helps no one, and only causes heartbreak for people who genuinely just want to play the game. That said, we are all still learning how to deal with the meta as it slowly evolves. I myself am a casual player, but I've found that learning the meta has proved useful for bringing out the full potential of my favorite decks, like Rikkas and Marincess.

In our group we have one friend He Last played Like gx i think and i spent a whole night with him to Show him how Yugioh is today and how His favorite Archetype Heroes Work today He was really blown away how many mechanics and Combos are included today

I do think that Yugioh is a lot more fun nowadays than it was back then, but I understand the complaints of older YGO fans not having as much fun. Personally, when I see like the same five decks everyone plays it more exposes how unbalanced the game is. That’s nothing new; I’ve come to accept that Yugioh is unbalanced and it has a certain legacy to it that’s both hard to escape from and hard to get back into. I personally don’t play meta either and have a lot of fun on a rogue level. Master Duel should have those alternate formats that they came up with a month ago like Heart of the Underdog or even Goat format for those really old school players, and those can have ranking systems too. I think that would be fun and support most type of players. The notion of “Get gud scrub” is one I hear way too often when I play and that’s not healthy for a community to be like that.

Cards that prevent your opponent from playing the game are not fun. Part of the problem with master duel is that there's no casual mode for online dueling so you get people playing to have a good back and forth duel matched up against 1-turn blowout decks that are the meta. It wouldn't be easy, and most definitely not possible in a way that would make everyone happy, but a casual mode that limits or bans negates and hand traps would be nice. Or maybe a power level system where more powerful cards have a higher power level. That way you'd be getting matched against someone with a relatively comparable deck. Something similar to the car rating system in forza and races where you need to have your car in a certain class.

I actually use my own custom deck. No archetype for me, which is how I like it honestly. I like the idea of building my own custom deck like the old days, putting cards I find that work well together into a playable deck. From the very beginning it was the only thing that ever drew me to it. Luckily I can still somewhat keep up doing my own thing.

I went first and my turn took 5 mins with me knowing the combo. I felt bad for my opponent, because they just had to sit there and wait. This games needs to do like Magic The Gathering/Pokemon did and draw a line in the sand. This set forward is considered "Standard" and everything else behind the line gets put into a "Modern/Legacy" format. That way going forward they can try to rebalance the game around the next 5 sets vs the entire 11K+ cards in the life of YuGiOh. I know people will be salty about this change, but if they want to adjust the power creep from the 5-10 mins of special summoning combos, they have to start somewhere.

Here's my perspective as someone who generally understands the iterations of the YGO master rules/game formats but has always kept an arm's length relationship with Yu-Gi-Oh: To the gatekeepers - you really DO want new/returning players to come in, you either just don't know it yet or are in denial. A lack of new player influx just results in a deteriorating game, and eventually a dead one, so stop it. Look at any MMORPG community, WoW specifically provides a nice comparison. You need this game to be accessible, or that sunk cost fallacy will one day eat you alive heh :3 To those new/returning/overwhelmed players - Play Yu-Gi-oh, sure, but try a different game first. Something like Legacy of the Duellist (Link Evolution) provides a reasonable "story mode" whereby you can effectively choose the era of Yu-Gi-oh you want to play in. Alternatively there's always Duel Links, but due to lack of experience with it I can't comment on its effectiveness with getting new players into the game. OR-or, crack an old tag force game from the PSP, doesn’t really teach you much new but some of them got a ways through the games evolution. To Master Duel - FTP or not, provide a better single player experience akin to the "story modes" of the past, charge for it, whatever. That said, I do like the focus on archetypes this time around. Then the big one, give players the ability to matchmake in older formats, but not ranked. Edit: Formatting

I would really like if they did draft tournaments or events, to emulate those old sneak preview events where you pull a few packs and use what you get. That was one of my favorite parts of oldschool yugioh and Master Duel would be the perfect place for that.

Biggest problem, too many cards and almost each has at least 2 paragraphs of info too complicated, the more complicated something is the more exploitable it is by nature, they need to address that to bring the golden age of yugioh back

Honestly, what I think would help Master Duel, and Yu-Gi-Oh in general, is adding a Special Summon limiter. Not a set limiter mind you, but say that the turn counter also acts as the special summon limiter. So turn 1? Only one special summon per player. Turn 2, up to 2 special summons, and so on and so forth. I'm sure some would say that would slow down the game, but if you listen to a lot of people, that's what they want. The current meta of being done in only a couple of turns is not only frustrating but boring as all hell. For every duel, I think both players should need to work for their victory, much like how the anime portrayed. Make these into battles, not just shoot your opponent.

lol as a player who stopped playing around 2004 and started again a year or so ago, the first time someone pendulum summoned 5 level 5+ monsters from their deck and hand I kinda assumed they had to be playing them wrong, but nope! I guess that's just sorta the way the game is played now. If i had to compare it to anything, it feels like you played chess, and you come back to it after a couple years and now you can move 15-20 pieces at a time and also sometimes just lose before you get a chance to make your first move. I realize this is a VERY old school mentality, and I actually love alot of the new archetypes (I'm an Infernity player now myself)! Definitely agree with both sides tho, not gonna do much good from either side to say 'you're playing yugioh wrong'!!

I really think there needs to be hard restrictions on special summons and tribute summons. It really has become play a deck to 1 turn and win the game because your opponent either gets bored of waiting or you win without really trying.

I honestly don’t see the harm in giving the game a “quick play” que. A casual mode that just picks a random opponent to just play for fun. Maybe even give the winner a reduced reward compared to ranked to let people just play how they want, and if they want more rewards they can practice whatever deck and take it to ranked. Options are good

Just saw this video today; I think you did a good job bridging the gap in this particular discussion. Speaking as someone who identifies as a casual player of Yu-Gi-Oh, I agree that I have had some fun with the game but have also had problems with going against more combo-heavy strategies. One of my most dreaded match ups is against Drytron; no matter when I use my Ash Blossom, the Drytron player always seems to end with a full board of monsters including a Herald of Ultimateness and other negations. Once, I even tried to summon an Ash Blossom and Joyous Spring out of frustration at having most of the cards I had played negated, only to have it's summon negated and getting OTK'ed the following turn. I have given some thought about why combo strategies in Yu-Gi-Oh frustrate me like that; I think it comes down to a lack of fragility in these sorts of decks. As I understand it, in most card games combo strategies are supposed to be balanced around the fact that if the combo gets interrupted, the deck kind of falls apart leaving the opponent an opening to punish. In Yu-Gi-Oh though, combo strategies are surprisingly resilient to interruptions; you can have two or three negations of key searchers at the start of your opponent's turn and still end up with a full board of negates by the end of your turn. The worst part is, I don't really know how you address something like that; I know how unpopular both errata's and rule changes are to longtime players, & a ban list can only do so much before the next near- unstoppable strategy pops up. I would love to see more videos about addressing those kinds of issues instead of videos from people constantly saying why this or that suggestion won't work. (Edited to fix spelling errors.)

I play with an old deck and I mix it in with some new stuff so it's pretty good, but obviously if they can release more support packs for the older decks and help upgrade them up it would be perfect

As a person who doesn't play meta at all: When a dude will literally run his own clock turn 1 just to set up a board that can't entirely be beat...I'll be happy to run my own clock doing nothing. Actually gotten me a few wins in the xyz event.

Myself I came back to Yu-Gi-Oh about 2 years ago after about 10 years. I watched RU-vid and learned what happened to the game and what's the current state of the game. It was a lot to learn and took time but I never cried about the good old times. You can't expect the game didn't changed in 15 years and you come in big with your 2004 Vanilla Deck. And the most complaining about it never played competitive back in the days. They sit there 10 or 12 years old with their friends in their children's room without chaos control and yata locks to be quit honest. The real and competitive Yu-Gi-Oh was never as they "remember"

I wish they had a "custom ruleset" and you could host your own private/public lobby and tournaments. That way you can play with any limitations you want. Also for even more ease of access, make personal rulesets available for people to download/save to their account instead of having to create a new rule set everytime.