All the useless filler would be a good place for Konami to print cards for older archetypes. Ones that aren't necessarily game breaking, but help the older decks keep up with the power creep.
Yeah for sure. They do sprinkle a card or two of new support for older themes sometime, but it's often underwhelming upon release, and they don't release better support fast enough to actually keep up with power creep, even from a non-competitive standpoint.
I agree to a degree. I think there should be a balance with some with this because some archetypes have started as pack filler to be later turned. For example skull servents comes to mind. I know not meta defining.
The problem is not pack fillers per se, it's that it's almost impossible to play draft in YuGiOh. In Magic, I can just grab a bulk of 200 cards, split them randomly into "boosters", draft them with a friend and have a good time. You used to be able to do this with old YuGiOh too, but the modern game is just overly reliant on archetypes, so you can't have a cohesive drafting experience opening modern packs.
Because yugioh is meant to be mtg clone until gx finally introduced actual archetypal system where things finally changes and yugioh have its signature identity, unrestricted archetypal system. Vanguard clan system is flawed because you're completely locked into that clan, ruining the potential unhinged combo that the game could have. Also yugioh at casual level is very dependent on these unhinged, chaotic, nonsense combo in ocg, people want to do stuff and show off their 40 cards deck with 39 bricks combo.
@@r3zaful For drafts in Vanguard, usually for like sneak peeks and stuff (but can be used in regular casual draft settings), the rules they set were that all cards are treated as being from all clans, and any mention of a specific archetype would be ignored. So if a unit got its effect by boosting a "Kagero" or a "Seal Dragon" card, you'd just apply the effect regardless (however, if something specifically interacted with a named unit, like "if this unit boosts Blaster Blade", specifically, you still needed that unit). This are just examples of how the shops in my area did drafts for it. Yours may have done it differently, but it really made things a lot easier to manage. Clan-Fight Regulation for normal gameplay outside of drafts is kinda necessary, though the only reason it wasn't a thing in the early version of the game was because some clans didnt have enough cards for a full deck, and had to be mixed.
Just can't have as many generic cards in the game.. it kinda just ruins archetypes. I think also magics set rotation is a big difference as well. You can't just rotate out the generic cards you make that can fit in any draft deck; if you make them in yugioh, then they're in the game forever for every format. Konami just needs to get more comfortable with hosting different formats for the game tbh... They're making good strides with time wizard, but for 25 years they've just had a single official format.
I'm glad you're on board with vanillas still being printed! I'll do you one better: I think every archetype should have a vanilla monster. If for no other purpose but to expound on lore.
COMPLETELY agreed! Especially given how little lore we're actually given on most archetypes in the TCG. May as well at least set the stage with a vanilla.
@@apsamplifierVanilla support is needed! I say this for another game called CUE. In all my CUE decks I rock a vanilla called Sunshine because it is buffed by another card specifically and other buffs I include in the deck it also receives. This is in a way an archetypal targeting but targeting just such a card as Sunshine with its lack of effect can bring the rest like it more into the game.
I’ve mentioned this in MBT’s video on the subject, and my proposal for solving the pack filler problem is to get rid of it completely. If they’re not going to create alternate formats that allow pack filler cards to be used, then they should just stop creating them. Stop wasting so much ink, paper, and foiling on cards that will literally never be even looked at. To facilitate this, they should cut the size of core sets down, by at least half. And have booster packs only contain two to four commons, instead of eight. They can still have a super rare in every pack, and they can keep the same ratios for how often certain cards of certain rarities are opened. And they can keep impactful and lore-dependent commons, but there’s no need for all the useless stuff that will only be skipped over. It’s just so wasteful, and it feels irresponsible to keep it going.
I both agree and disagree. I agree that they should stop printing cards that will not be used, but they should keep pack sizes the same. I think that boosters should not be released as frequently as they do and they can put what would be two separate sets into one. So instead of maze of millennium and phantom nightmare being two separate sets, they should release all the new cards in the same set and cut out all the useless cards, and then make side sets only have good reprints and make expensive cards more affordable, like rarity collection
I mostly agree. If Konami is going to design pack filler, they should make it with sealed play in mind. Hell, I would actually love to see entire products for sealed play at this point - it's not like Konami isn't designing filler sets as it is, so shoving those bad archetypes/retrains into other sets and then making the freed up packs all about sealed play would probably be pretty cool.
I love the idea of pack filler being built around sealed play! Especially since current deck building trends revolve around archetype blending engines rather than generic staple cards, and certainly not common cards
Filling those slots with cards designed for a draft format instead useless junk is the best thing Konamo could do. But, because it is such a smart idea you can bet your ass that will never happen.
@@leviathan5207 the game Always devolved into big stick good stuff with decent effect beat down in draft, guaranteed. reminder that yugioh have no resource system. The game at its core is not designed to be drafted, even rush duel will devolved into that type of game If you draft it.
We need some more filler cards that are like Tin Goldfish, Kagetokage, Eda the Sun Magician and Tour Guide From the Underworld. Cards that are generic support cards that may not be the first choice but are at the same "speed" in those decks without locking you into this archetype. Cards like Kidmodo Dragon, Victorica, Angel of Bravery and Angel O1 are examples of more specific cards that are still solid support in certain situations and more budget friendly.
As a game designer i have heard an interesting argument for pack filler in games, like vanilas or trash stuff. It helps contrast with the really good cards like you said highs feel higher and it can be helpful for new players to be able to disregard cards, though i do think having each card have a place is way more fun but also way tougher to design for and i really like draft so pack filler tends to be more playable in those formats
New players are physically unable to tell if a yugioh card is good or bad. MBT made a great video about that. A card like Bottomless Trap Hole sounds good for a new players, but what tbey dont know is that normal trap cards compete against each other which is why Bottomless Trap Hole needs to be compared to cards like IDP, EEV and Transaction Rollback. That's not something a new player can do.
This is why I don't buy sealed in YuGiOh. You can't even play certain decks casually if you buy a box because if the rarety gouging and because of how the game is designed around archtypes. OG Purrley was a super or ultra rare so to even play the deck by buying sealed, I'd have to buy multiple boxes to even have 3 copies of the card that is necessary to even play the archtype to begin with.
I actually love the pack filler cards. They usually do something weird and of the wall, sometimes they have a cool unexpected use, it's genuinely one of the most fun reads from each set for me. But yeah there isn't an official place to use it in, though a lot of custom formats people have made, particularly hardleg's chaos draft and master cube, have made good use of them.
I feel this. I wish it could at least be closer to playable. All cards should be playable but some pack filler is absolutely worthless. It should be like the difference between tier three and tier one, not tier 27. Some pack filler is even cooler than the good stuff, but it sucks for no reason. We could use a format for pack filler too.
I actually LOVE pack filler 😅 I grew up with Yu-Gi-Oh GX so it reminds me of my childhood/teen years. The best feeling is when pack filler generic cards can be used, like Aloof Lupine in Thunder Dragon, for example.
I will always love ripping packs. I know it's a losing game, but it's my favorite part of tcgs after playing. I would love a format that could make use of the lower powered "filler". I mentioned this in a different video, but I think some type of set rotation could help this. It could be its own format so advanced is still the main competitive format, but something where you get limited to like last 5 sets could really see those underpowered cards have a home. This also gives incentive for us to rip latest sets if we are playing in this rotational format.
It really depends upon how many you buy and of what sets. I've never spent more than $600 on sealed stuff for one set and I've been using a tracker since 2020 that has never had less than 90% of the value I spent be added after the fact and it's usually more like 150%. And I don't even factor in most of the stuff I get, because I stop at 4 copies for most cards.
pack fillers are not the issue. its Konami english making commons in OCG into Ultra or Secret rares. so while an OCG player will be happy with a dud pack but with good commons, and TCG player is stuck with a dud pack with bad commons
Pack filler cards are the best. Love looking for these to add to my cube for draft format. And they always cost literally nothing so you can pick and choose which you want or even just get them for free from bulk
I don't mind pack filler cards, as long as they make up to something interesting to play. Take as an example, Metaphys. An archetype from before the Link Era, you could see that Metaphys was just a filler archetype, but it's still a fun archetype to play. Or, like you said, some of the gambling cards, they are funny with their wacky effects, and can be used to build some wacky for fun decks that you know will be bad, but when it gets going, it's really fun to watch. But then, there are cards like Smile World. Why does that card even exists? Pack filler cards are fine, but we need less of them, cause it's clear some of them are just made to make it harder to pull the good/fun stuff.
The Cowrie cards are nice for Winged-Beast decks which need the ability to play through handtraps. Harpies is my go-to, even if Floo or Tri-Brigade can use them better.
Smile World is an Anime card from Arc-V it's even plot relevant as It symbolizes Yuya's dream and connection to his father, it also causes him to fall into despair when he discards it to ue an effect.
This isn't helped by the TCG adding 20 cards to each set, 90% of which aren't justifiable. They try to justify it with the delay in release schedule from OCG. One Piece has an excellent sealed system and their cards in a set are generic enough to be splashed or used in multiple decks.
Side note: TCG core sets haven't been worth purchasing packs in years due to the packs being exactly 8 commons and 1 super rare or better. It COULD work IF and only IF 75% of the cards in the set were printed as common to compensate for the overabundance of commons in packs. There's still the issue of short prints and deceptive print rates. That said, this is why almost every other card game has a pack system of 1 rare (yugioh super rare) or better, 2-3 uncommons (yugioh rare), and 6-9 commons in a given pack. Uncommons act as a nice middle ground between the rares and commons, cards above the rare tend to be the power house bosses or the "waifu tax" chase cards.
It's justifiable because they are cards we don't have and aren't going to get otherwise, most likely. Really what they should have done after the last anime ended was just letting the TCG catch up and match all sets. It doesn't even make sense that South Korea uses our censored cards but uses the same sets that Japan gets and we don't. They should just print everything in Japan so we all get quality and make their other branches nothing more than import distributors. The prices would likely go up to be more like Digimon and Magic prices but at least there would be a good reason (unlike Magic).
@@RunicSigils I was talking about TCG exclusives, 90% of them aren't all that relevant to any meta and they rarely even see play outside of that. I'd rather see the TCG ended and absorbed by the OCG, remove the gap between the two formats and go into the Worlds format.
I think a (small) solution is to replace a couple of these filler cards with set-relevant Token cards, maybe if you get two nice tokens in a booster box that eases things up. Field centers would be a good addition too. Increasing pull rates for higher rarity cards is definitely appreciated but I doubt they wanna do that.
I'll be honest, I like the filler cards, because they are often quite fun and funny. Not every card needs to be meta. I do agree that a lower power format or a draft format would make such cards more usable.
Pack filler that came up in modern YGO. Vanity's Emptyness & Smoke Grenade found use. Red Reboot was super rare pack filler that no one in R&D ever playtested. These are the exceptions.
Personal opinion is that at a minimum an ultra and super per pack with 3 secrets to a box would make it were players refused to buy singles and would instead order the product.
Whenever I buy yugioh boxes and don't get all the cards I want then I look around and see the piles of duplicate filler cards that I would just store them away and never use I get reminded why I prefer buying singles over boxes
I think the issue with yugioh is that the competitive aspect runs the market, so collecting is a secondary thought. So opening a pack isn’t a good investment
This is true. Yugioh collecting is factually dead. It's also very obvious why. Anti Gambling Laws are getting stricter and stricter so they cant make something overly rare or interesting.
My problem isn't much with pack fillers, but with the lack of formats. Because of yugioh's nature, sometimes weird pack filler cards find use because of interesting interactions. Spright made people take a second look at every lvl 2 in the game, for example. But because we only have Advanced format, a lot of those feel irrelevant because they won't help you win in it. I do love the "magic" of opening packs, and I wish there was more incentive to do so.
I saw another video on this same topic and it brought up a good point. The video said that a good booster pack size is about 5% of the number of cards in a set. (For example, Magic sets tend to be around 300 cards each, and its booster packs were 15 cards each at the time the video was made, which is 5% of 300; and Pokémon sets have about 160 card each, and its booster packs are 10 cards each, which is 6% of 160.) Yugioh sets are about 100 cards each and its boosters are 9 cards each, which is 9% of the set. And if you only get one rare per pack, that means the rest of the cards have to be commons, so if you buy a booster box of Yugioh, you're going to end up with way more commons than you need, especially compared to the number of rares you get, and especially when compared to buying a booster box of another game.
In magic there is a lot of trash filler, although it tends to be older cards. However, there is a game variant called Jumpstart which can be played with these filler cards. Make a 1/2 deck with one theme and a 1/2 deck with another theme, and shuffle them together to form a full deck. Make a few piles of these half decks and you have a brand new, lower powered format. Perfect use for filler cards and teaching new people how to play.
I agree with you that they will probably never get rid of pack filler due to the business model being the whole gacha pull thing. It just sucks so much that they make pack filler at higher rarities, too. And that's before you consider when they short print the chase cards, too. Drafting is genuinely impossible because making a deck from pulling packs is also nearly impossible. Me and friend last year bought 12 tins to pull for fun and we had this idea that we could play some games afterwards using whatever we pulled. It was a no pressure type deal that Konami seems to market the game as anyway. And 12 is an insane amount for casuals to get btw that's not normal at all. Yet despite that, we were not able to make a single full deck. Even those "deck builder" sets don't feel like you can actually make 1 single complete deck from opening a full box.
I love pack filler. It gives us awesome cards like Infinite Antlion, World Legacy Clash and Vivid Tail. These can be a lot of fun to play, you just have to be creative. For example one time I got my hands on a bunch of commons from Phantom Nightmare because people were buying boxes and had no use for them. I selected the 40 best ones and used them to duel my friend's Goat deck. You can also get some extra mileage out of opening a box yourself. Just split the packs with a friend and build 20 card decks to play with. The last couple of sets have had some really cool commons, especially in the TCG exclusive slots. These have definitely kept up my interest in the game.
I think you make a great point woth regards to players no longer buying packs. If Konami wants to incentivise buying packs, they probably need to look at the purchase to value ratio.
Konami is actually making a large portion of these pack filler cards for the Garbo format. It is a pretty fun format, more people should try it out some time.
My problem with sealed product is not pack filler cards but display filler packs. What I mean by that is: If you buy a display for 80€ you know right of the bat that only 6 of the 24 packs have value (the 2 secrets and 4 ultras), which means 75% of the packs in your display are basically worthless. My solution to the rarity distribution would be: 1) get rid of guaranteed holos and bring back rares, with a split of 6 Supers, 4 Ultras and 2 Secrets; 2) To further insentify buying packs, make rarity upgrades of some Rares, supers and Ultras to Ultimate rares; as well as 1-3 secrets being available in Ghost while keeping what they are doing with QCR (Ultimates and Ghosts would probably take up a slot of their respective rarity)
They cant do that. The reason for the fixed rarity distribution are gambling laws. They are already trying to cheese them by printing garbage secret rares.
I'll see if so much playability or even use cases are for foil and above cards. I wouldn't mind getting less common if it meant I had better odds that getting more impactful cards, especially when you look at textbook example of pack filler with a card like "one by one", I feel like cutting those from existence even if it reduces set size and everything. In the end, everybody wins shipping cost, printing cost, and customer cost versus value that could be potentially pulled. Though I doubt that they would ever push the savings to the customers end
I opened 5 of the 25th anniversary tins and not one lubellion was pulled. I ended up picking him up from a local spot, but that goes to show how better off you’d be with just getting the single you want.
I respond with reinforcements, giving my blue-eyes an extra 500 atk. Best part is i don't have to wait a turn or discard any cards. Blue-eyes, counterattack! Burst stream!
Very interesting topic. Just played a spell ruler draft, I thought it worked quite well! However yes I don't think draft in modern sets would work this well. So many cards that I thought wouldnt have any relevance worked in the duels, and the set felt pretty matched and people really didn't brink.
They could honestly replace current pack filler with reprints like summoned skull smashing ground and saku then boom the packs become draftable and sealed playable.
Right now I actually think we have a bulk common problem if you buy a box you end up with 8 of the same card. I would be okay with more pack filler if it meant fewer duplicates.
I love packfillers. This gives an awesome sensation when you actually pull something good. However, the problems are the mentality of the players that only want meta, staple and high value cards, treating others as waste. And the lack of formats that could make more of these pack fillers more interesting. No wonder it's a game with relatively easy ways to do an FTK. Unless half of the opponent decks are hand traps. Which is also a pain. Try facing mono blue Magic decks and you'll understand what I mean.
I have 2 issues, 1 when they give a rarity to a useless card and 2 purposely putting unneeded restrictions on cards especially when similar cards don'thave it.
If it succeeded or not wizards use the concept of FIRE in their set construction. It stands for Fun, Inviting, Replayable, Exciting. in reality it means that all cards should have a purpose in one or more formats.
I would love to see pack filler replaced with possibly reprinting cards from older sets that need PSCT updates. If not that I do appreciate the handful of actually decent generic options sometimes in modern packs still. E.M.R. is an Icarus Attack for Machine types printed a few sets ago that's a cool card to have around. I wish it came out a few years ago when the game was slower, but it's a nice simple straightforward card that isn't overly situational
Me: sees title Also me: doesn't that apply to all card cames ?!?! 🤔🤨 6:29 tbh I don't remember the last time I bought packs but definitely have never bought singles...
Can we go back to the early 2000’s where the meta relevant cards were commons, rare, or super rare, and easy to draft from a couple of boosters. And all the ultras and secrets were anime cards.
There are instances where if the game is attracting many new players that having some underwhelming "baseline" cards is considered a good thing. It teaches players what they might expect from the game, where it might fit in a deck or where they might drop the decks. Having a group of vanilla 2k beaters teaches a player that they can generally expect level 4 monsters to not exceed 2000 ATK unless they have some sort of drawback, and cards like Soul Tiger or Battle Footballer being vanillas with more than 2k DEF teaches players that DEF is less valuable in this game than ATK considering they see that the DEF cap is higher than ATK. This is just a statline example but the same general logic applies to effects, it's just more subtle and complicated. If you compared, for instance, Shield Crush, Tribute to the Doomed and Fissure you would be able to tell that removal cards (at the time) required either a specific circumstance to trade 1 for 1 or they would come with a cost associated with them if you wanted them to be able to hit anything. Having more simple effects that don't rely on an archetype and is just a standalone card also helps with a newer player since they can just analyze the card in a vacuum, MAYBE drawing on some pool of knowledge but it not being mandatory. Problem: core boosters are honestly not designed for new or oftentimes not even returning players. As mentioned, the archetype focus causes this and core boosters not being draft friendly shows. It's not even just that but also that even if the booster has legacy support it usually won't include the old cards it's supporting - Phantom Nightmare has Yubel as the cover card and the core theme of the set but it doesn't even have a reprint of the original Yubel or Super Polymerization in spite of the deck wanting you to use both. And that's an instance of the cover card being a legacy support, let alone random pieces of legacy support in the set as one-offs.
Brand new player here, but what if the low power format were a “Goat Plus”? As in, Goat format but the pack filler cards from newer sets were added to the pool? It seems like a lot of the filler cards in newer sets would be quite strong in early 2000’s yugioh. Some of the vanilla creatures for example would be solid in old decks
I definitely understand the not wanting to open packs, I’m more likely to buy a box if there’s enough cards I want or I’ll buy singles. I just cant justify a couple packs since they almost never have cards I want to use or collect but I may buy a couple to support local (finally have a local shop).
Can't say much on the Yugioh side, but here is the Magic perspective! With magic, cards have a ton of homes. Some cards in a pack could be good for our competitive formats (standard, pioneer, modern, etc). Others may find home in more casual formats like Commander. Even sometimes commons from sets will see play in formats like Pauper where your deck can only have commons. But even then, there are a lot of cards that see no play in all of those, to which they may see play in the sealed/draft format for that set. However, once the draft is done, those cards are pretty much done being used. Ultimately, Magic has some pack filling cards, but they typically serve a purpose in the sealed/draft format of the set. To which, I would love to see Yu-Gi-Oh go towards making sets draftable. I'm definitely more into GOAT or casual archetype decks when it comes to Yu-Gi-Oh, but would definitely dish out some money to play in some drafts!
This might be a hot take, and I'm curious is Alec feels kind of the same, but Duel Links as a format/game is where a large majority of my time enjoying Yugioh has been, and as much as people want to say it's a "dead game" or "DL lmao" etc., it still feels widely popular and played as an option. With that being said there's lots of cards that get released where I'll think "ooo this card/archetype might be something really cool to introduce to duel links" and I think Konami might have that on their mind as well when creating these cards. I guess a good couple examples of these would be a card like Warning Point where it came out in Phantom Rage as a Secret Rare almost 'pack filler' where in Duel Links it's an arguable staple for people. Or a card like Expendable Dai which came out in Lightning Overdrive, but arguably was a staple in Duel Links Gouki's, making them a tiered deck to worry about in past formats.
I am primarily a YGO player but Magic has more style in their packs, you guys should check it out they literally have full-art cards (To appreciate the art) they give you tokens, they give you booster draft rules, or card checklist cards, they should be making less filler and more flavor stuff like that (With cards in mind)
I like the pull rates in Yu-Gi-Oh packs compared to Pokémon packs can't tell you how meany times I got a Pokémon pack and got nothing but I get a pack of Yu-Gi-Oh and at least always get something that made it worth it in a way
Yeah but I dont want a deck that only has 1 card of everything 😅 or having to choose 1 monster as the "Leader" and the. My deck is locked into the Attribute and Type Or maybe have higher Life Points but the deck is something else entirely... Or increase the extra deck to 20 so multiple copies is better
For me when it comes to pack filler it's kinda unavoidable but also still underutilized. Fluffing out the packs makes for a much better value proposition to casual players as well as makes the pack opening experience more varied for the people who do that, which drives more pack opening, so Konami kinda has to do it to make money, just like every other TCG does. The issue is that konami likes to put nonsense in the packs, if you look at the most recent major set from YuGiOh! Pokemon and Magic and look at the cheapest pack filler cards. In Pokemon some of these cards will still see play because they are either very cheep staples or because they are basics that build into more expensive better cards. Magic even in the most recent set thunder junction which is historically bad and hated, most of the bottom pack filler cards are still good in a draft format or have a niche interaction with certain tribes or playstyles that wont be too uncommon to be using, not to mention some of the filler will be alt arts or lands/energies that people might prefer or at least find use from. This is also to say that because of how both of those games work with either color systems, you can often build a semi-functioning deck off just your pulls in the set, just using some of that pack filler to fluff out the spots that you might prefer a better card from another set. With YuGiOh! A lot of them bottom cards are either for another architype, and unless you're playing that exact architype will be completely useless to you, or are super niche cards that will not function outside of super specific builds. So not only do they not help you draft the set at all(which in Magic is the whole reason behind how they fluff out the pack filler) they also wont help you fluff out a deck you are building a lot of times. Half the time the pack filler just is its own deck on its own, one that just super sucks. Which is better than nothing, but it doesn't enable you to do whatever you want, it gives you a very specific thing you can use if using just the one set and maybe only a box of it.
Something that I appreciate about Wixoss is that each pack comes with a foil card, no matter what because commons/rares come in foil and non-foil versions. Definitely takes the edge off of opening weak/cheap cards.
Im waiting for Konami to decide to print sealed, Truly competitive structure decks. Where instead of buying 3 separate structure decks, 1 would have a real deck core and a few staples. Just price them accordingly versus buying 3 separate decks so they dont lose money in the process. Just thinking about how structure decks and starters decks do seem to have random fillers thrown in there sometimes that arent really used in the deck normally.
I wish yugioh had draftable packs, but it is impossible with archetypes. Imagine you open a pack and you get like 1 Snake Eye Ash, 1 Purrly and 1 Superheavy Samurai Wakaushi. Three insane cards that are literally all beyond useless by themself.
There are packfiller cards, that’s simply lack a format. There are a lot of cards for instance that would prolly be GOAT + format. Magician of Faithfulness, Mystic Potato. I think maybe it would be on the community to figure something out with them. But that’s prolly be super hard. Edit: didn’t fully watch the video.
I understand that creating many viable cards must be difficult, and I don't mean competitive, I mean usable, even for casual play sometimes cards are so bad that they don't have use. Instead of printing cards that will never be used for any reason, I'd prefer that we have some staples for cards that are pretty expensive or haven't been reprinted in a long time.
Boosters are now £4.50 where I am in Scotland U.K. I'm 33 years old with kids and a full time job and cannot justify throwing my money away like that anymore. Bought them for almost 20 years. They are making it the most unapproachable it's ever been.
Make every card in a set a common (no short printing either, that's cheating), then for the obvious chase cards make them ultra/secret (maybe have the supers in the set be like meh cards and not pack filers). Also, have the face card for the set be like how they used to treat those in the 5ds sets (face card had an ultra, ultimate and a ghost version.. higher you went, the harder it was to pull). This way you make everyone happy. You have a common, easily accessible version anyone can pick up, and then you have a chase version. People like higher rarities and blinging out their deck, so the higher rarity version will still be extremely expensive... And if you make it actually rare enough to pull, collectors are also happy.
Konami could just sell box sets like they do with speed duels and charge a higher price. If a box was $120 and contained every card from the set, it'd be a similar price point to what you have to pay when you open multiple boxes. Konami could even make a structure deck as a budget version and a foil set as a collector version.
Id buy more packs if your idea was put through. Though, a lot of social media people who strictly open packs or strictly collect, make the current pack filler a non-issue to konami. Id honestly like a pack to have cool cards from previous formats that were heavily power crept as some filler, like you have your foil, some commons that support an unfinished archetype in the pack and oh look its Blade Knight or Nobleman of Cross out
I learned this the hard way when I bought a box of Phantom Nightmare. I never buy packs usually, but figured i would do it for fun. I was shocked to see the pack had a vanilla card. Like, not even an effect monster with a useless or niche effect, a straight up vanilla normal monster.
To be fair thats unironically the best kind of pack filler. It would be a good sealed play card (2000 atk normal summon) and its the first Illusion type normal monster which is kinda cool. I'd rather have this than weird monsters with the worst effects.
In another, rather backwards, kind of way, being an Illusion type vanilla gives it the "effect" to destroy monsters by battle. Illusion type is never not weird.
I think increasing slightly and doing a rarity style like Pokemon would benefit the boosters. 1 holo per back and then they also have 1 reverse per pack as well but It would be cool if the pack filler was draftable though.
Rarity of the cards is what makes draft impossible in yugioh, not the archetypes. If konami printed low rarity substitutes for the most important cards in each archetype, draft would be possible.
I really don't care about pack filler since for me, the reason to buy boosters/boxes is to OPEN those 😂 ik I will get a lot of things I won't use and some that I like/need for my decks. However, expanding on what you said about the gacha system. I would like a way to exchange our commons/rares into supers and beyond! Like for example, in guardian tales (a mobile gacha game) your dups of common can be used to max your ssrs and other items
If there was a draft format the concept of pack filler would be understandable but set design would have to change. Also it doesn't justify it but from a business perspective it would help to extend a reason for its existence past being a loot box system.
Instead of pack filler they should just fill these slots with reprints of older archetypal cards that have 1 printing, its so frustrating when an old deck gets a new piece of support that makes it slightly playable but oops now the single printing old card is $20.
My biggest issue with pack filler garbage is that it’s just a waste of paper, that tons of cards will inevitably be thrown out. We’d be much better off if they just cut like 2 common cards from a pack or something and just cut all the garbage commons from set design. I like commons that have fun gimmicks like dice rolls, I like lore cards, I like cards that have niche applications that could come up some day, there’s still definitely a place for them in yugioh but the cards that do nothing are just a waste of paper
I would find a low power format with pack filler interesting (would probably play some games not study it religiously) but it would have to be organized and not like sneak peeks where you play with what you pull and it feels miserable to play
