Sportsmanship and Yu-Gi-Oh. 

_Goddamn._

Paul’s first title for this video was “The Problem with Yugioh and Sportsmanship”, don’t let him fool you

The worst form of sportmanship that I experienced was from a guy I was facing during the brand new synchro era. He was losing and was down to his last 100 lifepoints, he played a card facedown attack mode, and said "This is my stardust dragon, just so you know, I don't want anyone to see this ghost rare card. I have had people bugging me for a while to get their hands on this, and just so you know, this is my ghost rare stardust dragon." I had to call over the guy running the tournament and he refused to reveal the card in any form. He was willing to be branded as a cheater just to get the win. The best form of sportsmanship I've seen is when a 9 year old at my locals drew all 5 pieces of exodia first turn and the entire card shop burst into applause. The kid left feeling really proud of himself.

"avenge me" im borrowing this.

One of my fondest memories about suspicious sportsmanship was this time at locals back in 2019. I was on Salamangreat. My opponent was on Marincess. They went first and before they made their opening play, they asked me “Hey, buddy if you had Nibiru you’d tell me right?” I just raised my eyebrow and was like “No…I wouldn’t tell you.” He was like “oh great, I can just go off.” And he proceeded to make a full marincess board. At the end of his main phase, I activated Nib. Dude was so salty, explaining “wtf dude you told me you didn’t have it!…” And proceeded to rage quit and leave the tourney…. It still makes me laugh he thought I was displaying poor sportsmanship 😂….

I’ve had my opponent compliment my deck during a tournament once and I’m still super happy about it. That made my day…

Regarding sportsmanship, at the first local YuGiOh event I went to, I faced off against a Yata-Lock deck in my first round. I brought my burn/heal Fire Princess deck. This person eventually managed to get Yata on the field and asked if I wanted to surrender right then and there. I said no, because by the time he got it out, I had enough of my stall/heal cards out that unless he had something to destroy my spells & traps, there's no way he could do enough damage to me before running out of cards. I won, and yeah, he was not happy at all. The next person I faced had a similar deck to mine and I lost, but he was much more friendly. Later on, the store owner told me that the person I beat was a judge and had only lost twice all year, including me. It kind of made me realize that I was much more of a casual player than a serious competitor. I just brought that deck for fun because it was my favorite one at the time. But, at the time, a ton of the best players were using Yata until it was banned. I sold the Yata I got in a box to get a lot of other cards I wanted for fun. Anyway, I get why people take it seriously, but I don't think I could ever do so.

As a very casual player, the meta scene of YGO is pretty interesting to me. I'd prefer to get as much value as I can out of my favourite archetypes (Gravekeepers, Toon, Blue Eyes)

“I’m cocky in prediction, I’m confident in preparation, but I am always humble in victory or defeat

Worst experience: At a locals recently, I played against someone who spent the majority of my turn essentially mocking me for going through the standard Floo combo line. I would Normal Robina, Search Eglen etc. While I'm making my moves, revealing my search targets, and so on, he is repeating me in a condescending tone. I'm pretty chill and I get that Floo isn't everyone favorite deck to play against, but you don't have to mock me for it. Best experience: At a box tournament, playing Floo again (which I typically play in more competitive prizing scenarios) I come up against someone playing Snake-Eye/R-ACE. He beats my ass and it wasn't close. Afterward, we pulled my deck apart, completely restructured and he even gifted me copies of Talents and Prosperity.

When I was a kid, I used to almost always get real upset if I lost at a game, not just Yu-Gi-Oh! This very quickly drove people to steer clear from interacting with me. I used to embarrass myself and those around so much, cause I couldn't pull my head out my own ass, and just enjoy the fact I had someone to play the game with. So nowadays, I do my best to just take things easy and not take the game too seriously. It feels good to win, and sometimes losing does suck, but at the end of the day, it is just a game, with little to no stakes.

I got a win in a tournament by the weirdest way. I was playing a guy and I lost my first match. He was playing a very unusual deck, but his moves were legal and it was very cool to watch him pop off. I complimented his deck by basically telling him that's one of the coolest turns I'd seen and he started going off on me. Because of it it took two judges to calm him down and he was removed from the match and the venue, I was given the win. I heard from someone later that guy was always omega-level salty, abd did not take compliments or insults well at all, he was super arrogant, and even a slight change in his plans always made him explode.

worst was opponent trying to bully me into saying i lost

Going into BP without having Evenly is fine and I wouldnt know any argument against it. Even morally its fine, Idk how people could think thats a bad thing

I hate that you can’t surrender in Master Duel without getting the finger from Konami

The best sportsmanship I have seen is from kids. Most are just happy to play, and they usually have a good attitude, assuming anime protagonists had some influence. The adults are alright, but so many hold a grudge.

Competition attracts certain types of people and inevitably either breeds cheating or attracts cheaters. I don't think there is a single competitive scene for anything devoid of cheaters, even in shit with absolutely NO stakes whatsoever, no reward other than the self satisfaction of doing it - speed running is a great example of this. Even in professional athletics and sports, people cheat with things like steroids or finding sneaky and sly ways to break certain rules for advantages over the other team - you even have shit like adderall abusing in professional e-sports like CSGO. Sometimes, a part of that competitive mindset is doing anything you can to win. If it sounds like I'm demonizing competitive people, it's actually just the opposite - this isn't necessarily a bad trait, it's just an ideology that can be taken too far when it reaches the point of undermining competition entirely (aka cheating). That drive and desire to do anything you can to win is ultimately what makes a lot of competitive players as much of a beast as they are.

I'd say my best experience with my local YGO community came when I had my collection stolen. This was back when "The Lost Millennium" had been out for about a week, I was young and kept my whole collection in a small plastic case just slightly larger than a Nintendo Gamecube system. Someone from the shop stole it from the table behind me while I was at the counter (they were never seen again after this) but I had really been looking forward to joining in the tournament that day, so a bunch of the players actually went through their stuff and just gave me extras to build a deck with. I was given a set of each original vanilla HERO, 2 Skyscraper, 2 Flame Wingman and Thunder Giants, and a whole common-core of Warrior support cards. I ended up winning that day, not just in the tourney, but feeling a real sense of comradery with the other players. They were also surprised and happy for me, considering what went down just a few hours prior.

Sportsmanship and respect to ones fellow humans shows maturity and intelligence. I was pretty let down watching the last rounds of the 3v3, so much hubris over a card game. Thanks for making this vid, Paul. Maybe someone will learn a thing or two about whats really important when we duel.

I'm glad you brought this up. I was at locals recently. I was facing my opp, but the issue was the opp's buddy had a bye for that round and was talking with us during our match. I informed both that I was just back into Yu-Gi-Oh and I needed to learn the new cards. Well the buddy kept interrupting and asking about my hand and talking about my hand in general. This led to my opp figuring out one of my trap cards. It really hindered me and nearly ruined my time. I was already struggling to keep up with Runick.

I came into Yugioh from the Smash community, and a decades old adage in their competitive scene is "No Johns", which means no excuses. Regardless of some of the more fundamental problems with this game (namely the slanted advantage of going first and the cards that can make that stupidly oppressive like IP Masquerena, floodgates or what have you), its my belief that you should still try to approach each game as a learning opportunity. Its a children's card game, just try to have fun.

It's never my opponents fault i lost. it's mine. Afterwards, i go home, look through my cards, and work out what tweaks i can make to avoid losing the same way again.

Response: I use baronne to negate your sportsmanship

I dont get thrashralking to strangers, and think it should be reserved for when your with friends and people who know it isnt meant to be taken serious. Imagine playing a game and someone tells you you're shit, i dont think it benefits anyone, and just annoys people and/or makes them upset. I dont think it has a place in any sport or hobby let alone one where there is so much more at play than skills like yugioh.

I really don't like when my opponent talks about random shit while we're playing. My peanut brain has a hard enough time figuring out what I'm going to do next and sometimes that distraction is enough to make me misplay or forget the game-winning play I had in mind. Other than that I don't really care what my opponent does. If they pop off after they win or act cocky while we play that's fine with me. Makes it all the better when you get them the next time, to me that's the fun of competition.

Looking back, one of the main reasons I quit competitive play was because of a LOT of negative experiences with players' behaviors. One of the worst was actually a game I won 2-0. Dude was using Gladiator Beasts and I was running a rogue deck that mostly bounced cards and deflcted attacks. I thwarted almost all of his moves, but he would not quit with the smart comments from me making a brief flub with my Duel calculator ("this is why I write things down!") to whining because I kept bouncing things ("this is why I prefer Magic the Gathering"). That might have been the only time I ever got worked up during a game I was WINNING. Since then, I've always made sure to clearly declare every move I make, give my opponent a chance to respond to any moves I make, and refrain from being chatty unless it's someone I am friends with, in which case we get kind of goofy while we play. On another positive note, I can safely say I did not have a single negative experience playing any of my rounds at the last-ever regional I attended back in the final days of Master Rule 2 (April 2014). Every player was very respectful and sportsman like.

I have 2 stories that came to my mind. 1, at a regionals I was playing against a guy, whenever he would cut my deck he would shuffle it, but he would look down and look at my cards while he was shuffling. I asked him to stop, and he just said "Oh yeah, sorry my bad." And kept doing it. I called a judge over, but the judge knew him personally, so he pretty much just told him to knock it off. I just quit and told another judge but nothing ever came of it. 2, at another regionals, my opponent was way nicer, he won game 1, so we were on game 2, and suddenly I had to pee really bad. I asked him "Hey, I'll just sign the sheet and but can you watch my stuff while I go to the bathroom?" And he was totally ok with it. Absolute bro.

I think my worst experience is pretty easy. There was some guy I played against at locals once who was...unpleasant to go against, in pretty much every way. He had a NSFW mat and field center that made me uncomfortable, but I didn't say anything since I didn't want to start our match off with tension. Even if I give the benefit of the doubt that he just didn't quite know how his cards worked and wasn't intentionally trying to cheat, there were definitely times where it was clear he was trying to twist things in his favor as much as possible. One example is that I activated an effect that sent his traptrix sera to the gy, he responded with a trap, and then on resolution argued that sera could trigger (from the gy) because a trap was activated while she was on the field. He kept arguing it and I eventually just let him do it since I was in a winning position anyway. He didn't outright yell or anything but was acting visibly annoyed when he did lose, too. That's definitely an outlier case though. Most of the people I play against are fun and cause no problems. The people at my locals mostly fall into 2-3 friend groups so games are often full of banter. People smack talk and what not, but I don't see anybody getting genuinely upset over losing or gloating to anybody other than friends who are in on it. Whether people like it or not, yugioh is inherently a social game, you directly interact with another person in a 1-on-1 scenario and have to clearly communicate information to each other in order to progress and maintain the game state. There is nothing you can do to bypass or ignore that, short of having a simulator like master duel that handles all the inputs and rulings for you. Whenever you play in paper, you necessarily have to be able to functionally cooperate with your opponent, or else you won't have a game

I think the Evenly Matched bluff question depends on how aggressively you try to talk your opponent into firing I:P. If you just ask to go to Battle Phase, without explicitly stating you have an intention to use Evenly Matched, then it's your opponent making a read on your play. You haven't misrepresented the gamestate, you've made a legal move, in an attempt to bait out your opponent's interaction. If, however, you make a show of how good your topdeck was, then proceed to Battle smugly, for example, then that might be misconstruing the gamestate. Bluffs are allowed. You can set Normal Spells to look like trap cards! Your opponent could justifiably assume those face-downs do something! Same goes for tactical usage of phase changes, imo.

Worst thing on MD is for me : • People surrendering when they're about to lose to a an old school super respectful (not stall, not anti-meta, not floodgate, not exodia) deck.

This is one of the big reasons I like masterduel more as a way to play Yu-Gi-Oh. Because the game had a lot of rule ambiguity, so having it done for you clears a lot of the confusion :V

The I:P Masquerena thing of going to battle to bait it, I feel is still a viable strategy. It may seem scummy, but it's legal to do, so why not go for all options? The thing about holding to think when nothing can be activated, however, I feel is not legal and is very much scummy. It's making that turn's player take longer than it needs to. The counting specials for Nibiru is different. I don't think it's a bad thing to count it, especially if you have it in the deck. Also, it makes the turn player be reminded of what could stop/halt their plays and wonder if they should do 5 or more summons. Yet it ultimately it doesn't halt the turn completely. They can still make whatever plays they want.

I can relate to the high tension in the YGO sphere. At my locals it seemed like there was maybe one or two people who really wanted to play there for fun and then all the other people were there for full competitive YGO. And while there is nothing wrong with it as it was certainly a competitive scene I was going to on a short weekly basis, the stress was definitely palpable. Maybe when the Snakes-Eyes stuff is over I'll finally come back to locals but for the time being I am not holding my breath to return.

Not gunna lie if a lose in masterduel I’ll instantly cuss out my opponent (who can’t hear it) and their deck. To me it’s a stress reliever. But in person duels I don’t think I’ve ever disrespected anyone after a duel. Maybe a little less excited or happy about dueling because obviously you want to win. But I focus more on my play and my deck flaws when it comes to in person duel vs masterduel when I complain and just want to full power speedroid

I’ve also experienced this in Pokémon and Digimon, but when my opponents gives an almost snappy “ok” or “yup” to my plays just comes off so rude and aggressive.

I don't know if this counts as bad sportsmanship but right when I got back into yugioh I had a red-eyes deck going up against a sky striker player. I'd never seen a link monster until now and I had no idea the game speed had advanced so much. Once his turn started, he was on full auto pilot mode, speeding through every card without saying more than 1 or 2 words, and every time I would ask what the card did, he would sigh loudly and get aggravated as he explained each card effect.

One of the reasons I originally quit the game was when one of my opponents looked at me in my face and aggressively told me that I was poor.

Ive been collecting yugioh for about 2 years now and I’ve finally just started attending locals. I’m so ecstatic that I’m just playing with other people who share my hobby, I don’t care if I win or lose. I definitely don’t take the game too seriously and can’t imagine ever getting upset over losing, there’s so many variables that can result in a win or loss that ultimately come down to luck. But I also mirror the the energy of the person I’m playing against, if they’re also very chill and not taking it too seriously then I’ll act myself but if they’re very serious, I’ll tone it down.

What we've got here is the ol' Sportsmanship vs Gamesmanship argument, your attitude and behaviour towards playing a game and what you feel is most important: Sportsmanship is the old adage of "It's not solely about winning, it's about having a good time and playing our best," the attitude of fair play and respect towards your opponents while giving it your all, and ending your games with a handshake and a compliment. Gamesmanship is the mindset of "Winning is all that matters," doing whatever it takes to get that W, including bending the rules and abusing loopholes without explicitly cheating, or just generally being a bad sport like making excuses about how things ended up or talking smack about your opponent's deck or play style and be the most likely to flip the table after a particularly bad match. Basically it's the difference between the person who always says "GG" after a game, and the one who says "GG EZ" when they win and cusses everyone else out when they lose. You can't really be too mad if someone is playing the game the way the cards let them like floodgates or unbreakable boards, but it's very understandable to be upset when that person is purposely slow playing when they know they can win on time-outs or they're trying to mess with your flow by distracting you while you're trying to concentrate on your combos, and especially when they pull petty nonsense like loudly complaining about bad hands or insisting "You can't use different sleeves for your Main and Extra Decks!" even though Konami ruled you absolutely can (only the Side Deck needs to be sleeved the same as the Main Deck.) Of course everyone wants to win, there's always winners and losers in any game, but people will be more eager to play with you again if you treat them how you'd want to be treated rather than only caring about the W and making their play experience simply unbearable in order to get there.

For me I like to joke around a bit and have fun but I also read the room. Sometimes I see my opponent wants to be more serious I respect it and I go along with it but I have had opponents that joke around with me and it is a good time. Win or lose the goal is to have fun even in a competitive setting and usually majority of the time I have had great experiences with my opponents at events and locals.

Well, I'm not a judge. But I think this baiting (implying one has an Evenly by going stright into battle phase) should be totally fine, since you are simply taking a gamble here. There is the possibility that the opponent doesn't use their quick-effects, so you can not stay in main phase one. That means you have simiply forced yourself to skip your own battle phase and thus have to do your main combo in main phase two. Also, about Nibiru, I remember, once I told someone that I have heard that you are not allowed to say "If you summon one more time, I will Nibiru you." However you are technically allowed to say "Wait, summon number what was it? Oh, it was just summon number four yet. OK."

Whether I'm playing casual or competitive, the only time I get upset is if I get locked out of playing. Like, what was even the point, then?

I am not going to locals or anything, but I do feel like me proclaiming I have a bad hand is something I need to stop doing. It's not just a potential fake out, but it comes off as a bad sport

Well said! The card shop where I played official YuGiOh tournaments had really respectful players. I learned the way to good sportsmanship from the calm and energetic ambiance (for lack of a better word). This was the first time I played against human players irl as an adult. The good sportsmanship drove me to wanting to participate more, where I may have been turned away if I saw bad sportsmanship

When I played standard format I loved rocking Dinomorphia, the cards are awesome looking and I'm a huge fan of dinosaurs. The floodgates weren't my favorite part of the deck but I did like how the deck functioned overall. However I hated the round time issue that happened almost every single round. People would see that there wasn't much time in the round in game 3, play more slowly than normal, and I'd lose since I'm always at a low LP total with the deck. Honestly kind of turned me away from playing in general, I could never outright call someone out for playing slow.

One of my worst memories of bad sportsmanship is where I'm not sure which one of us actually had it and who was to blame, me or my opponent. It was my friend and only duelling partner at the time and I continiously developed my deck recipe until it was kind of unbalanced and we played a lot of duells over the weeks and months of which he lost more than he won. With him occasionally winning by destroying a boss monster of mine with "Ring of Destruction". A card I gave to him to use, it had the original text before the changes and one day when the situation came up for him to use it as the errata says, I mentioned "oh btw, I randomly saw that the card text had been updated and nerfed a while ago. you actually cant do that, but go for it now. Im just saying for the future." He was kind of tense to begin with and reacted very irritated, saying with lots of salt "I dont care what the new text says, Im using it as it is stated right here. this is bs" ...we continued arguing because I was annoyed by his stubborness and thought this kind of attitude was a very bad fundament for playing this game together. he was probably annoyed with me because he felt I tried to have a high win ratio by taking away another win condition, one of the few he had left against my deck. We played less Yugioh after that. so what do you think? imo he should have just accepted the offical ruling and try to improve his deck with better cards like I did and get over it.

Yugioh should be a fun game but a lot of people who play it don't view it as fun, but rather a chore. It also seems to attract a strangely toxic crowd, (see the recent YCS).

One of the worst things I ever had I sat down and my opponent first thing he said is don't touch my stuff really mean The player takes 5 minutes to do one thing but gets mad at you when you take 3 seconds to do one thing And when you catch someone shooting in a spaz out Quitting cuz you didn't get your best hand The guy talks about everything but the game they are actually playing

THIS! My worst experiance that made me go strictly digital with MD. I went to Locals with Dark Magician main gimmick being Dm The Dragon Knight + Eternal's Souls effect and when he read both cards called me a few slurs and threw my deck. I have never felt so embarrassed in my life in a place i considered safe. And it killed lgs's for me as that guy just let loose with various things that make my skin crawl. Its a game not a fight to the death, no one makes 500K+ for winning a LGS tourney. Some duelists just dont need to be in these events if they cant be a manchild about a deck they dont like. And then proceed to throw another players deck is just grounds for banning. Anyways enough of my rambling great vid, and I wish everyone good luck on their duels! Game On!!

I go to play for fun and joke around with my opponent if I can, especially if its someone I've played against often which extends to my personal gripe. My locals tends to do random pulls and the last 5 times I went I always got the same opponents or a free win because someone left early. It got to the point I joked with the judge/shop owner that I didn't want the free win I wanted to lose like a man and he told me back in a silly way "No, you'll take the W and like it."

your comment on 'people having more respect and have more pressure to be *good*' really reminded me of the Analysis that Folding Ideas did called "Why It's Rude to Suck at Warcraft". I'll try and summarise the best I can. There is a tension between Instrumental play (becoming 'good' or preforming 'well') and free play (mostly everything else like casual collection, liking the art and other media etc), where instrumental play becomes the implied value of the game (aka YGO is FOR getting good at it, instead of it as a whole entire game worth of play) People, especially gamers, have a tendency to optimise the fun out of games as well which then leads to more implied value on being 'good at the game', and more negative reaction towards perceived 'bad play' or play the game in not a strict competitive and optimised 'correct way'. Although there IS fun and fulfillment in getting better at a skill, and that is a good reason to enjoy a game, it isn't the ONLY way to enjoy YGO, even if it is the only way some enjoy it. I personally have a more casual enjoyment of YGO, pulling cards and browsing and learning different cards, but I can still appreciate and have fun with the more competitive side of it. I don't think my enjoyment has inherently more or less value or correctness than someone that is fully invested in competitive or just likes the show, because we all are enjoying the same thing at the end of the day. TLDR: Enjoy games how you like to enjoy them, let people enjoy the game as they like to enjoy them, and try not belittle people for being too 'casual' or 'sweaty', but do call out people being rude and belittling people

What annoys me, as a new player that's unfamiliar with all the cards, is when my opponent doesn't announce what their card is doing while they're doing combos. Like how am I supposed to learn as a player?

0:10 😂😂 I see what you did there “no particular reason” and “god damn” 😂😂

I left yugioh during Pepe tier 0 almost a decade back. Just recently went to a local for the first time since and I played this Ice Jade player in R3 that had such a bad attitude the entire match that I was like, I can't do this anymore. I since then have switched to pokemon tcg because at least I don't have to actively communicate with someone that is an asshole just to make it through my turn in the PTCG

One of my favorite topics about Yu-Gi-Oh! You are very reasonable Paul.

Buddy an I where at a shop when the local folks were coming in. The one guy we talked to had a visual negative reaction when we said, "for the most part we play causal so we dont feel the need for ash blossom" Which is true, my friends an i don't need ash blossom. We arent running 1000 dollar decks. We each have several play sets of ash so we can, but to us, its fun to see what the deck avross the table can do. We are going to duel at the locals night next Tuesday hopefully and i plan on taking my exosisters who is my "competitive" strong deck

I'm a super talkative person in my matches, even at larger events or in top tables, I'm just an outgoing person and that's just how I am. And even though I'm there to compete and do well the reason I go to the tournament if to have fun at the end of the day. I try to keep most my talk about things outside of the actual context of the match, maybe their sleeves or mat or the rarity of a card. A lot of people are happy to talk about this stuff that they probably put time into deciding on. Or ill mention if they use a cool tech I haven't seen much, if they have a nuts opening Ill make a comment on it, or if they have a really bad one ill give my condolences. And ill do the same for my own plays sometimes, but generally try to keep it until after I have made my plays. For one I don't wanna lie to my opponents and cause issues, but also I don't want them to know I have a good or bad hand or that I messed up a play or got a good read until after so that they might not be able to just be handed the right way to play against it by my words. But I also recognize that a lot of players are not as social and the fact that I don't look like your average YuGiOh! player and I know that I often can come off as intimidating, so I try to get a read on the opponent early and see how much interacting I should be doing with them. Same goes for in game stuff like if they communicate every single phase change even when it's not relevant then I will too, if they always do an intricate cut then I will too, if they ask for a response to every effect even when not necessary then I will too, if they do multiple searches before shuffling or shuffle after each one then I will too. Its about making them feel comfortable so that they will be less combative and generally give you less issues. I've made a few friends at different YCS's and regionals and also played with people I hope I never see again, its just how the game is, but I very often have a good experience in my matches even when I lose and regularly get complements from people I beat saying they still had fun or that they'd like to play with me more. I'll also add that the entering battle phase to maybe force an IP is a super legit play and in my opinion, sportsman like. They can react if they want or not if they don't. If they don't and you enter battle and immediately enter MP2 you're not at a disadvantage on the turn and the other way around they are at the disadvantage but also generally less so than you would be if they called it right, its not really any different then playing in a reckless/suboptimal way on purpose to bate interaction or have them hold it off by feigning that you do or do not have certain cards in hand. This comes down to meta and gameplay knowledge on both sides and if your opponent reads through you or sometimes even just don't notice what you're trying to do then you'll be even worse off because of it. Completely different than the Nib counting summons thing where you're doing this via a non gameplay action and are at no disadvantage if they do call your bluff/not notice it

So far I've never had a bad experience But the best experience was when me and 2 other guys were teaching a kid to play at a shop. We originally went for a tournament but were abit late. We ended up hanging out during the tournament and i gave abunch of my unused cards to the kid. Dude has potential too

Love the positive attitude 🙌🏽

Duels can leave me feel like I can't breathe sometimes, so I love it when my opponents are more talkative. It removes the tension for me and reminds me that it's just a game. I agree with your views on sportsmanship, but some plays feel outright dirty or malicious. I had someone make a full board of negates with Darkworld and that was fine, but then they went and handlooped me because they could. I needed a minute to compose myself after that, and just need to distance my feelings with the game overall.

I went to my first ever tournament a couple weeks ago and the I got the genuine pleasure of my first ever tournament duel was against a judge who actually worked for the same company as me so we ended up bonding over that before our round. When we dueled he chatted with me and he had seen my deck prior and said that he was familiar with my cards even before seeing my deck so he said I didn't have to explain my effects, which put less pressure on me as a new tourney duelist. He did end up beating me in our first duel but I did actually manage to hit him for around 6K damage before he beat me, and he was very kind and supportive and told me that a few of my plays did actually catch him off guard to where he had no counter. Second round was a complete wipe on my end and it wasn't remotely close, I believe I was OTK'd. But he told me that unfortunately that is a bit common now in the game and how the game isn't the same as it was when I was very into it (I told him before I was very involved during the GX era). But overall it was a nice experience.

I've only ever been upset about a time loss with full combo in hand I like to open a pack or 2 with my opponents after decisive wins it helps lighten the mood

Part of this comes back to the age old problem of card games and tabletop games being a common pursuit for people with poor social skills. Especially as these things became more mainstream, some of the typical behaviours of these communities became less acceptable as more "regular" people joined the hobby. It's not everyone and it doesn't excuse bad behaviour, but it is part of the puzzle, I think. Then there are the people for whom winning the game against them is poor sportsmanship. People are very invested in the game and their decks. Especially for a big event, they may have spent a lot of time, money and effort putting together their decks and getting there. Then you have the audacity to beat them. How dare you!

Won't lie I've come a long way since Mendenhall, had my share of duels, filled with salt and all. I used to get decently tilted when I'd get completely sacked, but over time even I learned sometimes it's just the state of the game. You're right, 100%, no point in getting tilted when a certain deck comes up or just a board of negates, sometimes you can even play past it and even surprise yourself with how far you come in that duel, even when losing. I actually recently got a couple of people in the game recently, and as much as I fear Unchained, one of them started with it and I gave them every possible insight to the decks capabilities, even if It meant my favorite, Blackwings, could get outted massively by them. It helped me learn what plays I have to do to get around it, rather than sit there tense and worried over the opponent's deck. I think the biggest thing is, realising that we aren't the best player, have much to learn even as veterans of the game, supporting one anothers climb to the top, even when we are another rung of the ladder sometimes for each other~

As someone who grew up playing sports and just got into TCGs i treat it the same way. Wish your opponent good luck and after whoever wins shake hands and go on about your business. Of course they will be times were you think you’ve been cheated or wrong but al you can do is control what you can.

Great video!

Im thinking about getting back into the tcg and starting to visit locals. This video helped a lot! Im def stealing the "avenge me" if I do any tournyes lol.

Magic the Gathering player here. Just figured I'd share my fun sportsmanship story. Was playing commander online with random people. Had my dragon deck. One of the opponents was running a hydra deck. They managed to pull off a Villainous Wealth for 18. Managed to get an Utvara Hellkite, The dragon that makes copies of dragons when they ETB, Scourge of the Throne and a few others. I just laughed and the table had fun with it

I would say a lot of the sportsmanship stuff is context dependent and is really about being a respectful communicator. like the nerves & atmosphere will be different at locals vs big tournaments, and how 2 people interact will be different depending on what they're comfortable with. Like I can imagine people who regularly have 'shoot the shit' games will just default to that playing at other places, and it's more about acknowledging whether your opponent is comfortable with that or not, and if they aren't then respecting their choice to not engage that way. Also dealing with losses can suck depending on how it goes down, especially depending on how your day has gone so far. like I could imagine people being hella frustrated if they lose their 5th match that day to some floodgate stun deck.

When I play with my friends, sometimes we just tell the other person some of the cards we have in hand and even what we intend to do with them. Helps us learn how to play around things and figure out if a tech choice works or not. I rather enjoy playing like this and it helps me when I make choices for cards in the deck building process. Not everyone's cup of tea, but its really fun when you and your friend are working on new decks, testing new play lines or trying new tech options.

The IP example is valid and i just remember in master duel when it asks you: "continue main phase?"

I guess my question is why is bluffing, intimidating, or distracting your opponent bad? As long as you aren't being openly rude or abusive or breaking any kind of rule, psychological tactics are part of any game or battle. I have recently started playing games with others (especially strangers/randoms) less in general because some people are just that toxic, annoying, and arrogant. I understand why people's demeanor can ruin things for someone, but I don't think trying to make your opponent think your hand is bad, or asking them "are you sure you want to do that?" Or stupid things like that are all that dangerous. It's about the same as putting a useless spell face down so the opponent thinks you might at least have something to surprise them with. These mind games have crafted some player's entire strategies around just going for a play anyway even if it's possible their opponent has disruptions or traps.

those would be a great podcast to listen before bed or in the bus or sum JUST BRAINSTORMING STILL LOVE UR VIDS THANKSS❤

I think the only time ive ever been unsportsmanlike to an opponent was when i was on Zombie World and they were on Floowandereeze. They proceeded to slow play me into oblivion and activated Advent in time and offered the handshake because he was ahead on life. I have never come so close to wanting to throttle someone in my life.

in regards to the IP, move to battle phase for evenly thing. I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that at events, you both have to agree? normally if I was in main phase 1 and wanted to leave to battle, I say "attempt to move to battle phase" or "attempt to move to end phase" ect. If they say yes, that's it your green light to be in it, if they say "oh wait I have a response" then its too late as they verbally agreed to moving phases. I think that ties well into sportsmanship because some people at my locals don't go through the phases they just jump straight to battle or end after the draw phase which can be annoying.

I would say in the case of Evenly, you aren't misrepresenting the game state. Yes the idea is you wouldn't normally enter the battle phase without a reason, but you can freely move to the next phase as you choose. It's almost like baiting out interaction. I think where it crosses the line is when you start threatening illegal plays. I'd say you've crossed the line if you say, "I want to go to the battle phase." then start grabbing at a card in hand that can't be activate during the battle phase. Most forms of legal bluffing in Yugioh is boarderline BM, like asking if your opponent summoned five times without nib in hand, but as long as you don't misrepresent the game state it's techinically legal.

0:54 Coming from Master Duel, this communication which is necessary to even play makes the game a lot more relaxed and civil, I find. When you communicate openly what you do when and ask your opponent all the time whether they have a response, how could you be all that tilted if they actually have one at some point? It's bound to happen and if they have it and it means you lose, that's how it is. Your opponent would have to be mocking you throughout the match or you'd have to have had a really bad day up to then to lose your temper over the response that determins the game or puts the final nail in the coffin. However, in those cases you're already pretty tilted before they have that response, so it wouldn't actually be the reason you lost your temper.

In my first tournament, I told one of the player that is was my first time and I'm not familiar with other decks so I need him to read his effects. He did tell me the effects for 2 turns but then stopped because it was making the game too slow for him. I think about my opponent too so I usually read my effects and he said once with an attitude, "I know what your card does so hurry up." I was shocked he said that to me. It was just rude. Other than that, I had fun and the other opponents were more pleasant and friendly than he was.

Awesome job Paul drop,a like .

I think with the current events that have been unfolded, the best you can do is be good and hopefully it spreads. My best experiences is when the duel ends with a smile because of the deck I'm using. my worse is between someone thought I was cheating, and the time I was told I'm too poor to play.

Oh I like that avenge me remark. It basically acknowledges the person's victory while getting them on your side.

Idk I always have some kind of interaction during locals that leaves me feeling kind of iffy. The worst one in recent memory was a guy you got visibly upset at the fact I was playing labrynth and said „I feel like I’m getting angry“ and at first I thought he was joking. But then he just kept getting more rude and rude. During the last round he didnt pay attention to anything that I did and just talked to his friends while I was waiting to check if my activations were fine and if he had a response. After his evenly didnt win him the game he just got more upset and said that „the creator of the deck should get sent to a concentration camp“. He probably meant it as a joke and his friends laughed it off but I was left feeling incredibly uncomfortable. Absolute embarrassing behaviour

• People with meta decks, who surrender after losing a coin flip to sasuke ninja on turn 2

I think the Evenly play is 100% fair play. I did it all the time vs Spright and Floo.

About feints and bluffs. In My Opinion, the cards you have in your hand are hidden for a reason. Feinting and bluffing is a skill (although there are subtle and more obvious ways to do it). The example of "I'm going straight to the Battle Phase" bluff is IMO fine because it can be called (in which case you lose your Main Phase 1 and probably the opportunity to win via battle damage on that turn). Everyone runs hand traps and/or board breakers in yugioh. With that in mind expect 1 or 2 interruptions. I try to progress through my combos in a way that accounts for likely hand traps. I know that if certain cards resolve then my opponent doesn't have any of the cards that could negate it. If Nibiru is a game-ending threat then I will prepare for it as part of my main combo (because they actually will have Nibiru sometimes). As a rule of thumb, play expecting your opponent to make their best possible play. Sometimes your hand cannot withstand any hand traps, so your best play may be to ignore the bluffs and go for broke.

Paul is the sasuke of the yugioh universe. He's emotionally invested but doesn't show it in his expressions 😂

I have to say that stuff like going into battlephase to fake an evenly or faking a nibiru is something that surprised me quite a lot going into yugioh by how badly it is seen. I'm the type of person who see these type of stuff as just outplaying/bluffing and see it as totally fine but I know a lot of players absolutely hate it. And even konami forbidding to fake stuff like "hey I have nibiru" or whatever is something I still find weird. But ig yugioh is complex enough by itself to want to play mind games with ur opponent too 😅

I personally enjoy the game whether I win or lose. I like the topic you bring up from bluffs on Main Phase effects like “I:P” against “Evenly Matched”.

I think if you approach duels as a Duel Quiz, then it softens the blow of losing. Its like a puzzle. And also, throwing out a “Dang, good game!” with a smile and going for a handshake is best practice for losing in my opinion

Good sports are always great to see online. My favorite game of Magic Arena ended with an opponent who, rather than just concede, targeted himself with a burn spell to end the game. They probably had more fun losing that game than most people do winning. Bluffing seems standard in any card game though. The whole point of having a hand of cards is that you know what you're holding and your opponent doesn't, and you can insinuate whatever you want about it. Anything that depends on the contents of the other player's hand should come with a reveal though, because you shouldn't need a third party to settle those things.

The “evenly matched” bluff has happened to me I had Empen and trap to normal summon set and harpie trap set 3 cards total Opponent attempt to enter battle phase I freak out of evenly flip trap to normal summon and end on avian and Empen with harpie trap set Got super poly and left with trap unable to activate Got otk Never failing for it again 😅

My experience with sportsmanship in YGO is best described with playing against Synchron at locals and getting burned when it was time on the round. That was the last time I played irl.

Mad respect for Pak in the last round Team YCS finals.

I love that you used competitive integrity in the podcast I started that term and use it all the time on your videos and others. I really think yugioh lacks it completely it didn't use to be like that back when I started. I tell these kids off I am way to old to be disrespected by these kids lmao. I tell them from the get. I don't tell you how to play you don't tell me how to play KAPISH!!!!

The moment that made me stop playing competitive Yugioh was at a tournament at my LCS. I was running Cyber End Dragon OTK and managed to get my combo off pretty early (there was a surprising lack of counter play from my opponent, especially with how deep into the tournament we were). He proceeds to call over the judge and have a 15-20 mins meltdown about how I cheated, exploited the game, was faking my draws Bandit Keith style etc. Judge ultimately ruled in my favor and the other guy scoops his stuff, leaves after only going down 1-0 and yelling "what's the point? this game sucks now anyway". The whole experience really soured me on the game for a very long time. I've recently started getting back into things and I have to say I'm very proud of our community. Watching the younger generation play at my LCS these days and the genuine love and joy they have for the game is what made me excited to play again.

Regarding the rules about bluffing, and the spirit of the rule, the rule of thumb I'd give is that if your bluff is something that can be read from just the plays of the duel then it's legal. You can bluff via game mechanics, but not through what would be considered out-of-game actions. In the IP example, declaring that you're entering battle phase is using no out-of-game actions to imply that you have Evenly Matched and thus it is legal. The token example is also one where if you are using tokens explicitly to try and mislead the opponent then it's illegal, but if you're just using a token it's fine. Because you can't prove intent in this situation, as long as you don't TELL someone you're using a token/sleeve/mat/whatever to try and mislead opponents it's fine. It's kind of case by case as well. Suppose you are playing Edison format (and are using the current rules around bluffing) and you're running Lightsworn. You have engaged in multiple battles and not declared "damage step." If you do not have Honest but decide at one point to declare "damage step" to bait an action from your opponent, I think this would be considered an attempt to deliberately misrepresent the game state - because by NOT declaring damage step in your usual battles, the purpose of doing it here is only to imply you have a card you can activate at that point. Basically if you're acting in good faith and making sure that you don't deliberately do something that might misrepresent the game state then you don't have to worry about it.

Story time: About 6 months ago I started playing yugioh at my local shop. And at the time the traptrix structure came out so I decided to bring it to play. It took a couple of times before I got my first win in a match. However it came at a cost. Keep in mind i am black and was def the only one amongst this group. Ik it sounds random but just stick with me here. My first ever win was against this guy who I rarely seen at the shop and he was playing pendulums. Everything was going good in the first match until I ended up resolving floodgate trap hole on his pendulum summon of 4 monsters. He wasn’t upset about it at first until I passed the turn back to him and he tried to flip the monsters face up on the start of his turn. For those who don’t know, you can’t change the positions of the monsters that were flipped with floodgate. But my opponent had a really hard time understanding that even after reading the card. It basically ended up with the guy getting so visibly and audibly frustrated, that EVERYONE stopped what they were doing to see the scene this guy was causing. So much so, that he ALMOST called me a slur in the middle of his rant. If the store owner hadn’t stepped in to calm him down I feared that he would’ve actually done it. Long story short, I got yelled at for activating floodgate trap. Great sportsmanship 😭

teamsam was just exercising his freedom of speech

back in the day I used to play drytron and this one guy would pick up every. single. card. that I put on the field and read it. And the thing with drytron is theres a lot of moving parts coming on and off the field so whenever he stopped to read my cards I would have to stop and let him so I can move it in my next play. That's fine, slow player wants to know what my cards do whatever, the horrible part is him saying "you can keep going while I read" when I can't keep going while my moving parts aren't where they're meant to be, and he put the blame on me when we ran out of time despite the fact my combo lasts less than a minute if I'm not interrupted. Then he had the audacity to get pissy when I wanted to ask the judge a ruling question, even though I didn't stop the duel and just wanted to know something irrelevant. Now on the flip side, some good sportsmanship: some decks I hate playing against like tearlament and runic, but when I'm going up against a funny fella I can crack jokes with and talk shit back and fourth with is so much fun that I don't mind when they play a deck that I don't like. I think sportsmanship is extremely important in this game full of sack and rules and tense situations. I would much rather go against the most annoying deck in the game piloted by a comedian than go against a boring, easily beaten deck piloted by a brick wall

What attracts me to the content from APS so heavily are the classic Yu-Gi-Oh duels: Using structure decks from the 2010's, very little hand traps and playing a much slower paced game. The strategy lies in card management, as well as constantly maintaining a strong offence and defense, wheras what I observe from the current meta is that a great deck and game is determined by how effectively and often you can stop your opponent from making extended and interesting plays. Which in my experience, is stopping players from doing what makes the game fun. I full agree with your statements on sportsmanship, people shouldn't imply they do or don't have certain cards, but I also wish those cards never existed so we would not have this problem. I know there are traditional formats but it would nice to see the largely dominated format encourage both players towering up to decked-out boards and big monsters rather than "if your opponent does anything: they can no longer do that thing" I have been wanting to play at my locals for some time now, but have always been held back by the cost and sticking to this desire to avoid hand traps (this, limiting me to never being able to last more than one turn. This is my first time expressing my thoughts and hesitations. Thank you team APS and Paul for creating an environment that sparks conversation and a community that aims to be understanding.