Can't watch the entire video right now? No worries! Here are some timestamps so you can watch it in sections: What is a Master Rule: 0:00 Master Rule 1: 3:01 Master Rule 2: 7:32 Master Rule 3: 15:47 Master Rule 4: 21:25 Master Rule 5: 27:40
wouldn't 'what is a Master Rule' technically start at 0:41 (after the TCGplayer.com splash)? this has been your daily dose of pedantry. have a good day.
In the video, I noticed you called them "Master Rules" for each singular rule change. I'm glad that you fixed this mistake in this comment down here. "Master Rule" should be used for one of them in singular, while "Master Rules" should be used to describe a group of them in plural. This was something I just noticed recently myself, and wanted to spread awareness of this.
ghost hoodie animation yeah same, I’ve never dipped into what’s going on in the competitive Yu-Gi-Oh scene. Id also like to see how it’s evolved, especially in the beginning where it began to diverge from casual play, I mean, modern Yu-gi-oh is so much fun casual, all the crazy tuner and xyz monsters and everything.
I was just about to comment before I watched: This is going to make the next 30 minutes of work from home a bit better, would like more of this from doug. Especially because he is actually well worded.
His videos are essentially mini-podcasts to begin with. The visuals are rarely essential to look at to understand his discussions, so it's pretty easy to just put them on to listen to in the background while doing other things.
A few years ago someone (I think farfa?) uploaded a video called something along the lines of “the history of yugioh in one duel” and it was a really cool duel that went through like 15 years worth of yugioh eras. It was a few years ago so it’s obviously not up to date now, but definitely worth the watch
Doug, I love longer videos like these. I tend to listen to videos in the background while I play a game (in fact I played Animal Crossing while listening to this) and longer form videos like this are perfect for that.
I stopped playing just before Pendulums came out. I recently started playing with the Yugioh game on Switch. I was dissapointed at first because you could only summon only 1 Fusion or Syncro or XYZ monster without having Link monsters with the right arrows so even though I liked the game I didn't had as much fun as I thought. But when the Monster Rules 2020 came out the game is a blast to play. You can ignore LInks and just summon a bunch of monsters at once, you know like how it should have been from the beginning? Summoning a bunch of Shaddols Fusions at once, a bunch of Raidraptors at once, a bunch of Blackwings at once? So much fun!
Yep I bought the game before they updated to master rules 5, unless you were playing a deck that didn’t use the extra deck or one that used almost exclusively link monsters you were needlessly fucked in multiple area’s. It was especially stupid since they didn’t factor the story decks for the rule set. The only saving grace for it was you could have 3 banned, restricted, and semi restricted cards that way decks not including link monsters were not entirely screwed over.
Link monsters are not a bad thing, it's good to have a monster that you can summon just by having 2-3 monsters on the field without caring for levels or Tunners. The problem was making your beloved old decks unusable, that was a bad call, and even pendulums(That i don't understand to this day because i never cared) didn't made all the old machanics obsolete. You could keep using any deck ignoring the mechanic. Link changed that and the new Master rule corrects it.
José Manuel Konami created link monsters in attempt to slow down the game, but after a couple months when so many more good link monsters were released, it made the game even faster than before, so then, they created the new master rule to return back to before while still nerfing pendulums. The real problem mechanic
@@kenzofromtheyu-gi-squad2601 Konami: Links are to slow down the game. Also Konami: Encouraged Extra Linking where your opponent is locked out of their entire Extra Deck. But Pendulums are the _real_ problem mechanic...
José Manuel exactly! Link monsters were great i loved the idea of monsters that had effects based on what were around it. It was master rules 4 basically making them mandatory for most decks that can go to hell.
I'm intrigued how you mentioned that Master Rule 3 was the most despised master rule, because my personal experience pointed to that being Master Rule 4. Every new mechanic since Synchro did not actually change how your deck played, but Link monsters were mandatory if you wanted more than one extra deck monster on the field at a time, and that pissed a *lot* of people off, myself included. Maybe it's just the context of playing with people who hadn't changed decks but a handful of times over many years instead of chasing the meta (we were young and didn't have the disposable income for that), but that change alone seriously killed a huge portion of the community I was in off because they felt like they were being strong-armed into purchasing new cards they didn't actually care about and couldn't play the decks they loved anymore. It's the first change that made me think Konami wanted to make money not by creating new or interesting deck styles for us to want to experiment with but by flat out changing the rules on older decks and forcing them to evolve newer cards into their strategies to even try and stay alive, which is basically why I quit at that point.
@@justawarlord For the mechanic/metas themselves, I believe that. I'd even argue that Link was generally a much more positive change save what Master Rule 5 will eventually solve about it compared to Pendulums at release. But at the time of Master Rule 4 rolling out, in that moment of change? Links were oppressive by comparison to Pendulums. I'm speaking from personal experience, so it's normal that my small subset is not the same as everyone everywhere, which is why I won't dispute that Master Rule 3 could have absolutely been more hated than Master Rule 4, but Pendulums honestly didn't change much for us and budget decks had access to plenty of counterplay because Anti-special summon isn't that hard to find. By comparison, the mere existence of Link meta nerfed so many decks (RIP to my friends playing Ghostricks and Quasar turbo, they were hit the hardest), and while the Link monsters themselves weren't too bad early on, it was the fact you basically *had* to play them that set most of us off. It left a bad taste for them that really basically left many of them as holdouts against the mechanic (because Konami expects you to spend money on them after they said, "No, you can't play your favorite deck anymore.") and simply couldn't compete by the time the likes of Borreload and Firewall rolled around.
I swear Pendulum was extremely easy to understand, but for some reasons people didn't buy it. Sure there were some broken Pendulum builds out there (looking at you Qliphort), but overall, it's still not mandatory like Link and the other summoning methods were still very viable
Yeah the original push to force links was insane limiting ED monsters to 1 per board without them should have never been a thing Pendulum players probably still hate it
@@jmurray1110 It was kinda like how XYZ monsters were pushed in the beginning. But changing the rules was just taking it too far. Especially when it only benefited Links.
@@GenX6887 xyz at least didn’t fuck over synchro they were played depending on the deck but you weren’t forced to include any by the rules (just power creep)
But it was really annoying thrust me, the first time someone pulled off that trick I was like wtf. But the rulings were OK in that area so I had to just accept it.
As much as I appreciate PSCT, I wish the tcg used bullet points more often. Stratos is one of my favorite cards just because of the way its effect is formatted, it's just so clean.
I agree, as a Yang Zing player, ppl get mindblown so much they call the judge on me constantly because of YZ monster's wall of text, it'd be best to be organized to reduce that from happening
How about they just outline it like : Requirement: Effect: Limitation: Or something like that, but at least seperate the activation requirement and the actual effect, that would make the game so much easier on anyone trying to get into it.
As someone who was into Yugioh as a kid and only just recently started learning about it again, this video is super helpful for me. A lot of videos mention Master Rules but those same channels don't tend to define their terms, so thanks for making this :)
The same way you fondly remember synchros I actually have fond memories of xyz monsters. I started playing yugioh after I watched some reruns of the old series and after I started watching zexal I think I was ten or nine at the time(I think, It was right after the series started.) Anyway I got some random packs from gx and the utopia structure deck. Back then I really only had my grandma to play with even though she didn't really understand much of the cards (hell I didn't understand the cards myself). Now I know what my cards do and I have friends to play with, but those were nice times.
I love XYZ and master rule 2 because while I was never away from Yu-Gi-Oh but by the time XYZ were released I wasn't playing Yu-Gi-Oh as much as I did And XYZ is what got me back to the game
It always blows my mind to find out that synchros came out in 2008 and xyz came out in 2011 because I played casually with friends up until 2015 because that was the year everyone found out about synchros and xyz. Somehow nobody in my town had ever heard about those mechanics until 2015. None of the cards were ever found in any packs or structure decks. It’s like my town existed in an alternate reality where synchro and xyz didn’t actually come out until way later than it did for everyone else.
Just started the video and heard your thing about the timestamps, that actually sounds like a great compromise between people who like long videos and people who like short ones. Not sure why this isn't more common
I have always enjoy these types of discussion. It feels better than watching Yugitubers hyping up new cards all the time. Keep up the great content Dzeef!
"Now I don't expect you to watch it all today, you can watch half today and half tomorrow" OR I can enjoy a long discussion video because its quarantine season and seriously I need these long videos thank you.
The “going first is advantageous” thing is always surprising to me, but that’s because I only play the duel links format where turn 2 is significantly stronger than turn 1. But it makes sense in the tcg format where there’s more life points and more options for negation and disruption.
The thing about going first is that you dont have to only rely on handtraps to interact with your opponent because you can set up your board with traps and monster effects, which generally undoes any advantage of going second if you play it right.
5:16 The effect on the player base was really quite dramatic. The Yu-Gi-Oh! players born in the early 90s were pretty appalled by the decision to add extra deck monsters that were so strong, so powerful, that deck building would be forever changed to accommodate them. They left in droves, and it very much DID seem like the end of Yu-Gi-Oh! Look at the card releases, and note how soon Goyo guardian was released after the introduction of Synchros. We were hardly prepared. Dark magician of chaos and breaker the magical warrior were considered some of the best cards in the game at that time. Power curve has risen exponentially since then, And most of modern deck building now revolves around terms like "combo-off" and "chains". The decks that came out in the immediate aftermath were auto pilot and non-interactive. Synchros only made decks like the Lightsworns (which already played themselves) even more powerful. And if you're curious, this has literally just happened in Magic the gathering with the release of the newest set. They have added an extra deck and cards that can be called arbitrarily from it.
I remember dropping from the game when pendulums came out cuz it just looked silly. Then when Links came out, it dawned on me I couldn't play the game again cuz Konami essentially slowed the game down.
You had me at being able to Fusion Summon and Synchro Summon freely again. With a little fine-tuning, my deck may actually be viable even if it won't always win.
I just realized something. MR4 is like the “New Coke” of YGO formats. They implemented it to change things up but people didn’t like it so when they undid it (aka went back to “Old Coke”), people came back in droves excited about being able to do what they used to be able to do.
MR4 trashed my Blackwings deck, and made it really hard for me to play. It made it so I *NEEDED* links, and since my "collection" was basically the stuff no one else wanted and one actual deck, it made getting link cards was damn near impossible. At the time, I had no job and no money, and couldn't just buy things to keep up, so I spent a while not being able to play or playing a serious disadvantage. Thank christ they finally changed it.
How could I not watch a 30 minute dzeef video in one go? Thanks for this video! I've been wanting to learn more about previous master rules and this made it easy!
We need False Swipe Gaming to cover that. "Link monsters became a thing, but how did they work out? Was moving the Pendulum zones a good decision? Let's find out how Master Rule 4 fared in the competitive scene, as we ask: How Good Was Master Rule 4 Actually?"
Dzeeff: I don't expect you to watch it all in one go, it would take a lot of time, and not everybody has this much free time and stuff. Quarantine: YOU UNDERESTIMATE MY POWER!!!
Ya know, I'd like to see you and BladeYGO do a collab together. Y'all have the same kinda style, and I think a history video from you two would be neat.
Wait you forgot the most important, Master rule zero when you can summon Dark Magician in attack mode and attack directly for game, this video is inaccurate, watch the anime
I think the problem with MOST and emphasis on the word most not all pendulum monsters/cards is that Konami made them work not as a new mechanic but as one big very synergistic archetype Look at Pepe's and pend magicians or mythical beasts and endemion and cards from metalfoes and Qlis and Zefra cards somehow some way ALMOST every pendulum card was good in almost every pure pendulum deck and decks that didn't synergies with the all of the rest it wasn't good enough to be competitive especially compared to its tier0 counter parts And the only good "pendulum" deck that strayed away for the crowd was DDD and it's entirely pendulum focused however it shows what pendulum should have need ( a supporting mechanic to help main mechanics ) And that is what I think the problem with pendulums was .
I wouldn't say 'all'; most get ignored, like the entirety of the Dinomist archetype, or every magispecter besides Unicorn. But enough to make a deck. One single deck, that is the only competitive deck to use the mechanic.
I play an Odd-Eyes deck and I never use it, mostly because it doesn't actually help you win the game. If Odd-Eyes is in the pendulum zone, it's going to the extra deck at end of turn.
Many have mentioned they don't mind longer videos and I have to agree. I love hearing your discussions and I could listen to you speak about meaningful conversations about yugioh for hours.
The last thing i remember playung yugioh back in the day was synchro and xyz, so right now i dont now nothing about pandelum or link monster or how to play in this day right now lol
I'd really get back into Yu-Gi-Oh if they started to make the world championship games again. I don't really know what a ton of things do anymore and I feel back playing against other people and slowing the game down because I don't know what I'm doing
It’s interesting how old school players would complain about synchros when we basically had the same concept with contact fusion. There were multiple fusion monsters that could be summoned by just sending to the gy/removing from play the fusion materials from the field to summon the fusion monster (like XYZ Dragon and Neo Spacian monsters.)
I played from lob and I quit like a month before xyz came out. I loved synchro when I played. I just started playing again.. it's taking me a while to catch up. The game is so much different than it was in 2009-2010.
Can someone explain the latest Master rule a little bit better he just Breezed through it, it made it sound like you can special summon as much as you want and link arrows dont mean anything anymore
When Synchros came out I actually really liked the idea of Tuners being required for a summoning mechanic, Xyz is where I started to have a problem, Xyz just felt like Synchros without Tuners and if they were more generic and then Konami proved me wrong by making Links which were VERY generic to a game-breaking point and you cannot deny that considering how many Links ended up banned. Synchros and Pendulums are objectively the most unique and balanced Extra Deck mechanics added (Pendulums were NOT balanced at the time they were added, but they are now).
12:35 i think you might scare people with the "few hours" comment lol. When i first learned it i dont think it took more than 30 mins at most because its pretty straightforward, occasionally going back to reinforce it
I actually had that Synchro starter deck, I remember it was my first structured deck and at the time it felt pretty good. I didn't play competitive or anything so I didn't know the value (or lack there of) of this deck
I play Yu-Gi-Oh casually, but every time I have problems with card interpretation I always stop, read the card slowly and paying attention to punctuation and I if I still don't get it, I always try to get an explanation online, so it gladens me that the "problem solving text card" thing happened and they are actively trying to always better the understanding of players
Ironically, this change invalidates some of the best Ritual cards we currently have. Impcantations, Nekroz, Preparation of Rites, Pre-Preparation of Rites, and Herald of the Arc Light all lose a lot of power. It's an interesting idea but I think it'd be too late to switch all of them over at this point. Would've been cool to have seen that when they were first introduced, though :)
Im a kid and i started yugioh in 2015. I LOVED the game and i learnt all the summons very quickly. Master rule 4 is ok i guess but it really takes the fun out of the game. I miss summoning my extra deck cards anywhere and setting the pendulum scale without havjng to worry about my spell and trap zones. Im still into yugioh but i really prefer master rule 3 and i play causally at home with that format. I remember when i got yuya's deck and duelling my brother (he had a deck of cards thrown together) and i just had a blast. Im not gonna say Link summoning ruined yugioh as a whole but i will say it took some fun out of the game.
That was what they wanted you to say during the last three years. By locking out all the extra deck themes with Links they invented a need in players for them to make Links to more old archetypes and thus they can sell more exclusively Link product like the cards in Link Vrains packs. Artificially making the mechanic more valuable by directly interfering with other mechanics.
Andrew Foose i have made several customs. Granted they would be banned because they link three that point to your opponent, and make all normal monster zones extra monster zones.
The only extra deck mechanics I like are fusion and xyz. Synchro is fine in theory, but I find tuner combo bullshit incredibly dumb, one junk synchron and a lv2 in graveyard is all you need to get an insane board, and one effect veiler or ash blossom is all you need to prevent ALL of it (it's either one extreme or the other)... Also synchro is very close to ritual, except it's in the extra deck. If ritual monsters were actually in the extra deck and synchros weren't a thing, I think it would be way better for the game. Pendulums and Links can go completely...
I completely agree with this history of Master Rules, but I also remember there being a large book in Japan you could order seperately that featured detailed rules before Yu-Gi-Oh 5D's. I think it featured the rules as one of it's sections, but it wasn't the only feature in the book. Do you know anything about this book and it's officialness in terms of game rules for the Yu-Gi-Oh OCG, and do you know what these rules were called?
While master rule 3 introduced some rule changes i didn't much care for (multiple fields, and no draw on 1st go) it introduced pendulums, so it was overall an alright ruleset. Nothing that really screwed with the game too much. Master rule 4 was Konami introducing a problem, and then giving you a terrible solution to said problem in the form of link monsters. I was considering getting back into competitive with Master rule 5, seeing as they fixed the game. Then I remembered how toxic the community was, and was another big factor on why I had a falling out of the game. I still play for fun every now and then, so I'm glad they made the game fun again.
XYZs monsters is my number 1 favorite mechanic. It's widely different from other mechanic and yet still remained simple. Also it's probably the most powerful mechanic since it had highest number of extra deck monsters banned only links coming close second. I wouldn't be surprised if links surpass XYZ monsters in terms of number of monsters being banned.
I don't think syncros ruined the game, but people were certainly put off by "card games on motorcycles" lol And of the all the new extra deck mechanics, I think syncros are the stinkiest and most obtuse to use. Xyz was probably my favorite addition, very easy to use for the most part. Links were the most overwhelming to learn, lol
