‪@MBTYuGiOh‬ 

As a newer yugioh player learning how to build a deck is definitely something that isn't really talked about in the community. People just tell you to netdeck, but the problem with that is you don't know why cards are in your ED for example, so you just never touch those cards ever and stick to the generic combo you learned from a youtube video. The most fucked up part about it though is that, since you aren't learning how to properly build a deck, you don't even have the ability to figure out when a netdeck is good or bad. You essentially just try stuff until you find one that seems okay for you, and then just play that as long as possible, probably failing to update it to match the meta until a new guide come out telling you to. That's absolutely been the weirdest part of yugioh for me, the fact everyone knows how to play, but no one seems able to actually teach the deckbuilding, which is the most fundamental part of the game.

While what MBT is saying about the card pool in the format is right, it is also true that someone can just come out of nowhere and blind side an entire event if they figure out a funni interaction using cards printed not even 2 years ago. And while I personally find that really cool about Yugioh, it is at the admission that it couldn't have been prepared for whatsoever. If someone discovers that a tier 2 or lower deck that people aren't preparing for (lets just use Traptrix as a hypothetical) has some crazy interaction with some obscure lvl 4 XYZ archetype that hasn't been labbed much yet, there's no way anyone is going to catch that beyond players of that obscure archetype and then its a matter of whether or not they're going to spill the beans before an event or if they're going to try to keep that knowledge to themselves. And sometimes that sort of interaction just happens on accident like with Joshua Schmidt's Bystial Runick list. He basically took a pet deck he was comfortable with and learned that it was really good in the format. And the reason why no one really caught that interaction beforehand was because everyone had been sleeping on Swordsoul and weren't experimenting with their cards. People were already unprepared for Runick, but adding a Swordsoul package on top of that made it really hard to counter during that event. Because of MTG's set rotation, this is hardly ever an occurrence in their standard format because (as Joseph admitted) the card pool is explored extensively due to its smaller size. It is just objectively easier to prepare for and analyze MTG's standard format than it is for Yugioh's because you don't have to worry about hidden interactions like this. And again, I don't think that's a bad thing, but it is something that sets Yugioh apart from any sort of format in Magic aside from probably Modern. Its hard to objectively claim what cards are good in Yugioh because it depends on what decks everyone brings to an event (which warps what tech cards are viable for that event) and what advances are made to any given archetype before an event. The meta of preparing for a YCS in this regard can almost have a sort of social engineering aspect to it. Whenever an update is made to the card pool, the community comes together to identify a number of viable decks before categorizing them into tiers in the meta. It becomes the task of the competitive player to determine whether its worth it to play the meta or develop an anti-meta strategy. Or sometimes people will just throw caution to the wind and play whatever they want to play, and while statistically that often doesn't work out, it sometimes can. The reason this differs from a historic format (such as GOAT or Edison) and why I claim it has a social engineering aspect to it is because you only have a limited amount of time to play in that given format before the card pool updates again. So a lot of guesswork and corner cutting has to be done when dissecting the meta or else not enough time can go into labbing and practicing the deck you decide you're going to take to an event. And leaning off top cut results from the most previous event can sometimes be misleading.

While I think most of the points that MBT said are valid, there ARE channels (or A channel) that disscusses things very in depth, and talks about a Sunavalon combo- Joshua is very good at doing such things, I go to him mainly to improve. And I will then go to Farfa to have some laughs. It's just a shame we don't have nearly enough people like Joshua. He's great at what he does!

12:40 I mean, you name 2 people who have entire communities built around this aspect of it. Yes, farfa and Mr. Pend man don’t hawk their respective bad decks as much anymore these days, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t promote a culture of this. Sticking to your guns by trying to win with your favorite is a deeply heavy part of the casual scene(like I would try to one trick vampires if I could). Now it’s not a big part of the competitive scene but there are personalities that do this. One of the funniest examples of this I remember is from the Pokémon VGC(2014 I believe) where the winner had a pachirisu, the Gen 4 pikachu knock off. A good chunk of the casual community viewed this as him playing with his favorite and sticking to it in the face of Mega’s, when in reality it was just a really good meta call. And it’s a mindset that pervades Pokémon VGC to this day and I think yugioh has it too, but to a lesser extent since most of the top tier players tend to keep the cards close to their chest(so to speak)

Net decking isn’t exclusive to YGO. I know people who basically net deck entire commander decks.

Even Jess isnt one tricking plants anymore. She took R-Ace to a YCS a lil while ago

One of the things that makes YuGiOh specifically so hard to talk about it….how do you win? How do you win a game? You win by attacking and punching face and yet EVERYONE agrees that attacking and punching face is almost pointless and any effects related to it are just bad…. Competitive players say that Card Advantage is generally the best thing you can be doing but card advantage doesn’t win

To be fair to pokemon - the games emphasize winning with your favorites. The most famous but of dialogue is entirely based around that

another problem with yugioh is that it takes a LONG time to lab secret tech man, lets say i love me some rank 4 turbo strategies, i cant even imagine how long it would take me to read and evaluate every rank 4 xyz there is, and this happens with all card types.

As someone who also plays TFT, the comparisons are so spot on lol

Now i know what Tailor of the Fickle does

13:15 tbf, Chris Lofton does talk about Branded a lot

Am I coping or was that va-11 hall-a I heard

It’s me, I’m the guy. I have and only will play dark magician until the end of time I am the start and the end of all dark magician tech Doesn’t matter how many locals I 0-2 or get first place at Ima play dark magician

I think that part of it is the prevalence of decks that are just archetype deck core + format-relevant staples. People are less likely to figure out why a card is good or bad if their deck never needs to even look at it. Not saying that it's a bad thing, I personally really love the archetype-focused design, but an unintended consequence is that if a card isn't an archetypal card or the relevant staples then most people will never read them or even know they exist. Decks just kinda build themselves because of how archetypes are designed

14:19 NGL, I have that issue. I find deck building a lot harder in YGO than any other card game

Doodle plays many decks but we always have a competitive Dragunity deck ready for a regional stage at any moment. And honestly Doodle's the only one that evolves the deck anymore.

Aromage is my favorite deck of all time and I will always play it for fun. I'm weird I just like life gain effects totally has nothing to do with cute plant waifus. Hopefully the new support lets it be at least somewhat playable.

I still dont understand why yugioh doea kot have different formats, set rotations. I mean we have way to many ways to make different formats but we dont.

Glad im not the only one who heard "cecil format" and was like WHO lmao. Also i'm the guy. I'm here playing speedroids until i die. when terrortop got unlimited i lost my shit

I think MBT criticism of community is like a chess grandmaster complaining why 800 aren’t playing good openings. Sure you can play the same deck for years but even than you need to adapt to the meta. Most players are playing on third party simulators and these are full of meta players even in the casual modes. It is hard to imagine that someone doesn’t adapt their hand traps, engine or side deck during the format unless they are a pure masochist who enjoys losing every game. Almost every meta channel does what MBT wants they evaluate the best deck of that format and wich cards are good that format. Just because casual content is the biggest doesn’t mean that competitive content doesn’t exist. It is like in chess we’re funny win in 10 moves gambit is more popular than a grand master explaining a solid opening were the position is 0.0 but one side is easy er to play.

I’m gonna play runick variants till I die😳

6:09 mandatory pause to pretend this is not content stealing by regurgitating what was just said.... you got me, i saw 6 minutes of this video, gotta stop being lazy and sub to MTB

Reaction to a reaction lol wheres them Feet Pic Field Centers!!! #TakeMyMoney

this thing about yugioh is that deckbuild yields the same result in terms of winning almost 90% of the time, which is why yugioh players dont really need to learn that skill. A skilled person who knows what cards to put in might win the extra 10% (side decking, changing cards ad remove etc, on some really difficult matchups). But the normal players just need to know how the deck works and that is enough for them to see success which why people treat it as a bible.

Endymion best deck lets go 😜

Good gaming journalism died around 2010 though

I play rikka competitively and i have so many overwhelming combos that make it difficult to deal with but i know no one cares so ill keep it to myself lol 😂 i can play under droll too

I think his whole notion is arrogant. Just because you don’t like peoples explanations doesn’t make them invalid.