Well at least your honest Paul, I'll give you that much. But I stand firm on diverse formats are far better than formats where you can only play a couple of decks. I've never had the personality that I like diversity if it benefits me. I like it because it's healthier to the game in general. I do understand ppl want to win in competitions, but you have just the much chance of loosing in a Tier 0 format or a diverse format. Big difference is their will diversity or you gonna see the same lame deck over and over.
I think diversity is important. In the cartoon, you see the duellists have to try and plan for unknown scenarios and adapted when they encounter issues. It really showed skill and their ability to adapt. Having a small field of decks and simply planning for those decks doesn't test your skills as much, and is really just wait for a pre-determined combo that others may also be using. Half the fun is the unknown and testing your skills and deck against the interpretation of others. Believe in the heart of the cards and in yourselves, folks.
I loved how in the anime people will use decks that matches their personality and not the cookie cutter deck. Yugioh gx actually made a snub on that by having a character that never uses a original deck but copies what ever is the strongest deck
That logic doesn’t really apply when the lesser represented decks in question essentially boil down to “x combo deck that is a pseudo ftk if your opponent doesn’t have the outs for it”
Though in the Anime, they also have cards that are Incredibly Situational! Unless you Use Cards like Siegfried’s Valkyries at the time. Cause we never really say Cohesive Archetypes before, even in DM Era Yugioh, that deck was a rarity! As far as Variety in deck building. It depends on the format and the Speed! Original Decks have Topped, especially in the type of builds that Screwed players over due to a “Key” card that misunderstood at the time, or the Advantage of Token/Synchro Spam of Junk Doppelgänger, Dandy Warrior, or Dark Strike Fighter Turbo! The Truth is, we will always be Unprepared for a Specific Card for a Deck Build That Topples over players due to skill, and effective response around problem Cards!
A potential counterintuitive benefit of diverse formats: The stakes of not learning/siding against a particular matchup is smaller than less diverse formats. Focusing on learning and optimizing your own deck is a meaningful skill
variety is better just for the fact that you can play older decks that don't cost as much, but compete just as well as the new decks. It also allows newer players to be competitive without worrying about cost barrier making them grow with the game instead of being frustrated that their decks aren't as good as a 1000 dollar deck.
Agreed. I think being prepared for anything is always a better show of skill than being prepared for the same couple dozen or so combos that are likely to come up from the same handful of decks you'll face in every round at tournaments.
This, when I played, ( granted 10 years ago at this point 😂) I hardly used my sidedeck unless the match up is brutal. Just make your deck legit against a variety of players
There are a few thousands of playable, distinct, decks in Yugioh. It's humanly impossible to be ready for any deck. The main factor that keeps most of these strategies unusable is the consistency, but that's completely out of your hands.
One thing I’ve also noticed is that a lot of times archetype decks aren’t *actually* archetype decks, it’s just a couple of cards from said archetype and then everything else is just hand traps or interruptions or etc. and at that point it just makes everything feel like super mega powerful staples + a few archetype cards.
Pretty much. Like I'm all for diversity, but "Hand trap" the deck is sadly a think you at times see more and more of. Like mix and match archetypes and call it a hybrid, have some fun. If running an archetype, actually have it be the focus of a deck lol.
That's what I realized too after I played D/D/D when Crystron Halqifibrax was released. Always used the D/D cards as tools to summon out generic omni negates which got boring in the long run. That's why I tend to run the pure variant. It's more fun, versatile and can respond to a lot of different boards with the right tech choices. Currently run 2 of each small world, ash blossom (can't get around about how many cards she checks and is the only fire monster hand trap I know with stats that are actually useful for small world) and lava golem which work really well with each other.
I'd argue this is a bigger problem in Master Duel/OCG, where every deck runs Maxx C, meaning every deck also runs counters to Maxx C (Ash Blossom, Called By, Crossout, ect.). A bigger problem for the TCG is generic extra deck monsters (every deck plays S:P Little Knight now, and the majority of decks run Baronne de Fleur, Divine Arsenal ZEUS, Accesscode Talker and so forth).
That's always how it's been. These types of decks always existed. Back then, it was powerful traps with some archetype cards, just look at HAT. If you go back to edison, the same trend exists with certain decks. Yu-Gi-Oh! has always had these types of decks it's really nothing new.
I personally really like the surprise/challenge factor that a diverse format provides. In my view it forces people to have to think on the fly about curveball decks which rewards good strategy and decision-making, plus encourages being more introspective about the strengths/weaknesses of ones own deck versus preparing for the top few meta decks.
I think this is in part what's made their "Slifer Slackers" series on the main channel so interesting to me. Paul changed up his deck a couple of times in that format, including that Fairy/Roid mix, and really been able to throw some interesting curve balls.
On melee, at the top top level, the games turned into stall. I think diverse formats also keep prices low to a degree since not everyone is trying to get the same cards outside of staples.
I do think wide formats are more skillfull but aside from that, competitive yugioh is a tiny fraction of the community, most peoples interactions with yugioh is at their locals, and so people want to have variety of decks, wide formats are better for the community overall, which I think is more important.
Diverse formats are very clearly better for every kind of player except hyper competitive types. A variety of viable decks to choose from means players are more able to pick a deck that suits their preferred playstyle. Opening sealed product will have you pulling a lot more actually good or useful cards instead of worthless pack filler. Prices on the secondary market will be better because everyone isn't after the same handful of cards. Viewers get to have more exciting and varied matches. Practically everything you could think of that constitutes a healthy game is associated with a diverse format, with the only conceivable downside being that individual players might top events less consistently. As such, when regular tournament competitors say they prefer consolidated formats, its hard for me to see that as anything other than their own desire for clout and/or prizing coming through.
Definitely diverse format. I get why pro players hate diverse format becouse is hard to prepare for multiple decks but as a casual is so much fun to play against diferent decks every game especially after tear format where every single game was the same. Also usually when is a very diverse format the power of the decks is a little lower so you get sometimes nostalgia decks performing. I like the analogy with melle. I always compared yugioh with league of legends when I explain yugioh to a new player. Yes is a game that technically has hundreds of diferent decks but like in lol only a dozens or so decks are viable and to have success you chose a deck and you learn it til perfection like a lol or fighting character main.
Variety in the format of a game is healthy. Having only 1-5 viable decks show that the game has a issue in its design not a good thing for the health of the game.
For reference: both Brawl and Melee only have a handful of viable characters, but the difference is the quality of the match-ups. That being said, I too like playing Smash Ultimate. I just like watching Melee more, seeing Hungrybox pop off brings me so much joy.
I feel like having 3-5 viable decks in a format is more healthy than you think. It provides enough variety for the same matchup not to happen every duel but also not so open ended where there are like 20ish decks that are playable and no one can side properly.
I 100% prefer diversity in my Y-Gi-Oh games. I absolutely love seeing an opponent set up some archetype I've never seen before, and I'm forced to really pay attention and try to think on my feet to outsmart the new enemy. I think this way also really encourages players to think outside the box and try to come up with new ways to approach the game (which also encourages more Pendulum play, which I like to see. I want every system being used!). I personally really don't like when the game is dominated by two or three meta archetypes. It gets so stale and boring for me. I just groan and roll my eyes (obviously in Master Duel, not gonna be that disrespectful irl haha) when I see Kashtira, Branded Despia, or Dragon Link for the 800th time that week. Yu-Gi-Oh is abundant in fun archetypes, and the more people experiment and try new things, the fresher it is, in my opinion.
I love me a diverse format. Sure I get the view from some people from the competitive side as it's hard to be prepared for 20 different match-ups for an event. But what a diverse format does is make the game way more fun on an individual level as people can usually play a deck with a playstyle the enjoy. The prhaps even more important thing for me is another side effect; the prices of said decks. In a very narrow format the meta decks will be more expensive due to the high demand. In a diverse format people can get away with not paying 1000+ bucks for a competitive deck. Sure staples like Tripple Tactics Thrust and S:P Little Knight will still be expensive, but cheaper archetypes will see competitive play. Given the very valid complaints about card prices I think this is a highly important point not to underestimate. The biggest floodgate of people playing this game long term is how pricey a competitive deck is, even if it's only a fully stacked tier 2 deck.
It's not "harder" to prepare for a 20 deck format, it's just impossible. You have to disrespect some matchups, which means you can lose a tournament by pairing into them out of sheer bad luck. Competitive players dislike super diverse formats because it's easier for the most optimal deck to lose due to uncontrollable circumstances.
@@tsukamesuccess7332 True you can't plan the specific ideal out for a bunch of different decks. I totally see that. Even though you still can adapt especially your side deck in such a way that it hits as many decks that are a bad matchup for you as possible. That does not completely allow to prep for everything as well. I do see that it only partially remedies this "issue". Though I am very happy to sacrifice this for a more approachable game. YuGiOh is such a niche game with a very very high entry price. To combat this seems way more valuable for the games health than having 100% planable match-ups for high tier tournaments.
@@kemor6861 that makes competive worse, yugioh health suffers from lack of format support. making standard the everything format makes the downsides of all of it and no upsides.
@@randomprotag9329 I hope you are aware that 1st not all YuGiOh is played competetively and 2nd the biggest gatekeeper to having way more people play YuGiOh is how costly the top tier decks are in a narrow format. Even though the format is quite open now the Sinful Diablestar engine costs roughly 500 bucks, add 3 bonfire and you're close to 900 for just a small engine to add on top of the main engine and non-engine plus extra deck cards like SP. God knows how expensive Snake-Eyes Populus will be and fire decks which most likely will be the top meta going forward come February 18th will cost 1500$+ easily. If you think that is healthy for the game then good riddence. Good luck trying to onboard people onto the game and the competitive scene. I have a good amount of friends who enjoy YuGiOh or think it's interesting but none of them are willing to get deep into it because playing it is way too pricey. Especially considering that buying a deck isn't a one and done deal. You'll have to adapt with every (other) banlist. So spending will be stupidly high in just a year of playing just to have one competitive deck. That's how you make people quit the game and not join it.
I think one thing that frequently gets overlooked in this discussion is the difference between deck diversity and playstyle diversity. I care more about diverse playstyles than having a wide range of decks. Basically I would rather have 1 deck that can be built/played 5 different ways than 5 decks that all feel the same to play against. I feel like Yugioh's card design with splashable engines and powerful generic boss monsters causes it to lean towards the latter, and it makes me sad when I see an archetype listed for a deck only to find out that the deck is playing like 3 cards from that archetype as a side engine.
I like diverse decks but the problem is what kind of decks. If we have a top tier fusion and ritual and link and xyz meta decks then I love that format. Konami just pushes new product with little to no thought about options for players. Magic the gathering does this very well, where so many new cards are released and players have so many options of how to play. Konami releases new archetype and destroys everything before it so it is the only playable deck.
variety is always a good thing. seeing and playing against the same stupid ass 5 decks over and over is in noway shape or form fun. especially in a card game with over 300 archetypes.
300+ decks which play the same is not variety. seems like the issue is everything playing the same instead of the number of decks 5 decks should easily be able be variety enough for a format. a 5 deck format ha 25 total match ups.
The best measure of skill is the feeling of discomfort. If you feel like you dislike variety format, its the challange, it would pull you out of your comfort zone and actually makes you better as a duelist. Use the deck you like, and optimize it to face as many as different challange. Wide & genral stopper is the way. Pokemon TCG dont even have side deck so they do it that way. 1 backbone/star/goals to achieve, with plenty of useful quality role player. Just like Basketball
pokemon is a better designed game, pokemon is low power enough that a match up not "sided" for is a winnable one. trying to do that in yugioh gives you basicly unwinnable match ups. pokemon siding is more general like anti stadium or anti tool instead of deck specific.
I think the "watching vs playing" is a really good point, and personally, I think for accessibility, having a variety of viable decks is better for the game. Yu-Gi-Oh has a bit of an exclusivity problem, where the game feels difficult to engage with for new players because the people who do play at that high level know those formats through and through, and that can be a daunting challenge. Having a wide range of decks that can be competitive is overall better for the game. I also think if there's only a handful of 'good' decks at one time, that causes stuff like the pricing issues on cards as well. The reason some of the cards that are coming out lately are costing $100 on the secondary market is because EVERYONE needs to run those cards to be competitive, since everyone is using variations of the same handfuls of decks. If there were a wider variety, there wouldn't be as much need for something like Bonfire to cost as much as it does since there wouldn't be as high of a demand, which also makes the game more accessible to newer players and can help the brand to grow.
I feel like if they wanna fix these meta defining cards like dimension weaver or ash blossoms, they should add conditions to them that tie em to their archetype, and then start working on the archetypes they want to see comeptitive success. For example, for ash blossoms, you would have to reveal one other ghost girl handtrap archetype related card in your hand, that way if they DO decide to run hand traps, they would have to risk destroying the balance of their deck by adding in other cards that dont work with it, or maybe nibiru requires monsters from the dino archetypes, if they were to ever fix the meta so that decks cant just run cards that are good on their own, i feel like this would be how they do it
i think another one of the bigger issues is... they made too many generic boss monsters way too good. Like Mannadium primehearts isn;t even in his own deck because there's better stuff to make like Baronne or Dis pater. Like almost all synchro decks will just probably ended up with a different board state of Baronne/Dis pater, Borreload Savage/Crystal wing/Crimson Dragon, other generic synchros plus 1 or 2 archetype monster/backrow on field.
Bar shifter the other two cards are perfectly fine as is. Ash is 1 for 1 and can be easily baited. Nib is an answer to overly long combo decks that don't respect it.
except yokai girls and dinos arent even an archetype and in yokai girls case they dont even work together, all this willreally do is make decks even more oppressive because hand traps is more restrictive or force konami's hand into printing hand traps into every archetype which just loops back around into a similar issue
@@waiyon1951 and the solution to THAT would be.... tying it down to a specific archetype, once again, lets take some link boss monsters as an example, top bomber dragon, it just requires monsters, SO, make it require machine type or cyberse type monsters or something instead of generic monsters, now as for dragoon, what if instead of discarding specifically trap spell or monsters, they HAVE to be Red eyes related cards of the same type?
@@YukiFubuki. good point.... but then konami would have a couple choices here, ban the current dominant decks or whatever card is the biggest problem, or make current decks strong enough to compete via retrains etc, and what they do is make the yokai girls into their own archetype, just an example of course, but i guess it's not that simple because some people would be really angry at their god tier decks being banned, its a whole mess but its fun to theorize on how they would fix it, if they ever will at ALL
Thats why certain decks work better on master duel, like i climbed from rookie 1 to plat 2 i a couple days on speedroid even though its considered a bad deck
It would make the format worse as them the rouge decks would be the decks to beat and so you would play a deck that beats those to then beat those The side deck allows more picks of decks while in a wide format stops silver bullets being common.
@@GG_Nowa I'm an outsider kinda, but the name "rogue" makes it feel like they're outside of the meta, which means they aren't as powerful. Why would the worse decks be the one to beat and not the tier 0 ones? OP implies rogue decks can't really thrive BECAUSE of side decking and it's so easy to counter them.
i love that theres FINALLY more variety. RN im playing pure lyrilusc and its destroying meta slaves bc they kinda forgot how the deck plays lol. Love rogue decks. Was playing generaider and cubic awhile ago. Playing decks people dont know how to counter is so much fun
I'm of the mind that more variety in the format takes a bit more skill than a tier 0 format, especially for Yu-Gi-Oh. The wider variety shows the depth of different matchups and how well a player can navigate through matches with their singular deck. A diverse format also helps lower prices as players aren't necessarily pushed into a specific set of archetypes and staples while powerful may not always be effective against certain decks.
You're right, but once a meta gets to a point that there are too many threats to reasonably cover, a random card game becomes even more random. Skill goes out the window in a 13 deck format when you're praying to dodge 6 uncheckable matchups in a long tournament, it's not like a fighting game or other competitve outing where you do have bad matchups, but those bad matchups are either checked by popluar threats or are managable in matchup. It's a major reason why competitve players like Tier 0 or Triangle Formats, to the dismay of the casual audience or spectators. You'll never please everybody without taking away a huge chunk of one side or the other, unless you built a competitve game first and a spectator spectacle/cash cow second.
@@larvatar2387 that's a good point, but I also think that's more of a balancing issue created by Konami, which can, in theory, be corrected. The issue of uncheckable matchups is a problem because as you point out, there's no way to manage the threats. If more decks were supported at one time by the brand, I don't think it would become as much of an issue. A lot of other Card games have circumvented the issue by having a better balance across their game, while Yu-Gi-Oh has had a power creep that makes it difficult to create a lot of support at one time for a variety of decks. You're also right that there is no simple fix. You're definitely going to piss off people on one side or the other (potentially both), so it depends on what Konami wants from the brand. I'm of the opinion that if they want the brand to grow and be more accessible to newer players, they need to have a wider variety of decks and formats.
@@larvatar2387 I'm fine with Triangle formats as long as there's a healthy cast of rogue/tier 2 decks that have the potential to beat out the big three threats. Even with those array of bad matchups for your deck, it's up to you, the deck builder, to mitigate the gap in the matchup as well as you, the pilot, to better pilot your deck against the bad matchup. To some extent this is also true with Tier 0 formats, but it's become simpler as there are specific silver bullets to beat out the Tier 0 deck and it devolves to who has the bullet.
@@No__Vanity Admittedly, my post was phrased a little poorly, my usage of the format implies this current format when it's in reference to any format with a lot of variety. That said, how are SP Little Knight, Chaos Angel, Ty Phon in every deck any different to other hand traps and ED staples? They're good generic staples applied to a deck that answer many problems easy enough, not much different to Imperm, Ash Blossom, Baronne, or Zeus. Now with regards to the Sinful Spoils engine, the cards only take up a small portion of a given deck's 40 card space and it acts to aid the core strategy of another archetype, like Rescue ACE or Fire Kings.
i prefer an actual diverse format not like the current diverse format where it's basically just different way of making the same end board... i want a diverse format where each deck have their own end board, not just the usual, appolosa, borrele dragon, clear wing dragon and barronne.
I'm reminded of the argument Stephanie Sterling made about street fighter 6. Making a mode that removes button inputs meant that a lot of classical players got bodied by noobs who couldn't do the inputs before, but now that they weren't held back by the game mechanics they could win with superior mind games or interaction instincts. The conclusion was that "you weren't winning before because you were better. You were winning because the memorization-hungry mechanics gatekept others from competing with you." I call bullshit on Players who like "narrow but deep/rewarding" formats with 2-3 decks. They don't find it more rewarding to PLAY those formats, they find it rewarding to be one of the people who knows HOW to play those formats. I don't fault anyone for enjoying the metagame of yugioh more than Yu-Gi-Oh itself, but they can still play the game if casuals foster a diverse metagame. If the tryhards are eating good, the casuals have to wait their turn.
Variety is the spice of life, and games. If you have the ability to play more things, you can find something that you want, that is still good. I think that is important. It also makes your own skill at deckbuilding more important, which in turn makes you a better player.
@@villainousTCG Sounds like you just cant deck build for verity. "wa, I can't fill my side deck with silver bullets that make me auto win in game 2 and 3." You aren't owed a side deck that is tailored to have the exact answer to your opponent and you don't deserve to win.
@@villainousTCG And one more thing, being competitive isn't a good excuse for bad gameplay. Having 2 or 3 competitive decks where everything is decided by side deck auto win cards isn't good gameplay.
@@villainousTCG If you want to win in Competitive event. It is your responsibility to achieve it. Not the dev's responsibility to make the format easier for your ego.
I only started playing again since tear format. Tear format was fun because I was able to play my pet deck, as long as I ran a ton of bystials and shifter as my nonengine. Now, my pet deck doesn't work as well which sucks. I was able to build a new, pretty competitive deck for cheap for this new format and I like that as well. I'm the end, I think I like when many decks are good. It's easier to build a competitive deck for cheap, at least it feels that way. Also, the case that preparing for events is something I don't think much of. I play in smaller locals and don't intend to go further. It's cool that right now, everyone at locals and my friends outside of locals all play different decks.
As a competitive player who goes to a high power locals I love deck vareity in the game. It forces me to really understand what my engine can do in order to out all these different board states. It's not just learning matchups which is important, but it's also about learning the game The one downside with wide formats is side decking becomes a nightmare. It's impossible to craft a side deck lineup that can tackle every single deck that you night see.
That’s one thing I love about casual Yugioh. The possibilities are endless! I love bringing different strategies to locals every week to keep my fellow players on their toes (top 4 decks banned, shop rules)
As a older casual yugioh fan (stopped watching after yugi and came back to it 10 years later, and again 25 yrs later). Variety is good. I feel like competitive players just need to build less optimized and more flexible decks.
A diverse format is much more fun. The only people who dislike that are those who are strictly in it for money because less variety means less decks to playtest against and less decks to buy overall for the format.
I'll be honest: I severely dislike tier 0 formats or formats with extremely few archetypes. The last few times I went to YCS and regionals and it was all Kashtira/Tearlaments I just got bored and dropped out after game 4. I was prepared and was doing okay (3:1:0 and 3:0:1) but it's just not fun. You play, hope you draw your outs, have a board breaker or lose. I enjoy formats when I don't know what's coming or can vaguely guess. It's the excitement of learning something new, playing an interaction with unclear ruling or sometimes getting your ass handed to you by the weirdest deck that really keeps tournaments interesting, for me at least. Losing can be just as fun if you learn something on the way. It's a game, you won't die if you lose.
there are a few problems with the "gatekeeped meta" format and desiring for just a few top tier decks,and trust me they are pretty big problems that has longlasting consequences on the game. 1.when combining a narrow meta with a redicules power imbalance it basically alienates about 80 percent of the rest of the game and a huge majorety of players....which in turn is a great way to make poeple stop playing competitively,or even alltogather because it essentially forces everyone to conform to somone elses's playstyle and rely on using the same specific cards (something komami is well aware of,because this makes the monetary value of some cards skyrocket and it makes them more money due to supply and demand). this is not healthy for the games longevity which goes into reason 2. 2. a narrow meta directly effects future card support...since the main motivation of konami is to make profit,like any industry that moves a product...they are only going to release new support for decks and archtypes that are relevant or popular...and decks that fail to arouse much interest are usually doomed to be left behind and forgoten (while this isnt ALWAYS the case,it hasppens more often than it should)...which in turn keeps the cycle going and limits diversity to a few new change ups every few sets...look at how bad rituals were...the popularity and power of relying on the extra deck led to the almost complete abandonement of Rituals alltogather,it would be years before newer archtypes like Drytron,Nouvelles or heralds,or new support of older rituals like the end of the world series would slowly bridge the gap...or the Volcanics,a promising burn archtype that got left on the shelf for so long it became an online meme for like,15 years until it finally recieved new support. tldr. low diversity and a narrow and unbalanced meta does more harm to the game than good.
For the viewers, diverse format is the choice. Seeing different archetypes duking it out for the top, matches vary from each other, and there's no definitive top decks that the tournaments revolve around. YCS Bologna is the perfect example and Josh said it best. For the players themselves, it's better to have few clear-cut strong decks. It's easier to prepare when you know what's coming. It usually provides the most skill-intensive matches and gives the players skill expression, expecially in the mirror matches. Tier 0 Ishizu Tearlaments demonstrate it the best for me. Both comes with their nuances, but as Yu-Gi-Oh enjoyers, we welcome everything the format has to offer. Finally, I'll say "Tearlaments Strongest!!!!"
So I'll just put this here. Between having deck variety or playing in narrow formats..it doesn't matter. At the end of the day, skill is determined by how you use your resources and knowing when to use said resources. For example, if you are a Dark world player and find yourself up against runick, well first off...I'm sorry. But second, you should also know that the duel itself will be tough. Based on the basic principles of said decks both are degenerate but in opposite ways. One targets cards in the hand, while the other targets cards in the deck. In the end both of your strategies are the similar (keeping key resources from your op) So in that vein, how would you think to combat it? Would you find a way to hand loop your opponent before he decks you out? Would you try to trade negates? And most importantly, Do you think your deck is consistent enough to deal with the same level of degeneracy as your own? All of this and more comes to a head when talking about the skill aspect. We are all not Batman which means we can't prepare/predict everything that may come up but having a good understanding of how decks work helps develop skill naturally. All in all..there will never be a perfect format. People like different things but for me, rather than planning how to beat a few certain decks, understanding what card choices to make your deck the strongest/consistent you can possibly make it is easier way to prove your skill.
As someone who own a ton of different decks (all era and style) i dont understand how 2 decks can be the only thing people play , its ridiculous to me.
My first introduction to card games was through Hearthstone. One thing which their competitive scene does which I think a lot of other TCGs could benefit from attempting to emulate, is that they use multiple decks for each match. The players come with multiple classes prepared, and are able to ban a number of the other persons classes. I think this format allows for additional variety while also providing moments for nuance and skill through counter picking.
There is an habitable zone somewhere in-between. Tier Zero formats and formats with like 3 or less decks in them can result in players facing the same things over and over and over again. Regardless of if you are a spectator or a player that's been at a regional or YCS for the last 7 hours and are sick of playing at that point, it must be tough. Too many good decks means even the side deck is nothing but a gamble, even if you prepared with more blanket side decking instead of especializing hard on what you wanna face with those slots. Something like 10+ different decks will probably do a number there. This also counts when the decks are officially different but end up in the same end board regardless, like back in Gouki/Trickstar days where stuff like Firewall and Knightmares were always at the end for a while. 6 to 7 ish decks seem fine to me. Also, that lower tier decks feel like they have a chance even if they are still recognized as generally lower. The power gap can't be too hard IMO.
To me as someone who plays a lot of games (aka I'm not hyper invested in specifically Yu-Gi-Oh)it just boils down to that having just a very few select decks being able to compete is a failure of game balance on Konami's part.
The Melee comparison is interesting bc I was watching the Goat format tourney this weekend and it got brought up in chat lol. In Sm4sh and Ultimate I main Lucina and my friends that have played competitively get a little frustrated by me because I play essentially a Marth clone but with a very different style than how Marth is supposed to played because my character doesn't have the tipper mechanic. The Goat tourney had like 14 of the top 16 using the same deck and it was less engaging to watch compared to the previous week's feature match that had some more variety. Like one of the players had Jinzo and BLS in the same deck and that blew my mind as a potential returning player. Today, chat was conspiring on what some good matchups against this weekend's meta so hopefully that works out and is fun for both the players and spectators.
It’s funny you bring up Melee as an example, I’ve always found myself partial to P+ in large part thanks to the variety that game has in comparison. I still love Melee, but it does sometimes get tiring playing the fifteenth Falco on Netplay. I have much the same views with yugioh; I loved playing Tearlaments mirrors but I don’t think I would like it for a full tournament
I feel like people are asking the wrong question in regards to this topic. It's not "Is this format too diverse?", but rather "Are our decks/cards designed in a way that unless opponent prepares for them beforehad they're screwed?". And the answer in the most cases is yes. Take the new Diabelze card for example casually shutting down the entire pendulum mechanic. Or less agregeous - Weather Painters doing... whatever the hell they're trying to do and unless you prevent their setup (did you side in cards for that too?) you better run at least 20 TTs, MSTs, Cosmics etc, because you're not getting through otherwise. Or, from a personal experience, imagine you're playing something like Earth Machine or other GY reliant deck and encounter Floo with Shifter in main which they of course drop at you in standby. Can you still win? Maybe, but odds you're stacked against you in a way that it might be better to just scoop and go to next game. That's the actual issue. The more of this kinds of decks you have in your format, the more frustrating it becomes to lose and to some extent to win.
Seeing as Yu-Gi-Oh is a TCG, you should always expect variety as the default. That's the whole point of playing a constructed deck game. People often complain about floodgates, and while some do go a bit overboard, their general existence is warranted in the modern competitive climate, while being decent side deck tools for diverse formats. Plus, having diverse formats should in theory bring down the price of in archetype cards and niche support cards, as not as many people with be playing any specific card for competitive play. If you really want to play a heavily strategic, minimal luck, and predictable matchup competitive game, chess exists. Not only is it all those things, but it has a pretty minimal barrier to entry in terms of money. All you really need to do is take the time and practice to master it, no different to yu-gi-oh.
I think the answer to having variety at the top levels of competition is to simply balance out the archetypes, have some more built in negates while still maintaining the main decks playstyle. If some of these archetypes got some small form of support giving them their own kind of ash/effect veiler/evenly matched I think it could be healthy for the game, that and removing generic boss monster requirements but konami will never reprint the cards with requirements on them because it would be too much work lol.
As a Master Duel player, there have been a handful of times when the format being homogenized worked my favor. When Branded Fusion came out, that was a free win for my Marincess deck 90% of the time if I went first. The majority of the time there's one deck that you see every other damn game it get incredibly old, incredibly fast. To use another fighting game analogy, the respective periods were Leroy, and later Fahkumram, came out in Tekken 7 were awful. Leroy, especially, because he was so brain dead. And I'd still take that over the goddamn Tear format.
At YCS' I can get why it's a problem if you're playing in one. The amount of testing you would need is unfeasible for how long a format lasts and how fast ycs' happen unless you're jobless and sleepless it's impossible to get testing in against every viable deck you could see. From a viewer standing it's alot more enjoyable. It's enjoyable to see the Jeff Leonard moment of exodia ftk a tear player. A deck no one expects going under what was considered a top 3 deck of the format.
Exodia FTK is the rare exception, not the norm. To go back to the Melee example, its not like how you're almost guaranteed to see aMSa's Yoshi in bracket or Axe's Pikachu on a somewhat regular basis.
In short, it's easier to play in a narrow format. Under a diverse format, tournaments are far more interesting to watch, and the results can be wild. Also, how deep can a narrow format be when you know exactly which cards blow up every matchup.
Deck diversity is A- important, but B- good for everyone as it's easier for people to get into paper play. The main argument is that it's hard to prepare for every deck. However, that can lead to more interesting matchups for everyone overall. The way I see it, the only people that seem to hold issue with it being diverse, is that they discover their deck and/or deck building have flaws and the deck they play in meta matchups, that they do well against; falter to rogue decks. However that would/should lead to improvements in their deck, to make it more well rounded. But that is my two cents
i remember that in the past EVERYONE was compiling that we need MORE verity then the pendulum and link era happened, then the anime stop getting support and we just got TCG suppot and they could start fixing the game instead of giving us knight of hinoi gruny cards, craking dragon was he's boss monster ONLY one ep LOL, so. now we have 8 + decks with alot of other decks getting buffed like a deck like ghost trick, vary underground but it's still in the ladder. also it makes the side deck more interesting Instead of side decking for the top 3 decks you need to big brain it and really know your stuff.
viable discint decks are the equivilent of a topic area in an exam. too many topics and the exam is about luck of what questions come up instead of how well someboby revised as theres no way to revise everything, too litle make the exam too one note. 3-4 discint decks is the best sweet spot the side deck has a playset for each discint deck and some flex spot that can vary based on meta/deck weakness calls.
I love diversity which is why I believe yugioh should adopt deck building restrictions as other games have (I know they never will but hear me out) in vanguard if you’re wanting to build a deck built around superior calling from the deck you have Shadow Paladin or Gold Paladin were shadow has a more resource production gameplay but with weaker units that you can chose from gold has a more faster aggro gameplay that has high power but leaves more to chance thus you must chose want you want and what your give up when making decks now imagine it in yugioh think of decks like crystron or mecha phantom beast instead just being to slap its best cards in any deck there’s an actual insensitive to play the deck as you get access to interesting cards and actually use them for their utility instead of just a combo piece and most importantly those decks won’t have to catch strays from the banlist nerfing them simply because some op link vomit strategy abusing one of their cards.
I like diversity in my gameplay, personally. I don't plan on going to a regionals or anything, I just like to play with friends and sometimes at locals, if possible. For me, entering a locals and getting like...4-6 rounds of different matchups is fun. Seeing the different things people bring to the table and their varied playstyles. When I go and get paired up with 4-6 people all playing the same deck or just decks playing all the same cards trying to build a board of generic negates/Zeus/floodgates. It really...REALLY takes away from the experience. I know that folks in the upper levels of gameplay appreciate that "predictable" style of play, but it really does get pretty boring for those who don't have fun in that particular way. Among even my group, the decks I play sets me apart from most choices we see locally (I have Ritual Dogmatika and Fluffals), so I often get comments about how refreshing it is to see something different at the tables, while they might not be ready to have their ED ripped away from them, or their field cleared for an OTK by a bunch of nightmarish stuffed animals. XD
I can see wanting less to prepare for at an event. From a more master duel ladder perspective, I think not playing the same match up every game is appreciated, so I prefer the wider formats for variety sake. Does that mean I hard lose certain match ups? Yeah, but I see some wild shit sometimes. I had a game near the end of last season against a D/D/D deck, and I had never seen anyone play that until then. I don't necessarily think everything needs to be viable, but if you really lab out a rouge deck or a tier 3 deck, it should be competitive, perhaps the surprise factor makes up for its lower ceiling, or whatever that deck's problem is.
I think you take a balanced approach and are HONEST about why. I 100% respect that. Some of the YugiTube people are not and completely disrespect people that like a wider format, calling them casuals. BTW, casuals are 90% of YGO players and keep the game in business. So, when pressed, the narrow format people, offer no solutions. I would bet a pack of Trident Layered gum that the "wide format is bad" types want certain decks banned from tournament play but are afraid to state that as they would lose viewers. They want tier ranking formats. IMO it is a stale way of thinking.
Honestly, the real problem comes down to ego imho. People are afraid of losing and then when they see some tops they immediately run to that deck. However no one really gets to deep dive the format because they’re so short. Even Edison format still has room to grow 10 years later. We just don’t have the sample size. Hence why I feel master duel has so many bans. They see have a bigger data pool to go off of.
This is the thing right, people always compare narrow formats to other skill testing games that will never have variety. But that is the whole point of playing a trading card game in the first place that the game always changes and evolves and new decks emerge and fall away. Narrow formats get stale and players drop off as they get bored.
The way I look at it is that I don't really care about winning or losing but I sure enjoy losing a lot more to things that I wouldn't have expected to make an appearance at all. A loss that teaches you something is more fun than someone following a strategy that you've seen a thousand times today. And this doesn't just apply to Yu-Gi-Oh but anything. Which is also why you once again come back to generics once again being a problem. In a 15 card extra deck even five of the cards being the same is too many.
the issue in yugioh regular unexpected does not give usable lessons from the loss since prepare for the unexpected and the expected gets neglected leading to anouther loss. the closest yugioh has to good regular unexpected is the rogue decks that sometime appear but are a known existence
Really with variety the problem is like mobas. You have 2 champs or "archetypes" and either 1 is a complete counter or it literally does the same as the other but better in every way.
I think people who prefer fewer decks are a bit too stuck in the "pro" mindset. In an ideal world without friction, without air resistance, perfect conservation of energy, where Pi = 3 and G = 10, every strategy would be equally viable. You could take 40 random cards and your deck would still be playable. That's the epitome, pinnacle, the idea of any card game. Of course, that's not the case anywhere. The world is not so simple, but still, any meta with more strategies will be inherently better than a meta with less strategies. That said, for more variety to work well, Konami needs to do their part, and this includes: - Making relevant cards for a variety of archetypes; - Making their effects clear and reducing the number of specific rulings that exist. The second one, I think, is the most important. What makes a game like chess much more skill expressive than Yu-Gi-Oh is that there are only a few knowledge checks. If you understand the rules you can extrapolate any situation in the game. If you take Magnus Carlsen and put him to play against a completely original strategy, all he needs to win is skill. And granted a card game will inherently have more knowledge checks than chess, Yu-Gi-Oh doesn't even get close to that. If you don't have a deep understanding on the rules, rulings and specific interactions, you're far more likely to lose against a completely new strategy you never saw than to win, unless the other guy bricks.
It's only an issue to have more variety of competitive decks if you're only agenda is to win events. Outside of tournaments the more diverse the format the better and more fun the game is. It's only an issue for side deck reasons and if you are net decking and don't know the rouge strategies.
To any pros who say that you cannot prepare for every deck in the format, I have something to tell you. Maybe don't be greedy in your deckbuilding and put in silver bullets for specific decks and just play more general cards for types of decks instead. Rogue players prey on side decks built with only silver bullets. There's a reason top players do meta calls with rogue decks. They KNOW most players won't build their deck in a way that allows them to beat rogue decks
I like the wide variety meta. Not too much, not like 200 different decks, but like 15 to 20 decks. I like it because you can see a lot of cool and weird stuff and I am all for the weird stuff. I don't like stale formats with 2 or 3 of the same decks with almost no variety or weird stuff.
I dislike restricting to the meta. A wider variety is better as it means I can play the deck I WANT. Not the deck I HAVE to. Maybe my deck won't always win but at least it means I can ENJOY playing. Being shut down or shut out of playing the archetype or the playstyle that I want to because of the Meta, is not fun and plenty of more casual players will bounce off the game because they have no reason or invitation to engage in play. Or the play available to them is not what they want, not an environment they get to have fun in.
Variety. I've played in fighting game tournaments and ive always preferred to fave against different opponents because otherwise i start to feel disdain towards round number 68 vs thr same character. It becomes so repetitive it feels bad. It's mentally exhausting to know ill be facing the same opponent every time I sit down to play. And besides, variety is a sign of good balance. The loss of variety is a sign that one option or a couple of options are so much better than the others. It's inherently bad for the game as well as the players.
I'm coming to The realization that I enjoy smaller formats, simply for the fact that it's easier keep track and optimize your deck. Having a way too diverse former leaves me a bit lost, there's so many interactions,manuevers and decks to play just overwhelms me. My answer is a small format, but it always keep changing
This is funny when the competitive complaint about "difficulty" as trouble. If you don't want something difficult, just play with your friends or family. It is something normal to be more difficult in a competitive environment. . I don't understand why people think Floodgate is a good option in a diverse format. Floodgate is usually more useful if you already know what the opponent's playing. You know in Tear-0, 90% of your opponent plays this GY-based deck, that's why you can bring Dimension Shifter & Abyss Dweller because you know these will always work. You can use Gozen or Rivalry in diverse formats, but there are a lot of mono-type or mono-attribute decks, and this makes your floodgate useless. TCBOO is more useful, but other good decks can play around it like VS or Labyrinth. It is not like people don't have other alternatives that can work pretty well in a general match-up. We have some powerful generic cards like Evenly or Lightning Storm. Yeah, I understand those kinds of cards can't always guarantee a win, unlike "Silver bullet" from side-deck. . Calieffect Channel yesterday has some good points about "Narrow Format". I mostly agree with him.
I honestly prefer variety, it keeps everyone on their toes. Whenever Invoked Shaddoll was the meta, I mopped the floor with them with Mayakashi and zombies.
A lot of people talk about navigating different match ups and having adaptability as being “more skillful” (which doesn’t actually mean anything if you gave it more thought), but I don’t think those people have ever thought about yugioh’s circumstances and if there are any unique factors that might change the trajectory of this discussion. I also question if any of them have ever actually gotten any results or even played modern yugioh competitively. If it was any other game besides yugioh, I’d agree that diversity is mostly a good thing and being able to think on the fly is an important skill to test. Problem is, diversity is much more manageable in low power games/formats than high powered ones, but people are applying the same “universal” framework from other games to yugioh blindly. In a slower paced game where you always have at least some time to react to your opponent, what you see on a card’s textbook is what you get & 1 card doesn’t instantly cascade into several others (mtg players no), and letting through a singular card you shouldn’t have doesn’t automatically mean a lost, yes the ability to deduce your opponent’s plans and think on the fly is a reasonable skill to test. However, yugioh is the exact opposite of everything I just wrote above. This is a game where even rogue decks can just jank you out due to the game’s high power level (maybe the deck is rogue due it being inconsist, having terrible chokepoints IF the opponent knows where to handtrap, or not matching up well into 1 or 2 specific top decks). If the format is so wide that you have to give up covering one REASONABLE matchup to patch up REASONABLE matchup, you’re basically forced to play roulette where: you’re against something you covered? You get to play the game. Oh you couldn’t check this deck because there are too many decks to check? Too bad you don’t get to play. And I will be honest, I think this “janking your opponent out because they don’t know/can’t check your deck” is a lot less skillful that people think IN THE CONTEXT OF yugioh. Yes you do need to be good at analyzing the macro metagame to make the call in the first place and yes you do need to pioneer the basic lines at least (I am at least reasonable enough to compromise), but on a game to game basis it can become “if your opponent doesn’t know the matchup they lose. If they had previous experience you lose.” Yes Dinh-Kha Bui’s 2018 win at Milan was legendary, but he also lost to Vlad because the man read the cards (simplifying the narrative here if you will forgive me). As much as we want to dance around the issue, this is basically a knowledge check that fell off immediately when people understood the cards and in other cases can result in “oh I let a card go through when I shouldn’t have due to this knowledge check, guess I lose”. Now Dinh-Kha Bui definitely did amazing to win the event, I just don’t think the dynamics presented is particularly enjoyable/good (especially in the context of a diverse format), which in my mind are two separate topics. There are also people that say “a diverse format is good for casuals”, which somewhat confuse me. ( I think it’s perfectly fine to enjoy something casually and don’t think the word should be used/perceived as an insult for the record) I understand where you guys are coming from (especially when you’re placed in a competitive environment), but I have to ask if you guys are actually casuals or just people that deep down wants to win but use “casual” as a shield for your ego. Why does a meta’s diversity matter to you when you don’t partake in it at all? If you’re forced to interact with the competitive sides of the game (possibility due to the way your LGS is structured), is that not a problem with lack of casual play space and bad intermixing of competitive & casual players over anything to do with the meta? Do you guys actually embrace the casual mentality of letting go of win/lost to play it your way? I really don’t get why you guys want to make your voices heard so bad (and dismiss the opinion of competitive players) WHEN you will feel the effect of any action at most indirectly, and the bulk of the consequences are felt by another group.
And just in case anyone tries to say I shill for tier 0 formats, I don't like them much. I understand that GOOD tier 0 formats are often a test of skill, but there are some people that just don't gel with the dynamics of that exact deck and thus are left out. I think it's much healthier to have formats with 3-6 "real/viable" decks so people can at least have an archetype (not the yugioh definition of archetype; combo, midrange, control) that suits their overall style, while not have the meta be so wide it's unreasonable to check common matchups.
Atm i only have 3 completed modern decks ( 2 are full 1 is a WiP) TTs ACB DDWs these 3 dint always do that well but i really enjoy them so i keep em available 3 to 5 top comp decks at a time is enough to not get bored for those that are comp heavy
I love diverse formats be it allows you to be more creative with your deck building rather then just copying a list online n playing what everyone else is playing those formats get stale really fast
I mean i prefer diversity. The fact that theres 200ish archtypes but only variations of the same 4 decks in every format is viable is boring asf. Konami either needs to make more good archtype locked cards ( six sams, mermails, agents, bujins, chaos, help them please😅) or all these generic broken cards and dumb hand traps they need to drop that shit.
Building for a narrow format vs Building for a diverse format can lead to different choices, but generally good cards tend to be good. Narrow formats make it easier to prepare for a specific match up, while diverse formats give more opportunities to catch an opponent off guard with an obscure playstyle.
This is a thing with fighting games, lol, ow, valorant etc as well is from a spectator point of view with narrow meta's where everything is figured out why watch any match below top 8 because its the same gameplay just with worse players while diverse metas where there is more point of views of the what is the best strats is more more fun to watch because every match is something new. Also if you like deck building diverse metas are more fun but if you just like playing and don't really care about coming up with a deck then I can see more narrow metas could be more fun.
I think you got the "variety means floodgates" thing backwards because when there is only 2 or 3 Tier 1 decks, basically everything else tends to max out on floodgates and when there is variety, most players tend to optimize main decks and side the side staples. If that means floodgates, the problem is the overall direction the game is going in, not that that particular format has many decks that you can run.
Diverse format all day. When we start condensing the deck charts for top competition read more like Rock Paper Scissors and we just keep ending up in the power creep cycle. Consistantly learning more about different archetypes, engines, new/old cards and sideboarding feels more in spirit of YGO.
I disagree. Small condensed Competitive "Skilled" matchups end up being "What blowout Counter Card or Floodgate that specifically targets this deck did you Side?" Oh you are playing Tear? Let me play Macro Cosmos or Dimensional Barrier or Dim Fissure or Shifter. Runick? Let me play Anti-Spell/EEV, etc. With varied formats a lot of the Side Deck is more leaning towards changing your own Strategy a bit.
