Why Was Zoodiac Tier 0? - Yu-Gi-Oh! 

Funny how the reason Norden got banned wasnt because of instant fusion cheating him out, but was because Zoos fusion summoned him properly

I still remember when Zoodiac was released. One of my friends quit the game completely because he was so sick of dueling against it.

Oh yeah, it's time for this timeless classic: All I know what to do anymore is summon drident, it's been so long. I don't know what yugioh is anymore. The other day, I summoned a monster and tried to put cowboy on it. With one material. Everything has become zoodiac to me. There are no other monsters, no spells other than barrage. The only trap i know how to activate is dimensional barrier. Occasionally I send combo to grave, and I cry a little. I attack for game but wish I was being gamed instead. It's become a joke of sorts, or maybe it's just my life. I can't go anywhere without seeing zoo. I went to feed my dog the other night, but instead of eating she summoned a goat from the graveyard with it's effects negated. I had to put her down. I sit in the corner now counting down the days, the days where we shall see sweet release from this torment, the day when xyz summoning was about 2 monsters having a special bond and creating something beautiful. Those days are long gone. I have seen God, and I have seen the devil, but they are one and the same. I stared into the abyss and screamed, and it screamed back: "summon rat effect” Keep it up with the content! These are great :D

1:22 "It would SPYral out of control" Speaking of Tier 0

I think the scariest thing about Zoodiac was the precedent it set for the decks that came after it. It shifted the deck building strategy from "make a big board using a combo deck with multiple good openings" to "make a decent board that costs you very little resources, and let the other cards in your hand do the rest of the work". Sky Striker embodied that premise with its 1-card Extra Deck plays and several draws per turn (sound familiar?). After that came Salamangreat, one of the reigning decks of the Eternal Format, which sought to get to its in-theme Armageddon Knight as soon as possible, summon a Rank 3 that summons another monster from the deck (again, does this sound familiar?), and set up an engine that wins you the game. The scariest of the bunch was Orcust when both Mermaid and Bardiche were legal. Forget 2 Level 3 monsters, all you needed was two monsters with different names, making it more splashable and powerful than Zoodiac ever was. Now, I think Konami is starting to be more careful with their card design, but they're having a lot of difficulty without following the trend of 1 card engines.

We weren’t around for this format, and we are so grateful for that! 😅 keep it up homie! Killer video, helps players like us appreciate where the game is at now! 💪🏼

Oh boy, here we go being tier 0 again :) Day 369 of waiting for New Volcanic Support to arrive

1:03 That aged well

These videos are amazing. However, I think you would be able to take them to the 'next level' by adding key moments from duels to supplement the statements you are making. For example, when you mentioned that td zoo won the nawcq, you could have added a clip of a key turning point in that duel, or the instance when the winner swung for game, from that duel, if it was filmed, which im not sure it was but regardless. I understand this would be more of a nightmare from an editing standpoint but its something to think about.

I remember playing around this time, when they transformed PEVO to a box instead of a structure deck. ZOO was every where and the core of the decks was around 200$ or so. I went for my pendulum boys when zoo died. I still see him in my dreams, the day "he" will comeback. Day 1 of copying Payne and waiting for "Him" to comeback.

zoo was a really strange deck. when i looked at first at the cards i thought: thats a good deck, but drident pass doesnt sound as oppressive as metalfose boards with infinity, kirin and alkahest. And stil to this day i think it is insane how dominant zoo was, despite its weak end boards and loosing to a trap on their normal summon.

Damn hearing these combos makes me feel like this old man on the porch say "well back in my day, we had combos with this these called invoker and diagusto fellers"

I'm still traumatized by Zoodiac/Draco format, since I joined YuGiOh on that mess. But still, nothing is will ever be as oppressive as 'Firewall with floaters' aka Gouki Extra Link. You have 2 cards and one of them WILL be negated, good luck.

This video was well WORTH the wait! Thanks BladeYGO for summing up the Zoo formats (though maybe some gameplay of the skill-intensive Zoo mirrors with no Fusion Sub combo would help)

I really like the style of video your doing now, it reminds me of rhystic studios, hope you continue to make these style of videos even better in the future, keep it up man 🙌🏻

I just wanted to point out that the Lightsworn Zombie deck from Seattle WAS playing a Zoo engine, he was an aquaintance of mine at the time and I was watching his matches day 2, and even in his Round 9 Feature Match on the konami blog you can see he's playing a zoo engine.

The cycle repeats itself with ishizu tearlaments now

I’m loving this rhytic studies styled format - keep it up, I can’t wait to see more videos such as this one 👍

really loved the video, please more on the history of dominating decks like this one

Great video, man. Love this style. Zoo is up there with synchro cat as my favorite deck of all time.

3:05 you missed the perfect opportunity to include the “oh sh*t a rat” meme.

lets see xyzs are balanced by the fact that you need 2 monsters to bring them out, they suddenly change that so you only need 1 monster and it instantly becomes the best deck, what a surprise 😱

and then SPYRAL came along with Double Helix

Awesome, was waiting for this vid to drop. Love the format, and definitely wouldn't mind seeing more stuff like this. Yugioh lore ftw

Amazing video I applaud you sir!!! Seeing videos like this really brings me back and shows you how far the game really has come. Tell everyone that played during this format we really did witness history

Here's a quick breakdown of the Zoodiac life line Zoodiac gets released Zoodiac Ratpier, Broadbull and Drident: Exist Zoodiac gets banned End.

Infernoid Zoo is probably the most fun I ever had playing Yu-Gi-Oh. I really miss that deck. Great video man!

This is beautiful. I am picking this deck up and I'm really excited. Might not be in the top tiers anymore, but I am really excited to see if it can compete as a rogue option!

Great content, explained perfectly, loved the video. Keep it up man!

Wow, this video was actually amazing I'd get behind more of this!

I just noticed... Drident is a female.

Great history video really detailed with history, I quit for a number of years so I really enjoy these type of videos along with the detail! Keep it up bro you’ll be doing this full time in no time

Great video. I started playing yugioh right in the zoodiac era and never truly understood how it worked, and you video really helped me get a good feel of the archetype. Please make more videos like this. (Also make a video on SPYRAL please)

For those who don't know what the fusion substitute combo was, it was a super long ass combo in which resulted in a +4 card advantage by looping emeral and norden. Heck, even some people ran multiple copies of fusion substitue as for each one in the loop you got 2 more draws, so by playing 3 fusion substitutes you could reach a whooping +8 cards advantage with a ONE CARD COMBO. (but they were bricky so many just went with 1 copy) If you think that spyral combo is long and boring is because you didn't saw that 25+min combo of norden and emerald looping and drawing 2 each iteration... Oh and btw, for that era, the only real handtraps were veiler, ghost ogre , droll and maxx c, only ogre and maxx being really good against zoo, and ghost ogre was recently printed as secret in a main pack, so either you had the money for the playset of ghost ogre or prayed hard to draw your only copy of maxx c

woah.. puberty much? also, am I the only missed seeing these as a good deck and not a joke of their previous selves? c'mon, konami. give us 3 drident and that's all we need. (don't ever give us broadbull though.. that card was a mistake)

Nice throwback to when I first started playing

YES! The video is finally out thank you blade

Ill give it to you blade i don't all ways pay attention to your videos i normally listen to them while I'm doing stuff this one had me actually watching so job well done blade

Full power zoo was an aggro-control deck meaning it had both the positive aspects of combo decks and the positive aspect of a control deck. When an aggro-control is in the meta it usually create a tier 0 format.

As someone who played Infernoid Zoo during that format, over a 1/3 of the cards in the deck were 1 card playmakers thanks to 2 Rat, 3 Terrortop, 3 Barrage, 3 Tenki, 3 Grass, 3 Lullaby of Obedience, 3 Imagination and 3 Vanishments. Deck was underrated during the format and it was able to make better use of the Zoo engine by using Buijin xyzs to mill 15ish cards and draw a few cards at the same time.

More videos like this please! Really enjoyed it

Would love to see a true king Dino yang zing video as well. That deck was bonkers

You're slowly becoming the Rhystic Studies of YGO, noice!

Zoo is my fav deck. I really enjoyed this video. I felt like I was back in 2017, thank you!

Raging Tempest - The Zoodiac Menace Phantom Rage - Revenge of The Zoodiacs

Yeaaaaah! A new vid!

Dawg I'm from this era but i couldn't afford zoo at the time & i was more interested in another deck which was paleozoic frogs, 1st deck i got tops with! Because of the meta mainly being zoo i had advantage! But they had techs waiting for me but i had my barrier statue toadally plus dupe frog waiting for them. But kaijus helped them specifically gamciel! It was enjoyable for me cause of the grindy games of out playing each other but then true draco came & made things hard, from an already tough match up against grass infernoids! I enjoyed your vid & brought back great & frustrating memories but all great still, thanks.

Now with Tribrigade, and Drident Limited, Zoo cam pop off again. Arguably even better then when Rat and Bull were at 3.

I remember playing against zoo through out it's entire time as tier 0-1. fun seeing history as I experienced how strong the deck was.

shout outs to Marcelo's EU WCQ undefeated streak & all the OCG worlds qualifiers who stomped through with Draco Zoo without Drident ^.^ also to Ash Blossom helping kill 60 card decks like Master Peace murdered Paleo , nice video thanks ^.^

"Greatest deck of all time" You can hear OCG PePe laughing in the distance

Wow so, I knew Zoo was Tier 0, and knew a small amount as to why, because I only started properly playing in SPYRAL Format, but this video really helped! Was formatted well and laid out the points easily

Thanks for the vid hommy, I asked myself the question when I heard that they were Tier 0 at one point as well.

Zoodiac drident is such a thicc card

This video inspired me to play Zoodiac Lunalights on Dueling Nexus no banlist. Making an Apollousa with 4 negates and a Shockmaster turn 1 minimum consistently is fun, and Broadbull lets you add any Lunalight monster to your hand.

Rat, Barrage will be known throughout Yu-Gi-Oh! History as a curse upon the houses of your enemies.

Great video, i think you should have mentioned shuffle reborn zoo, but other than that, great video!

I love how, after years of releasing cards that break the game involuntarily, Konami has yet to learn its lesson that you should never ever be unspecific when it comes to search effects

Dude, 10/10, great video.

Man ddd should’ve been meta before zoo

The editing and visuals here are excellent. Definitely subscribing. If I had any feedback though, the first part if that your character insert isn't needed. It actually clashes with the very warm, smooth, almost pastel visual style you're going for, and it feels cleaner when he wasn't on the screen. The other part would be perhaps giving a quick demonstration of the combos you mention. You talk about the combos that were back breaking (such as the fusion substitute norden combo), but for someone who is unfamiliar with how these cards can interact, it doesn't help without having to look up more stuff afterwards. Spending 20-30 seconds doing a quick hypothetical generic play through would fix that. But as I said, fantastic content, absolutely looking forward to seeing more. Going to check out your masterpeace video next.

🔥🔥🔥Great video bro!

sky striker next

This is nice. It reminds me of rhystic studies style.

Nice sync intros 😁 it really changes from that classic piano style and really gives a new breath (idk how to say it but u got the point) BTW infernoid best deck. draw sjette

As someone who had taken a long break till like mid 2019 this was very informative. It would be great to see this for other tier 0 full power decks too.

“Resilient” laughs in literally any form of destruction.

zoo was one of the craziest formats i ever lived thru. everything was playing it. i think it was a skillful time.

Performapal made me have 1 foot out the door, zoodiac made me slam the door behind me

What is the song at 2:46 called?

TrueDraco-Zoo was the ultimate form of unfair gameplay of all times in ygo. Just remember: the most consistent strategy of all times and the most opressiv boss monster ever printed. Such a cool deck to play against, thanks Konami for this unforgetable era :) P.D: really cool video, I like it so much

I love this deck so much, I just came back to yugioh from nekroz format got a raging tempest box and opened drident and barrage, I used to play fire king and madolche so I had the tenkis and the m-x- saber invoker , and finished myself a core, but couldn't pay the ash blossom, the strikes, and the d-barrier, but the amount of fun I had with this deck is what keeps me up every no "sooner than" date, hoping to see: monster/xyz | zoodiac drident | limited | limited | was forbidden

The ratatatata

really wanna see a follow up bc zoodiac has now climbed its way back into the meta

Great video!

Ah, Zoodiac. I still have the nightmares.

i almost cried at the end holyyyyyy

Man.. this made me nostalgic for those days.. damn.

They didn't give Zoo long enough. Zoo was completely banned after 7 months, in comparison Strikers were tier 1 for 18 months and Thunder for 14 months. In the September 2017 banlist they shoulda just put Drident and Broadbull to 1 to see what would happen.

Fun deck and format Truly I believe is the top deck in the game next to spyrals

more vids like this one please! =)

So, here’s something to discuss, if either Drident or Broadbull were to come back to 1, which would be better? Would it actually allow for anything right now?

Plz make more tier 0 deck explanations

I am actually content with thsi video. You didnt do repetative points like you did with master peace. You are pretty straghtforword and onto the point. This is great on competative history of arguably the best deck of all time.

Thinking about "now" in comparison with back around when *Foolish Burial* first came out, it's uncanny how the games evolved such that it and cards with comparable effects/ foolish on summon monsters like rat tend to be staples in their respective decks, acting as setup and engine triggers

Let’s not forget my very own lunalight zoodiac! Yeah I played it back then,......... I miss broadbull 😢

Great video love zoo

Note: NS: Normal Summon SS: Special Summon Combo (Raptier + Instant Fusion) 1. NS Raptier, send Throughblade to GY 2. Xyz Boarbow then Xyz Broadbull with 1 card material 3. Broadbull detachs, SS Raptier from deck then search Black Sheep then search Fusion Substitute 5. Activate Instant Fusion, SS Norden then SS Throughblade from GY then Xyz Daigusto, detach Norden then shuffle Norden, Black Sheep and Raptier to Deck, draw 1 *(+1)* 7. Fusion Daigusto and Broadbull to Norden with Fusion Substitute then Norden SS Throughblade 8. Xyz Broadbull by using Raptier and Norden, Broadbull detachs, SS Raptier and then search Black Sheep and Fusion Substitute 9. Banish Fusion Substitute, return Norden to ED then draw 1 *(+1)* 10. Xyz Raptier and Throughblade to Daigusto, shuffle Raptier, Daigusto and Broadbull, draw 1 *(+1)* 11. Fusion Broadbull and Emerald to Norden, SS Raptier 12. SS Raptier to Tigermortar then SS Raptier 13 Xyz Raptier and Norden into Daigusto (Again), detach Norden then you can shuffle any 3 monster (except Norden; Recommend to Shuffle Raptier, Broadbull and Daigusto) to draw 1 card *(+1)* 14. Banish Fusion Substitute, return Norden the draw 1 *( +1)* 15. Xyz summon Zoodiac Dirdent for problem :V Now you get +5 with 2 cards; if you have 1 other Fusion substitute, you can have +2 (from Daigusto and Fusion Substitute) [Source: Cimo's video] Just how, if you have only Raptier? 1. Normal summon Raptier send Ram-Ram to GY 2. Xyz Boarbow then Xyz Broadbull then use the eff to SS Raptier and search for Fusion Substitute via Black Sheep 3. Xyz Kong then Xyz Chakanine then Chakanine SS Xyz Zoodiac by detach an Xyz Zoodiac 4. You now have 2 Xyz, fusion summon it (don't use Chakanine) then SS Norden then SS Ram Ram 5. Xyz Daigusto, detach Norden, Shuffle Raptier, Black Sheep and Boarbow, draw 1 *(+1)* 6. Fusion substitue eff, Norden back to ED, draw 1 *(+1)* 7. You can SS Raptier by detach Raptier from Chakanine 8. Hmm... I think if you cannot longer summon any 1 material to continue with Broadbull then you will just ended this with summoning Drident Just CMIIW, thanks

Mermail deck? I remember during that time, there was a 60 card mermail deck combo.

“boarbow does nothing” And then they printed Zeus which turned every direct attacker Xyz into a harbinger of your imminent demise.

Fusion Sub Zoo is basically a more consistent version of Engage into Engage into Engage.

Still remember that European Championship, where Marcello Barbieri earned the title Jaggernaut going 15:0

Funny you mention the year of the rat which we are in right now. Coincidence i think not!

I never faced zoodiac at my locals in 2017 but i think yata-garasu lock would be harder to counter at this due to the lack of negates

Who is ready for Zoo to be tier 0 again? AA-Zues is a hell of a card lol. Plus Zoo has multiple variations again. Eldlich Zoo Dogmatika Zoo Pure Zoo I really enjoyed this video. I was not a part of the 2017 era of yugioh i last left in 2010-2011 and just recently got back into the game mid to late 2019. Awesome video sir.

I can still remember opening my box of RaTe my 2 secret rates were drident and grass. Best box I've ever opened

Song at the end of the video?

Playing them in Switch. I can only imagine how the HEY TRUNADE I could stack 12 guys in a row (SniperPiggy) but I would LOVE to try XD

I'll still believe out of all the tier 0 decks from past or present this deck is the most lack luster, has the one card engine has consistent boards, but setting five passing seems like a lot of work because any other tier 0 deck just gives this deck the (phallic object here) I told my friends I still find this the most lack luster tier 0 deck it isn't the most broken tier 0 we've seen or the best. Discussion is always between Pepe or Dragon rulers which Tier 0 deck was the strongest

What a beautiful channel